Free Republic

His super PAC, which is said to have amassed $400 million alongside its nonprofit arm, has grown even more influential. And powerful groups for congressional Republicans are being stocked with Trump allies.President Trump is harnessing the Republican Party’s all-encompassing deference to him to exert even greater control over the G.O.P. big-money world, which had long been one of the party’s final remaining redoubts of Trump skepticism. For years, the super PACs allied with House and Senate Republicans have been some of the most powerful and independent fiefs in American politics, raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in each...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave representatives of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency full access to the federal payment system late on Friday, according to three people familiar with the change, handing Elon Musk and the team he is leading a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending. The new authority follows a standoff this week with a top Treasury official who had resisted allowing Mr. Musk’s lieutenants into the department’s payment system, which sends out money on behalf of the entire federal government. The official, a career civil servant named David Lebryk, was put on leave and...

Just four days after being named the next White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles was waiting patiently for an espresso drink at a five-star hotel in Las Vegas.Overnight, she had become one of the most powerful people in America. The value of a minute of her time could not be higher during the presidential transition: Republican strivers are hounding her for desirable gigs, and back at Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald J. Trump has kept courting controversy with his picks.Yet here she was thousands of miles away, flanked only by a security guard, alone in line at a Four Seasons coffee...

Their fast-evolving political friendship has become a potential minefield, as Mr. Musk’s sprawling businesses may present conflicts of interest if Mr. Trump is elected in November.In a live-streamed conversation on X with former President Donald J. Trump last month, Elon Musk raised the idea of a “government efficiency commission.” Such a council could ensure that taxpayers’ money was “spent in a good way,” Mr. Musk said during their more-than-two-hour talk. “I’d love it,” Mr. Trump replied. On Thursday, Mr. Trump followed up on Mr. Musk’s suggestion. In a speech at the Economic Club of New York, Mr. Trump said he...

A little-known Democratic super PAC backed by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest donors is quietly unleashing a torrent of television spending in the final weeks of the presidential campaign in a last-minute attempt to oust President Donald Trump, Recode has learned. The barrage of late money — which includes at least $22 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz — figures among one of the most expensive and aggressive plays yet by tech billionaires, who have spent years studying how to maximize the return they get from each additional dollar they spend on politics. Moskovitz is placing his single biggest public...

A reflective Jeb Bush said he had no regrets Thursday about his failed presidential bid, saying in his first interview since leaving the race that Donald Trump could still lose the nomination fight. "There's a possibility that he won't get 50% on the first ballot," Bush told CNN's Jamie Gangel, giving his first television interview exclusively to CNN after dropping out of the presidential race in February. "And if he doesn't do that, there are a whole lot of people who don't believe he's the proper guy."

Washington (CNN)After Ben Carson bashed swirling reports of Republican Party officials discussing the possibility of a brokered convention, Donald Trump wrote him a note to thank him for his "excellent" point. "I watched what Ben said. I agreed with him 100%. I even wrote him a little note. I thought it was excellent, and frankly, he may be right," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper in Des Moines before holding a campaign rally. "I've been hearing about these closed door meetings, and I don't like that." http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/11/politics/donald-trump-ben-carson-brokered-convention/index.html

The Republican frontrunner joined the rest of the GOP field in saying that he would support the North American pipeline. "If I am elected President I will immediately approve the Keystone XL pipeline. No impact on environment & lots of jobs for U.S." Trump tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

Washigton (CNN)An anti-abortion group has reportedly claimed credit for hacking Planned Parenthood, the women's health organization that has been under scrutiny for recently released videos showing officials from the group casually discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue.