In diplomatic parlance, that was an “attribution.” The action that was taken at the time was a private conversation between President Obama and President Vladimir V. Putin, warning of retaliation if he took the cyberattacks further.  The public complaints were loud enough that Mrs. Clinton brought them up in the debates, eliciting Mr. Trump’s famous response, “No puppet … no puppet … you’re the puppet.”  The administration said it would respond proportionately. The criticism that the response has not been robust enough has been bipartisan.  A senior adviser to Mr. Trump on Thursday indicated that his oldest daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Mr. Kushner, are likely to take formal roles in the White House, saying the transition team believes there’s an “exception” to the anti-nepotism law.  “The anti-nepotism law apparently has an exception if you want to work in the West Wing, because the president is able to appoint his own staff,” said the adviser, Kellyanne Conway, who was Mr. Trump’s final campaign manager, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program.  Ms. Conway said that whichever children went into the White House would need a “complete distinction and separation” from Trump business ties, which she called a “sacrifice” for them.  “These young men and women are at the top of their earning game,” Ms. Conway said.  Democrats are unlikely to accept at face value the notion of a carve-out in the nepotism laws.  Mr. Trump’s transition team is looking at Adm. Michelle J. Howard, the first female four-star admiral in Naval history, as a potential choice to lead the beleaguered Department of Veterans Affairs, a person close to the transition process said.  Admiral Howard would bring a lengthy and detailed résumé of service in the armed forces to an agency that was plagued by controversy during President Obama’s tenure. She would fit with Mr. Trump’s affection for military officers — he has named two generals to his cabinet so far and one as his national security adviser. She would also be the second African-American to join the cabinet.  Aides to Mr. Trump said that they are hearing many suggestions and that the pick for the V.A. will take some time. Mainline veterans groups have asked the president-elect to keep the current secretary, the former Procter & Gamble chief executive Robert A. McDonald. He is seen as turning the cabinet agency around after a series of scandals under his predecessor, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki.  But people in the Trump circle like the idea of a military figure with management experience.  Monica Crowley, the Fox News commentator who worked with President Richard M. Nixon on his last two books, is likely to be named as a strategic communications adviser to the National Security Council, according to two people close to the transition.  The appointment would put Ms. Crowley in the sphere of influence led by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the president’s pick for national security adviser. Ms. Crowley had been mentioned as a possible pick for White House press secretary early in the process.  She would join K.T. McFarland, another Fox personality, who has been chosen to be General Flynn’s deputy.  He may be about to become the leader of the free world, but Mr. Trump still holds a grudge against Graydon Carter that started in the days of Spy magazine and that continues with the magazine Mr. Carter now edits, Vanity Fair.  After holding his fingers back for a few days, the president-elect went on Twitter again Thursday.  Has anyone looked at the really poor numbers of @VanityFair Magazine. Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!  Thank you to Time Magazine and Financial Times for naming me "Person of the Year" - a great honor!  There was no immediate word of what set off the soon-to-be commander in chief, but it could be that Vanity Fair suggested that Trump Grill in New York might be the worst restaurant in America.  Donald Trump is “a poor person’s idea of a rich person,” Fran Lebowitz recently observed at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit. “They see him. They think, ‘If I were rich, I’d have a fabulous tie like that.’ ” Nowhere, perhaps, does this reflection appear more accurate than at Trump Grill (which is occasionally spelled Grille on various pieces of signage).  Or the insult of the Trump inaugural committee’s choice of singer for the national anthem.  While he was posting on Twitter, Mr. Trump threw in some commentary about the news media’s scrutiny of possible conflicts of interest that come with the president-elect of the United States owning business interests around the globe.  The media tries so hard to make my move to the White House, as it pertains to my business, so complex - when actually it isn't!  Just what that is supposed to mean is unclear. The president-elect owns hotels, resorts and golf courses in Brazil, India, Ireland, the Philippines and Scotland, among other places. They are potential targets of terrorism. Their value depends in part on the actions of the governments of those countries, governments that have a lot of involvement with the United States. And Mr. Trump has already shown that his company wants to expand its reach, offering foreign governments the opportunity to extract favors, and the president a chance to press his own agenda.  The Center for American Progress, which appears to be establishing itself as the anti-Trump think tank, released a report Thursday spelling out its case that come Jan. 20, the president of the United States will be violating the Constitution.  “As it stands, Trump will be in violation of the Constitution the day he takes office because a key anti-foreign corruption provision, the Emoluments Clause, bars the president from receiving payments or things of value from foreign states or their agents. As America’s founders understood, if foreign governments can give payments to federal officials, then those federal officials can be bought.  This is not a political or partisan issue — anti-corruption rules for ethics and conflicts of interest are necessary to protect against divided loyalties and self-dealing. No one can serve two masters, and Americans must know that the president is serving their interests and their interests alone and not profiting off the presidency.”  The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission will step down with the change of administration, switching the agency to a Republican majority that is expected to begin a set of deregulatory efforts for telecommunications and cable firms.  Tom Wheeler, the Democratic chairman of the F.C.C., said on Wednesday that he would step down from his post on Inauguration Day. His resignation, along with the Senate’s decision not to confirm the reappointment of another Democratic commissioner, Jessica Rosenworcel, would bring the F.C.C. to a 2-to-1 majority for Republicans until new commissioners are named.  Top priorities would be the unwinding of rules on broadband providers, which were declared common-carrier services like utilities in February 2015 — the so-called net neutrality rule. It would be hard to immediately scrap that regulation, which a federal court upheld as legally permissible in June.  But the agency could begin the process of unwinding or changing broadband privacy rules and a program for broadband subsidies for rural and low-income areas. Mr. Trump’s transition team advisers for the F.C.C., including Jeffrey Eisenach, have criticized broadband rules such as net neutrality, a regulation that mandates broadband providers provide open access to the internet to all apps and services.  The F.C.C. under more free-market Republicans could also be more lenient on mergers.  Senior Republican commissioner, Ajit Pai, is expected to be serve as an interim chairman. He is also, along with Mr. Eisenach, mentioned by many experts as potential picks for Mr. Trump’s chair.  According to a CBS News poll, expectations for the Trump presidency will not be too difficult to meet.  With Inauguration Day a little over a month away, just over a third of Americans (34 percent) think President-elect Donald Trump will be a good or very good president, and an additional 23 percent think he will be average. Meanwhile, 36 percent think he will be a poor president. But expectations are strongly influenced by partisanship: 60 percent of Democrats expect him to be a poor president, while seven in 10 Republicans think President-elect Trump will be a good or very good president.  A new CBS News poll asks if Americans think Trump will be a good president https://t.co/bfCHq6Ll0q pic.twitter.com/VxYLgyeeiM  That could be a reflection of Mr. Trump’s low approval ratings, but it is more likely an image of a polarized nation — a third of the country hates their incoming president, a third love him and a quarter cannot be bothered.  As Mr. Trump rounds out his cabinet choices, the transition team has turned its focus to finding a leader for the Office of Management and Budget, and it is considering Representative Mick Mulvaney, Republican of South Carolina and a hard-liner on spending.  The New York Times would like to hear from readers who want to share messages and materials with our journalists.  Mr. Mulvaney, who came to Washington on the Tea Party wave of 2010 and was an early proponent of the House Freedom Caucus, had previously expressed interest in the job and has met with Mr. Trump.  But Mr. Mulvaney has also been supportive of Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who had a tempestuous relationship with Mr. Trump throughout most of the campaign.  Some people close to Mr. Trump are urging him to consider people who were firm in their support for him leading up to the election, such as David Malpass, a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign for many months.  The short-lived candidacy of Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington for interior secretary was described by two people close to the transition team as stemming from concerns that the president-elect’s eldest son, Don Jr., had with her.  The Department of the Interior is one of the few agencies that the younger Mr. Trump has shown an interest in — he is an avid hunter — and he is said to have highlighted negative comments Ms. McMorris Rodgers made about the president-elect during the campaign. As the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, she would have given the Trump cabinet a voice from congressional leadership — and another woman, currently in short supply.  Others familiar with the situation said that the elder Mr. Trump was put off by seeing Ms. McMorris Rodgers characterized in news reports as the expected choice — a reminder that getting ahead of announcements by a president-elect comes with risks, particularly with this one.  Mr. Trump formally tapped Representative Ryan Zinke, Republican of Montana, for the post on Thursday.  “I am pleased to nominate Rep. Ryan Zinke as our Secretary of the Interior” - President-elect Trump. More here: https://t.co/6qOowYtScA  And environmentalists may be heartened by Mr. Zinke’s response.  “As someone who grew up in a logging and rail town and hiking in Glacier National Park, I am honored and humbled to be asked to serve Montana and America as Secretary of Interior,” said Rep. Zinke. “As inscribed in the stone archway of Yellowstone National Park in Gardiner, Montana, I shall faithfully uphold Teddy Roosevelt’s belief that our treasured public lands are ‘for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.’ I will work tirelessly to ensure our public lands are managed and preserved in a way that benefits everyone for generations to come.”  Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and several of her Democratic colleagues said they would introduce legislation requiring the president and vice president to divest any assets that create a financial conflict of interest.  Under the legislation, money from divesting assets would go into a blind trust that would be managed by an independent trustee.  The senators — Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, Chris Coons of Delaware, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Ms. Warren — announced their proposal at the same time Mr. Trump had planned to hold a news conference to discuss his plans to leave his real estate business.  But that news conference has been delayed until January, even though Mr. Trump said on Monday that “no new deals will be done” by his business while he is in office.  But that pledge did little to mollify lawmakers worried about his existing financial ties and the global reach of his business.  “The American people deserve to know that the president of the United States is working to do what’s best for the country, not using his office to do what’s best for himself and his businesses,” Ms. Warren said. “The only way for President-elect Trump to truly eliminate conflicts of interest is to divest his financial interests and place them in a blind trust. This has been the standard for previous presidents, and our bill makes clear the continuing expectation that President-elect Trump do the same.”
President-elect Donald J. Trump was back on Twitter, questioning Russian hacking, lashing out at Vanity Fair and cryptically defending his business interests.