PLEAD THE FILTH

Trump’s Department of Justice is having an unbelievably bad week… at the end of a disastrous year.

• President Donald Trump has leaned on the Department of Justice to bend the criminal justice system to his will and attack his political enemies — but his top henchmen can’t stop making clownish mistakes. Somehow, things just keep getting more embarrassing for the nation’s law enforcement apparatus, which is closing out this dumpster fire of a year with a series of face-palm-inducing scandals. Consider the following:

• FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino announced that he will resign to revive his career as a blowhard MAGA podcaster. Attorney General Pam Bondi faces a deadline on Friday to release all the Epstein files in her possession. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles publicly accused Bondi of doing a terrible job handling those same Epstein files — and admitted that the prosecution of Trump’s enemies has been driven by “score settling.” FBI Director Kash Patel popped up on a podcast for a joke-y chat about his relationship with his 27-year-old girlfriend… while a mass shooter remains on the loose. Trump’s pardons have gotten so out of hand that even jailed crypto criminal Sam Bankman-Fried is angling to get one.

• “There’s such a long list of stupid errors that Justice has made that show its politicization and its corruption,” Jill Wine-Banks, one of the Watergate scandal prosecutors, told What A Day. “Our entire foundation as a country requires that we have separation of power and that we have facts that matter, as they did for many years after Watergate. The Republicans accepted facts and they acted on those facts, whereas that’s not what’s going on now.”

• Trump has turned the DOJ into a kind of personal law firm, staffed by a goon squad of cranks and loyalists. “All of these people have spent a lot of time as proxies for Trump, surrogates for Trump,” Barbara McQuade, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told What A Day.

Legal experts fret that repairing the damage will be difficult — even after Trump is gone.

• Trump’s attempt to break the department has brought far-reaching consequences: Judges and grand juries no longer trust that the government’s lawyers and prosecutors are acting in good faith. The president is an “existential threat to democracy,” one Reagan-appointed judge warned after retiring this year.

• Scores of experienced DOJ employees have been pushed out, raising concerns that the department will be understaffed or filled with MAGA-pilled staffers for years to come. The next administration should be very intentional about rebuilding credibility, McQuade said. “I worry that it could take more than one administration to do it,” she added.

• “If you can attract those people back, it would be great,” McQuade said, referring to the ousted experienced employees. “But how do you attract them back, knowing that in four years, they could be wiped out again?”

• In the meantime, Trump’s DOJ appears to be undeterred by its own bungling, and gearing up for more action. Federal law enforcement agencies were required today to hand over their intelligence files on “Antifa” and “Antifa-related” activities to the FBI, which plans to use those files to inform investigations on Americans and foreigners. The White House is reportedly planning a crackdown on left-wing individuals and groups, which it blames for political violence across the country.

Reflecting on the DOJ from the Watergate era to the present day, Wine-Banks expressed disbelief: “I just don’t know how we’ve gotten to this point.”

WHAT ELSE? 👀

Trump signed an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, which will make it easier to conduct medical research and expand access to CBD, the natural compound that mellows you out without making you (very) high. The move also provides a big boost to the legal marijuana industry, by eliminating certain special tax burdens. It does not, however, legalize weed at the federal level.

The Trump administration began taking steps to end gender-affirming care for minors in the United States, which HHS calls “sex-rejecting procedures.” Such treatment is “not medicine, it is malpractice,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said during a press conference. Just a reminder: Fewer than 0.1 percent of teens in the U.S. identify as transgender and receive gender-affirming care.

House Democrats released 68 more photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate today, showing excerpts from the book “Lolita” written on a woman’s body and a screenshot of a text exchange, which describes a young woman’s measurements and the cost of “1000$ per girl.”

Trump’s hand-picked board overseeing the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted to change the center’s name to the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” according to the White House. But Congress didn’t give the board the authority to officially change the name, so don’t expect things to change so soon. (Maybe he’ll sneak some giant golden “TRUMP” lettering on the facade while lawmakers are on holiday break, though.)

Trump discussed serving a third term with former Epstein lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who is releasing a book titled “Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?” next year. “He found it interesting as an intellectual issue,” Dershowitz told the Wall Street Journal. “Do I think he’s going to run for a third term? No, I don’t think he will run for a third term.”

LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️

Inflation rose less than expected in November, according to delayed federal data, but economists cautioned that the number may be understated. That doesn’t mean that the core message from Donald Trump’s bizarre speech last night — that things aren’t as bad as you think — is true, though I’m sure that’s how the White House will spin this.

A handful of federal employees who quit the government in protest of Donald Trump are now running for Congress to stop him. “You’re either fighting for what you know is right, or you are enabling what you know is wrong,” said Ryan Crosswell, a former Marine and DOJ prosecutor.

Two men in Ohio saved Benny, a small mixed-breed dog, from a burning house after noticing smoke coming from the roof. “The whole house was literally black smoke when they were running in; it was horrifying … but if they didn’t go in, he would not have survived,” the homeowner told the Washington Post.

Small groups across the United States are chipping away at the so-called “loneliness epidemic” by bringing together their communities and building social connection. These efforts come in all different forms, whether it be an urban farming program in Baltimore or a “Beef Bash” in Kentucky that supports small farmers.

Young children, shield your eyes: A 68-year-old Virginia man is celebrating his 40th year dressing up as Santa Claus, and he really has perfected the look over the decades. He predicts that he’s got at least 20 years left: “I’m not interested in retiring because it’s not something that drags me down.”

Behold the “Jetway Jesus” phenomenon. Scores of people who board flights out of Guadalajara’s airport in wheelchairs have been seen walking off the plane with no issue. It’s not actually divine intervention, despite what social media commenters say. The “miracle” is actually the result of able-bodied people claiming they need a wheelchair, as they’ll be escorted down the jetway and given overhead space priority. Once they land, they’re magically healed… because they don’t want to wait for assistance.

Millions of people trust AI to perform daily tasks. But can Anthropic’s Claude model run a vending machine? Apparently not, according to a test conducted by the Wall Street Journal. “Within days, Claudius had given away nearly all its inventory for free — including a PlayStation 5 it had been talked into buying for ‘marketing purposes.’ It ordered a live fish. It offered to buy stun guns, pepper spray, cigarettes and underwear.” Behold, our future AI overlord….

Speaking of technology, here’s a few tips for focusing on family time this holiday season rather than our pesky, addictive smartphones: Turn on do not disturb mode, delete apps that you can’t stop opening, go on a walk outside, write a Christmas card (with pen and paper, not ChatGPT!), read a physical book, put your device in a lock box, or buy a “dumb phone” that can’t scroll TikTok and or doomscroll X. I dare you to try at least one of these this year!