Politics
Elon Musk Is Expected to Use Office Space in the White House Complex
Elon Musk is expected to use office space in the White House complex as he launches the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which aims to slash government spending in the Trump administration, according to two people briefed on the plans.
The space anticipated for Mr. Musk’s use is in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is adjacent to the White House. The location would allow Mr. Musk, who owns companies with billions of dollars in contracts with the federal government, to continue to have significant access to President-elect Donald J. Trump when he takes office this month.
Mr. Musk has had discussions with transition officials about what his level of access to the West Wing will be, but that was left unclear, according to two people briefed on the matter. Staff members and others who are able to come and go freely in the West Wing typically require a special pass.
Mr. Musk donated hundreds of millions to help Mr. Trump win the 2024 election and has been a regular by his side since then, often using one of the cottages available for rent on Mr. Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago. During the transition, he has sat in on official meetings and at least one foreign call, and weighed in on staff and cabinet choices.
It was not clear whether Vivek Ramaswamy, Mr. Musk’s partner in leading the project, would also have office space in the Eisenhower building.
The Musk-Ramaswamy project is called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, but it is not a “department” in the sense of the Justice Department — an official, congressionally authorized part of the government. Mr. Musk’s status and the project have raised myriad issues about the rules for outsiders helping to wield governmental power.
DOGE staff members are currently working out of the Washington, D.C., offices of Mr. Musk’s SpaceX company.
Officials with the Trump transition and associated with DOGE did not respond to requests for comment.
The work around DOGE has so far been shrouded in secrecy, with the transition revealing little to nothing about how it will function, or how it will be budgeted for.
It remains to be seen how large Mr. Musk’s team will be, as well as what his own status will be. Some transition officials have suggested he could become a “special government employee,” a status that can be paid or unpaid and has more flexible rules for personal financial disclosures than what is required of ordinary employees.
Should he do that, Mr. Musk, the richest man in the world, would almost certainly forgo a salary. But there could be legal implications to how the Trump administration ends up defining Mr. Musk’s role and how DOGE fits in the executive branch bureaucracy.
One issue involves ethics rules, including financial disclosures and prohibitions on certain conflicts of interest, like limits on the ability of former special government employees to lobby on behalf of certain private interests after having worked on relevant topics during temporary service.
In particular, all government employees, including special temporary ones, are subject to a criminal conflict of interest law that bars them from participating in official matters in which they or their families or organizations have a financial interest. Because some of Mr. Musk’s companies have contracts with the federal government, that statute would seem to bar DOGE from working on related issues if he takes on such status.
If Mr. Musk or his staff were to become special government employees, they would have to file financial disclosure forms. If they decide to pass up sizable government salaries, however, the Trump administration could keep those records secret from the public.
There would also be implications for government transparency laws.
One such law is the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which regulates boards, panels, councils and other types of committees that work with people from outside the government to provide advice to the executive branch.
If Mr. Musk does not seek special government employee status for himself and all his staff members and everyone else who provides input, the act would seem to apply to DOGE’s work. Among other things, the law says that all meetings of such committees are to be conducted in public, and all the documents submitted to such a panel or produced by it are also supposed to be available to the public.
Mr. Musk has not yet determined whether he will take on the status and obligations of being a special government employee, according to his allies.
Another relevant issue is the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. It allows members of the press or the public to request access to official records, with certain exceptions, and to file lawsuits for court orders requiring their disclosure.
The president and his immediate staff in the White House whose sole function is to advise him are considered to be exempt from FOIA requests. But much of the larger bureaucracy surrounding them is subject to such requests.
Politics
House Dems push Garland to drop charges, release second part of Jack Smith report
House Judiciary Democrats penned a letter Wednesday asking outgoing U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to drop the charges against President-elect Donald Trump’s former co-defendants in the classified documents case.
They want Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to walk from the charges so that Garland can release the second volume, which is related to the classified documents case, of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report. Smith resigned from the Justice Department on Friday. Garland said he will not release the second volume because both men still face prosecution.
The Democrats believe that Trump will pardon both men, so Garland should drop the charges now or the report will not come out.
“While we understand your honorable and steadfast adherence to Mr. Nauta’s and Mr. De Oliveira’s due process rights as criminal defendants, the practical effect of this position is that Volume 2 will almost certainly remain concealed for at least four more years if you do not release it before President-elect Trump’s inauguration on January 20,” the letter obtained by Fox News says.
FORMER TRUMP CO-DEFENDANTS WANT JUDGE TO BLOCK SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH REPORT
“The public interest, however, now demands that the President-elect must not escape accountability to the American people,” they added. “Accordingly, to the extent the tangential charges against Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira stand in the way of the overriding imperative of transparency and truth, the interests of justice demand that their cases be dismissed now so that the entirety of Special Counsel Smith’s report can be released to the American people.”
The letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, as well as Democratic committee members Reps. Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman of New York; Eric Swalwell, Ted Lieu, J. Luis Correa, Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Zoe Lofgren of California; Hank Johnson and Lucy McBath of Georgia; Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Pramila Jayapal of Washington; Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania; Joseph Neguse of Colorado; Deborah Ross of North Carolina; Becca Balint of Vermont; Jesus G. “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois; and Jasmine Crockett of Missouri.
“We obviously do not condone the sycophantic, delinquent, and criminal behavior that Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira are charged with,” the letter says. “However, Donald Trump was plainly the mastermind of this deception operation to conceal and abuse classified material, a fact made clear by his being charged with 32 counts of willfully retaining these classified documents, while his co-defendants were charged with lesser offenses related to obstructing the investigation, largely at Mr. Trump’s direction. By virtue of DOJ policy prohibiting the indictment or prosecution of a sitting president, Mr. Trump has dodged any criminal accountability for his own wrongdoing. Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory saved him from a public trial and robbed the American people of the opportunity to learn the meaning and details of his unpatriotic, reckless, and intentional abuse of national security information.”
DOJ RELEASES FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH’S REPORT ON INVESTIGATION INTO TRUMP ELECTION INTERFERENCE CASE
Judge Aileen Cannon will hear arguments over Volume 2 in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Thursday. Garland released Volume 1, focused on the election interference case, earlier this week.
Attorneys for Nauta and De Oliveira earlier this month asked Cannon to keep the special counsel report out of the public eye.
Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira all pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging they conspired to obstruct the FBI investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.
Smith was tapped by Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his Florida residence.
It is customary for a special counsel to release a final report when his or her work is done, detailing the findings of their investigation and explaining any prosecution or declination decisions they reached as a result of the probe. It’s up to Garland whether to release it publicly. In Smith’s case, the prosecution decision is immaterial, given Trump’s status as president-elect and longstanding Justice Department policy against bringing criminal charges against a sitting president.
Garland is expected to give his farewell address to the Justice Department on Thursday afternoon.
Politics
Republican bill would ban transgender girls from high school sports in California
On the first day of the California Legislature’s new session, Assemblymember Kate Sanchez, an Orange County Republican, introduced a bill that would ban transgender high school students from competing on girls’ sports teams.
“Young women who have spent years training, sacrificing and earning their place to compete at the highest level are now being forced to compete against individuals with undeniable biological advantages,” Sanchez, of Rancho Santa Margarita, said in a video posted to social media.
“It’s not just unfair,” she added. “It’s disheartening and dangerous.”
Sanchez’s proposed law, called the Protect Girls’ Sports Act, is almost certain to fail in a Legislature controlled by a Democratic supermajority with a record of embracing inclusion for LGBTQ+ Californians.
But her introduction of it — notably, as her first bill of the session — underscores the persistent Republican emphasis on transgender issues, which continue to shape policy debates in California, where Democratic leaders have cast the state as a bulwark against President-elect Donald Trump, whose opposition to trans rights was central to his campaign.
Sacramento Democrats have blasted Sanchez’s bill as a political stunt, saying it is an unnecessary attack against transgender youth, who make up a tiny portion of California’s school-age population.
Assemblymember Chris Ward, chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, said in a statement that the caucus, whose members are all Democrats, “will not stand by as anyone attempts to use kids as political pawns.”
“Attacking kids is a failed 2024 issue,” said Ward (D-San Diego). “We are surprised the Assembly member introduced her first bill targeting a very small, vulnerable population of kids rather than using the opportunity to address key issues of affordability, housing and more that are impacting Californians.”
The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, which researches public policy around sexual orientation and gender identity, estimates that about 1.4% of American teenagers ages 13-17 — about 300,000 individuals nationwide — identify as transgender. Fewer play sports.
While polls show that most Americans support protecting LGBTQ+ people from discrimination, they are deeply divided on issues involving queer children, especially kids who identify as transgender or nonbinary.
In a nationwide poll conducted last year for The Times by NORC at the University of Chicago, about two-third of adult respondents said transgender girls and women should never or only rarely be allowed to participate on female sports teams.
“Regardless of where Sacramento Democrats are on this issue, they’ll need to face facts,” Sanchez said in a statement to The Times, noting public opinion on the issue.
On the other side of the political aisle, state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) last week introduced the Transgender Privacy Act, which would automatically seal all court records related to a person’s gender transition in an effort to protect them from being outed or harassed.
“The incoming Trump Administration and Republican Congressional leadership have made clear that targeting and erasing trans people is among their highest policy priorities, and California must have our trans community members’ backs,” Wiener said in a statement about his Senate Bill 59.
Sanchez’s Assembly Bill 89, would require the California Interscholastic Federation, which regulates high school sports for public and private schools, to enact rules prohibiting any “pupil whose sex was assigned male at birth from participating on a girls’ interscholastic sports team.” It does not stop transgender boys from playing on boys’ teams or specify how the CIF would verify students’ gender.
California education code explicitly says students must be allowed to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including team sports, and must be permitted to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed those rights into law in 2013.
Sanchez’s bill comes after several recent high-profile fights across California over trans girls and women playing high school and college sports.
In November, a Christian high school in Merced withdrew its girls’ volleyball team from a state playoff match against a San Francisco team with a transgender player.
This fall, the San José State women’s volleyball team was embroiled in controversy after current and former players and an associate coach tried to have a trans player removed from the roster by filing a federal lawsuit. A judge later ruled the player could compete.
In November, two female high school students sued the Riverside Unified School District, alleging a transgender girl unfairly ousted one of them from a spot on the varsity cross-country team. The federal lawsuit also claims that when the girls protested the situation — by wearing T-shirts that read, “Save Girls Sports,” and, “It’s common sense. XX [does not equal] XY” — school officials compared it to wearing a swastika in front of a Jewish student.
The suit claims that the district’s policies unfairly restrict the girls’ freedom of expression and deny them fair and equal access to athletic opportunities.
Two Republican Assembly members from the Inland Empire, Bill Essayli and Leticia Castillo, called on the district’s superintendent to resign over her handling of the issue.
In 2023, Essayli, whose district borders Sanchez’s, co-sponsored a bill that would have required school employees to notify parents if their child identified as transgender at school. Critics argued the bill would out and potentially endanger trans kids, while violating student privacy protections under California law. The bill died in committee, but similar policies sprouted up on school boards in conservative parts of the state, showing how a Republican idea that gets squelched in the state Capitol can still drive debate on an issue.
In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 1955, which prohibits schools from mandating that teachers notify families about student gender identity changes.
Daisy Gardner, an outreach director for Our Schools USA, a nonprofit that supported AB 1955, called Sanchez’s bill and Republicans’ focus on transgender athletes “a very powerful organizing tool from the far right.”
The parent of an LGBTQ+ student who said she was speaking for herself, not on behalf of Our Schools USA, Gardner called Sanchez’s bill “a media stunt designed to whip up fear and hatred of trans people so that the far right can flip California red in 2026, and the casualties are trans lives.”
Gardner has been in contact with parents of two transgender high school athletes in the Riverside Unified School District amid the recent controversy and read a statement on behalf of one of the girl’s family during a raucous school board meeting last month.
“They are in pure hell,” she said of the parents. “They don’t know how to protect their kids.”
Matt Rexroad, a longtime California political consultant, said that while urban Democrats might be scratching their heads over Sanchez introducing this long shot bill on such a hot-button issue, it makes sense for her suburban district, which is “one of the more conservative areas of California.”
“It’s a good political issue for certain parts of California,” Rexroad said. “Clearly, Scott Wiener is not going to introduce this bill or vote for it, but not all of his bills pass either.”
Sanchez, he said, “is representing the views of her constituents.”
At least one of her constituents, though, was so angry about the Protect Girls’ Sports Act that she called Sanchez’s office and grilled a staffer about the specifics, like how a child’s gender would be verified.
Michele McNutt, a former Democrat who just changed her party registration to no-party-preference, said she was not satisfied with the staffer’s answers and called the bill “performative.”
“If it fails, they can frame it as, ‘California hates parents,’” said McNutt, whose two teenage daughters are student athletes in the Capistrano Unified School District. “I think the theater is the point, and it really isn’t about protecting girls’ sports.”
Politics
Video: Bondi Vows to Keep Politics Out of Justice Department if Confirmed
“It will be my job, if confirmed as attorney general, to make those decisions. Politics will not play a part. I’ve demonstrated that my entire career as a prosecutor.” “You joined Mr. Trump in working to overturn the 2020 election. You’ve repeatedly described investigations and prosecutions of Mr. Trump as witch hunts, and you have echoed his calls for investigating and prosecuting his political opponents. This flies in the face of evidence. These are the kinds of anti-democratic efforts that in the past you have defended. And it’s critical that we understand whether you remain supportive of Mr. Trump’s actions.” “What would you do if your career, D.O.J. prosecutors, came to you with a case to prosecute — grounded in the facts and law — but the White House directs you to drop the case?” “Senator, if I thought that would happen, I would not be sitting here today.” “But let’s imagine that once again President-elect Trump issues a directive or order to you or to the F.B.I. director that is outside the boundaries of ethics or law. What will you do?” “Senator, I will never speak on a hypothetical, especially one saying that the president would do something illegal.” “Weaponization of the Justice Department may well occur under your tenure, and we want to make sure that that’s not the case, that you remain independent, that you remain able to and willing to tell the president no when that’s necessary to protect the Constitution and the integrity of the Department.” “I think that is the whole problem with the weaponization that we have seen the last four years and what’s been happening to Donald Trump. They targeted his campaign. They have launched countless investigations against him. That will not be the case. If I am attorney general, I will not politicize that office. I will not target people simply because of their political affiliation. Justice will be administered even handedly throughout this country.” “Who won the 2020 presidential election?” “Joe Biden is the president of the United States.” “Ms. Bondi did you know that there is a difference between acknowledging it? And I can say that Donald Trump won the 2024 election. I may not like it, but I can say it.” “As the Florida attorney general, Ms. Bondi achieved numerous successes. She engaged in key initiatives to fight human trafficking, countered the opioid epidemic and protect consumers and protect the citizens of Florida from violence.” “Will you do everything within your power as attorney general to enforce the laws on the books, including the president’s executive orders, and help do everything you can in the Department of Justice to restore security to our southern border?” “Yes, senator. Absolutely.”
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