Trump scores major legal victory as election interference and classified docs cases are abandoned: Live updates

Trump’s controversial choice to be the US’s new director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has been defended by a number of high-profile Republicans after Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth called her “compromised” over her past support for Russia during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

“I think she’s compromised,” Duckworth said.

“The US intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. And so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check.”

Her assessment was branded “ridiculous and outright dangerous” by Oklahoma’s Markwayne Mullin.

“That’s the most dangerous thing she could say – is that a United States lieutenant colonel in the United States Army is compromised and is an asset of Russia.”

Prominent Democrats Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff have also criticised Gabbard in recent days on similar grounds, with Warren alleging she was in “Putin’s pocket”.

Missouri Republican Senator Eric Schmitt said he thought it was “totally ridiculous” that Gabbard was being cast as a Russian asset for having different political views.

“It’s insulting. It’s a slur, quite frankly. There’s no evidence that she’s an asset of another country,” he said on NBC.

But Oklahoma GOP Senator James Lankford acknowledged he had “lots of questions” for Gabbard as the Senate considers her nomination to lead the intelligence services.

Lankford said on NBC that he wants to ask her about her meeting with Syrian dictator Basher al-Assad and regarding some of her past comments about Russia.

“We want to know what the purpose was and what the direction for that was. As a member of Congress, we want to get a chance to talk about past comments that she’s made and get them into full context,” he said.

Here’s more on Gabbard from Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg.

Good morning!

Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order that would remove transgender service members from the US military as soon as his first day in office.

The president-elect is reportedly preparing to issue an order following his inauguration on January 20 that would effectively ban trans people from serving – and then medically discharge the thousands of currently serving trans service members of the armed forces.

Trump declared that the US would no longer “accept or allow” trans people in the military during his first term, citing “tremendous medical costs and disruption”.

The ban took effect in 2019 but was reversed by successor Joe Biden.

Trump is now understood to be planning to reinstate it and eject currently serving trans personnel.

Here’s more from Alex Woodward and Oliver O’Connell.

A Republican senator has warned his colleagues must “step up” to appoint Donald Trump’s cabinet picks or face recess appointments.

Bill Hagerty of Tennessee was on ABC’s This Week that the idea of recess appointments “is and should be on the table”, adding that previous presidents in modern history including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton had utilized the constitutional clause allowing appointments when the Senate is not in session.

John Bowden reports from Washington, DC.

Elon Musk has indicated that he may be interested in buying the liberal cable news network MSNBC.

Donald Trump Jr. shared a post on X following news that the network’s parent company Comcast is spinning off cable TV channels into a separate company.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

As President-elect Donald Trump makes his transition to the White House, it’s not just his cabinet picks garnering scrutiny — it’s now also his funding as he’s keeping the donors funding the transition effort a secret.

Trump has not yet signed an agreement with the outgoing Biden administration — a requirement laid out in the Presidential Transition Act that places restrictions on the amount of fundraising cash in exchange for more than $7 million in federal funds for the “orderly transfer” of power.

Because Trump hasn’t signed the agreement, he doesn’t have to work within the confines of the fundraising limits or disclose what interest groups are funding his transition to the White House, The New York Times first reported.

Kelly Rissman has the story.

Matt Gaetz’s past was too likely to come back to bite him. That was the belief inside Trump’s inner circle as the former Florida Congressman’s nomination to be attorney general came to an end, according to Rolling Stone.

One Trump adviser told the outlet that if Gaetz had become the leader of the Department of Justice, he would probably have become “the single most blackmail-able person to ever serve as attorney general of the United States … and that’s not a risk you want to take when the whole job is going after criminals.”

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Donald Trump Jr. has emerged as the most influential Trump family member in the transition as the president-elect builds the most controversial cabinet in modern U.S. history, according to a half dozen sources with knowledge of his role, elevating inexperienced loyalists over more qualified candidates for top positions in his administration.

Trump, who fiercely prizes loyalty, has long relied on family members for political advice, but which relative has his ear is known to vary.

This time, it is Don Jr., who has helped cabinet contenders sink or rise to the fore - from championing Senator JD Vance as Trump’s running mate to blocking former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from joining the cabinet, according to the sources, who include donors, personal friends and political allies.

Don Jr. is due to join conservative venture capital fund 1789 Capital, although one of the sources said he will continue to host his politics-focused podcast and support candidates that espouse Trump’s brand of politics.

He will provide advice to his father in the White House, the source added, although they cautioned that Don Jr. was unlikely to be involved in day-to-day deliberations.

Don Jr. and the Trump-Vance transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition to ensuring candidates are loyal to his father, Don Jr. typically seeks out contenders who embrace an anti-establishment worldview, including protectionist economic policies, and a reduction in military interventions and overseas aid, according to a handful of the sources and Don Jr.’s own comments on social media site X and in public.

Two of the candidates Don Jr. championed may face a rocky confirmation process in the Senate: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump plans to nominate as the top U.S. health official, and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump plans to nominate as intelligence chief.

Kennedy is an environmental activist who has spread misinformation on vaccines. Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, implied that Russian President Vladimir Putin had valid grounds for invading Ukraine and stirred controversy when she met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the midst of his bloody crackdown on dissidents in 2017.

Chris Wright, reporting from Baku, writes:

When I was young, I wasn’t even the only Chris Wright at my local dentist. I had horrible teeth as a child, but whenever I went for a check-up, I’d have to tell them my address as there were three of us in the neighbourhood.

Even last month at my local swimming pool, I found out that not only am I not the only Chris Wright on its books, but also that staff had the gall to ask if I was the Chris Wright born in the 1960s or the 1990s…?

But the most annoying mistaken identity moment happened this week at Cop29.

Read on...

President-elect Donald Trump announced a flurry of nominations on Friday night, revealing his choices to lead the Treasury Department, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the FDA, the CDC, the Office of the Surgeon General, and the Department of Labor.

Gustaf Kilander reports.