“President Donald Trump’s transactional approach largely sidelined low-level offenders who had been waiting years after filing petitions through the Justice Department and elevated those with personal connections to the White House — or the money to pay someone with those connections,” the Washington Post reports.

“Even Trump allies who advised the White House on clemency say they were startled and disappointed by who was on the final list.”

“Ivanka Trump used her status to help obtain over 140 pardons and commutations for victims of injustice as well as her father’s cronies, and she’s now plotting her political reemergence by highlighting the virtues of some of the clemency grants,” Axios reports.

“While President Trump’s eldest daughter dismisses talk she is weighing a campaign against Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) criminal justice reform is a popular, bipartisan issue to associate with as she plots her future endeavors.”

“Former President Donald Trump parted ways with the Screen Actors Guild in a bombastic letter Thursday as he was facing disciplinary measures with the union,” Politico reports.

“The union’s board voted in January to refer Trump to the union’s disciplinary committee, citing his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection that left at least six people dead and ‘a reckless campaign of misinformation aimed at discrediting and ultimately threatening the safety of journalists, many of whom are SAG-AFTRA members.'”

“Some of the organizers of the Jan. 6 Trump rally that led to the deadly storming of the Capitol are planning another series of events across the country, along with a recruiting effort to attract 2022 primary challengers against Republicans who they say ‘betrayed’ former President Donald Trump,” ABC News reports.

From the organizers: “To date we’ve identified 13 unlucky Republicans up for reelection in 2022 who MUST BE DEFEATED. We will be visiting each of their districts to recruit and vet primary challengers in the coming months.”

“Disagreements over legal strategy weren’t the only reason Donald Trump’s defense team collapsed just days before his second impeachment trial,” Axios reports.

“The notoriously stingy former president and his lead lawyer, Butch Bowers, wrangled over compensation during a series of tense phone calls.”

“Former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party leveraged false claims of voter fraud and promises to overturn the election to raise more than a quarter-billion dollars in November and December as hundreds of thousands of trusting supporters listened and opened their wallets,” the New York Times reports.

“But the Trump campaign spent only a tiny fraction of its haul on lawyers and other legal bills related to those claims. Instead, Mr. Trump and the G.O.P. stored away much of the money — $175 million or so — even as they continued to issue breathless, aggressive and often misleading appeals for cash that promised it would help with recounts, the rooting out of election fraud and even the Republican candidates’ chances in the two Senate runoff races in Georgia.”

The Scottish Parliament will hold a vote this week into whether the government should pursue an “unexplained wealth order” to investigate the source of financing for Donald Trump’s Scottish resorts, The Scotsman reports.

A must-read: The New York Times reconstructs Donal Trump’s 77 days trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

New York Times: “Mr. Trump’s strongest fund-raising came in the immediate aftermath of the election… The donations were made public over the weekend in a Federal Election Commission filing by WinRed.”

“The new records show that his fund-raising fell sharply in December compared with November, with an especially notably dip after Dec. 14, the day the Electoral College formally cast its ballots to make Mr. Biden the nation’s 46th president.”

A New York Supreme Court judge ruled Friday that a former Trump Organization law firm was obliged to hand over documents to state investigators, Bloomberg reports.

In a newly discovered video from a December 19 “Stop the Steal” rally in Arizona, organizer Ali Alexander bragged about being “on the phone” with “people from the White House” and appeared to encourage physical violence against members of Congress and other politicians who he claimed helped “steal” the election, Media Matters reports.

At that same rally, Alexander appeared to advocate for physical attacks against members of Congress who he said helped “steal” the election, calling it a “moral obligation” to do so. 

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis said the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol was “fomented” by former President Donald Trump, and exemplified the “internal threats” faced by the U.S. that should be viewed “with every bit as much gravity as the external problems, and perhaps more so,” Yahoo News reports.

Michael Kruse: “What will Trump’s post-presidency look like — and what will it do to America? There is no real precedent in the annals of the nation — and thus no real playbook for how to manage the kind of civic disruption it is likely to cause. But from history, and from people who’ve known him, it’s possible to stitch together a more-than-educated guess at what the country’s in for — a portrait of the nation’s first real anti-presidency.”

Politico: “The only person charged in the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins of the probe of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia was spared prison time for altering an email used to support a surveillance application. Former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith, 38, received the sentence of 12 months probation.”