Donald Trump is now fundraising off the President Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter.

“President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday named Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman who is the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser on Arab and Middle Eastern affairs,” CNBC reports.

Thomas Zimmer: “Trump insists on nominating clowns and buffoons and is himself inevitably a chaotic presence. But he also brings people like Vought with him into power. Many people tend to think that the extremists, the nutty MAGA people, are inherently incompetent; and that conversely, when you go up on the competence scale, you are likely to encounter fewer ideological extremists.”

“Vought, however, is a fully competent, utterly committed radical ideologue.”

Wall Street Journal: “Musk’s scorched-earth tactics have sent waves of concern through his lengthy list of business rivals, who over the years have included Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. They have watched him ascend to an unprecedented level of power for a private citizen while continuing to nurse his private business grievances.”

“The richest man in the world is poised to have significant influence not only over how his six companies, including X, Tesla and SpaceX, interact with the federal government—SpaceX has accumulated more than $15 billion in federal contracts over the last decade—but also over how the new administration treats his rivals.”

Washington Post: “By assembling a crew of advisers not from the ranks of career bureaucrats but from a hodgepodge of right-wing internet personalities and Fox News hosts, Trump has built America’s first influencer administration, potentially transforming how Washington reaches everyday Americans — and giving rise to new forms of conflict of interest.”

“The picks — like Trump’s private-jet group photos — seem designed to drum up attention, and the president-elect has announced many of his Cabinet nominations on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns a controlling stake in through his company, Trump Media & Technology Group.”

“But they could also help market Trump’s political ideas to a national audience.”

The author of an email critical of Fox News host-turned-Trump Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth threatened New Yorker writer Jane Mayer that “if you print that, I will deny I wrote it,” and when Mayer reminded him “that it had been sent from the same personal e-mail account that he still uses,” the author wrote, “I don’t care. I’ll just say it never happened.”

Washington Post: “The nine-minute infomercial embedded into Oz’s daytime talk show was sponsored by the drug’s manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, which Oz twice referred to as a ‘trusted partner.’”

“The segment, one of the earliest instances of Oz promoting Ozempic, showcases the financial ties between the renowned heart surgeon’s media business and companies whose fortunes he would have a hand in influencing as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.”

“Unflattering stories about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s personal life and influential criticisms of his public health stances are already starting to pile up — more than a month and a half before President-elect Trump takes office and can even officially nominate him to lead Health and Human Services,” Axios reports.

“Kennedy can only afford to lose three Republican senators’ votes, assuming all Senate Democrats vote against him. The question is how much the handful of wavering members will accept.”

New York Times: Distrustful of health agencies, these voters cheer Trump’s picks to run them.

Politico: “Even if Trump and the FBI ultimately work out a deal, it may well involve a less rigorous set of protocols than the ones that have long prevailed in Washington…”

“A quieter conversation is going on already among insiders who work on the often infuriating background-check ritual: What would such a transformation mean for how the capital does business?”

New York Times: Schumer presses for FBI checks and Senate consideration of Trump nominees.

“Some of President-elect Donald Trump’s top advisers in recent weeks warned him it would be problematic to nominate Kash Patel, one of his most loyal foot soldiers, to lead the FBI, even as it became increasingly clear Trump was leaning in that direction,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“They cautioned that Patel not only lacked the right experience, but they feared his embrace of controversial theories could hurt his chances at Senate confirmation…”

“Trump ignored those aides and chose Patel anyway in a Saturday night decision that sent shock waves through the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump now hopes to install the bombastic, hard-line critic of the bureau as its leader, the latest step in the president-elect’s long-promised plans to remake the nation’s law-enforcement and intelligence agencies more fully into an arm of his agenda.”

New York Times: Kash Patel would bring bravado and baggage to FBI role.

Jane Mayer: “A whistle-blower report and other documents suggest that Trump’s nominee to run the Pentagon was forced out of previous leadership positions for financial mismanagement, sexist behavior, and being repeatedly intoxicated on the job.”

Said one person: “I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary.”

Peter Baker: “His first selection for attorney general collapsed in spectacular fashion. His choice for defense secretary is awash in scandal. His picks for intelligence, health and other posts are being panned. But if anyone thought that President-elect Donald Trump might be chastened, he has quickly demonstrated otherwise.”

“Even with so many appointees already under fire, Mr. Trump has doubled down on defiance as he assembles his next administration. Rather than turning to more credentialed and respected choices with easier paths to Senate confirmation, Mr. Trump in rapid-fire fashion keeps naming more ideological warriors, conspiracy theorists and now even family members to senior government positions.”

Tom Nichols: “For Trump, naming Patel to the post serves several purposes. First, Trump is taking his razor-thin election win as a mandate to rule as he pleases, and Patel is the perfect nominee to prove that he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Even knowing what they know, Americans chose to return Trump to office, and he has taken their decision as a license to do whatever he wants—including giving immense power to someone like Patel.”

“Second, Trump wants to show that the objections of senior elected Republicans are of no consequence to him, and that he can politically flatten them at will. Some of his nominations seem like a trollish flex, a way to display his power by naming people to posts and daring others to stop him. Trump has always thought of the GOP as his fiefdom and GOP leaders as his vassals—and if the Senate folds on Patel and others, he may be proved right on both counts.”

Ruth Marcus: A dangerous and unqualified choice for the FBI.

Axios: “Trump advisers are running out of words to describe what’s coming in January. They say he feels empowered and emboldened, vindicated and validated, and eager to stretch the boundaries of power.”

“He’s egged on by Elon Musk and others — and picking trusted brawlers for the toughest, most controversial tasks.”

“President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that he wants to replace Christopher Wray, the FBI director, with Kash Patel, a hard-line critic of the bureau who has called for shutting down the agency’s Washington headquarters, firing its leadership and bringing the nation’s law enforcement agencies ‘to heel,’” the New York Times reports.

“Mr. Trump’s planned nomination of Mr. Patel has echoes of his failed attempt to place another partisan firebrand, Matt Gaetz, atop the Justice Department as attorney general. It could run into hurdles in the Senate, which will be called on to confirm him, and is sure to send shock waves through the FBI, which Mr. Trump and his allies have come to view as part of a ‘deep state’ conspiracy against him.”

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is in line to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in the next Trump administration, is well-known for promoting conspiracy theories and vaccine skepticism in the United States,” the New York Times reports.

“But Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, has also spent years working abroad to undermine policies that have been pillars of global health policy for a half-century, records show.”

“He has done this by lending his celebrity, and the name of his nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, to a network of overseas chapters that sow distrust in vaccine safety and spread misinformation far and wide.”