Trump’s New Chief of Staff Had a Starring Role in Trump Indictment

Donald Trump named one of his campaign co-chairs, Susie Wiles, as his White House chief of staff Thursday. But she also witnessed him break the law—and did nothing about it.

According to Trump’s indictment for mishandling classified documents, Trump showed Wiles a classified map during a 2021 meeting where he was discussing a military operation. The indictment didn’t name Wiles, but referred to a “PAC representative.” Later, ABC News, citing anonymous sources, identified Wiles as the representative.

Trump showed Wiles a map of an unidentified country, according to the indictment, while telling her about a military operation that he said “was not going well.” He said that he “should not be showing the map” to her and warned her “not to get too close.” Wiles did not have security clearance.

The indictment also mentioned that Wiles was part of a private chat on the secure messaging app Signal about whether Carlos De Oliveira, the property manager of the Mar-a-Lago estate, was loyal to Trump. De Oliveira was a co-defendant, along with Trump aide Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case for helping to move around and transport documents on the estate.

Wiles didn’t come forward after having seen classified documents that Trump shouldn’t have shown anyone, let alone possessed, calling into question whether she can attain the necessary security clearance for a high-level position in the White House. Her part in a discussion about loyalty hints at her making sure that De Oliveira wouldn’t provide damning information against Trump in his classified documents case.

In July, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissed the classified documents case against Trump, claiming that the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith to handle that case as well as Trump’s attempt to overturn the election on January 6, 2021 was unconstitutional. Trump faced 42 felony charges in the classified docs case related to willful retention of national security information, corruptly concealing documents, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Now that Trump will be returning to the White House, his choice of Wiles to be chief of staff shows that he is looking for personal loyalty above all else in the administration’s top positions. Wiles has already shown that she is willing to look the other way when Trump breaks the law, which means Trump can trust her to protect him if, as president, he decides to push his authority to its limits.

A potential key adviser in Donald Trump’s second administration may be compromised before he even sets foot in the White House.

In the run-up to election night, Chinese cyber-spies hacked into the main cell phone used by Todd Blanche, the MAGA leader’s primary defense attorney, reported ABC News. Blanche is currently being considered for Trump’s next White House counsel or a senior law enforcement–related role, apparently qualified by his work for Trump on the soon-to-be forty-seventh president’s January 6 criminal case and his Stormy Daniels hush-money conviction.

The extent of the data breach is unclear, but the FBI determined that Blanche’s communications with his family and friends had been compromised, according to unidentified sources that spoke with ABC. Investigators are reportedly still working to assess whether Blanche’s communications with Trump or other sensitive contacts had been affected by the hack.

But regardless of what else was compromised in the digital attack, Blanche’s exposure could still pose a national security risk should the suddenly vulnerable Trump ally continue his path toward the executive branch.

The Chinese hackers, working on behalf of Beijing’s intelligence services, reportedly first broke into Blanche’s phone several months ago, gaining access to his text messages and capturing audio recordings of his phone calls, ABC reported.

The hackers then proceeded to target private companies and individuals via Blanche’s compromised line, according to an FBI statement issued two weeks ago.

“After the FBI identified specific malicious activity targeting the sector, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) immediately notified affected companies, rendered technical assistance, and rapidly shared information to assist other potential victims,” the statement read. “Agencies across the U.S. Government are collaborating to aggressively mitigate this threat and are coordinating with our industry partners to strengthen cyber defenses across the commercial communications sector.”

The Kremlin is already shutting down Trump’s claim of military genius.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, the president-elect said repeatedly that he could end Russia’s two-year-long invasion of Ukraine in just 24 hours. Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, provided a more realistic assessment on Thursday. 

“Of course, it was a bit of an exaggeration when he said he would do it overnight,” Peskov said. However, the press secretary also admitted what we all already know: that Moscow is happy with a Trump presidency.  

“If the new administration seeks peace rather than continued conflict, it will be better than the previous one,” Peskov added.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin commented directly on Trump’s wild claim in his first comments following the election results. Speaking at a discussion club in Sochi, Putin first praised Trump for surviving his assassination attempt in July, calling him a “real man,” and then congratulated the president-elect. But the Russian president did not commit to anything regarding the war in Ukraine or ending it quickly, stating, “I do not know what is going to happen now. I have no clue.” 

Democratic Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey has been unseated by Republican challenger David McCormick in one of the country’s tightest and most expensive Senate races, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

McCormick won 48.9 percent of the vote, with 99 percent reporting, compared to Casey’s 48.5 percent.

Republicans have already secured control of the Senate, seizing 53 seats for a majority. Three races have yet to be called.

Pennsylvania’s Senate race was extremely tight, and hours after the Senate had been called Wednesday morning, the race was still too close to call, with McCormick leading by less than 1 percent, or approximately 52,000 votes.

As mail-in voting drew to a close late last month, McCormick joined Donald Trump in a lawsuit against Bucks County over long lines at polling stations as people tried to register for mail-in voting. A judge extended the deadline to sign up for mail-in voting in the county—a win for voting rights, but due to a request based on totally exaggerated claims. Bucks County supported President Joe Biden in 2020, topping Trump by more than 17,000 votes.

Ahead of Election Day, McCormick campaigned with failed presidential candidate Nikki Haley in the hopes of attracting the support of moderate voters.

Meanwhile, during a late-October rally for Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, former President Barack Obama lauded Casey. “All that guy cares about is doing the job and looking after the people he was elected to serve. That’s the kind of person we need to send back to Washington,” Obama said.

Last month, McCormick’s campaign was flooded with more than $108 million in donations from outside groups, absolutely dwarfing his own campaign’s previous $22.2 million in spending. McCormick has received $45.3 million from Keystone Renewal, a GOP-funding Pennsylvania-based super PAC underwritten by about 70 megadonors.

Casey’s campaign, including PAC donations, spent $110 million by the middle of October. Casey polled ahead of McCormick throughout the race, drawing stronger support from Democrats than McCormick drew from Republicans.

Donald Trump’s worthless stock just plunged again, all but wiping out the president-elect’s victory gains.  

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, or DJT,  sank on Thursday, after briefly spiking in the hours following the announcement that he’d won the presidency. 

The stock gained nearly 6 percent Wednesday but dropped more than 20 percent in afternoon trading the following day, according to CNBC. This is likely due to profit-taking from investors looking to cash in on Trump’s postelection bump and well aware that without the election to drive Trump’s stock prices, there isn’t much more DJT has to offer. 

Trump Media is a particularly volatile stock because it is tied to a service that no one really uses: Truth Social, currently the epicenter of Trump’s online ravings and not much else. As such, DJT functioned as a meme stock, rising and falling in tandem with Trump’s election prospects. It seems that since the presidential race has finally come to an end, the stock has been rendered useless for now.

In a surprise filing Tuesday, Trump Media reported that it lost more than $19 million in its third quarter this year. The company had only $2.6 million in revenue, while racking up a net loss of $363 million for the first nine months of 2024. 

The same day, DJT’s stock value plummeted as investors furiously traded shares, and trading was temporarily halted five times. 

Trading had previously been frozen in mid-October after a wild trading session caused the stock price to plummet. Frenzied trading in October indicated that investors were looking to ride the stock to some easy gains following Trump’s election victory, and now they have. Any gains the stock saw with Trump’s victory have now been reduced back to nothing.