Comment on On this date in 1862

Charlie Savage: “The end of the two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump on Monday left momentous, unsettled questions about constraints on criminal wrongdoing by presidents, from the scope of presidential immunity to whether the Justice Department may continue to appoint outside special counsels to investigate high-level wrongdoing.” Kim Wehle: “It is hard to escape the grim conclusion: No president out of office has done more to grow the power of the presidency than Donald Trump.

“President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Mexico could respond to Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs with levies of its own, warning the economic consequences would be dire,” Bloomberg reports. Sadi Sheinbaum: “One tariff will be followed by another in response, and so on until we put common companies at risk. The main exporters from Mexico to the US are General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford Motor Company, which arrived 80 years ago.

“The Texas committee that examines all pregnancy-related deaths in the state will not review cases from 2022 and 2023, the first two years after Texas’s near-total abortion ban took effect, leaving any potential deaths related to abortion bans during those years uninvestigated by the 23 doctors, medical professionals and other specialists who make up the group,” the Washington Post reports.

Staffers to Vice President Kamala Harris say her presidential campaign is $20 million in debt, The Hill reports.

“CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, already busy anchoring the network’s news-heavy 9 p.m. show, will take on another high-pressure role as chief White House correspondent,” the Washington Post reports. “In doing so, she will become CNN’s first prime-time anchor to also serve as its top White House reporter.”

Politico: “The British government has been wargaming how to respond to potential Trump tariffs on U. K. goods, with officials briefing ministers that they can repurpose former EU measures against the U. S. without any need for further investigation.” “The U. K. carried over tariffs from the European Union after Brexit that were placed on U.