Elections

We’re heading around the bend, people! Elections are just a couple of weeks away and the two biggest races in the nation are …You have no idea, right?OK, most of the voting is going to be about local government — mayors and council members and holders of even smaller offices. But there are a couple of contests for governor, in Virginia and New Jersey.It’s Virginia that’s obsessing the world. Or at least the world that’s already terrified about what’s going to happen in 2022 (Dems lose Congress?) or 2024 (Trump? Trump? Trummmpp?).The candidates are the Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor who left office after one term because Virginia is the only state in the union that makes governors do that. Versus Glenn Youngkin, a former business tycoon who’s chipped in at least $16 million of his own money.McAuliffe isn’t exactly a pauper — Virginia’s very loose filing rules show he’s worth at least $6.9 million. But he’s always been a star at raising money. He once recalled a political event he was involved in when he was 7: “Nobody got in that door unless I got 50 dollars from them. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, 35 years later I’m still making sure that they pay.″OK, not all that inspiring, but everybody knows how important money is in these off-year elections. Virginia has evolved into a Democratic state, but what if McAuliffe loses — or just squeaks in? What if the turnout is puny? Will the nation read this as a prelude to disaster for congressional candidates next year?Democrats can’t think of anything else, and if you’ve wound up on any party mailing lists — truly, it can happen to anyone — you may have been getting more letters about Terry McAuliffe than you got greetings on your last birthday. Certainly bigger presents are involved.“I’m flabbergasted, Gail … ” reads one of the many, many missives I received from him recently. “We’ve been sending you email after email about just how important this race is, but it’s October, and it’s looking like a tossup right now.”Given my profession, I have never made a contribution to a political campaign in my life, but this doesn’t seem to have any impact on McAuliffe’s expectations.One of my all-time favorite donor requests came from Ellie Warner, McAuliffe’s finance director:“Gail, I’m freaking out right now! I meant to send this email earlier … but I forgot to press send, and now, we’re even more behind on our fund-raising goal than we were before.”That is so 2021. If, God forbid, McAuliffe somehow loses the election, “I forgot to press send” is going down in modern political history.New Jersey’s race has also had its moments. Republicans are trying to beat Gov. Phil Murphy over the head with his 2019 remark that if you’re a person whose only concern is tax rates, New Jersey is “probably not your state.”Now really, this is pretty obvious. Anybody who sits down with the family in, say, Montana, and announces, “Well, we’re going to relocate in the East, and the only thing we care about is taxes,” is not under any circumstances going to discuss real estate opportunities in the Trenton area.New Jersey is diverting but Murphy is expected to win handily. And the political world won’t be all that impressed. It’s Virginia that’s mobilized a national get-out-the-money campaign.“Gail, we don’t have much time, so I’ll make this quick,” wrote the political consultant James Carville in a mass email about a “critical fund-raising deadline.”Carville, who recently referred to himself as “an email-signing slut,” has reportedly sent out over 40 pleas for donations to various campaigns in the last three months, one darkly demanding to know if the recipient wants “Democrats to lose every election from here to eternity.”Meanwhile, Donald Trump is, of course, online constantly (“Did you see my RALLY in IOWA? It was INCREDIBLE”). He is supporting Youngkin, but not with nearly the enthusiasm he’s dedicating to raising money for his own political action fund.“President Trump specifically told us he wants this one-of-a-kind HAND-SIGNED football to go to YOU, Friend,” says one missive, looking for a contribution for a chance to be in a drawing for said memento.In the Virginia race, Youngkin, whose nickname is reportedly “Yunk,” is delicately dancing around the Trump issue. It’s tricky — if you want to be a winning Republican, you have to keep his fans happy while assuring the suburban moderates that you know Joe Biden was actually elected president.McAuliffe’s job is to make voters turn out, and one main strategy is to terrify them into action. (“I thought folks would be fired up to get out the vote, but at this point, it seems like enthusiasm is at an all-time low.”)Same thing goes for money. (“You can imagine how confused I am about why people aren’t stepping up and donating. We’re blowing this one, Gail.”)Everybody’s jumping in. John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania who’s planning to run for the U.S. Senate next year, wrote suggesting that I split an early bird $10 donation between his campaign and McAuliffe’s. There’s quite a lot of this going on, but Fetterman’s campaign website is notable for including the picture of a dog on the bottom, saying: “Hi, I’m Levi Fetterman. Boop my nose to donate $1.”Indeed, if you poked Levi’s nose, a special donation box did pop up. Like I said, they’re everywhere.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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

As they survey a grim political landscape for their party, three senior House Democrats opt for retirement and lament the factionalism within their ranks.WASHINGTON — The quickening pace of Democratic retirements in the House may be the clearest indication yet that the party’s hopes of maintaining its narrow majority are fading amid President Biden’s sagging approval ratings, ongoing legislative struggles and the prospect of redrawn congressional districts that will put some seats out of reach.In recent days, Representatives John Yarmuth of Kentucky, David E. Price of North Carolina and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania have announced they will not seek re-election. In all, a dozen House Democrats have said they will retire or seek other offices next year, including powerful lawmakers like Mr. Yarmuth, the chairman of the Budget Committee, and members from the most politically competitive districts, such as Representatives Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona.In interviews, the three representatives who most recently announced their retirement said personal issues were paramount in their decisions — they have served 72 years in the House between them. But they also cited three political factors: redistricting ahead of the 2022 elections, Donald J. Trump’s continued power over Republicans, and the rising Balkanization of the Democratic Party, that they said had made governance increasingly difficult and frustrating.None of the three expressed concern about any particular bloc in their fractious party, which includes a growing progressive wing, an ardent group of moderates and the pro-business “New Democrats.” Rather, they said they were worried that none of the groups was willing to compromise, leaving two vital pieces of President Biden’s agenda — a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and an ambitious social policy and climate change measure — in limbo.“That’s the danger I see for our party, these absolute positions emerging,” Mr. Doyle said. “It used to be you fought those fights in caucus, but when the caucus made a majority opinion, you moved forward.”Mr. Price, a former political science professor at Duke University, agreed.“I have a concern that we will have the ability to pull ourselves together, and not fracture among the caucuses the way the Republicans have,” he said.Democrats face an uphill battle to retain control of Congress. They cannot afford to lose a single seat in the Senate, but they do not face gerrymandered maps there, and vulnerable Republican seats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Ohio make Democratic gains possible.In the House, Democrats can afford to lose only three or four seats. The party holding the White House almost always loses seats in midterm elections, and with President Biden’s approval rating well under 50 percent, the historical headwinds look strong. While 10 Republicans have said they will not seek re-election, the G.O.P. sees the recent retirement announcements of prominent and long-serving Democrats as an acknowledgment of defeat.David E. Price of North Carolina, a former political science professor, said that as district maps become more partisan, the prospect of polarization grows.Al Drago for The New York Times“These Democrats spent decades accumulating power and seniority in Congress. They wouldn’t give up that power if they felt Democrats were going to hold the majority,” Mike Berg, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said.Redistricting will make the Democratic road steeper. David Wasserman, who tracks new district maps for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said so far, Democratic fears look somewhat overblown — Republican state legislatures have already gerrymandered their maps so severely that they can only go so much further. Republicans appear more intent on shoring up their vulnerable incumbents than destroying Democratic seats, he said.In contrast, Democratic legislatures, especially in New York and Illinois, may actually produce more partisan maps than their G.O.P. brethren. In all, Mr. Wasserman said, Republicans could net up to five seats from new district lines, possibly enough to win the majority but far fewer than the 10 to 15 seats some Democrats fear.Nonetheless, the new maps are pushing Democrats toward retirement. Mr. Doyle said he expects his district, which was once dominated by the city of Pittsburgh, to expand into more Trump-friendly counties to allow some of his Democratic voters to shore up the swing district now held by Representative Conor Lamb, a Democrat who is running for the state’s open Senate seat.He could still win, he said, but he would have a whole new set of constituents, staff to hire, offices to open and hands to shake. After 26 years in the House, retirement was logical.Republicans toyed with breaking Mr. Yarmuth’s Louisville district into three Republican parts, but that idea is meeting resistance, even from the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.John Yarmuth of Kentucky warned his Democratic colleagues that failure to pass the infrastructure bill and social policy measure would be politically disastrous.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. Price also did not personally see a threat, since the Republican legislature redrawing North Carolina’s map will likely dump more Democratic voters into his district straddling the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill to make surrounding districts more Republican.But as those maps become more partisan, the prospect of polarization grows, Mr. Price said. Mr. Doyle’s retirement opened the door for a considerably more liberal Democrat, Summer Lee, to jump into the race on Tuesday, with the backing of Justice Democrats, which has pushed the Democratic Party to the left. An even more Democratic district in the Research Triangle could elect a Democrat to the left of Mr. Price.As for the right, Mr. Price said, the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 “has scarred the House and raised serious questions that I never thought would be raised, about the future of the rule of law, the acceptance of election results, the peaceful transfer of power and the very future of democracy.”With far-right Republicans such as Representatives Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia already calling for Mr. Biden’s impeachment, Mr. Yarmuth said, “the prospect of serving in the minority is horrifying.”Still, Mr. Yarmuth reserved some of his harshest words for newcomers in his own party. Older members who helped draft the Affordable Care Act; the Dodd-Frank banking regulations in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis; and even President Barack Obama’s climate change bill, although it ultimately failed in the Senate, knew how to compromise, he said.“The people in the House who have been drawing all the lines are people who have not served in a governing majority,” he said. “They all have come since 2010.”And all of the newly announced retirees warned their colleagues that failure to pass the infrastructure bill and social policy “reconciliation” measure would be politically disastrous for the Democrats.“We’re not having trouble getting reconciliation done because of Republicans; it’s because of ourselves,” Mr. Doyle said. “While people say they don’t like to watch sausage made, they like to eat the sausage in the end.” More

Eric Adams, the borough president of Brooklyn, will face Curtis Sliwa, a founder of the Guardian Angels and a radio host, for an hour on Wednesday night.For much of the mayoral campaign that followed Eric Adams’s highly contested Democratic primary victory, most of his focus has been spent on fund-raising, vetting potential administration officials and preparing for his likely transition to the mayoralty.But for at least one hour, Mr. Adams will be forced to devote some attention to his Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, as they go head-to-head on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the first of two official debates among the two leading candidates for mayor of New York City.Both men say they are friends. But Mr. Adams — who is widely favored to win the Nov. 2 election because Democrats far outnumber Republicans in the city — has largely avoided engaging Mr. Sliwa since the June 22 primary. The debate will be one of the first chances for the public to see the two men together.Mr. Sliwa, 67, a founder of the Guardian Angels and a radio host, has appeared at places where Mr. Adams was holding a news conference to speak with the gathered reporters and has criticized his opponent’s policies.“Eric Adams has cast himself as the blue-collar guy and now all we see him with is the hedge-fund people and the developers,” Mr. Sliwa said. “I’m in the subway, the streets and the projects.”Mr. Adams, responding to Mr. Sliwa’s criticisms, has said that his opponent can’t be taken seriously.“We need a serious person to deal with serious problems in our city,” Mr. Adams, 61, said recently.In order to qualify for the debate, candidates had to have spent 2.5 percent of the expenditure limit for the mayor’s race, or $182,150, by Sept. 27, according to officials from the New York City Campaign Finance Board.Here’s how to watch the debate:A team of reporters from The New York Times will provide live commentary and analysis.The one-hour debate will be aired on WNBC-TV Channel 4 and also on Telemundo, Channel 47, in Spanish.NYC Life TV will offer a simulcast on Channel 25.1.The debate will also be live-streamed on NBCNewYork.com, Telemundo47.com and Politico New York. More

The committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said the former White House counselor had “multiple roles relevant to this investigation.”The House select committee investigating the Capitol riot voted 9-0 to recommend charging the former White House counselor with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesWASHINGTON — One day before a mob of former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, Stephen K. Bannon, a former top adviser to Mr. Trump, made a prediction to listeners of his radio show.“Now we’re on, as they say, the point of attack — the point of attack tomorrow,” Mr. Bannon said on Jan. 5 as he promoted a plan hatched by Mr. Trump and far-right Republican lawmakers to try to overturn President Biden’s victory the next day, when Congress would meet to formalize the election results. “It’s going to kick off. It’s going to be very dramatic.”It is because of comments like that, which foreshadowed the violence that played out during the Capitol riot, that the House committee investigating the assault is interested in questioning Mr. Bannon. But the former counselor to Mr. Trump has refused to cooperate with the inquiry, citing the former president’s claim of executive privilege.The panel voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend charging Mr. Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena, sending the issue to the House. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said members would hold a vote on Thursday. The chamber is expected to approve the move and hand the matter over to the Justice Department for prosecution.“The rule of law remains under attack right now,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee. “If there’s no accountability for these abuses — if there are different sets of rules for different types of people — then our democracy is in serious trouble.“Mr. Bannon will comply with our investigation,” he added, “or he will face the consequences.”Mr. Thompson said he expected the full House to “quickly” take up the matter.The high-profile confrontation is the first of several that promise to test the boundaries of executive privilege — the presidential prerogative to keep official communications secret — and will determine how far the House committee will be able to go in uncovering the story behind the deadliest attack on the Capitol in two centuries.Mr. Trump has filed his own federal lawsuit that touches on similar questions, suing both the chairman of the investigative committee and the head of the National Archives, the custodian of his presidential records, to block the release of material the panel has requested.Many Democrats fear that case, as well as any the Justice Department might decide to bring against Mr. Bannon, may drag on for months, potentially long enough for Republicans to gain the House majority in 2022 and bury the inquiry — and with it, any hope of revealing fresh information about what precipitated the riot.Members of the committee, which is controlled by Democrats, believe that Mr. Bannon has crucial information about plans to undermine Mr. Biden’s victory, including conversations Mr. Bannon had with Mr. Trump in which he urged the former president to focus his efforts on Jan. 6.In a report recommending the House find Mr. Bannon in contempt, the committee repeatedly cited comments he made on his radio show on Jan. 5 — when Mr. Bannon promised “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow” — as evidence that “he had some foreknowledge about extreme events that would occur the next day.”Investigators wrote that Mr. Bannon appeared to “have had multiple roles relevant to this investigation,” including in constructing the “Stop the Steal” public relations effort to spread the lies of a fraudulent election that motivated the attack, and participating in events from a ‘‘war room” organized at a Washington, D.C., hotel with other allies of Mr. Trump who were seeking to overturn the election.The group included members of the Trump campaign’s legal team, including Rudolph W. Giuliani and John C. Eastman; and prominent proponents of false election fraud claims, including Russell Ramsland Jr. and Boris Epshteyn; as well as Trump ally Roger J. Stone Jr., who left the hotel with members of the Oath Keepers militia group acting as bodyguards, the committee wrote.“It’s not going to happen like you think it’s going to happen,” Mr. Bannon told his audience on Jan. 5. “It’s going to be extraordinarily different. And all I can say is: Strap in.”Robert J. Costello, Mr. Bannon’s lawyer, has informed the committee that his client would not comply, citing Mr. Trump’s directive for his former aides and advisers facing subpoenas to invoke immunity and refrain from turning over documents that might be protected under executive privilege.Late Monday, Mr. Bannon and his lawyer sought to delay the vote, citing Mr. Trump’s lawsuit seeking to block the disclosure of White House files related to his actions and communications surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Mr. Thompson quickly denied the request for a delay.The panel was set to charge Mr. Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesUnder federal law, any person summoned as a congressional witness who refuses to comply can face a misdemeanor charge that carries a fine of $100 to $100,000 and a jail sentence of one month to one year.During the Tuesday committee meeting, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the committee’s vice chairwoman, directed a comment to her Republican colleagues, warning them that following Mr. Trump’s lies was a prescription for “national self-destruction.”“Almost all of you know in your hearts that what happened on Jan. 6 was profoundly wrong,” she said. “You know that there is no evidence of widespread election fraud sufficient to overturn the election; you know that the Dominion voting machines were not corrupted by a foreign power. You know those claims are false.”But both Mr. Bannon’s and Mr. Trump’s cases raise novel legal issues. The case against Mr. Bannon is untested because he has not been an executive branch official since he left the White House in 2017, and any conversations he may have had with Mr. Trump pertaining to Jan. 6 are likely to have fallen outside the former president’s official duties. No court has definitively said whether conversations with private citizens are covered by executive privilege, which is generally extended in relation to conversations or documents that pertain to presidential duties..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION 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.css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}And the Biden administration has refused to assert executive privilege over any of Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6-related material, saying that it would not be in the public interest to keep secret the details of a plot to thwart the peaceful transfer of power.Committee members said they were confident that they would prevail in their push to obtain the information.“The former president’s clear objective is to stop the select committee from getting to the facts about Jan. 6, and his lawsuit is nothing more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our probe,” Mr. Thompson and Ms. Cheney wrote in response to Mr. Trump’s suit. “Precedent and law are on our side.”Claims of executive privilege date back to the very first congressional investigation, in George Washington’s administration, said Douglas L. Kriner, a professor of government at Cornell University and author of the book “Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power.”However, Mr. Bannon’s situation is different from many previous cases in which the privilege was invoked.“It’s hard to imagine how this jeopardizes national security,” Mr. Kriner said of releasing documents from the Trump administration. “It doesn’t involve a current ongoing administration that might be harmed in any way, and it doesn’t even involve the right to frank and open conversation between the president and other advisers within the administration.”The committee vote comes as some Senate Republicans are holding up the confirmation of Mr. Biden’s nominee for the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., who would oversee charges against defendants related to the Jan. 6 attack, including any potential charges against Mr. Bannon.Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, has put a hold on the nomination of Matthew M. Graves to lead the office, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting delegate, said she was confident Mr. Graves would eventually win approval, but that his nomination had become mired in Republican hostility around the effort to investigate the Capitol riot.“It really isn’t related to him at all,” Ms. Norton said. “It’s partisan. It does relate to Jan. 6. It’s a tantrum, really.”Mr. Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment.Emily Cochrane More

Financial disclosures show who has the early money edge in key races, as well as the value of a Trump endorsement.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.A startling amount of money is pouring into American elections, especially the race for control of Congress in 2022. Every House and Senate candidate in the country was recently required to detail their spending and fund-raising through the end of September. Here are some takeaways, tidbits and trends from those financial reports.How Trump factors inFormer President Donald J. Trump has been doing a lot of endorsing in Republican primaries ahead of the 2022 midterms. His backing is, by far, the most coveted in the party. But a Trump blessing has not necessarily translated to a cash boom for those Senate hopefuls he backs, the records show.In Alabama, Mr. Trump is supporting Representative Mo Brooks — who has literally worked the endorsement into his logo — but Mr. Brooks was nonetheless badly out-raised for the second consecutive quarter, pulling in only $670,000 compared with $1.5 million for Katie Boyd Britt, a former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby.In Alaska, Mr. Trump is supporting Kelly Tshibaka, a primary challenger to Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his second impeachment trial. Ms. Murkowski doubled Ms. Tshibaka’s haul. In North Carolina, Mr. Trump’s preferred choice, Representative Ted Budd, was narrowly edged by former Gov. Pat McCrory.In Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump’s endorsement did seem to boost Sean Parnell, who has been a regular on Fox News and whose fund-raising doubled in the most recent quarter. But Mr. Parnell still faces a former Trump-appointed ambassador, Carla Sands, in the Senate primary and she gave her campaign $3 million from her personal fortune.In House races, Mr. Trump has made clear he is focused on defeating those who voted to impeach him. One such Republican has already retired. But none of the other nine House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump in January were out-raised last quarter by a primary challenger, with Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming setting the pace by raising $1.7 million. (In some races, challengers combined to out-raise the Republican incumbent.)One notable fund-raising haul was from Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina. She verbally lacerated Mr. Trump in January for his incitement of the Capitol riot but ultimately didn’t vote to impeach. She has since, as my colleague Catie Edmondson put it over the summer, “quietly backpedaled into the party’s fold.” Now, the $973,000 she raised is among the highest sums for a freshman.The House leaderboardAmong the rank and file, the strongest Democratic fund-raiser in the House was, by far, Representative Katie Porter of California, who represents a swingy region in Orange County. She raised $2.7 million and spent only $1 million — and now has $14.5 million in the bank. That could help her no matter how her district is redrawn in 2022 — or in a potential future Senate bid. One problem with the latter is that the only House member with more money currently in their treasury is Representative Adam Schiff, another ambitious Democrat from California with $15.3 million in his treasury.On the Republican side, Representative Dan Crenshaw of Texas has emerged as a top fund-raiser, pulling in nearly $3 million. But Mr. Crenshaw was spending far more to raise those funds: He spent roughly 88 percent of what he raised in the third quarter, records show, including more than $1 million related to direct mail.On the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York continues to be one of her party’s strongest fund-raisers, bringing in nearly $1.7 million. On the right, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the freshman congresswoman from Georgia, has continuously stirred controversy and cashed in along the way, raising $1.5 million, roughly the same sum as Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Mr. Trump’s favorite pugilists on the Hill.In the political center, two moderate Democrats, Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Tom Suozzi of New York, both topped the $1 million threshold.Democrats have an early money edge in key Senate racesTo keep the Senate next year, Democrats must first defend four incumbents up for re-election in the battleground states of Nevada, New Hampshire, Georgia and Arizona. The good news for the party is that all four incumbents far out-raised their Republican challengers, with Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia raising the most of anyone in the country, $9.5 million.The picture is murkier in three Republican-held battlegrounds: North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where the Republican incumbents are retiring, and Wisconsin, where Senator Ron Johnson has not said for certain if he is running again. Democrats face potentially messy primaries in all three races as do Republicans in the two open seats.But in each of the three states, the top fund-raiser last quarter between the two parties was a Democrat (not including those donating to themselves, like Sands).In Florida, Representative Val Demings, a Democrat, has emerged as the surprise fund-raising star of the cycle, raising nearly $8.5 million — nearly $2.5 million more than the Republican she is challenging, Senator Marco Rubio. But Ms. Demings is spending extraordinary sums to raise that money — $5.6 million in the last quarter alone, much of it devoted to Facebook ads seeking new online contributors.What campaigns are spending to raise money — known in the industry as the burn rate — is a key indicator, because it shows how much of what is raised will be available when voters are paying closer attention.Of the top dozen Senate fund-raisers last quarter, Ms. Demings had the highest burn rate at 66 percent.One Democratic senator on the ballot in 2022 actually spent more than she raised last quarter: Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. She raised $3 million last quarter, but she spent $3.1 million. Records show she made a $1.5 million media buy to highlight her work for veterans.The early ad was an unusual strategic choice. Most operatives believe TV ads that air a year from an election will be long forgotten when voting begins. But with money already flooding key states, the ad could be a chance to make an early, positive impression, especially with outside Republican groups on the airwaves.nine days of ideas to remake our futureAs world leaders gather in Glasgow for consequential climate change negotiations, join us at The New York Times Climate Hub to explore answers to one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we adapt and thrive on a changing planet? Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3-11; in person and online. Get tickets at nytclimatehub.com.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]. More

US Capitol attackHouse Capitol attack committee votes to recommend Steve Bannon prosecutionPanel unanimously approves contempt of Congress citationTrump ally defied subpoena relating to 6 January insurrection Hugo Lowell in WashingtonTue 19 Oct 2021 19.57 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 20.20 EDTThe House select committee investigating the Capitol attack voted on Tuesday to recommend the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon, after he defied a subpoena relating to their inquiry into the 6 January insurrection.FBI raids Washington home of Russian billionaire Oleg DeripaskaRead moreThe select committee approved the contempt of Congress citation unanimously, sending the report to the Democratic-controlled House, which is expected on Thursday to authorize the panel to go to court to punish Bannon for his non-compliance.“It is essential that we get Mr Bannon’s factual and complete testimony in order to get a full accounting of the violence of January 6th and its causes,” said Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the select committee.“Mr Bannon will comply with our investigation or he will face the consequences,” he said. “We cannot allow anyone to stand in the way of the select committee as we work to get to the facts. The stakes are too high.”Members on the select committee took the aggressive step against Bannon to sound a warning to Trump White House officials and others connected to the Capitol attack that defying subpoenas would carry grave consequences, according to a source on the panel.The select committee had issued a bevy of subpoenas to some of Trump’s closest advisers – White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, his deputy Dan Scavino, defense department aide Kash Patel, and Bannon – under the threat of criminal prosecution.But under orders from the former president and his lawyers, Bannon ignored his subpoena compelling documents and testimony in its entirety. The other three Trump administration aides opened negotiations over the extent of their possible cooperation.The ramifications for Bannon’s defiance are significant: once passed by the House, the justice department transfers the case to the office of the US attorney for the District of Columbia, which is required to take the matter before a federal grand jury.In pushing to hold Bannon in contempt of Congress, the select committee has also set up a potentially perilous legal moment for Bannon as he resists the inquiry into what Trump knew in advance of efforts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.A successful contempt prosecution could result in up to a one-year sentence in federal prison, $100,000 in fines, or both – although the misdemeanor offense may not ultimately lead to his cooperation and pursuing the charge could still take years.Bannon remains a key person of interest to House select committee investigators in large part because he was in constant contact with Trump and his team in the days before 6 January, as the former president strategized how to return himself to the Oval Office.He also appeared to have advance knowledge of the Capitol attack, predicting on his War Room podcast, the day before the insurrection that left five dead and 140 injured: “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”In opening statements ahead of the vote, Republican congresswoman and committee member Liz Cheney said: “Mr Bannon’s and Mr Trump’s privilege arguments do appear to reveal one thing, however: they suggest that President Trump was personally involved in the planning and execution of January 6th. And we will get to the bottom of that.”But the former chief strategist to Trump indicated to the select committee he would not cooperate with his 23 September subpoena on grounds that communications involving Trump are protected by executive privilege and cannot be revealed to Congress.The legal argument faces a steep uphill battle with the Biden justice department appearing inclined to adopt a narrow interpretation on executive privilege, previously allowing top Trump justice department officials to testify to Congress about 6 January.And as the justice department examines the expected referral from the House in finer detail, prosecutors may open Trump to legal jeopardy insofar as he may have obstructed justice by ordering Bannon and other aides to defy the subpoenas.The select committee said in the contempt report that Bannon had no basis to refuse his subpoena because Trump never actually asserted executive privilege – but also because Bannon tried to use an executive privilege claim for non-executive branch materials.Within the scope of the subpoena demanding documents and testimony, the report said, included contacts with members of Congress and Trump campaign officials in the days before 6 January, which are ostensibly unrelated to communications between Bannon and Trump.The contempt report added that even if the select committee accepted his executive privilege claim, the law makes clear that even senior White House officials advising sitting presidents have the kind of immunity from congressional inquiries being claimed by Bannon.The report further noted: “If any witness so close to the events leading up to the January 6 attack could decline to provide information to the select committee, Congress would be severely hamstrung in its ability to exercise its constitutional powers.”The prospect of prosecution appears not to have worried Bannon, who spent the day before his deposition date a hundred miles away in Virginia, where he attended a Republican rally that featured a flag purportedly carried by a rioter at the Capitol attack.Trump lashed out at the select committee after it announced it would vote to hold Bannon in contempt. “They should hold themselves in criminal contempt for cheating in the election,” he said, repeating lies about a stolen election refuted by the justice department.Still, the select committee’s net appears to be closing in on the former president. Thompson, the chair of the select committee, said on CNN on Thursday that he would not rule out eventually issuing a subpoena for Trump himself.Maanvi Singh contributed reportingTopicsUS Capitol attackSteve BannonDonald TrumpUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesnewsReuse this content More

Agents investigating whether Oleg Deripaska violated U.S. sanctions searched homes he has used in New York and Washington, D.C.Agents raided homes that Oleg V. Deripaska had used in New York’s Greenwich Village and on Washington’s Embassy Row, as part of an investigation into whether he violated sanctions the United States imposed on him.Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated PressF.B.I. agents on Tuesday morning searched homes linked to the Russian oligarch Oleg V. Deripaska in New York’s Greenwich Village and on Washington’s Embassy Row as part of an investigation into whether he violated sanctions imposed on him by the United States, according to people with knowledge of the matter and a spokeswoman for Mr. Deripaska.The searches were carried out more or less simultaneously by agents in New York and Washington and were part of an investigation by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the people said.Mr. Deripaska, an aluminum magnate with ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, was a client of Paul Manafort, who served for several months as Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016 and was convicted in 2018 of financial fraud and other crimes.A spokesman for the F.B.I. office in New York would say only that the agents were “conducting a law enforcement operation pursuant to a law enforcement investigation,” and did not provide details on the nature or scope of the inquiry. A spokesman for the Southern District declined to comment.But a spokeswoman for Mr. Deripaska issued a statement confirming the searches, and saying that the investigation was related to U.S. sanctions.“The F.B.I. is carrying out a search at two houses — located in Washington and New York — belonging to Mr. Deripaska’s relatives,” said the spokeswoman, Larisa Belyaeva. “The searches are being carried out on the basis of two court orders, connected to U.S. sanctions.”The agents searching the Greenwich Village house arrived in the early morning hours in about half a dozen SUVs and were seen leaving the building carrying several large flat rectangular boxes like those used to transport paintings.The raid on the home in Washington was reported earlier by NBC News.In 2018, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions against Mr. Deripaska and his mammoth aluminum company, saying he had profited from the “malign activities” of Russia around the world. In announcing the sanctions, the Trump administration cited accusations that Mr. Deripaska had been accused of extortion, racketeering, bribery, links to organized crime and even ordering the murder of a businessman.Mr. Deripaska denied the allegations supporting the sanctions, and his allies contended that the sanctions were punishment for refusing to play ball with the Americans.The Trump administration lifted the sanctions against Mr. Deripaska’s companies in 2019 under an agreement intended to reduce his control and ownership, though a confidential document showed the deal may have been less punitive than advertised, leaving him and his allies with majority ownership of his most important company.Weeks later, Mr. Deripaska unsuccessfully sued the U.S. government to overturn the sanctions on him, alleging they were levied without due process and were based on unproven smears that fell outside the sanctions program.In the lawsuit, Mr. Deripaska’s lawyers claimed that the sanctions had cost him billions of dollars, made him “radioactive” in international business circles, and exposed him to criminal investigation and asset confiscation in Russia.The sanctions restrict his ability to own property or do business in the United States.Mr. Deripaska’s ability to travel to the United States has also been restricted in the past, though he had managed visits to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hawaii before the sanctions, people familiar with his travel said.And he has also been a subject of investigations by the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn for several years, according to people with knowledge of those inquiries, but it is unclear whether the searches have any connection to those matters.The oligarch also came under scrutiny from the special counsel investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, because of his connections to Mr. Manafort.Mr. Deripaska hired Mr. Manafort and signed his firm to a $10-million-a-year contract in 2006 at least partly to help him with his visa, which the U.S. government revoked. Mr. Deripaska eventually fired Mr. Manafort and his partner and later sued them over an unsuccessful telecommunications venture they had pursued together.Mr. Deripaska was a client of Paul Manafort, who served for several months as Donald J. Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016.Evgenia Novozhenina/ReutersBut after Mr. Manafort joined Mr. Trump’s campaign in 2016, he instructed his deputy to periodically provide confidential Trump campaign polling data to an associate that the deputy understood would be shared with Mr. Deripaska, according to a report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee. During the campaign, the F.B.I. and the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to turn Mr. Deripaska into an informant, signaling that they might provide help with his trouble in getting visas for the United States in exchange for information on possible Russian aid to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Deripaska told the American investigators that he disagreed with their theories about Kremlin collusion in the campaign.Property records show that the homes searched by the F.B.I. on Tuesday — a sprawling mansion in an affluent neighborhood in Northwest Washington and a three-story historic Greenwich Village townhouse that was once a speakeasy called the Pirate’s Den and later home to Mayor Jimmy Walker’s paramour — are owned by opaque limited liability corporations.The L.L.C. that owns the Greenwich Village property is connected to a person identified in British court filings as a cousin of Mr. Deripaska.Nate Schweber More

Representative Jeff Fortenberry, Republican of Nebraska, was accused of lying to F.B.I. agents investigating illegal foreign donations. He said he would fight the charges.WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Tuesday charged a Republican member of Congress from Nebraska with lying to the F.B.I. during a campaign finance investigation, an allegation that the lawmaker vowed to fight.The Justice Department accused the lawmaker, Representative Jeff Fortenberry, of lying to the F.B.I. twice about whether he knew that he had received illegal campaign donations, including during an interview with the government that his lawyer attended, according to the federal indictment.Anticipating that the department intended to charge him, Mr. Fortenberry said in a video posted online on Tuesday morning that F.B.I. agents unexpectedly came to his home two years ago to question him about the possibility that he had received illegal campaign donations.“I told them what I knew and what I understood,” Mr. Fortenberry said. “They’ve accused me of lying to them and are charging me with this.” He called the possibility of criminal charges shocking and stunning.The indictment stems from a separate federal investigation into Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese Nigerian billionaire who was accused of conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions to American politicians in exchange for access to them.Foreign citizens are prohibited by federal law from contributing to U.S. election campaigns. Mr. Chagoury admitted this year to providing approximately $180,000 to four candidates from June 2012 to March 2016. He said he had used others, including Toufic Joseph Baaklini, a Washington lobbyist, to mask his donations.Mr. Fortenberry, who has served in Congress for 15 years, was one of those politicians. He is not disputing the fact that the donations, ultimately from Mr. Chagoury, were illegal.“Five and a half years ago, a person from overseas illegally moved money to my campaign,” Mr. Fortenberry said in his video. “I didn’t know anything about this.”Gilbert Chagoury, right, is accused of conspiring to make illegal campaign contributions to U.S. political candidates in exchange for access to them.Alexandra Wyman/WireImage, via Getty ImagesMr. Fortenberry is not being accused of helping Mr. Chagoury in his scheme. Rather, prosecutors are looking at whether the congressman lied when they asked him in 2019 whether he was aware that some contributions were illegally made to his campaign in 2016.The government said in court filings that in spring 2018, one of Mr. Fortenberry’s fund-raisers told the congressman that he had funneled $30,000 from Mr. Baaklini to the 2016 re-election event, but that the money “probably did come from Gilbert Chagoury.”The fund-raiser, referred to as Individual H in the indictment, was cooperating with law enforcement when he spoke with Mr. Fortenberry, according to the indictment.Despite the fact that the donations were most likely illegal, Mr. Fortenberry did not take appropriate action, such as filing an amended report with the Federal Election Commission or returning the contributions, the indictment said. It was not until after the Justice Department contacted him in July 2019 that Mr. Fortenberrry returned the contributions, according to the document.In his initial interview with the F.B.I. in 2019, Mr. Fortenberry said that the people who had contributed during his fund-raising event in 2016 were all publicly disclosed, and that he was unaware of any contributions made by foreign citizens, according to the indictment.During a subsequent interview at the office of Mr. Fortenberry’s lawyer, the Justice Department alleged that Mr. Fortenberry “falsely stated that he had not been told by Individual H during the 2018 call that Baaklini had given Individual H $30,000 cash” to funnel into his campaign, and that “he was not aware of any illicit donation made” during the fund-raising event.Mr. Fortenberry told investigators that he had ended the 2018 call with the government’s cooperating witness after that person had made a “concerning comment,” even though the indictment alleged that the witness went on to “repeatedly and explicitly” describe illegal contributions and referred to an illegal contribution from a foreign national.“We will fight these charges,” Mr. Fortenberry said in his video. “I told them what I knew.”He has known about the possible charges for at least the past few weeks; he used the existence of the investigation in an effort this month to raise money for a legal-defense fund. That campaign was first reported by Axios.Prosecutors said in court documents that Mr. Chagoury was advised to donate to “politicians from less-populous states because the contribution would be more noticeable to the politician and thereby would promote increased donor access.”Mr. Chagoury entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department in 2019. Under that agreement, he admitted to wrongdoing. The department can use those admissions in other matters. He also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation. In return, the U.S. government agreed to drop the charges. The matter was ultimately resolved this year, when Mr. Chagoury paid a $1.8 million fine. More