Elections

A senior adviser to Democrat Joe Biden in his campaign for president believed “Covid is the best thing that ever happened to him”, a new book reports.It was, the authors add, a necessarily private comment that “campaign officials believed but would never say in public” as the US reeled from the impact of the pandemic amid hospitals stretched to breaking and with deaths mounting and the economy falling off a cliff.The remark, made to “an associate” by Anita Dunn, a Washington powerbroker who the Atlantic called “The Mastermind Behind Biden’s No-Drama Approach to Trump”, is reported in Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency, by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.The first major book on the 2020 election, a campaign indelibly marked by the coronavirus, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.This week, President Biden commemorated the 500,000th US Covid death with solemn ceremony and a request that Americans “remember those we lost and those we left behind”.Allen and Parnes, of NBC News and The Hill, also collaborated on Shattered, a similarly speedy history of Hillary Clinton’s White House run in 2016. In their new book they record Biden’s view of his predecessor in her defeat by Trump – he thought her a “terrible candidate” – and the views of Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice-president from 2009 to 2017, as the 2020 campaign unfolded.Obama first “seemed to be enamored with a former Texas congressman, Beto O’Rourke”, Allen and Parnes write, then later told Biden’s aides he feared his friend, aged 77 when the primary began, would only succeed in embarrassing himself and tarnishing a distinguished Washington career.But Dunn’s reported comment points to what became the dominant theme of the election. As the pandemic capsized Trump along with the economy Biden, through a much more cautious approach to campaigning and basic public health concerns, appealed to voters as the right man to manage a recovery.Trump sought to hammer Biden for “hiding in his basement” – a reference to Biden’s decision to rarely leave home in Wilmington, Delaware, instead campaigning virtually while the president held rallies and ignored public health guidelines. But such attacks did not hit home.Though “both Trump and Biden were comfortable with the stylistic and substantive contrasts of their … responses to the coronavirus”, Allen and Parnes write, “Trump led loudly, Biden calmly said Trump misled”.Like many members of his family and inner circle, Trump contracted the virus. He was reportedly more seriously ill than was publicly admitted. Biden stayed healthy and won the electoral college 306-232 and the popular vote by more than 7m.Dunn, 63, is a veteran of six Democratic campaigns and three winning ones, having worked for Obama in 2008 and 2012. She has not taken a role in the Biden administration and according to her own consulting firm, SKDK, is “currently on leave … expected to return later this year”.According to the profile published by the Atlantic in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s win in November, Dunn “came of age in the time when aides were neither seen nor heard … and still values discretion above almost all else”. More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyMitch McConnell Would Like Trump to Fade AwayGood luck with that.Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality.Feb. 24, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETCredit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMitch McConnell is savvy enough to know that when he took the Senate floor to blame Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, he was pouring gasoline on an intraparty feud.As accurate as McConnell’s statement may have been — “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day” — McConnell was attacking a man who had won an unprecedented level of devotion from a majority of the Republican electorate, devotion bordering on religious zeal.The escalating feud threatens to engulf the party in an internal struggle that will be fought out in the 2022 House and Senate primaries, pitting Trump-backed candidates against those who have offended the former president.When Trump viciously counterattacked on Feb. 16, Democrats were especially cheered by this passage in his remarks:Where necessary and appropriate, I will back primary rivals who espouse Making America Great Again and our policy of America First. We want brilliant, strong, thoughtful, and compassionate leadership.In effect, Trump is gearing up to run a slate of favored candidates in the 2022 primaries against incumbent Republicans, especially, but by no means limited to those who supported his impeachment.Politico reported on Feb. 20 that:Trump will soon begin vetting candidates at Mar-a-Lago who are eager to fulfill his promise to exact vengeance upon incumbent Republicans who’ve scorned him, and to ensure every open GOP seat in the 2022 midterms has a MAGA-approved contender vying for it.Twenty Republican-held Senate seats are at stake in 2022, and at least two of the incumbents up for re-election — John Thune of South Dakota and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — are certain to be on Trump’s hit list.Murkowski voted to convict the president. Thune voted against conviction, but before that he publicly dismissed efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Trump then tweeted on Dec. 13:RINO John Thune, ‘Mitch’s boy’, should just let it play out. South Dakota doesn’t like weakness. He will be primaried in 2022, political career over!!!McConnell will not be on Trump’s hit list for the simple reason that he just won re-election and does not have to face voters until 2026. But his name will be there in invisible ink.Another group Trump is very likely to target for political extinction is made up of the 10 Republican members of the House who voted to impeach the president.These incumbent Republicans only scratch the surface of the potential for intraparty conflict in the event Trump adopts a scorched earth strategy in an all-out attack on Republican candidates who voiced criticism of the former president.Trump’s venom is likely to encompass a host of state-level Republicans who disputed his claims of a stolen election, including Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, both up for re-election in ’22.Assuming that Trump versus McConnell becomes a major theme in the 2022 Republican primaries, the numbers, especially among white evangelical Christians, favor Trump.Robert Jones, founder and chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, noted that his group’s polling has found that many Republicans have elevated Trump to near-deity status. In an email, Jones wrote:Just ahead of the election, a majority (55 percent) of white evangelicals and a plurality (47 percent) of Republicans said they saw Trump as “being called by God to lead at this critical time in our country.”Jones continued:If McConnell is counting on the impeachment for inciting insurrection to weaken Trump’s future within the party, he seems to have miscalculated: Three-quarters of Republicans and two-thirds of white evangelicals agreed with the statement, “Trump is a true patriot.”I asked Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego, about the consequences of a Trump versus McConnell battle over the future of the Republican Party. He emailed in reply: “The deck is stacked against McConnell, at least for the next election cycle.”Jacobson sent a copy of a paper he is working on, “Donald Trump’s Big Lie and the Future of the Republican Party,” that provides strong evidence in support of his assessment.Among Republicans, over much of the Trump presidency, the favorability ratings of Trump, the party and McConnell generally rose and fell in tandem, Jacobson noted. That changed in December 2020:After the Electoral College voted in mid-December, the proportion holding favorable opinions of all three fell, but more for the Republican Party and much more for McConnell than for Trump. Trump’s average was 5.6 points lower for January-February 2021 than it had been for all of 2020, the party’s average was 11.3 points lower.According to Jacobson, the drop was disastrous for McConnell:In December, after McConnell congratulated Biden, his favorability ratings among Republicans dropped about 13 points from its postelection average (66 percent) and then fell another 17 points after he blamed Trump for the Capitol invasion, with the biggest drop occurring among the share of Republicans who held very favorable opinions of Trump (57 percent in this survey).The pattern is clear in the accompanying graphic:Trump on TopThe share of Republicans holding favorable views of Trump, McConnell and the party overall. More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyLive Updates: Capitol’s Former Security Officials Point to Intelligence Failures Before RiotRomney predicts Trump would win the 2024 G.O.P. nomination if he ran for president.Feb. 23, 2021, 10:03 p.m. ETFeb. 23, 2021, 10:03 p.m. ETSenator Mitt Romney of Utah said on Tuesday that he thought if Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2024, he would win the Republican Party’s nomination.Credit…Erin Scott for The New York TimesSenator Mitt Romney of Utah said on Tuesday that he believed Donald J. Trump would win the Republican nomination for president if he ran for his former office in 2024, another indication of Mr. Trump’s perceived strength in the party.“I don’t know if he’ll run in 2024 or not, but if he does, I’m pretty sure he will win the nomination,” Mr. Romney said at the DealBook DC Policy Project.Mr. Romney noted that “a lot can happen between now and 2024,” but he added, “I look at the polls, and the polls show that among the names being floated as potential contenders in 2024, if you put President Trump in there among Republicans, he wins in a landslide.”Mr. Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, is the sole Republican senator who voted to convict Mr. Trump at both of his impeachment trials.Asked by The New York Times’s Andrew Ross Sorkin whether he would campaign against Mr. Trump, Mr. Romney responded: “I would not be voting for President Trump again. I haven’t voted for him in the past. And I would probably be getting behind somebody who I thought more represented the tiny wing of the Republican Party that I represent.”Mr. Romney’s comments were a clear sign of Mr. Trump’s enduring position in the Republican Party, even after his election defeat last year and his impeachment on a charge of inciting the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6.“He has by far the largest voice and a big impact in my party,” Mr. Romney said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyDid a Coup Attempt Really Happen Two Weeks Ago in Haiti?The Biden administration must speak up for human rights in the island nation.Ms. Stockman is a member of the editorial board.Feb. 23, 2021A copy of the Haitian Constitution wrapped in an American flag at a march in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 10. The Haitian president’s supporters and opponents disagree on when his term ends.Credit…Valerie Baeriswyl/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCatherine Buteau, a 33-year-old marketing and communications specialist in Montreal, woke up on Feb. 7 to a lot of missed calls on her phone. Her relatives in Haiti had been desperately calling her. Her father, mother and aunt had been snatched from their beds in Port-au-Prince in the middle of the night.“No one knew what was happening, just that they were taken,” she told me. “In the beginning, not understanding what’s happening, I thought the worst.”Later that day, Ms. Buteau learned that her parents and her aunt were among the eighteen people who had been arrested and accused of attempting a coup against Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse. Since that day, she’s been working around the clock with a lawyer in Haiti to try to get her parents out of prison.Were they plotting a coup or trying to restore democracy?Jake Johnston, a Haiti specialist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told me that the answer depends on when you think the president’s term is up. Opposition leaders say it ended on Feb. 7, four years after his inauguration in 2017. They were openly planning to swear in a parallel government to force him to relinquish power. But supporters of Mr. Moïse say he has another year left in his term, because a disputed election delayed him from taking office.“That’s what so much of this comes down to: legitimacy,” Mr. Johnston said.Some coups are obvious, like the recent military takeover in Myanmar. Others are murkier. What constitutes a coup d’état is all too often in the eye of the beholder.Coups are getting rarer, according to John Chin, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University who tracks illegal power grabs. The 1960s saw dozens of coups around the world each year. More recently, there’s been only one or two a year. But accusations of coup plots have not gone away. Indeed, even the leaders of democracies — like Donald Trump in the United States and Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel — have cried coup to delegitimize opponents by portraying their conduct as illegal and undemocratic, Mr. Chin told me.The question of whether something is deemed a coup has practical implications. In 2009, when Honduran special forces escorted President Manuel Zelaya from his house in his pajamas at gunpoint and onto an airplane flight out of the country, the U.S. State Department refrained from calling it a “military coup,” because doing so would have meant cutting off aid to the Honduran military.And, in 2019, when Bolivia’s president Evo Morales, an icon of the left, was forced to flee to Mexico just weeks after he was declared the winner of a fourth term in office, U.S. officials rejected the term “coup” and called it an expression of “democratic will.”If a government is unpopular enough, its overthrow is called a revolution. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Haiti, a nation founded when enslaved and free people revolted against their French colonial masters, winning independence in 1804. Few historians would call that a coup.But popular revolts are easier to produce than popular governments. Haiti has endured a number of brutal dictators, notably François Duvalier, known as “Papa Doc,” in the 1950s and ’60s and his son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, “Baby Doc,” who ruled from 1971 to 1986. There were lots of plots to take out Papa Doc, who survived by relying on a dreaded militia, the Tontons Macoute. Haiti is an example of how failed coups, or even purported failed coups, can strengthen a leader’s hold on power by giving a pretext to crack down on opponents.Haiti didn’t have its first free democratic election until 1990, when Jean-Bertrand Aristide won in a landslide, only to be deposed twice in military coups. Once a country catches a case of the coups, it can be hard to cure. Every leader afterward is less secure.Ms. Buteau’s parents don’t seem like the coup-plotting type. They weren’t soldiers. Her father, Louis Buteau, is an agronomist who worked for years in Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture. Her mother, Dr. Marie Antoinette Gautier, is a well-known surgeon at Hôpital Eliazar Germain who once opened a clinic inside their house for people in their neighborhood. Dr. Gautier also ran for president in 2015 as a long-shot candidate.“My mother, she is very vocal,” Ms. Buteau told me. Raised by a widowed nurse with seven children, Dr. Gautier went into medicine, while her sister, Marie Louise Gauthier, joined the national police.“These are people who have dedicated their lives to public service in Haiti,” Ms. Buteau said.Images from a petition to free Dr. Marie Antoinette Gautier, left, Marie Louise Gauthier and Louis Buteau.They sounded like the kind of educated and civic-minded Haitians who might throw up their hands at the political situation and emigrate to the United States or France or Canada. But Ms. Buteau’s parents didn’t want to leave Haiti.They stayed even when, a few years ago, Mr. Buteau was shot by robbers outside a bank, and then a wave of kidnappings washed over the country, snapping up a distant cousin for ransom. Still, the last time Ms. Buteau talked to her parents, they were on edge because of the deteriorating political situation. The last year has been marked by increasing protests against the president, who has ruled by decree since he dissolved Parliament in January 2020.Whatever legitimacy Mr. Moïse enjoys stems from his 2016 election. But political legitimacy gets murky when large numbers of people have been kicked off the voter rolls and when elections have a reputation for being rigged.Only about 20 percent of Haitians turned out in the election that brought Mr. Moïse to power. Merely holding elections isn’t enough — the public must perceive the vote to be free and fair for the winner to carry moral force. That’s a warning for the United States, where Republicans are busy trying to toss people off the voter rolls, and where some Democrats feel it’s futile to try to convince Trump supporters that President Biden won fairly.The question of when the president’s term ends should have been answered by a constitutional court. But the justice system in Haiti isn’t functioning as it should, thanks to the president. So Mr. Moïse has been planning another year in office, even rolling out plans for a nakedly unconstitutional referendum in April that would strengthen his grip on power. While a consensus has formed in Haiti that some political reforms are necessary to prevent cyclical deadlock, the current Constitution specifically forbids amendments by referendum.After the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, Americans no longer have much credibility to lecture other countries about elections, if we ever had it to begin with. In the past, Americans overtly meddled in Haiti’s politics, in ways that didn’t produce good long-term results. It isn’t our place to resolve the crisis in Haiti.Nor should U.S. tax dollars pay for Mr. Moïse’s unconstitutional referendum. And Haiti’s leaders should not be allowed to park their money in U.S. banks if there is reason to believe it was pilfered in corrupt schemes or garnered through kidnapping rings involving state security forces. That’s what the Magnitsky Act is for.Many people in Haiti believe that the Trump administration made a deal with Mr. Moïse: If he supported the U.S. case against Venezuela, then Washington would look the other way when it came to human rights abuses in Haiti. But things have gotten so bad there that even the Trump administration couldn’t stay silent. In December, the Treasury Department issued sanctions on two former officials in Mr. Moïse’s government and a notorious gang leader for their alleged role in a 2018 massacre in which at least 71 Haitians were killed, reportedly for refusing to side with the president against the opposition.More must be done to hold those who committed atrocities accountable. It’s hard to imagine free and fair elections in Haiti as long as such killers walk free. Still, the State Department initially supported Mr. Moïse’s view that he has another year in office, a declaration that some feel gave him the confidence to arrest Ms. Buteau’s relatives, although a spokesman also called on him to adhere to the spirit of the Constitution. Other voices inside the U.S. government have spoken up forcefully about the situation in Haiti.Mr. Moïse’s government put out a videotape showing “proof” of a coup, which featured a recording of a conversation between Ms. Buteau’s aunt, the national police’s inspector general, and the head of security at the presidential palace. The government says the tapes prove that Ms. Buteau’s aunt tried to bribe the security chief into arresting Mr. Moïse so that a new provisional president — a Supreme Court judge who was also arrested — could be sworn in.Was this really proof of a coup? Not likely. The video named the coup’s mastermind as Dan Whitman, an American who served as the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Haiti 20 years ago. Reached at his home in Washington, Mr. Whitman told me the allegation “couldn’t be more bizarre and more untrue.”Mr. Whitman, who retired from the State Department in 2009, told me he hasn’t been to Haiti in two decades. He had lost track of what was happening there until a Haitian radio journalist called him to ask for a comment about the purported plot. He has since heard a rumor that someone impersonating him has been calling up opposition figures in Haiti and giving orders that paved the way for the Feb. 7 arrests.“I’m disgusted,” he told me. “I’m creeped out. But I’m not surprised. This kind of thing happens all the time in small, vulnerable countries.”The Biden administration must find ways to speak up for fair elections in Haiti without trying to decide the outcome. In a draft of letter to Congress, Frantz G. Verret, former president of Haiti’s electoral commission, asked for help convening a meeting between the opposition and the president. He likened it to “roadside assistance” to get Haiti’s democracy moving again.That’s the sort of help that would be proper for the United States to provide. After all, it is the people of Haiti who must decide if their president is legitimate or not, and if the foiled coup in Haiti was really a coup at all.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.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Los impuestos de Donald TrumpLos donativos del presidenteNuestra investigaciónEl pantano reinventado de TrumpHallazgos claveUna nota del editor ejecutivoAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNueva YorkLos impuestos de Donald Trump: los pasos que siguen en la investigaciónUna sentencia de la Corte Suprema ha allanado el camino para que los fiscales comiencen a escudriñar los registros financieros de Trump.En 2019 el expresidente Donald Trump demandó por primera vez para bloquear una citación que buscaba acceder a sus impuestos personales y corporativos.Credit…Pete Marovich para The New York TimesWilliam K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess y 23 de febrero de 2021 a las 16:34 ETRead in EnglishTerabytes de datos. Docenas de fiscales, investigadores y contadores forenses escudriñando millones de páginas de documentos financieros. Una empresa consultora externa inmersa en los secretos de los bienes inmuebles comerciales y las estrategias fiscales.Esa es la monumental tarea que se avecina en la investigación penal del fiscal del distrito de Manhattan sobre el expresidente Donald Trump y su empresa familiar, después de que el lunes una orden de la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos despejó el camino para que los fiscales obtengan ocho años de declaraciones de impuestos y otros registros financieros de Trump.La breve orden, sin firma, fue una rotunda victoria para los fiscales y una derrota para Trump, que culmina su amarga y prolongada batalla legal para bloquear la entrega de los registros —un esfuerzo que llegó dos veces a la Corte Suprema— e impulsa los esfuerzos de los fiscales después de que la demanda los estancó durante más de un año.La investigación es una de las dos indagaciones penales conocidas sobre Trump, la otra proviene de los fiscales de Georgia que examinan el esfuerzo de Trump para persuadir a los funcionarios locales revertir los resultados de las elecciones allí. Cuando Trump dejó su cargo, perdió la protección contra las acusaciones que le otorgaba la presidencia.El fiscal del distrito, Cyrus R. Vance Jr, emitió un escueto comunicado, que decía: “El trabajo continúa”. Un portavoz de su oficina declinó hacer más comentarios sobre la investigación.La siguiente fase, crucial en la investigación de Manhattan, comenzará en serio esta semana cuando los investigadores de la oficina del fiscal del distrito recojan los registros del bufete de abogados que representa a los contadores de Trump, Mazars USA, según personas con conocimiento del asunto, así como exfiscales y otros expertos que describieron los próximos pasos bajo la condición de anonimato.Los investigadores irán a la oficina del bufete de abogados en el condado neoyorquino de Westchester con una copia de la citación del gran jurado de agosto de 2019 que fue el centro de la demanda. Saldrán de ahí con un vasto tesoro de copias digitales de las declaraciones, resmas de estados financieros y otros registros y comunicaciones relacionados con los impuestos de Trump y los de sus empresas.Luego, los investigadores entregarán la masa de datos a la oficina de Vance, donde el equipo de fiscales, contadores forenses y analistas ha estado investigando a Trump y sus empresas por una amplia gama de posibles delitos financieros. Vance, un demócrata, ha estado examinando si Trump, su empresa y sus empleados cometieron fraudes de seguros, fiscales y bancarios, entre otros delitos, han dicho personas con conocimiento del asunto.Incluso antes de la sentencia de la Corte Suprema, la investigación se había calentado, al emitir la oficina de Vance más de una docena de citaciones en los últimos meses y entrevistar a testigos, incluidos los empleados del Deutsche Bank, uno de los principales prestamistas de Trump.Las citaciones son respecto a un aspecto central de la investigación de Vance, que se centra en si la empresa de Trump, la Organización Trump, infló el valor de algunas de sus propiedades emblemáticas para obtener los mejores préstamos posibles, al tiempo que rebajaba los valores para reducir los impuestos sobre la propiedad, han dicho personas con conocimiento del asunto. Los fiscales también están examinando las declaraciones de la Organización Trump a las compañías de seguros sobre el valor de varios activos.Ahora, armados con los registros de Mazars —que incluyen las declaraciones de impuestos, los registros comerciales en los que se basan y las comunicaciones entre la Organización Trump y sus contadores— los fiscales podrán ver una imagen más completa de las posibles discrepancias entre lo que la compañía dijo a sus prestamistas y a las autoridades fiscales.Los fiscales también han requerido a la Organización Trump los registros relacionados con la cancelación de impuestos sobre millones de dólares en honorarios de consultoría, algunos de los cuales parecen haber ido a la hija mayor del presidente, Ivanka Trump, un acuerdo reportado primero por The New York Times. La empresa entregó algunos de esos registros el mes pasado, dijeron dos personas con conocimiento del asunto, aunque los fiscales han cuestionado si la compañía ha respondido completamente al requerimiento.No está claro si los fiscales presentarán finalmente cargos contra Trump, la empresa o cualquiera de sus ejecutivos, incluidos los dos hijos adultos de Trump, Donald Trump Jr. y Eric Trump.En un extenso e indignado comunicado, que incluía una reiteración de muchas de sus conocidas quejas, Trump arremetió contra la Corte Suprema y la investigación, a la que caracterizó como “una continuación de la mayor cacería de brujas política de la historia de nuestro país”.Añadió: “Durante más de dos años, la ciudad de Nueva York ha estado investigando casi todas las transacciones que he realizado, incluyendo la búsqueda de declaraciones de impuestos que fueron realizadas por uno de los mayores y más prestigiosos bufetes de abogados y contadores de Estados Unidos”.Es probable que los abogados de Trump argumenten a los fiscales que Trump no pudo haber engañado al Deutsche Bank porque el banco, un sofisticado actor financiero, realizó su propio análisis de las propiedades de Trump. Cyrus R. Vance Jr, el fiscal del distrito de Manhattan, ha estado investigando a Trump y sus empresas por una amplia gama de posibles delitos financieros.Credit…Eduardo Munoz/ReutersMazars dijo en un comunicado que estaba al tanto de la nueva sentencia. “Como hemos mantenido a lo largo de este proceso, Mazars sigue comprometida con el cumplimiento de todas nuestras obligaciones profesionales y legales”, dice el comunicado.El mayor desafío para los fiscales de Vance será armar el rompecabezas de los registros fiscales, los estados financieros y los documentos de apoyo que las empresas de Trump proporcionaron a los contadores.A principios de este mes, Vance reclutó a Mark F. Pomerantz, una figura prominente en los círculos legales de Nueva York, para ayudar con la investigación. Pomerantz, un exfiscal federal de alto nivel con experiencia relevantee tanto en la investigación como en la defensa de casos complejos de cuello blanco y crimen organizado, se encargará de las interacciones con los testigos clave, entre otras tareas.Para obtener ayuda adicional, la oficina de Vance ha contratado a FTI, una gran empresa de consultoría que puede analizar algunos de los sectores en los que operan las empresas de Trump, incluido el inmobiliario comercial, así como cuestiones fiscales, dijeron personas con conocimiento del asunto.La firma también cargará la vasta cantidad de registros en un sistema de análisis de datos y gestión de documentos que puede utilizar para explorarlos en busca de patrones y apoyar así la investigación, dijeron las personas.La medida de los jueces de la Corte Suprema, que sin disentir negaron a Trump una suspensión de emergencia para que la corte pudiera revisar completamente las cuestiones del caso por segunda vez, no pondrá las declaraciones de impuestos de Trump en manos del Congreso ni las hará automáticamente públicas. Las leyes de confidencialidad del gran jurado mantendrán los registros en privado a menos que la oficina de Vance presente cargos e introduzca los documentos como prueba en un juicio.El público ya se ha enterado de muchas cosas sobre los impuestos de Trump a través de otros medios.The New York Times obtuvo datos de declaraciones de impuestos de más de dos décadas de Trump y los cientos de empresas que conforman su organización empresarial, e incluyen información detallada de sus dos primeros años en el cargo.El Times publicó el año pasado una serie de artículos de investigación basados en un análisis de los datos que mostraban que Trump no pagó prácticamente ningún impuesto sobre la renta durante muchos años y que actualmente se le realiza una auditoría en la que un fallo adverso podría costarle más de 100 millones de dólares. Él y sus empresas presentan declaraciones de impuestos por separado y emplean estrategias fiscales complicadas y a veces agresivas, según la investigación.Pero la acción de la Corte Suprema puso en marcha una serie de acontecimientos que podrían conducir a la extraordinaria posibilidad de un juicio penal para el expresidente. Como mínimo, el fallo arrebata a Trump el control de sus registros financieros más cercanos y el poder de decidir cuándo, si es que alguna vez, se pondrán a disposición de la inspección pública.Trump y sus abogados han luchado durante mucho tiempo para mantener los registros en secreto. Después de prometer durante la campaña de 2016 que publicaría sus declaraciones de impuestos, como han hecho todos los candidatos presidenciales durante al menos 40 años, se negó a hacerlo, lo que proporcionó una línea persistente de crítica para los demócratas y otros adversarios.Además de luchar contra el requerimiento de la oficina de Vance en los tribunales, Trump interpuso una demanda para bloquear el pedido del Congreso y desafió con éxito una ley de California que requiere que los candidatos a las primarias presidenciales publiquen sus declaraciones.El fallo de la Corte Suprema se produce casi 18 meses después de que Trump demandó por primera vez a Vance, en un intento de bloquear el requerimiento de su oficina y estimulando una batalla legal que llegó a la Corte Suprema por primera vez el verano pasado. En una decisión histórica en julio, la corte rechazó el argumento de Trump de que, como presidente en ejercicio, era inmune a la investigación. El caso fue litigado por el consejero general de Vance, Carey Dunne, quien ayuda a dirigir la investigación.Pero la corte dijo que Trump podía impugnar por otros motivos, como relevancia y alcance. Trump inició entonces una nueva batalla legal, argumentando que el requerimiento era demasiado amplio y equivalía a acoso político. Tras perder con ese argumento en los tribunales inferiores, Trump pidió a la Corte Suprema que aplazara la ejecución de la citación de Vance hasta que pudiera decidir si atendía la apelación de Trump.Fue esa solicitud la que la Corte Suprema negó, terminando efectivamente la cruzada legal del expresidente, dijeron los expertos legales.“A Trump no se le dará deferencia como expresidente”, dijo Anne Milgram, una exasistente del fiscal de distrito en Manhattan que luego sirvió como fiscala general de Nueva Jersey. “Bajo los ojos de las leyes del estado de Nueva York, él tiene los mismos derechos que otros en el estado. Ni más ni menos”.Reed Brodsky, un veterano abogado defensor de cuello blanco y exfiscal federal, dijo que los abogados de Trump probablemente le dirán que los nuevos intentos de bloquear la citación podrían socavar su capacidad de argumentar los méritos de su defensa.“Corren el riesgo, si siguen presentando argumentos que son frívolos, de socavar su credibilidad”, dijo Brodsky.Jonah E. Bromwich More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesRisk Near YouVaccine RolloutNew Variants TrackerAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow New Jersey Averted a Pandemic Financial CalamityA $44.8 billion spending plan unveiled Tuesday by Gov. Phil Murphy calls for no new taxes and fully funds the state pension program for the first time since 1996.Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey released a $44.8 billion budget on Tuesday that shows better-than-expected revenue projections.Credit…Pool photo by Anne-Marie CarusoFeb. 23, 2021Updated 3:07 p.m. ETIt has been five months since New Jersey officials issued warnings about a coronavirus-related financial calamity. The dire outlook contributed to lawmakers’ decisions to increase taxes on income over $1 million and to become one of the first states to borrow billions to cover operating costs.But the doomsday forecast has since brightened considerably, officials said, enabling the Democratic governor, Philip D. Murphy, to unveil a $44.8 billion spending plan on Tuesday that calls for no new taxes, few cuts and tackles head-on a chronic problem — the state’s underfunded pension program — for the first time in 25 years.The governor also said there would be no increase in New Jersey Transit fares.“The news is less bad,” the state’s treasurer, Elizabeth Maher Muoio, said. “I wouldn’t say it’s good, but it’s less bad.”The governor’s election-year financial blueprint relies on better-than-expected revenue from retail sales and high-earners, who have lost fewer jobs during the pandemic than low-income workers and are reaping the benefits of a prolonged Wall Street rally.The $38 billion that New Jersey and its residents have received in federal stimulus funding, a short-term extension of a corporate tax and a $504 million windfall from the so-called millionaire’s tax also helped, Ms. Muoio said.The release of New Jersey’s proposed 2022 fiscal year budget comes as Congress continues to debate President Biden’s $1.9 trillion virus relief package. The proposed package includes considerable funds for states and municipalities as well as grant and loan programs for small businesses.Other states have seen similarly strong signs of an economic rebound even as cases of the virus have spiked nationwide over the last several months and the nation’s death toll surpassed 500,000 on Monday.Earlier this month, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that large sectors of the economy were adapting to the pandemic better than originally expected and that December’s economic aid package had helped.Mr. Murphy, who is running for re-election in November, said the spending plan was designed to not only enable the state to scrape through the pandemic, but to help it emerge stronger.“This is the time for us to lean into the policies that can fix our decades-old — or in some cases centuries-old — inequities,” the governor said Tuesday in a budget address, which he delivered virtually.A key pillar of the budget is a proposal to fully fund the state’s public sector pension obligations for the first time since 1996.The state has not set aside the full amount of its pension obligation for 25 years, leading $4 billion in extra debt to accrue over time, Ms. Muoio said. Under a deal brokered with the Legislature, Mr. Murphy had been on track to fully fund the state’s share by the 2023 fiscal year. But the spending plan released on Tuesday sets aside $6.4 billion for the pension system, accelerating full funding by a year.“New Jersey is done kicking problems down the road,” the governor said. “We are solving them.”Under the plan, the state’s surplus, which proved to be a vital resource during the first wave of the pandemic, would not grow, officials said, but would remain at about the same level it was at the end of 2020.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyLive Updates: Capitol’s Former Security Officials Point to Intelligence Failures Before RiotDavid Perdue won’t challenge Raphael Warnock in the 2022 Georgia Senate race, after all.Feb. 23, 2021, 11:39 a.m. ETFeb. 23, 2021, 11:39 a.m. ETGlenn Thrush, Jonathan Martin and Former Senator David Perdue of Georgia lost to Jon Ossoff in a runoff election in January. He has decided against a bid for a Senate seat in 2022, he said on Tuesday.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesFormer Senator David Perdue of Georgia has decided he will not run against an incumbent Democrat, Senator Raphael Warnock, in 2022, just a week after Mr. Perdue announced he had filed paperwork for a possible new campaign, and just days after a visit to former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Perdue, 71, a Republican and a former businessman who lost in a January runoff election to the state’s other newly elected senator, Jon Ossoff, said in a statement that he had reached the decision after “much prayer and reflection” with his wife, Bonnie.Mr. Warnock defeated Kelly Loeffler, who was also a Republican incumbent, in January, winning a term that expires in January 2023. The two Republican losses handed control of the Senate to Democrats. There were conflicting signals from people close to Mr. Perdue about how much a 2022 campaign was something he was interested in versus something some of his advisers were pushing. In a post on Twitter on Tuesday, Mr. Perdue called it “a personal decision, not a political one.” But the announcement came just days after Mr. Perdue made what is becoming a ritualistic trip for Republicans — to former President Donald J. Trump’s private club in Florida, for dinner and a lengthy round of golf last Friday. That raised questions among some Republicans about what Mr. Trump had said to him during their time together.The meeting did not go well, people briefed on it said. Mr. Trump was focused on retribution, particularly against Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican whom Mr. Trump views as having betrayed him. Two Republicans, one in Atlanta and another in Washington, separately said that Mr. Trump spent much of his conversation with Mr. Perdue making clear his determination to unseat Georgia’s governor next year. Trying to navigate a feud between the former president and his state’s sitting governor for the next two years was deeply unappealing to Mr. Perdue, according to a Georgia Republican who knows the former senator. One of the people briefed on the meeting with Mr. Trump said it appeared to be a factor in Mr. Perdue’s decision not to run. But the second person said the biggest factor was how draining another campaign and then potentially six more years in the Senate would be.Now the question in Georgia is whether the 2022 race will become a replay of 2020, when Ms. Loeffler and former Representative Doug Collins competed with each other to run against Mr. Warnock. Yet after Ms. Loeffler sprinted to the right to fend off Mr. Collins, another hard-line Trump favorite, it’s unclear whether she’d want to run the same kind of primary. While Mr. Trump has publicly encouraged Mr. Collins to challenge Mr. Kemp, most Georgia Republicans believe Mr. Collins is more inclined to run for the Senate.Mr. Perdue said that he was “confident” that any candidate the Republicans nominated would defeat Mr. Warnock, adding, “I will do anything I can to make that happen.” A message to Mr. Perdue’s spokesman was not immediately returned.In his statement on Tuesday, Mr. Perdue echoed Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud in the state and called on Republican officials in Georgia to change state laws and election rules “so that, in the future, every legal voter will be treated equally and illegal votes will not be included.”State election officials have repeatedly said that illegal voting had no impact on the outcome of either the November general election or the January runoffs. AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More