What will Trump do after leaving office? The Wall Street Journal reports he’s considering starting a political party: President Trump has talked in recent days with associates about forming a new political party, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to exert continued influence after he leaves the White House. Mr. Trump discussed the matter with several aides and other people close to him last week, the people said. The president said he would want to call the new party the “Patriot Party,” the people said. Mr. Trump has feuded in recent days with several Republican leaders including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who on Tuesday said Mr. Trump deserved blame for provoking the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Polls show Mr. Trump retains strong support among rank-and-file GOP voters. The White House declined to comment. It’s unclear how serious Mr. Trump is about starting a new party, which would require a significant investment of time and resources. The president has a large base of supporters, some of whom were not deeply involved in Republican politics prior to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Donald Trump has deferred the deportation of some Venezuelan nationals from the US, after issuing sanctions aimed at Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “The deteriorative condition within Venezuela, which presents an ongoing national security threat to the safety and well-being of the American people, warrants the deferral of the removal of Venezuelan nationals who are present in the United States,” said Trump. Venezuelan nationals would not be removed from the US for 18 months, Trump said in a memo to the secretaries of state and homeland security. The justice department has said it will not pursue insider trading charges against Republican senator Richard Burr. The New York Times reports: The Justice Department informed Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina, on Tuesday that it would not pursue insider trading charges against him, according to his lawyer and another person briefed on the decision, quietly ending a monthslong investigation into his dumping of hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock in the turbulent early days of the coronavirus pandemic. The decision by the department and the Securities and Exchange Commission effectively cleared a cloud of legal jeopardy that has loomed over Mr. Burr since the sales were first disclosed in March. At the crux of the case was whether Mr. Burr, then the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had acted based on nonpublic information about the contagion that he received at senators-only briefings. A handful of other senators drew similar scrutiny for their trades over the same period and were cleared in the spring and summer. Mr. Burr’s case proved far more complicated and included grand jury subpoenas and a search of his electronic storage accounts. At one point, the F.B.I. seized his cellphone — a highly invasive tactic for a sitting member of Congress that required signoff by Attorney General William P. Barr. Mr. Burr, 65, insisted throughout that he had acted within the law, but preemptively stepped down from his Intelligence Committee post to avoid distractions and adopted a low profile in the Senate. He had already planned to retire when his term ends in 2022. California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra launched 9 lawsuits against the Trump administration. The lawsuits include challenges of: The administration’s issuing of two rules that will reduce the habitat protected by the Endangered Species Act. A rule that refuses regulation of petroleum refineries and chemical plants. The administration’s rule blocking future regulation of the oil and gas industries, by saying that if the industry emits less than 3% of total US greenhouse gas emissions, it cannot be regulated under a section of the Clean Air Act. A rule requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct more in-depth analyses weighing the cost to industry against the environmental benefits. A rule limiting the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) and removing protections for birds from facilities like wind farms and oil pits. What California and other states have deemed are weak ozone standards. A rule allowing manufacturers to sell products that don’t comply with energy efficiency standards by making it easier to obtain waivers. A rule that would allow some washers and dryers to escape energy efficiency standards. A rule that restricts EPA’s use of scientific studies that use on health data that excludes names or other identifying information to protect privacy. “The Trump admin is working until the very last second to finalize a number of devastating environmental policies,” Becerra said. “While we look forward to a future where we can work with the Federal govt, it will take time to unwind the havoc the Trump admin wrought.” Joe Biden has called it a night – he’s staying across from the White House – as Trump continues to check off a bucket list during his last few hours in office. On Tuesday night, the Washington National Cathedral funeral bell was tolled 400 times– once for every 1,000 people who have died of Covid-19. The bells rang for 40 minutes straight. “May we find peace and comfort. Strength and hope. Unity and perseverance,” said DC mayor Muriel Bowser. The heaviness of the pandemic is sure to hang over Biden’s inauguration tomorrow, which has been diminished in size to prevent the spread of coronavirus and for security reasons, following the deadly attack on the US Capitol. The Trump administration has authorized the declassification of a set of documents from the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. It remains unclear what exactly has been declassified. Trump has long called the investigation a “hoax” and promised in an October tweet to “fully authorize the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax”. As one of his last acts as president, he seems to be doing some version of just that. The president has long been preoccupied by the investigation and vowed that documents would vindicate his assertions that he was wrongly targeted. Here’s an AP fact check of Trump’s frequent claim that he was being investigated even before he took office: Trump was not under investigation before he took office. In fact, Trump says he was told that directly and repeatedly by then-FBI Director James Comey. Comey has said the same publicly. The FBI counterintelligence investigation dubbed Crossfire Hurricane was underway when Trump took office, but that was into whether his campaign more generally coordinated with Russia to tip the election. Agents were also looking criminally at several Trump aides, but that’s different from Trump being under investigation. The situation did change after a matter of months, when Trump fired Comey in May 2017. After that happened, the FBI began looking into whether Trump had criminally obstructed justice. Former FBI acting Director Andrew McCabe has said the FBI also began investigating whether Trump might have been acting on behalf of Russia. There is no evidence that the FBI acted illegally in investigating suspicions of ties between the campaign and Russia. While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris memorialized those who died of Covid-19 at the Lincoln Memorial, Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic leaders held lights in remembrance at the Capitol. Immediately after Biden takes office, the House will have to work to pass major coronavirus relief legislation and consider the plan proposed by Biden. With control of the House, Senate and the White House, Democrats are going to have an easier time than they have thus far in the pandemic overcoming deadlock to get a relief package passed. But with 60 votes in the Senate required to pass major legislation, lawmakers will still have to seek bipartisan agreement or find tricky ways of working without it. The pandemic is now killing one American every 30 seconds – and the Biden/Harris administration has made it a top priority to rein it in as soon as they take office tomorrow. The incoming administration has presented its plans to ramp up vaccine distribution and support families reeling from both the health and economic impacts of the pandemic. Biden encouraged Americans today to light candles in their windows in remembrance of those who have died. National coronavirus remembrance event The evocative and poignant event the incoming Biden-Harris leadership just held in Washington to commemorate the 400,000 US deaths from coronavirus is the first national event of remembrance that has been organized by national leadership and held in the US since the pandemic began a year ago. It’s worth remembering that Donald Trump spent 2020 lying and blustering about Covid-19, predicting it would disappear or could be cured by ingesting bleach or unproven drugs, and failing to lead a comprehensive national plan for managing the pandemic. The coronavirus outbreak has not been under control in the US over the entire pandemic and is going from bad to worse in terms of infections and deaths right now, while the public awaits the administration of the miraculous vaccines. The federal government has fallen behind its own goals for administering shots so far. In all that time, Trump did not hold any kind of national memorial, as the death toll rose, or visit hospitals or vaccination sites to talk to overwhelmed frontline health workers, who themselves have died in shocking numbers from Covid-19. Some weeks ago, the incoming president and vice-president Joe Biden and Kamala Harris announced that on the eve of their inaugurations there would be a national remembrance ceremony to commemorate those killed by the virus. The main event was at the National Mall, while cities coast to coast were encouraged to illuminate public buildings and ring church bells, to mark the crisis, the dead, the bereaved, the sick and those in hospital either trying to recover from Covid or trying to treat those suffering. The memorial service, held as the US weathers the most challenging stretch of pandemic thus far, and counts more than 400,000 deaths, has been welcomed by journalists, politicians, and viewers mourning the loss of loved ones who have died of Covid-19. On MSNBC, Eddie S Glaude Jr, a Princeton professor of African American studies was emotional as he discussed the event: “It’s hard sometimes, to remember, but that’s how we heal. It’s important to do that as a nation, that’s why we’re here today, between sundown and dusk, to shine lights in the darkness, along the sacred pool of reflection, to remember all whom we lost,” he said. Biden, his wife Jill Biden, vice-president-elect Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial, looking down the National Mall to the illuminated Washington Monument, beyond which lay the heavily-guarded US Capitol, where the incoming president and vice-president will be inaugurated tomorrow. More than a dozen civil rights groups are calling for a Republican election official in Georgia to resign after she called on state lawmakers to change voting rules so that Republicans “at least have a shot at winning.” The official, Alice O’Lenick, is one of two Republicans on the 5-member board of election and registration in Gwinnett County, which is just outside of Atlanta. O’Lenick, who is currently serving as the board’s chair, said she backs getting rid of no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia, a process Republicans put in place in 2005, and getting rid of ballot drop boxes. Her comments come after Georgia saw record turnout both in the November election and two US senate runoffs, all of which Democrats won in an upset. “I was on a Zoom call the other day and I said, ‘I’m like a dog with a bone. I will not let them end this session without changing some of these laws,’ “ O’Lenick said, according to the Gwinnett Daily Post. “They don’t have to change all of them, but they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning.” The coalition of civil rights groups said it was clear O’Lenick was pushing partisan interests and that she needed to resign. “Alice O’Lenick isn’t even trying to hide her bias against Democratic voters and voters of color in Gwinnett County,” the coalition said in a statement. “She has made clear that her only motivation in her position is pure partisanship, engaging openly in rhetoric that is more suited for a political party hack than an elections official. County election board members and chairs should celebrate high voter turnout, regardless of outcome, not advocate laws that will benefit one party over the other. Republicans in the Georgia legislature have pledged to reexamine the state’s voting laws this year. In addition to weighing whether to get rid of no-excuse absentee voting, they are also reportedly weighing implementing a new requirement to have voters provide a copy of their ID when they submit an absentee ballot. Voting rights groups say this would be an unnecessary hurdle - there was no evidence of fraud in 2020, and voters may not be easily able to submit a copy of their ID. O’Lenick also said she wants to examine the voter rolls in Gwinnett county to make sure only eligible voters are on them. Georgia has faced criticism in recent years for moving aggressively to remove voters from the rolls. The memorial included a rendition of “Amazing Grace” by Lori Marie Key, a nurse who works at the Saint Joseph Mercy Health System in Michigan. A video of Key, 29, singing at the hospital where she works became an online sensation last year. “When I’m at work, I sing – it gives me strength during difficult times and. I believe it helps heal,” she said at the memorial event. Biden, Harris hold memorial for those who died of Covid-19 Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their spouses Jill Biden and Douglas Emhoff have gathered at the reflecting pool of the Lincoln Memorial. “To honor the nearly 400,000 lives lost in the United States to this pandemic”, the memorial will “include illuminating 400 lights around the reflection pool”, the inauguration team said.