We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,

which has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory.

The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name.

Welcome to Talking Feds, a roundtable that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important political and legal topics of the day.

I'm Harry Littman.

It was a week of frenetic legal and political activity culminating in an indelible moment on Friday.

Donald Trump, having fought tooth and nail to stave off accountability up to the U.S. Supreme Court,

appeared before a New York judge to be sentenced for 34 felony convictions,

ensuring that he will take office as the first felon president in the nation's history. The outcome hung in the balance until Friday when the

Supreme Court rebuffed Trump's last-ditch effort to block his sentencing. He'd given them scant

legal reason to do so,

yet four of the justices still voted in his favor,

signifying the core of a potentially very friendly high court

that will serve as the final arbiter

for many of the controversies that Trump 2.0 is sure to spawn.

Trump's simultaneous attempt to block the release of the reports from special counsel Jack Smith,

who quietly resigned his post-Friday, remained tangled in the courts, but it looked likely that we would at least be seeing Volume 1 on the January 6 case in short order.

Speaking of January 6th, it came and went as uneventfully as it had for decades before 2021,

with everyone performing their constitutionally prescribed roles.

But there was a built-in, mordant irony that the adherence to

our constitutional norms would hand power back to the very man who had sought to dismantle them

the last time around. To chronicle the Trumpiest week since the election and what it tells us about what we are in for starting

...