America’s new dawn: White House in darkness (aside from the Residence) as Trump moves out

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The White House was in darkness this morning aside from the Residence, where Trump is gathering the last of his things before moving out to make way for Joe Biden, who will be inaugurated as America’s 46th President at noon. 

President Trump and Melania have just boarded Marine to be taken to Joint Base Andrews, where Air Force One is waiting with a red carpet rolled out in front of it. 

The pair stopped briefly to speak to the media before they boarded the helicopter. Melania was dressed in all black and wore sunglasses. 

Trump’s early departure for Florida has caused a logistical and security nightmare since he is taking with him the nuclear codes. They will then be flown back to DC to be handed over to Biden this afternoon. 

On Tuesday night, Trump made one of his final acts in office granting pardons to dozens of rappers, millionaires and strategists, including his old friend Steve Bannon. 

As he makes his way to Florida on Wednesday morning, Biden will begin his day by attending mass with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. He will then watch stars including Jennifer Lopez and Lady Gaga serenade him on the Captiol before delivering his address to the nation and being sworn in.  

This year, due to the ongoing pandemic and fears of a security threat, the mall – where thousands normally line up to greet the new President and First Lady – will be closed to the public.  

A smaller-than-usual crowd of guests including former Presidents and lawmakers will attend the inauguration ceremony in a socially-distanced manner instead.  

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The inaugural theme for this year’s ceremony, ‘America United’, aims to restore the ‘soul of America’, bring the nation together and create a ‘path to a brighter future’, according to the incoming administration. 

The Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) has announced a series of events to be broadcast throughout Inauguration Day that Americans can watch live from home as people have been ordered to refrain from attending in person.

In lieu of the usual crowds, approximately 191,500 flags will cover the National Mall in honor of those unable to travel to Washington due to the pandemic.

Three hours before Biden will be sworn in as the 46th U.S. President, he will be attending mass at St. Matthew the Apostle Cathedral with members of the House and Senate at 8:45am. 

Guests will then begin arriving on the steps of the Capitol at around 11am. 

Because of the ongoing pandemic, organizers have slashed attendance from 200,000 down to just 1,000 people.

Most members of Congress are expected to be in attendance (and have all been permitted plus-ones), as are three of the four living former presidents: Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. 

Former first ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton, will also be present.

President Trump will not be attending.

 He confirmed his absence in a tweet earlier this month shortly before he was permanently suspended from the social media platform.

Instead, Trump will leave DC on Air Force One at around 8am, with his destination set for his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida. 

He is set to become the first president in more than a century to not attend his successor’s inauguration. Only three presidents have previously abstained, with the last, Andrew Johnson, coming in 1869.

Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, has confirmed he will be attending, along with his wife, Karen.   

President Trump will not be attending. He confirmed his absence in a tweet earlier this month shortly before he was permanently suspended from the social media platform.

Instead, Trump will leave DC on Air Force One at around 8am, with his destination set for his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida.

He is set to become the first president in more than a century to not attend his successor’s inauguration. Only three presidents have previously abstained, with the last, Andrew Johnson, coming in 1869.

Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, has confirmed he will be attending, along with his wife, Karen.

The inauguration ceremony will commence with remarks from Father Leo J. O’Donovan, a longtime friend of the Biden family and former president of Georgetown University.

Andrea Hall, the first African American female firefighter to become captain of the Fire Rescue Department in South Fulton, Georgia, will then recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

A number of live performances are also scheduled to take place throughout the ceremony.

The first on the bill is Lady Gaga, who will sing the national anthem. The singer previously teamed with Biden on domestic violence issues during his two terms as Vice President and also campaigned for him in the 2020 election.

Amanda Gorman, who became the U.S.’s first Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, will then recite a poem she has written for the occasion, titled: ‘The Hill We Climb.’

Much like the incoming president, Gorman also once had a speech impediment that she has worked hard to overcome. 

She has also recently announced plans to run for president in 2036 – the first year in which she will be eligible.

Jennifer Lopez will then follow Gorman’s reading with a song, as will singer-songwriter Garth Brooks.

The performances with then conclude with a benediction from longtime Biden family friend, Rev. Silvester Beaman, of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wilmington, Delaware.

Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the oath of office to Biden shortly after the clock strikes noon.

Biden will take the oath with his hand on top of his 127-year-old, five-inch-thick family Bible, which will be held by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.

Kamala Harris, the first woman, the first black and the first South Asian American vice president, will then take the oath immediately after.

Harris is due to be sworn in by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina to serve on the bench of the Supreme Court.

Like Harris, Sotomayor is a former prosecutor. She previously administered the oath to Biden when he was sworn in for his second term as Vice President in 2013.

Harris will be sworn in on two Bibles — one that belonged to a close family friend named Regina Shelton and another that belonged to Thurgood Marshall, the country’s first African American Supreme Court Justice. 

Trump on Tuesday night granted sweeping pardons to his friends, rapper and millionaires, who have been charged for an array of crimes. 

Trump PARDONS Steve Bannon: President grants clemency to 143 people including White House strategist who ‘defrauded MAGA fans out of $25M’, Lil Wayne, Kodak Black and convicted politicians

Donald Trump has granted clemency to Steve Bannon as part of a wave of 143 pardons and commutations announced early Wednesday morning during the president’s final hours in office.

Bannon, 67, helped Trump win the election in 2016 and was a senior White House adviser. In August last year he pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded MAGA donors to ‘We Build the Wall,’ an online campaign that raised $25 million.

Pardoning Bannon in a list that dropped shortly after midnight the White House said: ‘President Trump granted a full pardon to Stephen Bannon. Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project.

‘Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen.’

Trump has also pardoned rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black who were prosecuted on federal weapons offenses, as well as former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was serving a 28-year prison term on corruption charges.

He will also pardon Elliott Broidy, a former top fundraiser for Trump who pleaded guilty last year to violating foreign lobbying laws, Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner who was charged last October with cyberstalking during a heated divorce and Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing the internet giant’s self-driving car files ahead of joining Uber.

But notable names not on the list were Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Tiger King’s Joe Exotic, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani or any members of the Trump family, all of whom were rumored to be under consideration.

It also ended years of speculation that Trump would try to immunize himself, an unprecedented and legally questionable step which he had previously claimed he had the power to take.

The list was issued just hours before Trump leaves the White House for the last time and the pardon power, nuclear codes and other trappings of the presidency are transferred to Joe Biden, who will take the oath of office at noon Eastern time.

Leaving under the cloud of a second impeachment and the riot he provoked at the Capitol two weeks ago, Trump wished luck to the new administration in a ‘farewell address’ last night but did not mention Biden by name and still has not accepted in public that he legitimately lost the election.

Bannon had fallen out with Trump after he was quoted calling the president’s son Don Jr. ‘treasonous’ and his daughter Ivanka ‘dumb as a brick’. Trump said then: ‘Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency.’

But the two men have since rekindled their relationship as Trump sought support for his unproven claims of voter fraud, an official familiar with the situation said. White House officials are said to have advised Trump against pardoning Bannon.

Bannon can still be charged in state court in New York, where a pardon would not help him, said Daniel R. Alonso, a former prosecutor now at the Buckley law firm. Fraud prosecutions are frequently brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, Alonso said.

‘Steve Bannon is getting a pardon from Trump after defrauding Trump’s own supporters into paying for a wall that Trump promised Mexico would pay for,’ Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on Twitter. ‘And if that all sounds crazy, that’s because it is. Thank God we have only 12 more hours of this den of thieves.’

Bannon was in August last year pulled from a luxury yacht and arrested on allegations that he and three associates ripped off donors trying to fund a southern border wall.

The organizers of the ‘We Build The Wall’ group portrayed themselves as eager to help the president build a ‘big beautiful’ barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border, as he promised during the 2016 campaign.

They raised more than $25million from thousands of donors and pledged that 100% of the money would be used for the project.

But according to the criminal charges, much of the money never made it to the wall. Instead, it was used to line the pockets of group members, including Bannon, who served in Trump’s White House and worked for his campaign.

He allegedly took over $1 million, using some to secretly pay co-defendant Brian Kolfage, an Air Force veteran who lost both legs in a mortar attack in Iraq and the founder of the project, and to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses.