memeorandum: Electoral College voters in spotlight (The Hill)

1:35 PM ET, December 14, 2016

Top Items:

Kyle Cheney / Politico:

Lessig: 20 Trump electors could flip — Larry Lessig, a Harvard University constitutional law professor who made a brief run for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, claimed Tuesday that 20 Republican members of the Electoral College are considering voting against Donald Trump …

New York Times:

Buck Up, Democrats, and Fight Like Republicans — On Monday, members of the Electoral College will vote in Donald J. Trump as president. Though he lost the election by nearly three million votes and almost daily generates headlines about new scandals, the Democratic Party is doing little to stop him.

Discussion: New York Magazine, EgbertoWillies.com, Scripting News, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, No More Mister Nice Blog, Althouse, Daily Kos and Politico

The Hill:

Electoral College voters in spotlight — The 538 delegates to the Electoral College will gather at governors' offices and statehouses across the country Monday to make President-elect Donald Trump — 's victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton — official.

Discussion: Politico

Nolan D. McCaskill / Politico:
Trump tells Wisconsin: Victory was a surprise

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Associated Press:
The Latest: Judge Says Colorado Electors Can't Switch Votes

Discussion: Politico

Edward-Isaac Dovere / Politico:

How Clinton lost Michigan — and blew the election — Everybody could see Hillary Clinton was cooked in Iowa. So when, a week-and-a-half out, the Service Employees International Union started hearing anxiety out of Michigan, union officials decided to reroute their volunteers …

Discussion: Mediaite, Power Line, RedState, Hot Air, TheBlaze, Outside the Beltway, The Daily Caller, Washington Free Beacon, The Federalist and twitchy.com

Blake Hounshell / Politico:

Rex Tillerson's 3 a.m. phone call — It was nearly 3 o'clock in the morning when the phone rang in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, an impoverished, war-torn country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. — Hours earlier, Rex Tillerson, then a young, up-and-coming country manager at Exxon …

Discussion: American Prospect, The Nation, CNNMoney, VICE, Washington Post, Raw Story, CNN, Common Dreams, Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones and Rush Limbaugh

Michael Kranish / Washington Post:
Trump wasn't happy with his State Department finalists. Then he heard a new name.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Politico, Salon, Hullabaloo, BillMoyers.com and GreatAgain

Karen Tumulty / Washington Post:
Trump recruits army of chief executives to battle with the system in Washington

Discussion: Political Wire

Chris Isidore / CNNMoney:
The problem with Rex Tillerson's nine-figure nest egg

Discussion: Independent Journal Review, The Atlantic and LGBTQ Nation

Theodore Schleifer / CNN:
Gates, Rice, Baker pushed Tillerson nomination despite ties to ExxonMobil

Discussion: New York Times, Real Clear Politics, Mediaite, Townhall.com, ABC News, CNBC, Talking Points Memo, Liberty Unyielding, Media Matters for America and The Atlantic

New York Times:
Under Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil Forged Its Own Path Abroad

Discussion: alan.com, Business Insider, Gizmodo, New Century Times, Religion News Service, The Guardian, Politico, Washington Post, Mashable, Rewire, Hit & Run, The Atlantic, Taylor Marsh and Grist, more at Mediagazer »

Daniel Wagner / BuzzFeed:

Trump Must Give Up Hotel Before Inauguration, Agency Tells Lawmakers — Major development in dispute over Donald Trump's conflicts of interest: The government agency that leases a taxpayer-owned landmark for Trump's Washington hotel has told lawmakers that the president-elect will be in breach …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Atlantic, NBC News, Talking Points Memo, Jezebel and The Week

Allegra Kirkland / Talking Points Memo:
Federal Agency Warns Trump He Must Give Up DC Hotel Before Inauguration

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Business Insider and Arkansas Blog, Arkansas Times

Byron Tau / Wall Street Journal:
Agency Has Ruled Trump Will Be In Violation of Washington Hotel Lease, Democrats Say

Discussion: Political Wire

Craig Whitlock / Washington Post:

Trump's national security adviser shared secrets without permission, files show — A secret U.S. military investigation in 2010 determined that Michael T. Flynn, the retired Army general tapped to serve as national security adviser in the Trump White House, “inappropriately shared” …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, Mother Jones, RedState, ThinkProgress, Jezebel, Business Insider and Daily Kos

Washington Post:
Read the military investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

William D. Cohan / Vanity Fair:

Huma vs. the “Night Stalkers” — After a stunning election loss, the knives appear to be out in Clintonworld. — “Maybe I'm just pissed off, but I really don't give a s**t about what happens to Huma to be honest with you,” one close adviser to Hillary Clinton told me recently.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Hot Air, The Week and Instapundit

Daniel Lippman / Politico:

Don Trump Jr. involved in INTERIOR search — WAYNE BERMAN up for TRADE REP — TRUMP'S TECH SUMMIT — SPOTTED AT DAVID RUBENSTEIN'S PARTY — B'DAY: Kirsten Powers — By JAKE SHERMAN (sherman@politico.com; @JakeSherman) and ANNA PALMER (anna@politico.com; @apalmerdc) with DANIEL LIPPMAN …

Discussion: Mediaite, Talking Points Memo and Washington Post

Mark Hensch / The Hill:
Trump's son involved in Interior secretary hunt: report

Discussion: Politico, RedState, CNN, Mediaite and The Week

Jason Kurtz / CNN:

NFL great Brown on meeting Trump: ‘I fell in love with him’ — Jim Brown on Trump: He has “my admiration” — (CNN)NFL legend Jim Brown stopped by Trump Tower Tuesday for a meeting pegged as a discussion about issues facing the African-American community, saying he “fell in love” with President-elect Donald Trump.

Discussion: Townhall.com, Washington Post, twitchy.com, TheBlaze, Baltimore Sun, The Gateway Pundit and Mediaite

Gregory Krieg / CNN:
White males dominate Trump's top cabinet posts

Discussion: RedState and BizPac Review

Kenneth P. Vogel / Politico:

Divisions deepen inside Trump Tower — Donald Trump's White House-in-waiting is already being roiled by divisions, with the conservative outsiders who helped power his historic victory colliding with a Republican Party establishment muscling its way in. — Insiders paint a picture …

Discussion: Political Wire

S.P. Sullivan / New Jersey Online:

N.J. trooper pulled over women to ask them out, covered it up, state says — TRENTON — A New Jersey state trooper has been suspended without pay after an internal investigation found he was pulling over women to ask them out on dates and falsifying police records to cover it up, authorities said.

Discussion: Law News, New York's PIX11 and The Root

TMZ.com:

Alan Thicke — Dead at 69 — EXCLUSIVE — 5:50 AM — Robin Thicke posted on Instagram about his father's passing. — TV icon Alan Thicke has died ... TMZ has learned. — We're told Alan had a heart attack while he was playing hockey with his 19-year-old son, Carter.

Discussion: BizPac Review, New York Times, New Urban Legends, Mashable, Scared Monkeys, Jezebel, AOL, The Week, NBC News, The Big Lead, Refinery29, FOX2now.com and Deadline

Agence France-Presse:

IBM unveils plan to hire 25,000 in US on eve of Trump meeting — 12k — US technology giant IBM said Tuesday it would hire 25,000 people in the country over the next four years, a day before President-elect Donald Trump meets with tech industry leaders. — About 6,000 of those hirings …

Discussion: TheBlaze, The Gateway Pundit and The Last Tradition

Hannah Al-othman / Daily Mail:
IBM to hire 25,000 more workers in the US in the next four years and invest $1billion …

Discussion: John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Hot Air

Noah Browning / Reuters:

Ex-CIA chief says Trump risks blame for an attack if he skips briefings — Former CIA director Leon Panetta said on Wednesday that President-elect Donald Trump risked being blamed after any potential attack on the United States if he refused to receive more regular intelligence briefings.

Discussion: TheBlaze, Talking Points Memo, AOL and Politico

Jackie Calmes / New York Times:

Obama Administration Bars States From Withholding Federal Money From Planned Parenthood — WASHINGTON — Mindful of the clock ticking down to a Trump presidency, the Obama administration on Wednesday issued a final rule to bar states from withholding federal family-planning funds …

Discussion: New York Magazine and Daily Kos

Sam Stein / The Huffington Post:

GOP Leaders Ignored Repeated Requests To Go Further In Condemning Russia's Hacking — The Speaker, Majority Leader and RNC Chair each turned down calls for help from their Democratic counterparts. — In mid-October, as the presidential campaign turned daily over the release of hacked emails …

Discussion: Daily Kos, twitchy.com, AOL, Talking Points Memo and New York Times, more at Mediagazer »

Alexis McAdams / Fox 59:

Indiana town without a police department after every Bunker Hill officer quits — INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - An entire Indiana town has no police officers after every single one walked off the job. The officers blame the Bunker Hill Town Council for the situation.

Discussion: AOL and The Daily Caller