President-elect Donald Trump named his personal criminal defense attorney Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general.”I am pleased to announce that Todd Blanche will serve as Deputy Attorney General in my Administration. Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long,” Trump announced in a news release Thursday evening.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., will keep his seat in Arizona after fending off a challenge from Democrat Kirsten Engel, according to The Associated Press’ race call Wednesday night.The race for the 6th Arizona Congressional District seat was tight, with Ciscomani receiving 49.6% of the vote compared to Engel’s 47.9%. Unofficial election results on the state’s website show he only leads Engel by 7,020 votes.

The Fox News Decision Desk can project that Republicans will keep their majority in the House of Representatives.The number of seats the party will hold depends on the outcome in a handful of remaining districts.There are nine races yet to be called. They are: Alaska’s at-large district, California’s 9th, 13th, 21st, and 45th districts, Iowa’s 1st district, Maine’s 2nd district, Ohio’s 9th district and Oregon’s 5th district.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., described President-elect Trump’s choice of Rep. Matt Gaetz to serve as his next attorney general as a “God tier kind of trolling.” Speaking with reporters, Fetterman acknowledged some of Trump’s picks were good but stopped short of putting Gaetz in that category. “It’s just kind of like a God tier kind of trolling just to trigger a meltdown,” he said.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned from the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced.Gaetz gave House GOP leaders his resignation notice on the same day President-elect Donald Trump tapped him to be his attorney general, Johnson said.”I think out of deference to us, he issued his resignation letter effective immediately,” Johnson said. “That caught us by surprise a little bit.

Special counsel Jack Smith is asking an appeals court to halt his appeal against President-elect Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified and top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.The motion was filed by Smith in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and comes months after U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon in July dismissed the case against Trump, which centered on his handling of allegedly classified documents after leaving the White House in 2020.