The convergence between Putin’s political culture and our own. More

An ethics complaint in New York against Kenneth Chesebro is the latest example of legal troubles for lawyers who helped Donald J. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.WASHINGTON — In the emerging history of how a small group of lawyers aided former President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election, Kenneth Chesebro has received far less attention than others like Rudolph W. Giuliani and John Eastman.But documents show that Mr. Chesebro played a central part in developing the idea of having Trump supporters pretend to be electors from states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., then claiming that Vice President Mike Pence had the power to cite the purported existence of rival slates to delay counting or to discard real Electoral College votes for Mr. Biden on Jan. 6, 2021.On Wednesday, several dozen prominent legal figures submitted an ethics complaint to the Supreme Court of New York’s attorney grievance committee, calling Mr. Chesebro “the apparent mastermind behind key aspects of the fake elector ploy” and accusing him of conspiring “with Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman and others to subvert our democracy.”The complaint said Mr. Chesebro had acted with “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or reckless or intentional misrepresentation” in violation of rules of conduct for lawyers who, like him, are licensed to practice in New York.The request was organized by Lawyers Defending American Democracy; a similar request by the group helped lead to the suspension of Mr. Giuliani’s law license in June 2021 and to a continuing investigation by the State Bar of California into Mr. Eastman. The complaint against Mr. Chesebro did not explicitly call for him to lose his license but asked for an investigation and “appropriate sanctions.”Adam S. Kaufmann, a lawyer for Mr. Chesebro, condemned the complaint against his client, warning that it was dangerous to attack lawyers for providing legal theories to political candidates. Drawing on a 1960 precedent involving a close vote in Hawaii, he said Mr. Chesebro was offering the Trump campaign advice for “keeping its options open” through Jan. 6 as a “contingency” in case the courts found electoral fraud in any of the swing states where Mr. Trump’s team was disputing the outcome.The idea that Mr. Pence could delay or block the electoral vote count on Jan. 6 was a key part of the events leading to the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters. Some of those supporters chanted “Hang Mike Pence” because the vice president — whose lawyers told him there was no legal basis for him to delay or discard the official state-certified votes for Mr. Biden — rejected Mr. Trump’s pressure to do so anyway.On Nov. 18, 2020, Mr. Chesebro wrote the earliest known memo putting forward a proposal for having a slate of Trump supporters purport to be electors, in that case for Wisconsin. He expanded the proposal for other states, including in a letter to Mr. Giuliani on Dec. 13, 2020.An email by a Trump campaign lawyer in Arizona on Dec. 8, 2020, cited Mr. Chesebro as having had the idea for “sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence,” even though they would not be legal because the governor had not signed them..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The complaint filed on Wednesday characterized Mr. Chesebro as a participant and not only a supplier of theories, referring to his help with a fake electors effort in Georgia, one of the swing states Mr. Biden won. Mr. Chesebro has fought a subpoena to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., where a prosecutor is investigating efforts to overturn the election results there.Mr. Kaufmann said the only communication Mr. Chesebro had with anyone in Georgia regarding alternate electors was sending ballot forms to a state Republican leader.Mr. Eastman wrote two memos laying out steps that could result in Mr. Trump being declared the winner of the election that hinged on a disputed claim about Mr. Pence and alternate “electors.” Mr. Chesebro helped edit the first, emails obtained by the Jan. 6 committee show.The complaint says that “while Mr. Eastman and Mr. Giuliani have received more attention, the public record amply demonstrates Mr. Chesebro’s central role. As the original author of the fake elector scheme, Mr. Chesebro bears special responsibility for it and its consequences.”In an email exchange with Mr. Eastman on Dec. 24, 2020, Mr. Chesebro also wrote that the odds of a Supreme Court intervention would “become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”Another organization, The 65 Project, filed a similar ethics complaint against Mr. Chesebro in July. The group has filed complaints against about 55 lawyers associated with aspects of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. There has been no public sign of action in response to its complaint about Mr. Chesebro, but its director Michael Teeter, said on Wednesday that an investigator has been assigned to it.The new filing was distinguished by a list of high-profile legal figures who endorsed it, such as past presidents of the New York State Bar Association and of the American Bar Association, retired judges, current and former deans of major law schools, and other legal scholars and prominent lawyers.Among them was Laurence H. Tribe, a liberal Harvard Law School professor. He said in an interview that as a law student in the mid-1980s, Mr. Chesebro had been one of his research assistants and continued to help him with volunteer litigation after graduating — including when Mr. Tribe represented Vice President Al Gore before the Supreme Court in the disputed 2000 election.Mr. Tribe said he attended Mr. Chesebro’s wedding and once considered him a friend, but then gradually came to see him as an “ideological chameleon” who had adopted “the posture he thought would appeal to me” and “came to distrust Ken’s sense of boundaries and his moral compass.” More

The life-size bronze tribute to the legendary baseball player who broke the color barrier was stolen from a different park last week. What was left of it “is beyond repair,” officials said.Parts of a life-size bronze statue that celebrated the legacy of the legendary baseball player and civil rights figure Jackie Robinson were found dismantled and burned early Tuesday after it had been stolen from a Kansas park last week, the authorities said.Remnants of the statue were found after a city worker reported a fire in a trash can at Garvey Park in Wichita at around 8:38 a.m., Andrew Ford, a police spokesman, said in a statement.The Wichita Fire Department responded and, “while assessing the damage, they found pieces of the Jackie Robinson statue that had been stolen.”The Fire Department immediately notified the police, who collected the pieces at the scene, he said, noting that “unfortunately, the statue is beyond repair.”The police are continuing to investigate, Mr. Ford said, and they have “already interviewed over 100 people.” The department is also looking into how the statue was dismantled and how the pieces ended up at the location of the fire. Mr. Ford had previously said that the motive for the theft of the monument was not known.Additionally, the Fire Department’s arson investigators are looking into the trash can fire, he said. In a statement posted on Facebook, the department said that “additional parts of the statue have not been recovered at this time.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

@media (pointer: coarse) {
.nytslm_outerContainer {
overflow-x: scroll;
-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch;
}
}

.nytslm_outerContainer {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
/* Fixes IE */
overflow-x: auto;
box-shadow: -6px 0 white, 6px 0 white, 1px 3px 6px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.15);
padding: 10px 1.25em 10px;
transition: all 250ms;
-ms-overflow-style: none;
/* IE 10+ */
scrollbar-width: none;
/* Firefox */
background: white;
margin-bottom: 20px;
z-index: 1000;
}

@media (min-width: 1024px) {
.nytslm_outerContainer {
margin-bottom: 0px;
padding: 13px 1.25em 10px;
}
}

.nytslm::-webkit-scrollbar {
display: none;
/* Safari and Chrome */
}

.nytslm_innerContainer {
margin: unset;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}

@media (min-width: 600px) {
.nytslm_innerContainer {
margin: auto;
min-width: 600px;
}
}

.nytslm_title {
padding-right: 1em;
border-right: 1px solid #ccc;
}

@media (min-width: 740px) {
.nytslm_title {
max-width: none;
font-size: 1.0625rem;
line-height: 1.25rem;
}
}

.nytslm_spacer {
width: 0;
border-right: 1px solid #E2E2E2;
height: 45px;
margin: 0 1.4em;
}

.nytslm_list {
font-family: nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
display: flex;
width: auto;
list-style: none;
padding-left: 1em;
flex-shrink: 0;
align-items: baseline;
justify-content: center;
}

.nytslm_li {
margin-right: 1.4em;
flex-shrink: 0;
font-size: 0.8125rem;
line-height: 0.8125rem;
font-weight: 600;
padding: 1em 0;
}

#nytslm .nytslm_li a {
color: #121212;
text-decoration: none;
}

#nytslm .nytsmenu_li_current,
#nytslm .nytslm_li a:hover,
#nytslm .nytslm_li a:active,
#nytslm .nytslm_li a:focus {
color: #121212;
border-bottom: 2px solid #121212;
padding-bottom: 2px;
}

.nytslm_li_live_loud:after {
content: ‘LIVE’
}

.nytslm_li_live_loud {
background-color: #d0021b;
color: white;
border-radius: 3px;
padding: 4px 6px 2px 6px;
margin-right: 2px;
display: inline-block;
letter-spacing: 0.03rem;
font-weight: 700;
}

.nytslm_li_upcoming_loud {
border: 1px solid #d0021b;
color: #d0021b;
border-radius: 3px;
padding: 4px 6px 2px 6px;
margin-right: 2px;
display: inline-block;
letter-spacing: 0.03rem;
font-weight: 700;
}

.nytslm_li_upcoming_loud:before {
content: ‘Upcoming’
}

.nytslm_li_loud a:hover,
.nytslm_li_loud a:active,
.nytslm_li_loud a:focus {
border-bottom: 2px solid;
padding-bottom: 2px;
}

.nytslm_li_updated {
color: #777;
}

#masthead-bar-one {
display: none;
}

.electionNavbar__logoSvg {
width: 80px;
align-self: center;
display: flex;
}

@media(min-width: 600px) {
.electionNavbar__logoSvg {
width: 100px;
}
}

.nytslm_notification {
border-left: 1px solid #ccc;
font-family: nyt-franklin, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;
padding-left: 1em;
}

.nytslm_notification_label {
color: #D0021B;
text-transform: uppercase;
font-weight: 700;
font-size: 0.6875rem;
margin-bottom: 0.2em;
letter-spacing: 0.02em;
}

.nytslm_notification_link {
font-weight: 600;
color: #121212;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
}

.nytslm_notification_headline {
font-size: 0.875rem;
line-height: 1.0625rem;
}

.nytslm_notification_image_wrapper {
position: relative;
max-width: 75px;
margin-left: 10px;
flex-shrink: 0;
}

.nytslm_notification_image {
max-width: 100%;
}

.nytslm_notification_image_live_bug {
position: absolute;
text-transform: uppercase;
bottom: 7px;
left: 2px;

font-size: 0.5rem;
background-color: #d0021b;
color: white;
border-radius: 3px;
padding: 4px 4px 2px 4px;
font-weight: 700;
margin-right: 2px;
letter-spacing: 0.03rem;
}

/* No hover state on in app */
.Hybrid .nytslm_li a:hover,
.Hybrid .nytslm_li_loud a:hover {
border-bottom: none;
padding-bottom: 0;
}

.Hybrid #TOP_BANNER_REGION {
display: none;
}

.nytslm_st0 {
fill: #f4564a;
}

.nytslm_st1 {
fill: #ffffff;
}

.nytslm_st2 {
fill: #2b8ad8;
}

State Certified Vote Totals

Election Disinformation

Full Results

Transition Updates

“),e+=””+b+””,e+=””,d&&(e+=””,e+=””,e+=”Live”,e+=””),e+=””,e}function getVariant(){var a=window.NYTD&&window.NYTD.Abra&&window.NYTD.Abra.getAbraSync&&window.NYTD.Abra.getAbraSync(“STYLN_elections_notifications”);// Only actually have control situation in prd and stg
return[“www.nytimes.com”,”www.stg.nytimes.com”].includes(window.location.hostname)||(a=”STYLN_elections_notifications”),a||”0_control”}function reportData(){if(window.dataLayer){var a;try{a=dataLayer.find(function(a){return!!a.user}).user}catch(a){}var b={abtest:{test:”styln-elections-notifications”,variant:getVariant()},module:{name:”styln-elections-notifications”,label:getVariant(),region:”TOP_BANNER”},user:a};window.dataLayer.push(Object.assign({},b,{event:”ab-alloc”})),window.dataLayer.push(Object.assign({},b,{event:”ab-expose”})),window.dataLayer.push(Object.assign({},b,{event:”impression”}))}}function insertNotification(a,b){// Bail here if the user is in control
if(reportData(),”0_control”!==getVariant()){// Remove menu bar items or previous notification
var c=document.querySelector(“.nytslm_innerContainer”);if(c&&1 30 * 60 * 1000) return restoreMenuIfNecessary();
// Do not update DOM if the content won’t change
if(currentNotificationContents!==a.text&&window.localStorage.getItem(“stylnelecs”)!==a.timestamp)// Do not show if user has interacted with this link
// if (Cookie.get(‘stylnelecs’) === data.timestamp) return;
{expireLocalStorage(“stylnelecs”),currentNotificationContents=a.text;// Construct URL for tracking
var b=a.link.split(“#”),c=b[0]+”?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-elections-notifications&variant=1_election_notifications&region=TOP_BANNER&context=Menu#”+b[1],d=formatNotification(c,a.text,a.kicker,a.image);insertNotification(d,function(){var b=document.querySelector(“.nytslm_notification_link”);return b?void(b.onclick=function(){window.localStorage.setItem(“stylnelecs”,a.timestamp)}):null})}})}(function(){navigator.userAgent.includes(“nytios”)||navigator.userAgent.includes(“nyt_android”)||window.stylnelecsHasLoaded||(// setInterval(getUpdate, 5000);
window.stylnelecsHasLoaded=!0)})(),function(){try{if(navigator.userAgent.includes(“nytios”)||navigator.userAgent.includes(“nyt_android”)){var a=document.getElementsByClassName(“nytslm_title”)[0];a.style.pointerEvents=”none”}}catch(a){}}(); More

Joe Biden has named Ron Klain, who served as the “Ebola tsar” during the Obama administration, as his chief of staff.Klain, 59, has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump’s pandemic response. He first worked with Biden in the 1980s.In a statement sharing the news, the president-elect praised Klain’s “deep, varied experience”.“Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014,” said Biden. “His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again.”Klain said: “It’s the honor of a lifetime to serve President-elect Biden in this role, and I am humbled by his confidence.”Klain has had a long career in government. He served as the chief of staff to the former vice-president Al Gore, and the staff director of the Senate Democratic leadership committee. He has worked with several Democratic presidential campaigns, including Biden’s 1988 and 2008 presidential campaigns. He was also the lead Democratic lawyer for Gore during the 2000 presidential election recount.From 2008 to 2011, he served as then-vice-president Biden’s chief of staff and helped oversee the $787bn stimulus package that Barack Obama signed in response to the Great Recession.Klain’s experience in a global health pandemic and a recession have been cited as among his top qualifications to help Biden in this moment. The president-elect made the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession it has triggered central to his presidential campaign, promising to help lead Americans out of the crisis.When Klain was named the Ebola response coordinator in 2014, his appointment was initially criticized because he lacked public health experience. The Obama administration at the time noted he was chosen for his “extensive management experience”.Among those to congratulate Klain was Elizabeth Warren, the progressive Massachusetts senator who ran against Biden in the 2020 primaries. Warren said Klain is a “superb choice for chief of staff. He understands the magnitude of the health and economic crisis and he has the experience to lead this next administration through it.” Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, members of the so-called “squad” of progressive congresswoman, also offered congratulations.Waleed Shahid, the communications director for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, said Klain “understands the Democratic ​party has moved in a more progressive direction”.Progressives and moderates came together to help elect Joe Biden. But post-election, the two camps have already begun to spar over the party’s future, with progressives saying that Biden should embrace more ambitious policy on the climate crisis, policing and healthcare. More