We can see how the Trump transition is playing in the media capitals. But, as we learned in 2016, we need to pay attention to how it’s playing in other parts of the country. The NYT’s Trip Gabriel spent more than a year living in Iowa. He went back this week and found that Trump voters are unfazed by controversies: “Washington may be veering from one Trump pre-inaugural controversy to another: unproved reports of Russia’s holding embarrassing information against him, possible ethical conflicts, the donors and billionaires of his cabinet, his pushback against intelligence findings on Russian hacking in the election. But there does not seem to be much angst in Iowa among those who voted for Mr. Trump, including some Democrats and independents.”

+ “The operative — identified today by the Wall Street Journal as Christopher Steele, a former Russian operations officer for Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency — had worked as a consultant for the FBI’s Eurasian organized crime section, helping to develop information about ties between suspected Russian gangsters and FIFA.” Meet the spy behind the world’s most famous dossier. Christopher Steele is currently in hiding.

+ Julia Ioffe in The Atlantic: “After years of covering and reporting from Russia, it is bizarre to me that this term has surfaced in U.S. domestic politics, but here we are. Kompromat is a Russian squishing together of two words: compromising material, which Americans refer to as blackmail.”

+ WaPo: Justice Department to investigate FBI’s handling of Clinton email case.

+ The latest from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto: Oh no we won’t.

+ That time Fox News defended CNN.