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Trump picks son’s fiance Kimberly Guilfoyle for diplomat job and FBI director Wray says he’ll step down: Live updates

Guilfoyle nomination to be ambassador to Greece comes amid rumors that she and Donald Trump Jr have split up

Oliver O'Connell,Joe Sommerlad,Ariana Baio
Wednesday 11 December 2024 16:42 EST
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Jimmy Kimmel wades in on Donald Trump’s latest administration

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President-elect Donald Trump has nominated his son’s fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to serve as the next United States ambassador to Greece, making her the latest Trump family member to join his administration.

Guilfoyle is a close ally of the president-elect’s family and worked on his election campaigns in both 2020 and 2024.

“I look forward to delivering on the Trump agenda, supporting our Greek allies, and ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity,” she wrote in an X post accepting the honor.

However, the development comes amid rumors that she and Donald Trump Jr have split up after he was pictured with Florida socialite Bettina Anderson.

The couple have not commented on the speculation.

Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray has signaled his intention to quit his post next month ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, creating a vacancy that Trump intends to fill with loyalist Kash Patel.

Wray reportedly told FBI employees at an agency town hall that he would step down in January, nearly two and a half years before the expiration of the 10-year term he was sworn in for in August 2017.

Read Merrick Garland’s statement on Christopher Wray’s departure in full

Chris Wray has served our country honorably and with integrity for decades, including for seven years as the Director of the FBI under presidents of both parties.

In a heightened threat environment, Director Wray has worked tirelessly to protect the American people and to lead an agency of 38,000 dedicated public servants, many of whom put their lives on the line every day to serve their communities.

Under Director Wray’s principled leadership, the FBI has worked to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keep our country safe, protect civil rights, and uphold the rule of law.

He has led the FBI’s efforts to aggressively confront the broad range of threats facing our country — from nation-state adversaries and foreign and domestic terrorism to violent crime, cybercrime, and financial crime.

There are few leadership positions more central to keeping the American people safe than the Director of the FBI.

The Director of the FBI is responsible for leading employees located across the country and around the world who dedicate themselves each day to disrupting complex plots and preventing horrific tragedies before they can occur.

The Director of the FBI is responsible for leading the federal law enforcement agency that serves as the connective tissue among the intelligence community, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country, and our international law enforcement partners.

And the Director of the FBI is responsible for protecting the independence of the FBI from inappropriate influence in its criminal investigations. That independence is central to preserving the rule of law and to protecting the freedoms we as Americans hold dear.

Director Wray has done that job with integrity and skill. He has my gratitude, the gratitude of the FBI agents and employees whose respect and admiration he has earned, and the gratitude of the American people.

Attorney General Merrick Garland
Gustaf Kilander11 December 2024 21:30

Donald Trump to be named person of the year by Time magazine

Donald Trump is set to be named “Person of the Year” by Time magazine and he’ll celebrate the moment and the new cover by ringing the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, according to Politico.

When Taylor Swift was on the cover last year, the CEO of Time, Jessica Sibley, rang the opening bell.

Trump was also selected in 2016. Thirteen other presidents have also been chosen by the magazine, including current President Joe Biden.

Gustaf Kilander11 December 2024 21:00

Only 2 in 10 Americans actually approve of Biden’s sweeping pardon for son Hunter

Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter after earlier promising he would do no such thing, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

That displeasure tracks with the bipartisan uproar in Washington that ignited over the president’s about-face. The survey found that a relatively small share of Americans “strongly” or “somewhat” approve of the pardon, which came after the younger Biden was convicted on gun and tax charges. About half said they “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove, and about 2 in 10 neither approve nor disapprove.

Read more:

Will Weissert, Amelia Thomson Deveaux11 December 2024 20:30

Trump says his remarks about Central Park Five were ‘substantially true’ in demand to dismiss defamation lawsuit

Trump is asking a judge to dismiss a defamation lawsuit from the now-exonerated Central Park Five, who accused Trump of repeating “false and defamatory” statements about them during his debate with Kamala Harris.

At the debate, Trump misstated facts of the case and falsely claimed that they had at one point “pled guilty” to having “killed a person, ultimately.”

In 1989, the men were falsely accused of raping and beating a jogger and were coerced into confessing to the crime. They later recanted, pled not guilty and were convicted. Those convictions were vacated in 2002 when another person confessed.

“They admitted, they said they pled guilty and I said, ’well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately,” Trump said at the debate. “And they pled guilty, then they pled not guilty.”

Trump had taken out a full-page ad in 1989 for the death penalty.

An attorney for Trump claims that the men are now trying to “recast political rhetoric and debate about criminal justice and public safety as ‘defamation.‘”

“This ignores well-settled First Amendment jurisprudence that protects the President-elect’s speech about matters of public concern,” wrote Karin M. Sweigar, an attorney with Dhillon Law Group, which is owned by Harmeet Dhillon, whom Trump has nominated to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division.

Trump’s statements, “taken in context, were protected opinions based on true disclosed fact, lacked any defamatory sting, and were substantially true,” according to Sweigar. “Plaintiffs’ remaining claims for false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress fail for the same reasons, and because Plaintiffs fail to meet the additional required elements of those claims.”

Alex Woodward11 December 2024 20:00

Joe Biden names the one thing Trump did that he was ‘stupid’ for not copying

President Joe Biden said he was “stupid” for not doing what president-elect Donald Trump did during his first term — signing the checks sent to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I signed the American Rescue Plan, the most significant economic recovery package in our history, and also learned something from Donald Trump,” Biden noted during his economic speech at the Brookings Institution Tuesday.

Biden said that Trump “signed checks for people for 7,400 bucks...and I didn’t,” adding that it was “stupid,” drawing laughter from the crowd.

Read more:

Joe Biden names the one thing Trump did that he was ‘stupid’ for not copying

Trump ‘signed checks for people for 7,400 bucks ... and I didn’t,’ outgoing president says

Gustaf Kilander11 December 2024 19:30

FBI director Christopher Wray will resign ahead of Trump’s plan to replace him with Kash Patel

FBI Director Christopher Wray has signaled his intention to quit his post next month ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as president, creating a vacancy that Trump intends to fill with loyalist Kash Patel.

Wray reportedly told FBI employees at an agency town hall that he would step down in January, nearly two and a half years before the expiration of the ten-year term he was sworn in for in August 2017.

Read more:

FBI director Christopher Wray will resign ahead of Trump’s plan to replace him

Wray’s term would have ended in 2017 without Trump’s intervention

Andrew Feinberg11 December 2024 19:18

CNN conservative pundit Scott Jennings scorched by colleague for trying to manufacture ‘clip for the internet’

Accusing CNN political commentator Scott Jennings of attempting to create a viral moment during a heated exchange on the Daniel Penny trial, correspondent Audie Cornish told the right-wing pundit that he wanted “a clip for the internet” while mockingly posing for a picture.

During Tuesday night’s broadcast of CNN NewsNight, the panel debated over Penny being acquitted in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a homeless man with mental health issues who acted threateningly towards subway passengers. The verdict was met with both applause and anger, with conservatives saying “justice has prevailed” and calling Penny a “hero.”

Read more:

CNN’s Scott Jennings scorched by colleague for trying to manufacture a viral moment

Scott Jennings repeatedly tried to bait Audie Cornish into saying he didn’t have any values and wasn’t a Christian

Justin Baragona11 December 2024 19:00

An Alabama couple were ardent Trump supporters. Then their trans son told them he wanted to die

Carolyn Fisher will never forget the moment her son told her he wanted to die.

It was November 3, two days before the presidential election. Fisher’s 16-year-old non-binary son, who uses he/they pronouns, was part of an online suicide pact with three other transgender and non-binary teens in Florida, Alabama and Tennessee. The friends who’d met on Discord had agreed to die by suicide if former president Donald Trump won the 2024 election.

Read more:

For one Alabama family, Trump’s anti-trans rhetoric nearly cost them their son’s life

Once news outlets called the election for Trump in the early hours of November 6, panic ripped through the LGBTQIA+ community and hotlines saw a dramatic surge in calls. Michelle Del Rey reports

Michelle Del Rey11 December 2024 18:30

Trump’s latest DOJ nominee is taking aim at trans rights and elections

The president-elect’s nominee to oversee the federal government’s enforcement of civil rights has spent the last year leading a legal crusade against transgender Americans, signaling where Trump could start with his “day one” pledge to roll back discrimination protections.

Harmeet Dhillon, founder of the Center for American Liberty, has filed a barrage of attention-grabbing lawsuits on behalf of right-wing activists against gender-affirming healthcare and school policies and state and local laws designed to protect LGBT+ people across the country.

Dhillon also supported efforts to reverse election results in states Trump lost in 2020, and she steered the Trump campaign’s 2024 “election integrity” team in Arizona, a hotbed for bogus election conspiracy theories in the wake of Trump’s loss.

Here’s more from Alex Woodward.

Trump’s pick for DOJ deputy is taking aim at trans rights and elections

Conservative activist Harmeet Dhillon is at the forefront of a legal campaign against LGBT+ protections

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 18:00

Matt Gaetz is heading to OAN. Will anybody even watch him there?

The self-described MAGA “firebrand”, who dropped out last month as Trump’s choice for attorney general amid ongoing sexual misconduct allegations, has finally secured another full-time job now that he’s no longer in Congress.

After news leaked on Monday night that he had agreed to host a primetime show for the little-watched right-wing conspiracy channel One America News (OAN), the network made it official on Tuesday with a press release and promotional video.

Gaetz taking the plunge and becoming a conservative talking head is hardly a surprise but will anybody be watching?

Justin Baragona considers the question.

Matt Gaetz is now officially heading to OAN. Will anybody even watch him there?

It appears that Gaetz chose One America News over its much-larger rival Newsmax

Joe Sommerlad11 December 2024 17:30

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