Elections

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raced to respond to news that former President Donald J. Trump had been indicted a third time not by opining one way or the other on the new federal charges, but by leveling an unusual attack at residents of the District of Columbia, where the case is being prosecuted.Suggesting that Mr. Trump could not get a fair trial if the jurors were residents of the nation’s capital, an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Mr. DeSantis called for enacting reforms to let Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, D.C. to their home districts.“Washington, D.C. is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality,” Mr. DeSantis wrote on Twitter. “One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses — I will end the weaponization of the federal government.”The judge assigned to Mr. Trump, who was indicted on charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is Tanya S. Chutkan, a D.C. District Court judge who has routinely issued harsh penalties in Jan. 6-related cases against people who stormed the Capitol.The Republican candidates, who have sought to overtake the former president’s substantial lead in early polls with little success, have campaigned amid a backdrop of Mr. Trump’s legal battles that have sucked up valuable airtime and dominated media coverage. Here’s what the others said on Tuesday: Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was present at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and was the target of some rioters — and whom the indictment describes as a key target of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election — said that the indictment “serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, in a statement to The Times, echoed a common refrain among Republicans: that the Justice Department, under the Biden administration, had been weaponized against Mr. Biden’s political opponents. He referenced the case against Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s son, and said, “We’re watching Biden’s D.O.J. continue to hunt Republicans while protecting Democrats.”Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur and one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal defenders in the 2024 field, called the indictment “un-American.” He sought to absolve Mr. Trump of any responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and reiterated his previous promise that, if elected, he would pardon Mr. Trump. “The corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: eliminate Trump,” he said, and added: “Trump isn’t responsible for what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic and pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it.”Former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, who has refused to pledge his support to Mr. Trump if he is the eventual nominee, was the first candidate to respond to the new indictment. “Let me be crystal clear: Trump’s presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills,” Mr. Hurd wrote. “His denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he’s unfit for office.”Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who is running an explicitly anti-Trump campaign, reiterated his earlier calls for Mr. Trump to quit his campaign, calling him “morally responsible for the attack on our democracy.” Mr. Hutchinson said that if Mr. Trump does not drop out of the race, “voters must choose a different path.” More

Special counsel Jack Smith has described the January 6 insurrection as ‘an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy’ that was ‘fuelled by lies by the defendant’. The statements follow his lengthy investigation into Donald Trump and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. More

The newly unsealed indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday leveled four criminal counts against him over his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election: a conspiracy to violate civil rights, a conspiracy to defraud the government, the corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and a conspiracy to carry out such obstruction.Here is a closer look at the charges.One of the charges, a conspiracy to violate rights, is Section 241 of Title 18 of the United States Code. A conviction on this charge is punishable by up to five years in prison.Congress enacted what is now Section 241 after the Civil War to go after white Americans in the South, including members of the Ku Klux Klan, who used terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved African Americans from voting. But in a series of cases in the 20th century, the Supreme Court upheld expanding use of the statute to election-fraud conspiracies, like ballot-box stuffing.In invoking the statute, the indictment frames it as “a conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” Essentially, Mr. Smith has accused Mr. Trump of trying to rig the outcome of the election to falsely claim victory.“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified,” the indictment said.The indictment cites five means by which Mr. Trump and his accused co-conspirators sought to reverse the results of the election, including pushing state legislators and election officials to change electoral votes won by his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., in his favor instead.“That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the defendant,” the indictment said.It also cited the recruitment of fake electors in swing states Mr. Biden won, trying to wield the power of the Justice Department to fuel lies about election conspiracy, and pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to delay the certification of the election or reject legitimate electors.The special counsel has accused Mr. Trump of trying to rig the outcome of the 2020 election to falsely claim victory.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesAnd when all that failed, it said, Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators “exploited” the violent disruption of the riot on Jan. 6, 2021, by “redoubling efforts to levy false claims of election fraud and convince members of Congress to further delay the certification based on those claims.”The indictment, which recounts each of those episodes in detail, relies on the same basic facts for the other counts against Mr. Trump.One of those, conspiracy to defraud the United States, involves Section 371. Any conviction on this charge is also punishable by up to five years in prison.The possibility of this charge has long been part of public discussion of the investigation. In March 2022, for example, a federal judge ruled that emails of John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump in the effort, were most likely involved in that crime and qualified for an exemption from attorney-client privilege.And the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 recommended in its final report in December 2022 that the Justice Department charge Mr. Trump and others with this offense.The third and fourth counts are closely related: corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to commit that crime. Both are provisions of Section 1512. Any conviction under that statute is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.Prosecutors have used this law to charge hundreds of people who participated in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, accusing them of obstructing the joint session of Congress to certify Mr. Biden’s victory.In April, a federal appeals court upheld the viability of applying that charge in relation to the Capitol attack, but using it against Mr. Trump may raise different issues since he did not personally participate in the riot. More

El expresidente, que está en campaña para regresar a la Casa Blanca, ha sido imputado por sus intentos de usar los mecanismos del Estado para permanecer en el poder.El expresidente Donald Trump fue imputado el martes por sus esfuerzos generalizados de revertir las elecciones de 2020, luego de una amplia investigación federal sobre su intento de aferrarse al poder después de perder la presidencia ante Joseph Biden.La imputación la presentó el fiscal especial Jack Smith en la Corte Federal de Distrito en Washington.Se acusa a Trump de tres conspiraciones: una para defraudar a Estados Unidos, otra para obstruir un procedimiento oficial del gobierno y una tercera para privar al pueblo de derechos civiles previstos en la ley federal o la Constitución.“Cada una de estas conspiraciones, que se aprovechaban de la desconfianza generalizada que el acusado creaba a través de mentiras generalizadas y desestabilizadoras sobre el fraude electoral, atacaban una función esencial del gobierno federal de Estados Unidos: el proceso nacional de recolección, conteo y certificación de resultados de las elecciones presidenciales”, decía la acusación.También se indicó que Trump tuvo seis conspiradores pero no los nombró.Los cargos representan un momento extraordinario en la historia estadounidense: un expresidente, que está en campaña para regresar a la Casa Blanca, ha sido imputado por sus intentos de usar los mecanismos del poder gubernamental con el fin de trastocar la democracia y quedarse en el cargo contra la voluntad de los votantes.La acusación se produjo más de dos años y medio después de que una turba favorable a Trump —alentada por los discursos incendiarios del exmandatario y sus aliados— irrumpieron en el Capitolio el 6 de enero de 2021, en el peor ataque contra la sede del Congreso desde la Guerra de 1812.Un gran jurado federal devolvió la acusación unos ocho meses después de que el procurador general Merrick Garland nombrara a Smith, un fiscal federal de carrera, para que supervisara dos investigaciones contra Trump, una sobre el manejo de documentos clasificados y la otra sobre la manipulación de las elecciones. Sucedió un año después de que la Cámara de Representantes realizó audiencias de alto nivel sobre el ataque del 6 de enero y sus causas que dieron como resultado pruebas extensas de los esfuerzos de Trump por revertir los resultados electorales.Garland procedió a nombrar a Smith como fiscal especial unos días después de que Trump declarara que volvía a postularse.El expresidente enfrenta dos acusaciones federales distintas. En junio, Smith presentó cargos en Florida acusando a Trump —el principal contendiente a la nominación republicana a la presidencia para 2024— de retener de manera ilegal un conjunto de documentos de defensa nacional muy delicados y luego obstaculizar los intentos del gobierno para recuperarlos. Se espera que ese caso llegue a juicio en mayo.El esquema que Smith imputó el martes en el caso de la elección se desarrolló sobre todo en los dos meses transcurridos entre el Día de las Elecciones en noviembre de 2020 y el ataque al Capitolio. En ese tiempo. Trump participó en un amplio repertorio de esfuerzos para permanecer en el poder, a pesar de haber perdido frente a Biden en la contienda presidencial.Trump también enfrenta dificultades legales en las cortes estatales, además de los cargos a nivel federal en los casos de los documentos y las elecciones.La oficina del fiscal de distrito de Manhattan lo acusó en un caso enfocado en pagos hechos a la estrella porno Stormy Daniels con el fin de acallarla antes de las elecciones de 2016.Los esfuerzos de Trump y sus aliados para revertir su derrota electoral también son motivo de otra investigación a cargo del fiscal de distrito del Condado de Fulton, Georgia. Parece ser que esa indagatoria podría formular cargos este mes.Alan Feuer cubre los tribunales y la justicia penal para la sección Metro. Ha escrito sobre mafiosos, cárceles, mala conducta policial, condenas injustas, corrupción gubernamental y El Chapo, el jefe encarcelado del cártel de Sinaloa. Se unió al Times en 1999.Maggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y fue parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. More

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Federal prosecutors have charged Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the latest criminal case before the former president that comes just weeks after he was charged with retaining national defense information.You can read the indictment here in full: More

At least seven candidates appear to have made the cut so far for the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 23. Trump(may not attend) Trump(may not attend) The latest polling and fund-raising data show that the playing field is narrowing for the Republican presidential debate scheduled for later this month. Although former President Donald J. […] More

A key figure in a multistate effort to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. DePerno lost his race for Michigan attorney general in 2022. He later finished second to lead the state’s Republican Party.Matthew DePerno, a key orchestrator of efforts to help former President Donald J. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election in Michigan and an unsuccessful candidate for state attorney general last year, was arraigned on four felony charges on Tuesday, according to documents released by D.J. Hilson, the special prosecutor handling the investigation.The charges against Mr. DePerno, which include undue possession of a voting machine and a conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to a computer or computer system, come after a nearly yearlong investigation in one of the battleground states that cemented the election of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president.Former State Representative Daire Rendon was also charged with two crimes, including a conspiracy to illegally obtain a voting machine and false pretenses.Both Mr. DePerno and Ms. Rendon were arraigned remotely on Tuesday before Chief Judge Jeffery Matis, according to Richard Lynch, the court administrator for Oakland County’s Sixth Circuit, and remained free on bond.The charges were first reported by The Detroit News.Mr. DePerno denied any wrongdoing and said that his efforts “uncovered significant security flaws” in a statement from his lawyer, Paul Stablein.“He maintains his innocence and firmly believes that these charges are not based upon any actual truth and are motivated primarily by politics rather than evidence,” Mr. Stablein said.The criminal inquiry in Michigan has largely been overshadowed by developments in Georgia, where a grand jury is weighing charges against Mr. Trump for trying to subvert the election, but both are part of the ongoing reckoning over the conspiracy theories about election machines promoted by Mr. Trump and his allies.The efforts to legitimize the falsehoods and conspiracy theories promoted widely by Mr. Trump and his allies continued long after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and after Mr. Biden took office. In Arizona, such efforts included the discredited election audit of Maricopa County led by Republicans in the state legislature.In a statement, Mr. Hilson said, “Although our office made no recommendations to the grand jury as to whether an indictment should be issued or not, we support the grand jury’s decision and we will prosecute each of the cases as they have directed in the sole interests of justice.”Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general and a Democrat who went on to defeat Mr. DePerno in the November election, has not been involved in the investigation since the appointment of a special prosecutor in August last year. In a statement on Tuesday, Ms. Nessel said that the allegations “caused undeniable harm to our democracy” and issued a warning for the future.“The 2024 presidential election will soon be upon us. The lies espoused by attorneys involved in this matter, and those who worked in concert with them across the nation, wreaked havoc and sowed distrust within our democratic institutions and processes,” Ms. Nessel said. “We hope for swift justice in the courts.”The charges stemmed from a bizarre plot hatched by a group of conservative activists in early 2021 to pick apart voting machines in at least three Michigan counties, in some cases taking them to hotels and Airbnb rentals as they hunted for evidence of election fraud.In the weeks after the 2020 election, he drew widespread attention and the admiration of Mr. Trump when he filed a lawsuit challenging the vote tallies in Antrim County, a rural area in Northern Michigan where a minor clerical error fueled conspiracy theories.He falsely claimed that voting machines there had been rigged, a premise that was rejected as “idiotic” by William P. Barr, an attorney general under Mr. Trump, and “demonstrably false” by Republicans in the Michigan Senate.Mr. Hilson, the prosecutor in Muskegon County appointed as special prosecutor, had initially delayed bringing charges, asking a state judge to determine whether it was against state law to take possession of a voting machine without the secretary of state’s permission or a court order. A judge determined last month that doing so was against the law, clearing the way for charges.Democrats swept the governor’s race and other statewide contests last fall, in addition to flipping the full Legislature for the first time in decades. Mr. DePerno, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, lost the attorney general’s race by eight percentage points.This year, Mr. DePerno had been a front-runner to lead the Michigan Republican Party after its disappointing showing in last year’s midterm election, but he finished second to another election-denier: Kristina Karamo.In his campaign to lead the G.O.P. in Michigan, Mr. DePerno had vowed to pack the party’s leadership ranks with Trump loyalists, close primaries to just Republicans and ratchet up the distribution of absentee ballot applications to party members — despite what he said was lingering opposition to voting by mail within the party’s ranks.His candidacy was supported by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive who has spread conspiracy theories about election fraud and appeared at a fund-raising reception for Mr. DePerno in Lansing on the night before the chairmanship vote.Mr. DePerno lost to Ms. Karamo after three rounds of balloting at the state party convention, a process that was slowed for several hours by the use of paper ballots and hand counting.Danny Hakim More