One of the Worst January 6 Offenders Wants a Pardon

One of the most dangerous people convicted in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots is asking for a pardon from Donald Trump.

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the fascist Proud Boys organization, was convicted for seditious conspiracy for helping to orchestrate the attack on Congress during the certification of the 2020 presidential election and sentenced to 22 years in prison, the longest of any January 6 defendant.

Tarrio made a request for a pardon through his lawyer Nayib Hassan, who wrote a letter to the Department of Justice which was posted to X Monday morning by his mother, Zuny Tarrio.

In 2023, federal prosecutors described Tarrio as the main force behind bringing hundreds of Proud Boys to Washington in 2021 to protest the election results and march to the Capitol building. Several of the organization’s leaders were the first rioters to break into the Capitol, including one lieutenant, Dominic Pezzola.

Trump has repeatedly promised to pardon rioters involved in the attacks, even hiring one for his transition team, but has also said that some rioters were “out of control” and may still face consequences. However, as the leader of the Proud Boys at the time, Tarrio is arguably the most extreme of the defendants, and pardoning him would show that Trump wants to reward the insurrectionists rather than make a token gesture to his supporters.

Elon Musk wants to be the Italian government’s sole telecommunications provider. 

The billionaire’s SpaceX company is closing in on a $1.6 billion security contract after  Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate on Saturday. The Italian government promises that Meloni didn’t talk to Musk about the deal while she was there. 

If enacted, Musk’s SpaceX would supply Italy with encryption services for government and military use. “Ready to provide Italy the most secure and advanced connectivity!” Musk wrote on his X platform.

Others within the Italian government aren’t as enthusiastic about the potential deal. 

“If 1.5 billion euros of Italian money to use the satellites of an American billionaire in our country is the price to pay for his friendship, we do not agree,” said center-left Democratic Party (PD) lead Elly Schlein. 

Musk’s eagerness to do business with the Italian government is unsurprising considering the right-wing neo-fascist who currently leads it. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni considers Musk a “genius.” Her crusades against immigration, same-sex marriage, reproductive rights, and anything else she considers “woke,” have endeared her to Musk, who has been attaching himself to the European right as of late. 

This telecommunications deal is just the latest installment in Musk’s attempted Eurozone takeover. The CEO has meddled in German elections, singing the praises of it’s own right-wing party (AfD) as German politicians denounce his involvement. And in the U.K. Musk has been calling for the release of Tommy Robinson, a popular far-right, Islamaphobic activist and founding member of the British National Party. He has also railed about how civil war is “inevitable” there. 

The world’s richest man is rapidly expanding his sphere of political influence—and raking in foreign cash in the process. Elon Musk is changing global politics. And he’s getting even richer in the process. 

Donald Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., may receive some support, or at least an open mind, from some Senate Democrats.

The Hill reports that Senators John Fetterman and Bernie Sanders may consider voting to confirm the former presidential candidate’s appointment to Trump’s cabinet, citing Kennedy’s criticism of food additives, as well as corporate control of the U.S. food industry.

“I think Bernie will give him a fair review,” one anonymous source told the publication, and a different pro-Kennedy source said Fetterman is “definitely a swing vote for all of Trump’s nominees.”

Last week, Sanders wrote a column for The Guardian in which he criticized the U.S. health care industry and called for reform to the U.S. food industry, saying “Large food corporations should not make record-breaking profits making children addicted to processed foods, which make them overweight and prone to diabetes and other diseases.”

These criticisms overlap with parts of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Initiative” plan, which includes promises to remove chemical additives from food and reduce federal funding for processed foods. Kennedy has said that Americans have been “mass poisoned by big pharma and big food,” and Trump has pledged to let Kennedy “go wild.”

But Kennedy’s longstanding opposition to vaccines and pledge to ban water fluoridation has drawn criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike, and he’ll have a tough time selling those parts of his ideology to the Senate. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, said on Fox News Sunday that Kennedy was “wrong” on vaccines, but still planned to meet with the nominee this week.

Kennedy has met with many senators in recent days to bolster his cabinet bid, including Republicans John Barrasso, Shelley Moore Capito, and Marsha Blackburn. But, in addition to concerns about his medical views, Kennedy also faces from the GOP over his support for abortion, which means his confirmation is far from a done deal.

Donald Trump is (unsurprisingly) trying to get out of his sentencing hearing for the 34 felony counts in his hush-money case.

In a 17-page filing Monday, Trump’s lawyers announced that the president-elect would seek an automatic stay on his sentencing, challenging New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s rejection of presidential immunity claims.

Trump’s lawyers argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States required a stay of all trial proceedings, as Trump had been granted presidential immunity for official acts. They also argued that Merchan had wrongly denied Trump’s request to have the verdict dismissed on those same grounds.

“Due to the fact that further criminal proceedings are automatically stayed by operation of federal constitutional law, the Court will lack authority to proceed with sentencing, must therefore immediately vacate the sentencing hearing scheduled for January 10, 2025, and suspend all proceedings in the case until the conclusion of President Trump’s appeal on Presidential immunity,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

The lawyers requested a response from the court on whether they intend to proceed with the sentencing by the end of Monday.

Last week, Merchan ordered that Trump attend a sentencing hearing on January 10, a little more than a week before his inauguration. Merchan made clear in his order that he did not plan to levy a sentence of jail time, fines, or probation against the president-elect. Instead, Merchan said he plans to sentence Trump with “unconditional discharge,” which means he will receive no punishment.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg responded Monday in a 16-page filing, urging the judge not to postpone Trump’s sentencing. Bragg’s office argued that Trump’s claim that presidential immunity should spare him from trial proceedings was moot, considering that the trial itself ended several months ago, and emphasized Merchan’s intention to give an “unconditional discharge.”

“There is no risk here of an ‘extended proceeding’ that impairs the discharge of defendant’s official duties—duties he does not possess before January 20, 2025 in any event,” Bragg wrote.

Over the weekend, Trump published several angry posts ranting against the “RIGGED” case and claiming his innocence—to which a jury of his peers did not agree.

“I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge by a corrupt judge who is just doing the work of the Biden/Harris Injustice Department, an attack on their political opponent, ME!” Trump wrote.

Lodged within Trump’s diatribes, the president-elect signaled his hopes to use his conviction as the pretext for a new authoritarian rule.

This story has been updated.

Trump’s promise to “drill baby drill” may be easier said than done. 

On Monday Joe Biden announced a buzzer-beater ban on new offshore drilling for oil and gas in 625 million acres of ocean. President-elect Trump wants to undo it immediately. 

“Drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risks,” the Biden White House said in a statement. “As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.”

This move left Trump and his team predictably incensed, as confirmed by his spokesperson Karoline Leavitt on X. 

“This is a disgraceful decision designed to exact political revenge on the American people who gave President Trump a mandate to increase drilling and lower gas prices,” Leavitt wrote. “Rest assured, Joe Biden will fail, and we will drill, baby, drill.”

But Trump may not be able to overturn this ban at all, at least not immediately. 

Biden passed this action using the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which grants presidents sweeping privileges to save federal waters from being used for future oil and gas development. The act does not allow a president to overturn said law alone, meaning President-elect Trump would have to turn to an already fractured and tumultuous Congress to allow drilling to begin.