5: Donald Trump’s Sons Are Auctioning off Access to Themselves and Their Father
Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump are listed as directors of the nonprofit Opening Day Foundation, which is offering face time with the president-elect in exchange for million-dollar donations.
A new nonprofit reportedly run by Donald Trump’s sons is offering access to the president-elect the day after his inauguration in exchange for million-dollar donations to “conservation charities.” In the top package, 16 donors will attend a “private reception and photo opportunity” with the president-elect, and four big donors will join the Trump boys for a “multiday hunting and/or fishing excursion,” according to a promotional brochure first obtained by TMZ.com.
Vice News
4: TRUMP’S PICK FOR INTERIOR SECRETARY WAS CAUGHT IN “PATTERN OF FRAUD” AT SEAL TEAM 6
A MONTANA LAWMAKER tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be secretary of the interior committed travel fraud when he was a member of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6, according to three former unit leaders and a military consultant.
In announcing the nomination of Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, a retired Navy SEAL commander, Trump praised his military background. “As a former Navy SEAL, he has incredible leadership skills and an attitude of doing whatever it takes to win,” Trump said last week.
But when Zinke was a mid-career officer at SEAL Team 6, he was caught traveling multiple times to Montana in 1998 and 1999 to renovate his home. Zinke claimed that the travel was for official duties, according to the sources.
He submitted travel vouchers and was compensated for the travel costs.
Two SEAL officers investigated Zinke’s records and discovered a yearslong “pattern of travel fraud,” according to two of the sources. When confronted about the trips, Zinke acknowledged that he spent the time repairing and restoring a home in Whitefish, Montana, and visiting his mother, according to two retired SEAL Team 6 leaders. The future lawmaker eventually told SEAL leaders that the Montana house was where he intended to live after he retired from the Navy.
The Intercept
3: Robert Reich: Like a Tyrant, Trump Is Deploying Seven Techniques to Control the Media
Today marks the 146th day since Donald Trump last held a news conference. As the Electoral College backs Trump, we speak to former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “Democracy depends on a free and independent press, which is why all tyrants try to squelch it,” Reich recently wrote. “They use seven techniques that, worryingly, President-elect Donald Trump already employs.” We speak to Reich, who discusses how Trump uses seven techniques to control the media.
Democracy Now
2: ISIL claims responsibility for Berlin market attack
ISIL has claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack on a Berlin Christmas market.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) announced the claim via its Amaq website late on Tuesday.
The announcement came at the end of a challenging day for German officials, who are still hunting for the person, or people, behind the attack.
“A soldier of the Islamic State carried out the Berlin operation in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries,” said the ISIL statement, which was posted online.
The statement did not identify the attacker.
The lorry attack on the Christmas market in the west of the city left at least 12 dead and nearly 50 injured, 24 of whom have been released from hospital, according to German police.
Aljazeera
1: FBI search warrant for Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop made public
The FBI told a federal court it needed a search warrant to look at thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails on the laptop of former US congressman Anthony Weiner because they had the potential to cause “grave damage to national security” if disclosed, according to court documents made public on Tuesday.
The wording was contained in a redacted search warrant and other court papers that were previously under seal in the investigation of an online relationship between Weiner, the estranged husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and a teenage girl in North Carolina. The papers offered no new revelations about Clinton’s emails or the scope of a case that factored into the presidential election.
A sworn statement dated 30 October from an FBI agent whose name was blacked out cited a previous inquiry into Clinton’s personal computer server that found 22 emails classified “top secret”. The classification “is significant because it means that the unauthorized disclosure of those emails could result in exceptionally grave damage to national security”, the agent wrote.
The Guardian
