5: Rudy Giuliani Is Not Going to Be Secretary of State
On Friday, the Trump camp officially announced that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has pulled his name from consideration for a cabinet role in the new administration.
Along with Chris Christie, Giuliani was one of Trump’s most outspoken allies on the campaign trail and was rumored to have his name in the running for secretary of state. Mitt Romney is also reportedly being considered for that role, but some of Trump’s closest supporters have branded the former Massachusetts governor untrustworthy and disloyal.
“Before I joined the campaign I was very involved and fulfilled by my work with my law firm and consulting firm, and I will continue that work with even more enthusiasm,” Giuliani wrote in the joint statement. “I look forward to helping the president-elect in any way he deems necessary and appropriate.”
“Rudy would have been an outstanding member of the cabinet in several roles, but I fully respect and understand his reasons for remaining in the private sector,” Trump said in the same statement.
And just to clear up any questions or confusion regarding Giuliani’s abrupt departure, Trump’s incoming chief-of-staff, Reince Priebus, wrote that the former mayor was vetted “for any possible conflicts and passed with flying colors.” Good to know.
Vice News
4: Anonymous Leaks to the WashPost About the CIA’s Russia Beliefs Are No Substitute for Evidence
THE WASHINGTON POST late Friday night published an explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that remains completely secret.
These unnamed sources told the Post that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system.” The anonymous officials also claim that “intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails” from both the DNC and John Podesta’s email account. Critically, none of the actual evidence for these claims is disclosed; indeed, the CIA’s “secret assessment” itself remains concealed.
A second leak from last night, this one given to the New York Times, cites other anonymous officials as asserting that “the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican networks.” But that NYT story says that “it is also far from clear that Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut confidence in the integrity of the vote.”
Deep down in its article, the Post notes — rather critically — that “there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.” Most importantly, the Post adds that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks.” But the purpose of both anonymous leaks is to finger the Russian government for these hacks, acting with the motive to defeat Hillary Clinton.
The Intercept
3: Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobil set to be Trump secretary of state pick – reports
Oil executive Rex Tillerson is likely to be nominated by Donald Trump for secretary of state, lifting the Exxon Mobil chief executive who has ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin into consideration for the most senior US diplomat.
The president-elect met Tillerson for the second time in less than a week on Saturday morning, a campaign spokeswoman told the Guardian.
Transition team sources told NBC News, the New York Times and CNN that the businessman was Trump’s top choice.
Jason Miller, the transition team spokesman, did not confirm or deny the reported selection of Tillerson, using Twitter to say: “No announcements on Secretary of State until next week at the earliest.”
The Guardian
2: Syria’s war: What went wrong in east Aleppo?
When the Russian intervention into the Syrian conflict accelerated in mid-2016, many analysts and partisans declared the “Battle of Aleppo” to hold the key to the future of the Syrian conflict.
Decisive victory one way or another, or the re-establishment of a military stalemate, would dramatically affect the course of the conflict and the possibilities of a political solution, no matter how flawed or unjust.
As 2016 draws to a close, the Russian-led intervention into Aleppo has led to virtually the entire city falling under the control of regime-aligned forces, begging the question: What next?
While sound prediction and analysis in this moment is a challenging, if not entirely flawed, exercise, there are certain trajectories that point to what the future may hold.
Aljazeera
A new report by InsideClimate News reveals how oil giant ExxonMobil’s own research confirmed the role of fossil fuels in global warming decades ago. By 1977, Exxon’s own senior experts had begun to warn the burning of fossil fuels could pose a threat to humanity. At first, Exxon launched an ambitious research program, outfitting a supertanker with instruments to study carbon dioxide in the air and ocean. But toward the end of the 1980s, Exxon changed course and shifted to the forefront of climate change denial. Since the 1990s, it has spent millions of dollars funding efforts to reject the science its own experts knew of decades ago.
Democracy Now
