President-elect Trump announced a series of Cabinet picks as his Jan. 20 inauguration nears and Senate confirmation begins.

Trump nominated former Fox News contributor Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney, as senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice.

‘He will work alongside Harmeet K. Dhillon, a fellow Californian, and our incredible Nominee for United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Justice Department,’ Trump wrote. ‘Leo is a highly respected civil rights attorney and political analyst. He received his law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has defended many high-profile cases throughout his incredibly successful career.

‘Leo will be a fantastic advocate for the American People, and ensure we will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’ 

In an announcement Thursday evening, Trump revealed Christine Toretti as his pick for ambassador to Sweden. He said Toretti is an ‘incredible businesswoman, philanthropist, public servant, and RNC Committeewoman.’

‘She is Chairman of S&T Bancorp, and a former director of the Pittsburgh Federal Reserve Bank,’ Trump wrote. ‘Christine has been a tireless supporter of important causes as a Board Member of the International Medical Corps, former Chair of the Andy Warhol Museum, Director of the NCAA Foundation, founding Director of the Gettysburg Foundation, Trustee of the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and Chair of the Anne B. Anstine Excellence in Public Service Series in Pennsylvania, and the Dodie Londen Excellence in Public Service Series in Arizona.

‘Christine is one of fewer than sixty women who have received the Athena International Global Award.’

Trump also announced retired Army Capt. Sam Brown would serve as the next Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

‘Sam is an American HERO, a Purple Heart recipient, and successful businessman from Nevada, who has devoted his life to serving America,’ Trump said in the announcement. ‘He fearlessly proved his love for our Country in the Army, while leading Troops in battle in Afghanistan and, after being honorably retired as a Captain, helping our Veterans get access to emergency medications.
 
‘Sam will now continue his service to our Great Nation at the VA, where he will work tirelessly to ensure we put America’s Veterans FIRST, and remember ALL who served.’

The nominations come as Trump continues to round out picks for his Cabinet as Jan. 20 nears.

The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate will soon begin holding hearings for Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

Republicans will control the Senate with 53 seats to the Democrats’ 47 once Senator-elect Jim Justice of West Virginia is sworn in later in January and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine appoints a senator to fill Vice President-elect Vance’s seat. 

A federal appeals court rejected a bid to block the release of a portion of special counsel Jack Smith’s final report detailing his investigation and prosecution of President-elect Trump’s alleged 2020 election interference and alleged improper retention of classified records. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit denied the request from Walt Nauta, an aide to Trump, and Carlos de Oliveira, the former property manager at Mar-a-Lago, who were charged for their role in allegedly obstructing a separate federal investigation into Trump’s handling of sensitive government records. 

The 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals left a three-day hold on DOJ’s release of the report.

Smith was tapped by Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his Florida residence. 

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges. Nauta and de Oliveira also pleaded not guilty to federal charges alleging they conspired to obstruct the FBI investigation into classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. 

President-elect Donald Trump said he respects the Supreme Court’s decision to deny his request to stop his sentencing in New York v. Trump from moving forward, but said Thursday night he will appeal, while stressing that ‘lawfare’ has been an ‘attack on the Republican Party.’ 

Trump’s comments came just moments after the Supreme Court denied Trump’s emergency petition to block his sentencing from taking place on Friday, Jan. 10. The sentencing was scheduled by New York Judge Juan Merchan. 

Merchan, last week, said he would not sentence the president-elect to prison, but rather issue a sentence of an ‘unconditional discharge,’ which means there would be no punishment imposed. 

‘I’m the first president and probably one of the first candidates in history that’s under attack with a gag order where I’m not allowed to speak about something,’ Trump said during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago Thursday night with Republican governors. ‘This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.’ 

Trump said he thought the court’s ruling was a ‘very good opinion for us,’ noting that the justices ‘invited the appeal.’ 

‘We’ll see how it all works out,’ he said. ‘I think it’s going to work out well.’ 

But Trump reflected on the ‘lawfare’ that he has been victim of, saying that it ‘was an attack on the Republican Party.’ 

‘This was an attack on the Republican candidate who just won an election by record numbers—the highest number of Republican votes by far ever gotten, and we won all the swing states, we won the popular vote by millions of people,’ he said. ‘They tried to stop that from happening—they tried to stop this election from happening or to bloody somebody up so badly they couldn’t win.’ 

Trump said that ‘the people got it and we won by the largest number.’ 

Trump filed an emergency petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday in an effort to prevent his Jan. 10 sentencing, scheduled by Judge Juan Merchan, from taking place. 

‘The application for stay presented to Justice Sotomayor and by her referred to the Court is denied for, inter alia, the following reasons. First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal,’ the order states. 

‘Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing,’ the court ruled. 

The order also noted that ‘Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would grant the application.’ 

Trump needed five votes in order to have his request granted. The note on the order suggests Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett voted with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson. 

Trump’s sentencing is now expected to move forward, with the president-elect expected to appear virtually for the proceeding, scheduled for 9:30 am Friday. 

Merchan set Trump’s sentencing in New York v. Trump for Jan. 10 after a jury found the now-president-elect guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and has appealed the ruling but was rejected last week by Merchan. 

Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States on Jan. 20. 

Trump has maintained his innocence in the case and repeatedly railed against it as an example of ‘lawfare’ promoted by Democrats in an effort to hurt his election efforts ahead of November. 

President-elect Trump is hosting a group of Republican governors for dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Thursday evening.

The gathering comes a week and a half before the former and future president is inaugurated Jan. 20 and takes over the White House.

The meeting gives Trump a chance to speak with the GOP governors who will likely play an integral role in carrying out the Trump agenda in his second administration, including his push for mass deportation of immigrants with criminal records.

Among those attending the dinner are governors Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georiga, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Fox News confirmed.

DeSantis, a one-time Trump ally who clashed with the former president in 2023 and early last year during a contentious 2024 GOP presidential nomination race, mended relations a bit with the former president after the primary season. 

DeSantis endorsed Trump and helped raise money for the Republican nominee’s general election campaign.

Reynolds, the conservative two-term governor, drew Trump’s ire during the presidential primaries by endorsing DeSantis and serving as his top surrogate during the Iowa caucuses.

‘Excited to meet with President @realDonaldTrump tonight at Mar-a-Lago,’ Reynolds wrote in a social media post. ‘I stand ready to help enact his agenda of Making America Safe, Prosperous, and Great Again!’

Youngkin, who mulled a 2024 White House run of his own before deciding against it, teamed up with Trump a couple of times during the general election campaign.

Kemp, who in November took over as chair of the Republican Governors Association, was heavily criticized by Trump after refusing to help Trump overturn his razor-thin defeat to President Biden in Georgia in the 2020 election. And Trump urged, and then supported, a 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary challenge against Kemp by former Sen. David Purdue. But the former president toned down his criticism of the governor after Kemp crushed Perdue to easily win renomination on his way to re-election.

The two politicians appeared to patch up their differences in recent months, as Kemp supported Trump in the general election.

Politico was first to report on Trump’s dinner with the governors.

Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk has issued blistering criticism of liberal megadonor George Soros in recent days after President Biden awarded the Hungarian-born progressive with the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

‘A travesty that Biden is giving Soros the Medal of Freedom,’ Musk posted on X last week in response to news that the nation’s highest civilian honor would be presented to Soros, whose massive financial empire has been used all across the country to fund campaigns of progressive politicians, legislation, ballot measures and initiatives.

In another post, Musk wrote that Soros was a ‘genius’ when it came to arbitrage, finance or politics, but ‘I just wish he loved, rather than hated, humanity.’

‘George Soros’s hatred of humanity includes Israel btw,’ Musk posted on X referencing a news story with the headline, ‘Israeli ambassador to UN slams George Soros for funding Hamas-supporting NGOs: Report.’

Musk also posted a meme of Biden handing the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Emperor Palpatine from the ‘Star Wars’ film franchise and joked, ‘George Soros looking quite good here. Must be the lighting.’

In another post, Musk posted a screenshot from Soros’ website accusing him of spending ‘billions to create the fake asylum-seeker nightmare that is destroying America and Europe.’

On Thursday, Musk responded on X to a comment from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni where she said that Musk is ‘not a danger to Democracy’ but rather ‘George Soros is.’

‘And Soros is being defeated,’ Musk responded.

Soros, a mega-Democrat donor, runs a web of non-profits that bankroll various candidates around the world who align with his progressive agenda, including his Open Society Foundations. Soros has given over $32 billion to Open Society Foundations since 1984, according to its website. 

‘President Biden’s decision to award George Soros the Medal of Freedom is a slap in the face to the citizens and crime victims suffering under the policies and politicians he has promoted,’ Zack Smith, Heritage Foundation legal fellow and co-author of ‘Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities,’ recently told Fox News Digital.

‘Soros has been a major donor to far-left politicians and has promoted policies that undermine the rule of law in our country. Given Biden’s embrace of these policies and the funding Soros has provided, this looks like nothing more than an effort to reward and keep happy one of the Left’s major donors (and his family). It cheapens what should be a prestigious award and gives everyday Americans yet another reason to be disgusted by the current Administration’s actions.’

Soros has long been blamed by many experts and analysts for rising crime in major cities after his support of liberal district attorneys has pushed for a ‘reimagining’ of policing or policies like ending cash bail or lowering sentencing requirements.  

A dozen of the 25 Soros-linked district attorneys on the ballot in November were defeated or recalled, signaling a backlash against progressive policies that critics say are to blame for a surge in crime across the country in recent years.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Open Society Foundations for comment but did not receive a response.

Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.