It has officially been four weeks since Election Day. Four weeks without the Attorney General of the United States saying one word for or against Donald Trump as Trump attempted to massively ratf–k his way into stealing the election. Four weeks where William Barr was silent as the grave as Trump peddled lie after lie, unhinged lawsuit after unhinged lawsuit, a barrage of conspiracies designed to delegitimize Joe Biden’s presidency, and delegitimize the republic itself. Well, on the eve of the four-week anniversary of Election Day, Bill Barr said words:

Attorney General William P. Barr told the Associated Press on Tuesday that he has “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” undercutting claims that President Trump and his allies have made — without evidence — of widespread and significant voting irregularities.

In an interview, Barr suggested the FBI and Justice Department have looked into some fraud claims, and seemed to take particular aim at one, by attorney Sidney Powell, who alleged a grand conspiracy involving election software changing voting tallies.

“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Barr told the Associated Press, referring to the departments of Homeland Security and Justice.

Though, privately, Justice Department officials have for weeks said that there was not evidence to substantiate the claims of Trump and his allies, Barr’s publicly breaking with the president is particularly significant.

Before the election, Barr had warned repeatedly and forcefully about possible fraud that might come with mass mail-in voting, echoing the president’s attacks on the practice. Afterward, he reversed long-standing Justice Department policy and authorized prosecutors to take overt steps to pursue allegations of “vote tabulation irregularities” in certain cases before results are certified — drawing criticism that he was trying to magnify Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud.

[From WaPo]

In retrospect, Barr’s lack of public statements and total inaction seems… suspicious (so sus). But it’s one of those situations where it could have been A LOT worse from the AG, and the fact that he’s saying this now, four weeks post-election, is basically like a last-ditch effort to save his reputation. He’d been acting as Trump’s personal mob lawyer for so long, the fact that he didn’t DO anything to ratf–k the vote is an interesting turn of events. In any case, Trump and his merry band of lunatics are BIGLY MAD at Barr.

Trump campaign now going after AG Barr.

Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis say this: “With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn’t been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation.” pic.twitter.com/XVK6WImdvX

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) December 1, 2020

“We have gathered ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states…” then why have Giuliani and Ellis not presented this “ample evidence” in court? In fact, whenever the Trump legal team arrives in their clown car to court and a judge asks them to produce evidence of their outlandish claims, they only have supposition and hearsay. Or they say “well, isn’t it suspicious that all of these votes in Democratic strongholds went to Biden??” Or: “isn’t it weird that so many absentee ballots went for Biden, especially considering that Trump brainwashed his supporters into thinking that absentee ballots were ‘illegal’?” And that’s what they call evidence.

Meanwhile, Barr also gave extra protection/legal insulation to John Durham, the special counsel he appointed to look into the “origins of the Trump-Russia probe.” Basically, Barr is trying to make it harder for President Biden to shut down Durham and his investigation next year. Which… Jesus, these people really live in their own little conspiracy bubbles, right?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

As you may have seen on your social media feeds, Elliot Page came out as trans. In a statement posted on social media yesterday morning, Elliot (who goes by the pronouns he/him and they/them) wrote: Obviously, this is amazing news. And I want to gush about this. For one thing, I always think it’s wo…

It’s been one full week since the New York Times published the Duchess of Sussex’s op-ed, where she revealed that she had a miscarriage in July. Meghan wrote about the pain of miscarriage, and how the events of 2020 (both private and public) were a larger reminder that people should check in with each other, that people have private pain and we all need some compassion and understanding. Now sources are talking to People Magazine about why Meghan chose to write about what happened.

In Meghan Markle’s searingly honest essay about her recent miscarriage, she described the “unbearable grief” she and Prince Harry experienced. “I tried to imagine how we’d heal,” she wrote.

Today the couple is doing just that — and they hope that by sharing their story of pregnancy loss, they can help others who are struggling to feel less alone.

“They kept their miscarriage private for months because it was very painful and not anything that they knew if they would ever want to share,” a source tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

“They both seemed shocked at how painful it was. Meghan was ready to share now because so many women go through the same thing in silence,” the source adds.

The confessional op-ed was a departure from royal norms, which dictate minimal disclosures of private pain. And her decision to share her loss and encourage compassion has furthered the conversation around pregnancy loss.

“She talked about the taboo of miscarriage, says Ruth Bender Atik, national director of the Miscarriage Association in the U.K. “And I know that’s something that concerns a lot of people. And she talked about her feelings of both physical and emotional pain — for Harry too. It’s important to realize that partners are affected.”

As they share their grief they are also embracing joy. As Meghan, Harry and their 19-month-old son Archie prepared to celebrate their first Thanksgiving in America last week, they gathered vegetables from their garden to use in a meal they cooked at home in Montecito, California.

“They are doing well,” a friend tells PEOPLE. “They are in good health. They took the time off just to focus on family,” says the source, who adds that Meghan’s mom, Doria Ragland, visited over the holiday weekend, “which always makes Meghan happy.”

[From People]

I think the public and royal reaction to Meghan’s op-ed would have been different if she had written it just days or weeks after her miscarriage over the summer. I’m not saying the reaction would have been better or worse, I just think it would have been different. I think that it was smart for her to take her time to really think about what she wanted to say and how she wanted to frame that information into a larger conversation about checking in with one another, about how difficult this year has been for so many people. This broke my heart: “They both seemed shocked at how painful it was.” *sob* 2020 has been a f–king year.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.

A post shared by The Great British Bake Off (@britishbakeoff)

Variety’s Will Thorne has a new article profiling the Great British Baking Show’s latest season and past contestants. It starts with a topic I was particularly concerned about, how they managed to film in the middle of a pandemic. The end of this season addressed this somewhat, saying they’d all been in a bubble together in a hotel. It looked like much too big a bubble, but they surely benefitted from the fact that it was early in the pandemic. The bakers had to stay in the same hotel for seven weeks and didn’t have as much time to practice as usual.

As we discussed earlier in the week, some thought Laura unfairly earned a place in the finale at Hermine’s expense. It turns out Laura got a lot of hate online for that. Thorne highlighted that and interviewed past contestants who said they got abuse too. One baker, Rosie Brandreth-Poynter, got hate calls at work! That’s outrageous. Here are some of those excerpts from the piece. There’s more I’m not including about the cultural insensitivity of this season, particularly given Matt Lucas’s addition to the cast.

This season of “Bake Off” very nearly didn’t happen, says Love Productions creative director Richard McKerrow.

“We really felt that unless we could do it as ‘Bake Off’ has always been, with hugs, with the Paul Hollywood hand shake, with all the closeness, the format wouldn’t be doable with the pandemic in full overdrive,” McKerrow says.

Fortunately, Love Productions had cast all the bakers by February, so when the idea of creating a bio-bubble was floated in April, they could make sure everyone was on board before it burst.

Creating a safe space for production involved hiring out a hotel and a good chunk of its staff, and piling around 100 cast and crew inside for seven weeks of shooting.

McKerrow describes the task as “Herculean,” explaining that the bakers had to endure a nine-day quarantine period at home with two COVID tests, after which they were driven to the hotel in rental cars (which incidentally had to be deep-cleaned five days prior), followed by 48 hours of self-isolation and a third COVID test…

The controversy of Japanese week was then over-shadowed by what happened when Hermine (a fan-favorite whom many had tipped to win the season) was eliminated in the semi final.

After the result, one of the finalists Laura Adlington received a torrent of online abuse from viewers who thought she had “stolen” a place in the grand finale at Hermine’s expense. She responded to it, imploring viewers to “please take a moment to consider you words before you judge someone you’ve never met.”

Then, in an unprecedented move, “Bake Off” judge Paul Hollywood also addressed the abuse Laura received, labeling it “disgusting behaviour” on Instagram…

In her response to the mass trolling, Hermine asked that people “honor my time in GBBO by showing love and kindness,” rather than being “unkind in my name.”

Several former contestants who Variety spoke to said they were subject to severe trolling during and after their time on the show which ranged from negative comments about their appearance, to receiving death threat calls at work.

When she heard of the online abuse Laura was getting, Rosie Brandreth-Poynter, a full-time vet and contestant from last season, was “disappointed, but not surprised.”

“I remember looking at the lineup for this season the night it came out and thinking who’s going to be picked on this year, who’s going to be me, who’s going to have a horrible time of it? It’s terrible looking at their smiling faces waiting to start with no idea what’s coming, no idea that people are going to be horrible for the sake of it,” she says.

Rosie made it to the semi final stage of the competition, but she says it was after the quarter final when fan-favorite Henry Bird was eliminated and she went through, that the abuse began to mount.

“People phoned my work and said they needed to talk to me about their dog, the nurses put me on, and they started telling me that I should go and kill myself and I should be so ashamed and I was the worst thing to ever happen to TV. They said I ruined everything, I ruined their year, why don’t I just go and die. When you get that in the middle of a busy work day it’s not very nice,” she says.

[From Variety]

The abuse contestants face is something that doesn’t surprise me but is still unsettling to hear. For as kind and collaborative the show seems, the Internet is still a cesspool and people are mean. I’ve heard that even Jeopardy contestants get grief. I feel bad for Laura. It’s not her fault that she got picked over Hermine. Also as many of you said and is written in this piece, the judges have to make that call based on the week’s bakes.

As for pandemic filming conditions, I think that all reality competition shows filmed at this time should have a disclaimer at the beginning describing their protocols. I watch a lot of reality competition shows and some new ones out now (Full Bloom, Christmas Sugar Rush) were obviously filmed after March and have nothing explaining how it was accomplished. It’s unsettling to see people hugging and carrying on as if nothing has changed. It’s not reality now.

A post shared by Rosie Brandreth-Poynter (@rosiebrandreth)

A post shared by Kim-Joy (@kimjoyskitchen)

A post shared by Hermine (@bakealongwithhermine)

A post shared by Laura Adlington (@laura.adlington)

Dear Gossips, Back in October, Apple TV+ announced that they’re working on a new docuseries called The Supermodels featuring four members of the Big Five – Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington. Like I said at the time, this is exactly where I live. I am obsessed …

In the immediate wake of the election, there was a lot of bickering back and forth online, on social media, about the takeaways from the election, specifically in regards to the messaging from far-left figures. Personally, after the year we’ve had, I’m all for Defund the Police movements and I think there are so many police departments around the country which need to be demilitarized, constrained and yes, defunded. But the “defund the police” label got stuck to Democrats across the board, and there’s evidence to suggest that the label hurt a lot of good Democratic candidates in more moderate states or congressional districts. Now Barack Obama is discussing “defund the police” and whether young activists should really embrace that label. Obama spoke to Vanity Fair’s Peter Hamby, and you can read the full piece here. Here’s the part about youths and Defund the Police:

Whether young people are too combative politically: “Well, you know, Malia and Sasha, my daughters, we talk about this. Malia’s 22. Sasha’s 19. And it’s interesting. Even they, and among their friends, notice that sometimes because you’re responding so quickly and trying to be clever or snappy that they sometimes feel as if we’re not really listening to each other as much as we should. We’re just trying to score points. And I think the one thing that I’d like to see all of us do—and shoot, old folks are worse than young folks in many ways about this—is to use social media to make initial contact. But then at least post-COVID, once we get through this pandemic, try to have conversations with people face to face afterward.

On Defund the Police: “We take for granted that if you want people to buy your sneakers, that you’re going to market it to your audience, right? We take for granted that if a musician drops a record, that they’re going to try to reach certain audiences by speaking to folks where they are. It’s no different in terms of ideas, right? So if you believe, as I do, that we should be able to reform the criminal justice system so that it’s not biased and treats everybody fairly, I guess you can use a snappy slogan, like Defund the Police, but, you know, you lost a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done. But if you instead say, Hey, you know what? Let’s reform the police department so that everybody’s being treated fairly. And not just in policing, but in sentencing, how can we divert young people from getting into crime? And if there was a homeless guy, can maybe we send a mental health worker there instead of an armed unit that could end up resulting in a tragedy? You know, suddenly a whole bunch of folks who might not otherwise listen to you are listening to you. So the key is deciding, do you want to actually get something done, or do you want to feel good among the people you already agree with? And if you want to get something done in a democracy, in a country as big and diverse as ours, then you’ve got to be able to meet people where they are. And play a game of addition and not subtraction.

[From Vanity Fair]

He’s not wrong? He’s speaking like a man who won two national campaigns built on appealing to the hopes and dreams of the widest swath of Americans. He’s not even saying he disagrees with the larger arguments of the Defund the Police movement, he’s just pointing out that a lot of people will immediately tune out the Defund the Police people out of hand because the branding is seen as “too radical.” Joe Biden is the same way – Biden’s branding is Reform the Police, and he’s promised to adopt most of the policy positions the Defunders want anyway. So it’s an argument about branding more than anything else. That being said, I also sort of agree with the far-left people that we can’t just reject Defund the Police as a policy/movement simply because Republican strategists and Fox News are using it to terrify old people. So, yeah, Socialist Twitter is yelling at Obama today. Just a heads up.

There are very strong arguments for why the term is critical and important, but the bottom line on this is that Obama has a very strong point here and it’s gutsy as hell to say it. I also trust his intentions, so we need to sit with this kickback feeling for a minute. https://t.co/elps80Iv2Y

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) December 2, 2020

With all due respect, Mr. President—let’s talk about losing people. We lost Michael Brown Jr. We lost Breonna Taylor. We’re losing our loved ones to police violence.

It’s not a slogan. It’s a mandate for keeping our people alive. Defund the police. https://t.co/Wsxp1Y1bBi

— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) December 2, 2020

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Over the summer, Queen Elizabeth pretended like the UK wasn’t in the middle of a deadly pandemic, and she forced her staff and her husband to travel to Scotland for their annual Balmoral holiday like usual. There was a lot of grumbling from the Balmoral staff too, because they had to be under a strict “HMS Bubble” isolation protocol, and even with all of that, it was apparently the worst Balmoral summer ever because all of the activities were cancelled because… you know, the pandemic. Even Prince Philip hated the entire trip and so they left Balmoral early and spent some time at Wood Farm, then they returned to Windsor Castle, which is where the Queen has been isolating since March.

Soon after the Balmoral debacle was over, the conversation began about the Queen’s Christmas plans. There was a scheme to allow the Queen to go to Sandringham like always for Christmas, but that scheme would have involved her staff isolating for four weeks at a time, which would have meant that dozens of staffers would not have been able to see THEIR families for Christmas. The staff was in revolt, and the Queen was said to be “furious.” Since then, there’s been a lot of talk about what will and will not be allowed and who the Queen will see over the holiday. Now there’s a confirmation as to the Queen’s Christmas plans: she and Philip will stay at Windsor Castle.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will spend a quiet Christmas at Windsor Castle due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is the first time in 32 years that the couple will not be at Sandringham for the festive period. The Queen usually remains at her estate in Norfolk until after the anniversary of her father’s death. George VI died at Sandringham on 6 February 1952.

Christmas Day is normally marked by a procession of royals walking from Sandringham House to nearby St Mary Magdalene church to attend the morning service, watched by members of the public allowed into the estate grounds. This year the Queen will not attend a Christmas Day service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, to avoid attracting crowds.

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “Having considered all the appropriate advice, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have decided that this year they will spend Christmas quietly in Windsor.”

A source said: “The Queen and the duke are fortunate to spend Christmas with their family every year. They understand that their family will have competing demands over the Christmas period and are content to have a quiet festive season this year. Like everyone they hope things will get back to normal in 2021.”

With the couple likely to be alone on Christmas Day, it is understood they will see some family members over the festive break, though whether that will be inside the castle or outside in the grounds is not clear. It is not known which family members the couple are in a bubble with.

The Prince of Wales, 72, and Duchess of Cornwall, 73, will spend Christmas Day at their Highgrove home in Gloucestershire. They are expected to see the Queen, 94, and Philip, 99, at some point. The duchess also plans to see her family over the festive period.

Prince Andrew, 60, and Princess Eugenie, 30, who both live at Windsor, may also be candidates to visit.

[From The Guardian]

So much for the Boxing Day hunt at Sandringham! Too bad. It sounds like Liz’s staff finally got through to her that she couldn’t just keep carrying on like normal during the pandemic, that she had to be reasonable, especially about what she was demanding from her staff. Plus, she might actually ENJOY a looser, less German Christmas. There won’t be so many costume changes and day-drinking and she’ll probably get to spend time with her faves – Prince Andrew and the Countess of Wessex – anyway. Charles and Camilla will probably enjoy having a rare Christmas at Highgrove too.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Buckingham Palace.

The word of the week is “pardons,” as Donald Trump considers pardoning Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Don Jr, plus Rudy Giuliani. Those are the people who have been (nominally) “loyal” to Mob Boss Bigly, but we shouldn’t discount the idea that pardons will be issued for reasons other than loyalty and concern for his favorite children. The breaking news last night was that the Department of Justice has been investigating a web of crimes involved with a “pay-to-pardon” scheme.

The Justice Department is investigating a potential crime related to funneling money to the White House or related political committee in exchange for a presidential pardon, according to court records unsealed Tuesday in federal court.

The disclosure is in 20 pages of partially redacted documents made public by the DC District Court on Tuesday afternoon. The records show Chief Judge Beryl Howell’s review in August of a request from prosecutors to access documents obtained in a search as part of a bribery-for-pardon investigation. The filings don’t reveal a timeline of the alleged scheme, or any names of people potentially involved, except that communications between people including at least one lawyer were seized from an office that was raided sometime before the end of this summer.

No one appears to have been publicly charged with a related crime to date. A Justice Department official told CNN that “no government official was or is currently a subject or target of the investigation disclosed in this filing.”

According to the court records, at the end of this summer, a filter team, used to make sure prosecutors don’t receive tainted evidence that should have been kept from them because it was privileged, had more than 50 digital devices including iPhones, iPads, laptops, thumb drives and computer drives after investigators raided the unidentified offices.

[From CNN]

Lawyer Twitter was running through the redacted filing and there’s some evidence to suggest that the person seeking a pardon A) is already serving time or in custody and B) has a surname ending in “S”.

Gates, Hicks, Sessions, Priebus, DeVos…and Nunes.

— Greg Olear (@gregolear) December 2, 2020

Someone also floated the name Ghislaine Maxwell, who is currently sitting in a detention center in Brooklyn, awaiting trial. That… makes a lot of sense. Maxwell has a lot of money and she can hire people who have access to the Trumps. Plus, we still don’t know how much incriminating evidence she’s sitting on, and just who will be implicated in the cache of Jeffrey Epstein files she has. Everyone assumes that Epstein had files on/videos with Donald Trump too.

Anyway, this is the worst/most disgusting blind item ever, but who was trying to bribe Trump for a pardon? I really can’t figure it out.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry)

Most of us know that Katy Perry was raised in conservative, evangelical household. Her parents, Mary and Keith, are Pentecostal pastors. They were born again Christians atoning for a wild youth so they went off the deep end, calling Deviled Eggs “Angeled Eggs” and not allowing anything but gospel music in the home. Katy has discussed her struggles with her parents’ beliefs but still maintains a close enough relationship with them that they pop up in her concert footage and on American Idol, etc. Another subject on which they disagree is politics, Katy’s folks being strong Trump supporters, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention. Following the election, Katy was one of the first celebrities to start talking about “reaching across the aisle,” starting with our own families. On November 8, she posted this:

the first thing I did when the presidency was called is text and call my family members who do not agree and tell them I love them and am here for them. #FamilyFirst. Call your family today. Happy Sunday. ??

— KATY PERRY (@katyperry) November 8, 2020

I hadn’t seen this tweet before now. I saw a lot of tweets from random people urging non-Trump voters to remember what it felt like four years ago when they lost or to have compassion for the Right, and I simply didn’t have the time for any of it. I’ve voted in plenty of elections in which my candidate didn’t win and the other side never owed me anything. My larger argument is that we, the pro-democracy set, have been forced to watch as crimes, atrocities, injustices, and scandals were committed in front of us every day for four years and we were just told we’d been granted a reprieve. If I had any Trump-voting family member I spoke to, their comfort would be the furthest thing from my mind.

I guess Katy meant it, though, because she recently promoted her father’s new clothing line, Nothing But American t-shirts and hoodies. The idea that Keith is promoting is that he’s tired of our political beliefs dividing us as a nation and we if we all put on these cool new shirts, declaring ourselves an American (symbolized by the flag) and not by our political party, then the country will heal, peace will ring out across the land and Coors Light will once again flow from the Rockies:

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry)

DListed graciously transcribed the video already:

“Hey everyone, I’m Keith, and I want to ask you a question. Are you tired of the division that is destroying our country? Are you sick of losing your family and friends because they just don’t agree with your political views? Well, I am. And I know there’s a lot of other people out there that have the same feeling… and no matter what you believe at the end of the day, we are all Americans. And I designed this t-shirt because I want people to know that even though you may have a different religion or political view than I do, I still will be there for you and I still will consider you my friend, my neighbor and my fellow American.”

I’m curious where this cry for unity and repair was when the GOP had all the power.

If you go on to the website, Nothing But American Store dot com, there are four items to choose from, two designs available in either a t-shirt or hoodie (no mention of where the product is made). Republican is listed first on both designs, just fyi. Katy was very active during the election, asking people to vote, reminding people of mail-in cut off dates and telling folks to check their information online. So she wasn’t ambivalent to the outcome of the election. But in her caption to the IG above, she said she and her dad haven’t always see eye to eye. Katy is an LGBTQ ally and her parents’ religion believes homosexuality goes against God. Katy was taught “to pray the gay away” at Jesus camp growing up. If her parents voted for Trump, then they supported his comments about white supremacists being very fine people. They voted for his decision to separate children from their parents and have them locked in cages. They supported the dismantling of healthcare for hundreds of thousands of Americans and the stripping away of affordable and safe healthcare. Are those the issues that Katy is referring to when she used cute emojis to say she and her father don’t see eye to eye? Because it would be hard to cover those things up with a cheap t-shirt.

To try and see Katy’s side, she did just have her first baby and she probably very much wants her whole family around her in this moment. So conciliatory efforts are probably important to her. But they are her efforts, with her family and I wish she’d recognize that. Because the things that Trump stood aren’t a matter of not seeing eye to eye and I will not reach out to anyone who doesn’t acknowledge the pain and suffering they’ve caused by supporting him.

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photo credit: Instagram and Getty

To me, the whole “preemptive pardons shouldn’t be a thing” argument falls flat, because of what Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon. Nixon was also up to his eyes in criminality (and ratf–king), but he wasn’t under indictment or charged with any crime when he resigned from office. Then President Ford pardoned him preemptively. So the precedent was set long ago. Expect Donald Trump – who is a million times worse, dumber and more criminal than Nixon – to issue a slate of “preemptive pardons.” Apparently, Rudy Giuliani has already discussed it with Trump. And “advisors” are heavily encouraging Trump to preemptively pardon his children too:

President Trump has discussed with advisers whether to grant pre-emptive pardons to his children, to his son-in-law and to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, and talked with Mr. Giuliani about pardoning him as recently as last week, according to two people briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump has told others that he is concerned that a Biden Justice Department might seek retribution against the president by targeting the oldest three of his five children — Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump — as well as Ms. Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, a White House senior adviser.

Donald Trump Jr. had been under investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for contacts that the younger Mr. Trump had had with Russians offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, but he was never charged. Mr. Kushner provided false information to federal authorities about his contacts with foreigners for his security clearance, but was given one anyway by the president.

The nature of Mr. Trump’s concern about any potential criminal exposure of Eric Trump or Ivanka Trump is unclear, although an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney into the Trump Organization has expanded to include tax write-offs on millions of dollars in consulting fees by the company, some of which appear to have gone to Ms. Trump.

[From The NY Times]

Personally, I don’t think Bigly is all that concerned about Don Jr. or Eric being charged with any crimes. But I bet he’s definitely interested in protecting Ivanka and Jared, and I could absolutely see him giving preemptive pardons to Javanka and none of his other kids. Apparently, Trump’s advisers are really pushing for pardons for the whole family because, I sh-t you not, “The kids have been through enough.” Exactly what have they been “through”? Cocaine and crimes? Fascism whispers and incompetence? Financial and election fraud? Sources also tell ABC News that “Trump has not to this point embraced the idea of preemptive pardons, with some aides concerned that a preemptive pardon could be seen as an admission of guilt of some kind.” YA THINK?

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.