Aurelia Butler

President Trump signed a full pardon on Monday for Rod R. Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois who was convicted of corruption in 2011 in a scheme to sell a Senate seat being vacated by Barack Obama.“It’s my honor to do it,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office of the pardon. “I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people that I had to deal with.”Mr. Blagojevich, who served as Illinois governor from 2003 to 2009, did not immediately comment.The pardon was the latest overture between the president and the former governor, who is still known in Chicago simply as “Blago.” Just five years ago, Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence, allowing him to be released from a Colorado prison after eight years and return to his family home on the North Side of Chicago.“It’s been a long, long journey,” Mr. Blagojevich said in February 2020, speaking to reporters from his front door as he repeatedly dabbed his face with a handkerchief. “I’m bruised, I’m battered and I’m bloody.” (He had nicked himself shaving, unaccustomed to standard razors while in prison.)The former governor insisted then that he had broken no laws and that he was the victim of an overzealous Justice Department during the Obama administration. Federal prosecutors said Mr. Blagojevich’s conduct — trying to benefit from the appointment of a Senate seat, among other actions — was so abysmal that it “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.”But he found a sympathetic audience in Mr. Trump. While Mr. Blagojevich was awaiting trial 15 years ago, he made appeals to Mr. Trump, appearing on “The Celebrity Apprentice” when Mr. Trump was the host. And Mr. Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, spoke on Fox News while her husband was in prison, a move that seemed calculated to grab Mr. Trump’s attention.Mr. Blagojevich was the fourth governor of Illinois in recent decades to serve time in prison, in a state that has seen its share of corruption charges levied against elected officials from the Chicago City Council to the Statehouse in Springfield.Michael J. Madigan, the former speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, is currently on federal trial in Chicago, facing racketeering and bribery charges. A jury has been deliberating for nine days so far without a verdict. More

The president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.Standing inside the Capitol for the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Trump declared his plans to resurrect an idea he had in his first term: to create a national garden filled with statues of notable Americans.The choice of who would be included would be “the president’s sole opinion,” Mr. Trump said, chuckling. And he was giving himself “a 25-year period” to make the selections.A short time later, at a breakfast at a Washington hotel, Mr. Trump flicked again at the prospect that his time in office could extend beyond two four-year terms.“They say I can’t run again; that’s the expression,” he said. “Then somebody said, I don’t think you can. Oh.”At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Mr. Trump spoke of giving himself a “25-year period” to choose statues for a national garden.Eric Lee/The New York TimesJust eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump — whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified — mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp.The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and “special government employees” access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful.Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.A U.S. district judge in Manhattan, Paul A. Engelmayer, on Saturday ordered any such officials who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”Judge Engelmayer said in an emergency order that the officials’ access heightened the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking. He set a hearing in the case for Friday.Federal lawyers defending Mr. Trump — as well as the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the Treasury Department — called the order “markedly overboard” and said the court should dismiss the injunction, or at least modify his order.They argued that the order violated the Constitution by ignoring the separation of powers and severing the executive branch’s right to appoint its own employees. The restriction, they wrote, “draws an impermissible and anti-constitutional distinction” between civil servants and political appointees working in the Treasury Department.The filing followed warning shots over the weekend. Vice President JD Vance declared that the courts and judges aren’t allowed “to control the executive’s legitimate power,” although American courts have long engaged in the practice of judicial review.On Saturday, Mr. Trump called the ruling by Judge Engelmayer a “disgrace” and said that “No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”This is a developing story and will be updated. More

Philadelphia’s loyal supporters made themselves at home, with joyous fans partying outside the Superdome and others making their way to Bourbon Street.As the clock ran out at the Super Bowl on Sunday night, and the Philadelphia Eagles ran onto the field in New Orleans, confetti filled the Superdome and the team’s fight song, “Fly Eagles Fly,” blared over the speakers.Chants of “E-A-G-L-E-S” came from all corners of the 83,000-seat stadium. But now, fans went into overdrive, dressed in beads and sequins, flapping their arms like birds, and hoisting one another onto their shoulders.There was plenty for those Eagles fans to cheer as Philadelphia beat Kansas City, 40-22, stopping the Chiefs from becoming the first team in N.F.L. history to win three consecutive Super Bowls.Lit with green lights, Eagles fans spilled out of the stadium whistling, high-fiving strangers and dancing to a drum band, as Chiefs fans walked by sadly and serenely.Throughout the game, the excitement had extended beyond the field.President Trump, who was a guest of Gayle Benson, the owner of the New Orleans Saints, watched some of the game from a suite alongside members of his family, including his daughter Ivanka Trump and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump. He was also joined by members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. In another suite, the former first lady Jill Biden cheered on the Eagles with help from her grandson, Robert Hunter Biden, among others.Taylor Barber, left, Bria Bryant, center, and Jessie Ulmer, teachers from Texas, planned to party with the winning team. 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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

In Callan Wink’s new novel, two brothers struggling to make ends meet are forced to turn to shady ventures.BEARTOOTH, by Callan WinkAny reader seeking a refreshing corrective to the soap opera version of the American West offered by Paramount’s TV hit “Yellowstone” would be well advised to pick up Callan Wink’s new novel, “Beartooth.” Although both are set in Montana, their perspectives are radically different.Whereas “Yellowstone,” channeling “Dallas” and “The Godfather,” focuses on a rich and powerful ranching clan that defends its immense landowning interests through coldblooded violence and high-level political skulduggery, “Beartooth” shows us the struggles of two ordinary members of the rural precariat: the brothers Thad and Hazen, trying without much success to make ends meet after the death of their father. There are no prize stallions, private helicopters or cowboy hats to be found in “Beartooth” and no patriotic paeans to private property either.Wink offers instead a rawer, much less melodramatic version of the contemporary West in which the main challenge is not to conserve power and perpetuate a dynasty but to put new tires on the old truck, fill the propane tank for winter and fix the leaking roof.Plunged into debt by the cost of their father’s medical treatments, Thad and Hazen, who usually get by cutting and selling wood, are forced to resort to more lucrative but less legal ways of earning money. The novel opens with them hunting black bears out of season in order to harvest their gallbladders for the Asian market, a scheme suggested by a sinister local fixer called the Scot.As the story develops, the growing conflict between Thad and the Scot, an odd character who has a murderous past, wears a kilt and plays a set of bagpipes he has fashioned himself from bog oak and elk hide, generates most of the novel’s dramatic energy, while the sudden and unexpected arrival of the brothers’ previously absent mother, a hippyish van dweller named Sacajawea (after Lewis and Clark’s guide), provides a more emotionally nuanced domestic subplot.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Tucker Carlson, Nancy Grace, Megyn Kelly and Piers Morgan are among the clients of Red Seat Ventures, which now joins Rupert Murdoch’s empire.The Fox Corporation said on Monday that it had acquired Red Seat Ventures, a growing digital media company that has become a go-to partner for old-media stars like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan as they create their own independent online programming.Red Seat and its founding partners, the brothers Chris and Kevin Balfe, will continue to operate independently within Fox’s Tubi Media Group, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire focused on digital and streaming ventures. A purchase price was not disclosed.The acquisition moves the Fox Corporation into the heart of the online “creator economy,” where media personalities who once relied on old-school corporate distributors — like, say, the cable networks owned by Fox — have struck out on their own to build podcasts and streaming shows that rack up millions of subscribers on platforms like YouTube and SiriusXM.Red Seat’s lengthy client list includes Dr. Phil, Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly, the former “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen and the “President’s Daily Brief” podcast. Last month, The New York Post, which is also owned by Mr. Murdoch, retained Red Seat to develop a new daily podcast and audio division for the newspaper.The deal means that Mr. Carlson and Mr. O’Reilly — former Fox News stars who both lost their shows — will once again be tied to the Murdoch universe, albeit at a remove. (The same goes for Ms. Kelly, who rose to fame on Fox News before leaving for NBC in 2017.) Because Red Seat is only a service provider, none of the three will be paid by Fox or report to its executives. In addition, Tubi Media and Fox News are housed in separate divisions of the Fox Corporation.Red Seat, founded a decade ago, has about 80 full-time employees and is based out of a loft space in the NoMad district of Manhattan, a neighborhood popular with tech start-ups. Among its most popular podcasts are those of Mr. Carlson and Ms. Kelly, which routinely rank near the top of Apple’s podcast charts.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Sean KellySean Hope Kelly is a cartoonist whose work appeared in “Rescue Party: A Graphic Anthology of Covid Lockdown.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, X and Threads. More