Happy Friday! It seems like Christmas tree decorations get more unconventional every year, but the Library of Congress is (accidentally) taking things to new heights. Instead of adorning the top of the tree with a historic “Liberty Cap”—a little hat—the contractors who decorated the Library of Congress’ Christmas tree plopped a … psychedelic “liberty cap” mushroom on top.
Groovy.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant and key witness in special counsel David Weiss’ investigation of Hunter Biden, pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges of fabricating claims that President Joe Biden and his son each took $5 million bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The claims were at the center of the House GOP’s effort to impeach the elder Biden, but Smirmov admitted that it was “false derogatory information.” Smirnov faces 48 to 72 months in prison, as well as $675,502 in restitution charges after pleading guilty to creating a false record in a federal investigation, obstruction of justice, and failing to pay taxes and penalties on $2.1 million in income for 2020 through 2022.
- In an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday, President-elect Donald Trump said he is committed to ensuring access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Pressed on whether his administration would comply with the requests of pro-life allies to either change Food and Drug Administration guidelines expanding access to the pill or direct the Department of Justice to enforce the Comstock Act—a 19th-century law that could be interpreted to ban the mailing of abortion-related medical equipment across state lines—Trump initially hedged. When questioned on whether the FDA would keep access open, Trump said, “That would be my commitment.”
- The Department of Justice on Thursday asked a U.S. appeals court to reject an emergency motion filed by ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, asking the court to temporarily block legislation that threatens to ban the social media app in the United States. The DOJ cited national security concerns in its request that the court allow the law to go into effect. ByteDance and TikTok filed their motion on Monday, arguing that the pause would give President-elect Trump’s incoming administration time to “determine its policy.” Trump has waffled on his support for the divestment law, which would see TikTok banned in the U.S. on January 19, 2025, if ByteDance does not sell the app to a non-Chinese company.
- Mike Whitaker, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, announced Thursday that he will resign on Inauguration Day next year. Whitaker, who has served in the role since October 2023, would be leaving his position—normally a five-year appointment—early. Under his leadership, the air travel industry reversed an accelerating near-collision rate that had begun after the pandemic. However, it still faces significant challenges. It’s not clear whom President-elect Trump may select to fill the vacancy.
- A man who identified himself as Travis Timmerman, a missing American, was found this week in Syria after apparently being released from prison by rebels who overthrew the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Timmerman was found on the main road outside a town east of Damascus on Thursday. He said he’d been imprisoned after illegally entering Syria via Lebanon seven months ago on what he described as a Christian pilgrimage. The State Department has said it was “seeking to provide support” for the man.
- President Joe Biden on Thursday commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 people and pardoned 39 others in what the White House claimed was the largest number of commutations by a president in a single day. Biden said he pardoned people who were found guilty of non-violent offenses, including drug offenses, and “have shown successful rehabilitation.” The commutations affected offenders who were placed in home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and those who would have received lighter sentences under current laws than those in effect when they were sentenced.
- President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he intended to nominate former news anchor and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake to lead Voice of America, a government-funded news outlet published and broadcast around the world in more than 40 languages. Lake has been a vocal proponent of 2020 election fraud conspiracies.
- The Justice Department’s inspector general released a report on Thursday reviewing the FBI’s handling of intelligence-gathering before and during the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The report said there were 26 paid, confidential FBI informants in Washington that day, none of whom had permission or instructions from the FBI to engage in the illegal activity. There were no undercover FBI agents among the rioters, the report said, batting down an oft-made claim from President-elect Donald Trump and his allies. The report panned the agency for failing to canvass all of its field offices following the 2020 election for intelligence from informants on threats to the election’s certification.
Forever West

As Winter Sets In, Ukraine Faces a Turning Point

French President Emmanuel Macron recently hosted both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President-elect Donald Trump to discuss how the incoming American leader will approach Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Coming out of the meeting, Zelensky sounded a conciliatory note commending Trump for “his strong resolve to bring this war to a fair end.”
The flattery continued: “I told President Trump that Putin fears only him and, perhaps, China,” Zelensky tweeted. “And that’s the truth—only decisiveness can bring this war to a just end and ensure lasting peace.”
But Zelensky’s warm words may be wishful thinking.
Trump’s imminent ascension to the White House comes as Russia slowly but surely advances on increasingly outnumbered Ukrainian defenders, with both sides becoming more war-weary. As the current administration scrambles to rush aid to Ukraine, it increasingly looks like the returning president will be a pivotal player in deciding whether potential negotiations promise peace for Ukraine or merely a brief ceasefire.
With neither Russia nor Ukraine able to force a decisive breakthrough after nearly three years of war, the battlefronts in Eastern Ukraine and Russia’s Kursk region …
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,525-word item on Ukraine’s uncertain fate is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- China’s Xi Jinping is trying, and mostly failing, to crack down on gambling by his citizens—within China and without. “Overlooking the ocean atop Singapore’s glitzy Marina Bay Sands casino, the Chinese Communist Party is out of sight but, for at least a few patrons, probably not out of mind,” The Economist reported. “Earlier this year the Chinese embassy in the city-state sought to ‘solemnly remind’ its citizens that gambling while abroad, even in lawfully operated casinos, remains illegal. ‘Keep yourself clean’ and report fellow Chinese caught having a flutter, diplomats instructed. … Some state-owned firms have made staff sign a pledge to abstain from gambling. The navy has warned sailors that online betting will end in addiction, a fate akin to being ‘possessed by demons’. Yet China’s love of wagering endures. In Macau, the world’s casino capital, it is an economic necessity. Gambling provides 85% of state inflows and employs one in five workers. The former Portuguese colony, on China’s south coast, raked in $35bn in gaming revenue in 2019, about three times the amount in Las Vegas.”
- For his Substack Very Serious, Josh Barro reflected on the life of Jordan Neely, the homeless man who died in the New York subway last year after a bystander, Daniel Penny, put him in a chokehold. “One through-line in the story is the immense amount of government resources that were thrown at trying to keep Neely out of trouble,” he wrote. “Through police, courts, jails, homeless outreach, and treatment facilities, New York’s taxpayers spent lavishly on an effort to keep Neely alive, in mental health care, and not posing a danger to the public or himself. But it didn’t work because he was insane and he was not forced to accept the care he needed—except during a stint he spent in jail on Rikers Island, when he was successfully medicated. … I do think it would behoove progressives with pat takes about how what Neely really needed was housing and care to know that he was offered these things over and over again by that extremely well-funded apparatus. If you wanted him to have housing and care, you needed to be prepared to force them upon him; and if you weren’t, then you don’t have a solution to the problems of people like him.”
Presented Without Comment
CBS News: Trump Invites China’s Xi Jinping to Inauguration
Ambassadors and other diplomats are typically invited to inaugurations, but State Department records dating back to 1874 show that a foreign leader has never attended a transfer-of-power ceremony.
Also Presented Without Comment
NBC News: Iranian ‘Mothership’ Isn’t Behind Drone Sightings Over New Jersey, Pentagon Says
Also Also Presented Without Comment
The Hill: Meta Donated $1m to Trump Inaugural Fund After Zuckerberg Met With President-Elect
In the Zeitgeist
Are your Morning Dispatchers perhaps slightly unconvinced by brutalism as an architectural style? Are we still probably going to see The Brutalist? Yes and yes.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Scott Lincicome demonstrated (🔒) that there aren’t actually millions of men “missing” from the workforce, and Nick Catoggio explored (🔒) why Christopher Wray resigned.
- On the podcasts: Sarah Isgur is joined on The Dispatch Podcast by Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes, and Megan McArdle to discuss what the praise of Luigi Mangione says about some corners of America.
- On the site: Kevin Williamson says so long to President Joe Biden, Charles Hilu reports from a No Labels event, and Shoshana Weissmann explains how easy it would be for Congress to save kids from child identity theft.
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