Elections

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

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Trump’s TaxesWhat’s NextOur InvestigationA 2016 WindfallProfiting From FameTimeline18 Key FindingsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York TodayWith Trump’s Records, Manhattan D.A. Has His Work Cut OutFeb. 23, 2021Updated 9:28 a.m. ET [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Tuesday. [embedded content]Weather: Rain, mixed with a little snow, around midday. Clearing later, but wind gusts continue. High in the mid-40s. Alternate-side parking: In effect until Friday (Purim). Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesAfter more than a year of legal wrangling, it’s official: the Manhattan district attorney’s office will be allowed to access years of former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns and other financial records.The Supreme Court issued the decision on Monday, dealing a defeat to Mr. Trump’s extraordinary struggle to keep the records private.In a statement, Mr. Trump decried the court’s decision and the investigation, which he called “a continuation of the greatest political Witch Hunt in the history of our Country.”Now the district attorney’s office faces the herculean task of combing through terabytes of data for evidence of possible crimes by Mr. Trump’s real estate company, the Trump Organization.[Here’s what’s next in the Trump tax investigation.]Here’s what you need to know.What this meansCyrus R. Vance Jr., Manhattan’s district attorney, has been leading a wide-ranging criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business for more than two years.That investigation was long stymied by legal objections from Mr. Trump that twice reached the Supreme Court.Now the trove of records that will be obtained from Mr. Trump’s accountants, Mazars USA, will give prosecutors a more comprehensive look at the inner financial workings of Mr. Trump’s business and allow them to determine whether to charge the former president with any crimes.The contextDuring his 2016 presidential run, Mr. Trump said that he would release his tax returns, as every presidential candidate has done for at least 40 years, but instead he has battled to keep them under wraps.He was not entirely successful. A New York Times investigation, which reviewed more than two decades of the former president’s tax returns, revealed that Mr. Trump had paid little income tax for years and pointed out potential financial improprieties, some of which may figure in Mr. Vance’s investigation.What comes nextProsecutors, investigators, forensic accountants and an outside consulting firm will begin to dig through reams of financial records to develop a clear picture of Mr. Trump’s business dealings.After the Supreme Court released its order, Mr. Vance issued a terse statement: “The work continues.”But Mr. Vance might not see the end of that work while in office. He has given no indication that he intends to run for re-election this year, and the investigation could fall to his successor.None of the eight current candidates for the office were particularly eager to discuss that possibility during a virtual debate last month.From The TimesUprising Grows Over Cuomo’s Bullying and ‘Brutalist Political Theater’Marijuana Is Legal in New Jersey, but Sales Are Months AwayGender-Reveal Device Explodes, Killing Man in Upstate New YorkThis 105-Year-Old Beat Covid. She Credits Gin-Soaked Raisins.Tom Konchalski, Dogged Basketball Scout, Dies at 74Want more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingA Brooklyn man was arrested after being accused of stealing nearly $200,000 worth of merchandise from a Chanel store in SoHo, then bragging online about it. [Gothamist]New York City residents have clashed with restaurant owners about their increasingly elaborate outdoor dining setups. [Eater]After going out of business last year, the discount department store chain and city fixture Century 21 plans to reopen this year. [NY1]And finally: ‘Charging Bull’ artist, remembered Arturo Di Modica sneaked his 3.5-ton bronze sculpture “Charging Bull” into position across from the New York Stock Exchange under cover of night in 1989.Mr. Di Modica did not have permission from the city to install the sculpture. When he arrived with the statue at Broad Street at around 1 a.m. on Dec. 15, he and his friends found that the stock exchange had installed a massive Christmas tree where he hoped to place the bull.“Drop the bull under the tree,” he shouted. “It’s my gift.”To Mr. Di Modica, a Sicilian artist whose death last week was covered by my colleague Clay Risen, the statue was a paean to optimism in the face of stock market crashes in the late 1980s. Despite its surreptitious installation, Mr. Di Modica’s gift has endured.The bull, which city officials moved to Bowling Green, has become a reliable tourist draw and a sculptural representation of Wall Street. It has also been targeted by vandals, including one who in 2019 gashed the bull’s horn by smashing it with a metal banjo.Another art installation, “Fearless Girl” by Kristen Visbal, irked Mr. Di Modica when it was placed directly in front of “Charging Bull” in 2017.The bronze girl, who defiantly stared down “Charging Bull,” was “there attacking the bull,” said Mr. Di Modica, who felt Ms. Visbal had changed the original meaning of his work.“Fearless Girl” drew plaudits from celebrities and Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others, and in 2018 was moved in front of the exchange, near the place were Mr. Di Modica originally placed the bull.The mayor also wanted to move “Charging Bull” near the exchange, but his efforts failed, and the statue is still at Bowling Green.At the time of his death, Mr. Di Modica was working on another monumental sculpture: a 132-foot depiction of rearing horses that would one day bracket a river near his home in Vittoria, Italy.“I must finish this thing,” Mr. Di Modica said. “I will die working.”It’s Tuesday — grab the bull by the horns.Metropolitan Diary: Running late Dear Diary:It was a Monday morning in 1985, and I was running late for work. I barely had time to put on makeup and brush my hair before dashing out the door of my Cobble Hill apartment.When I got to the sidewalk, I hit my stride. With a Walkman wedged in my pocket and music filling my ears, I loped down the six blocks to the subway, bopping along happily to Madonna’s “Material Girl.”I still had my headphones in when I got on the train. I quickly sensed a ripple of mirth around me. Somebody said something, and people started to laugh. I paid it no mind and kept my head low, glued to my music.When the doors opened at the next stop, a woman in a crisp business suit brushed past me as I stood near the door. She motioned for me to turn off my Walkman.“You have your curlers on,” she said.— Reni RoxasNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.What would you like to see more (or less) of? Email us: [email protected] reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Patriots’ Only: Beijing Plans Overhaul of Hong Kong’s ElectionsThe central government is likely to bypass local officials, just as it did with last year’s national security law.China plans to impose restrictions on Hong Kong’s electoral system to root out candidates whom the Communist Party deems disloyal.Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesKeith Bradsher, Vivian Wang and Feb. 23, 2021, 8:05 a.m. ETBEIJING — China’s Communist Party already wields outsized influence over Hong Kong’s political landscape. Its allies have long controlled a committee that handpicks the territory’s leader. Its loyalists dominate the Hong Kong legislature. It ousted four of the city’s elected opposition lawmakers last year.Now, China plans to impose restrictions on Hong Kong’s electoral system to root out candidates the Communist Party deems disloyal, a move that could block democracy advocates in the city from running for any elected office.The planned overhaul reinforces the Communist Party’s resolve to quash the few remaining vestiges of political dissent after the antigovernment protests that roiled the territory in 2019. It also builds on a national security law for the city that Beijing enacted last summer, giving the authorities sweeping powers to target dissent.Collectively, those efforts are transforming Hong Kong’s freewheeling, often messy partial democracy into a political system more closely resembling mainland China’s authoritarian system, which demands almost total obedience.“In our country where socialist democracy is practiced, political dissent is allowed, but there is a red line here,” Xia Baolong, China’s director of Hong Kong and Macau affairs, said on Monday in a strongly worded speech that outlined Beijing’s intentions. “It must not be allowed to damage the fundamental system of the country — that is, damage the leadership of the Communist Party of China.”The central government wants Hong Kong to be run by “patriots,” Mr. Xia said, and will not let the Hong Kong government rewrite the territory’s laws, as previously expected, but will do so itself.President Xi Jinping of China, left, has told Hong Kong’s leader that having patriots govern the city is the only way to ensure its long-term stability.Credit…Kevin Frayer/Getty ImagesMr. Xia did not go into details, but Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, affirmed the broad strokes of the plan, saying on Tuesday that many years of intermittent protests over Hong Kong’s political future had forced the national government to act.When Britain returned Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the territory was promised a high degree of autonomy, in addition to the preservation of its capitalist economic system and the rule of law.But in the decades since, many among the city’s 7.5 million residents have grown wary of Beijing’s encroachment on their freedoms and unfulfilled promises of universal suffrage. The Communist Party, for its part, has been alarmed by increasingly open resistance to its rule in the city and has blamed what it calls hostile foreign forces bent on undermining its sovereignty.These tensions escalated in 2019 when masses of Hong Kong residents took to the streets in protests for months, calling in part for universal suffrage. They also delivered a striking rebuke of Beijing by handing pro-democracy candidates a stunning victory in local district elections that had long been dominated by the establishment.The latest planned overhaul seeks to prevent such electoral upsets and, more important, would also give Beijing a much tighter grip on the 1,200-member committee that will decide early next year who will be the city’s chief executive for the next five years.Different groups in Hong Kong society — bankers, lawyers, accountants and others — will vote this year to choose their representatives on the committee. The urgency of the Communist Party’s move suggests a worry that pro-democracy sentiment in Hong Kong is so strong that the party could lose control of the committee unless it disqualifies democracy advocates from serving.A large-scale protest in Hong Kong in January 2020. Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesLau Siu-kai, a senior adviser to the Chinese leadership on Hong Kong policy, said China’s Communist Party-run national legislature was expected to push forward the electoral overhaul when it gathers in Beijing for its annual session starting on March 5.Mr. Lau, a former senior Hong Kong official, said the Chinese legislature, the National People’s Congress, would probably move to create a high-level group of government officials with the legal authority to investigate every candidate for public office and determine whether each candidate is genuinely loyal to Beijing.The plan would cover candidates for nearly 2,000 elected positions in Hong Kong, including the committee that chooses the chief executive, the legislature and the district councils, he said.The new election law now being drafted will not be retroactive, Mr. Lau said, and current district councilors will keep their seats as long as they adhere to the law and swear loyalty to Hong Kong and China.Beijing officials and state news media outlets have delivered a drumbeat of calls over the past month for Hong Kong to be run exclusively by people who are “patriots.” To Beijing, that term is narrowly defined as loyalty to mainland China and particularly to the Chinese Communist Party.China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, raised the issue in late January with Mrs. Lam, telling her that having patriots govern Hong Kong was the only way to ensure the city’s long-term stability. And on Tuesday, the Hong Kong government said it would introduce a bill requiring district councilors to take loyalty oaths and would ban candidates from standing for office for five years if they were deemed insincere or insufficiently patriotic.Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, said that years of intermittent protests over the city’s political future had forced the national government to act.Credit…Jerome Favre/EPA, via Shutterstock“You cannot say, ‘I’m patriotic but I don’t respect the fact that it is the Chinese Communist Party which leads the country,’” Erick Tsang, Hong Kong’s secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs, said at a news conference.Michael Mo, a pro-democracy district councilor who has been outspoken in his criticisms of the government, said that he planned to take the loyalty oath but that he had no control over whether that would be enough for the authorities.“It’s not up to me to define whether I’m a patriot,” Mr. Mo said. “The so-called passing mark is an unknown.”The government’s moves could further chill free speech and political debate in the city. Since Beijing imposed the national security law, the city’s authorities have used it for a wide-ranging crackdown. They have arrested more than 100 people, including activists, politicians, an American lawyer and a pro-democracy publisher.“I can only say people worry about that — for example, whether criticism of Communist Party or the political system in China would be regarded as not patriotic, then they have this kind of self-censorship,” said Ivan Choy, a senior lecturer in government and public administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.Before last year’s security law, Beijing generally let the Hong Kong legislature draft and enact laws governing the territory. In a sign of how drastic a departure the new approach is from previous years, some Hong Kong politicians initially expressed skepticism that Beijing would once again bypass local officials to enact legislation.Police officers firing tear gas against pro-democracy protesters in May 2020. Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesOn Monday, hours after the speech by Mr. Xia, the Chinese official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, Holden Chow, a pro-establishment lawmaker, said he still expected Hong Kong to formulate the electoral changes on its own, as was tradition.But on Tuesday, as a battery of officials declared their expectation that Beijing would act directly, Mr. Chow said that he had changed his mind and that he fully supported the central government’s intention to act from on high.He said Beijing’s actions did not diminish the influence of Hong Kong’s leaders. “I don’t think you’ll find these things very often,” he said of the direct action on electoral reform and the national security law.“It’s just in connection with these two major and important matters,” Mr. Chow said. “I still believe that, going forward, we still have a role to play.”Keith Bradsher reported from Beijing, and Vivian Wang and Austin Ramzy from Hong Kong. Tiffany May contributed reporting from Hong Kong.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyOne Question for Manhattan D.A. Candidates: Will You Prosecute Trump?The investigation into Donald J. Trump has been the focus of enormous attention, but candidates have mostly avoided talking about the case.Former President Donald J. Trump and his company are under investigation in Manhattan. Prosecutors are scrutinizing whether the Trump Organization manipulated property valuations to get loans and tax benefits.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesNicole Hong and Feb. 23, 2021Updated 7:28 a.m. ETLast month, during a virtual debate among the eight candidates running to be Manhattan’s top prosecutor, a final yes-or-no question jolted the group: Would they commit to prosecuting crimes committed by former President Donald J. Trump and his company?The candidates ducked.“I actually don’t think any of us should answer that question,” said one contender, Eliza Orlins, as her opponents sounded their agreement.Despite the candidates’ efforts to avoid it, the question hangs over the hotly contested race to become the next district attorney in Manhattan. The prestigious law enforcement office has been scrutinizing the former president for more than two years and won a hard-fought legal battle this week at the Supreme Court to obtain Mr. Trump’s tax returns.The current district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who has led the office since 2010, is unlikely to seek re-election, according to people with knowledge of his plans, though he has yet to formally announce the decision. He has until next month to decide, but is not actively raising money and has not participated in campaign events.If Mr. Vance brings criminal charges this year in the Trump investigation, the next district attorney will inherit a complicated case that could take years to resolve. Every major step would need the district attorney’s approval, from plea deals to witnesses to additional charges.But the most high-profile case in the Manhattan district attorney’s office is also the one that every candidate running to lead the office has been reluctant to discuss.The eight contenders know that any statements they make could fuel Mr. Trump’s attacks on the investigation as a political “witch hunt,” potentially jeopardizing the case. Many of them have said it is unethical to make promises about Mr. Trump’s fate without first seeing the evidence.Still, the question comes up repeatedly at debates and forums, a sign of the intense interest surrounding the Trump investigation in Manhattan, where President Biden won 86 percent of the vote in last year’s election.The candidates are all Democrats, and whoever wins the June 22 primary is almost certain to win the general election in November. At the moment, no Republicans are running. With no public polling available, there is no clear favorite in the race, and in such a crowded field, a candidate may win with a small plurality of the vote. Ranked-choice voting, which will be featured for the first time in the mayoral primary, will not be used in the race.Cyrus Vance Jr., who has been Manhattan district attorney for more than a decade, is not expected to run again. Credit…Craig Ruttle/Associated PressThe candidates have found themselves walking a political tightrope: vowing to hold powerful people like Mr. Trump accountable, without saying too much to prejudge his guilt.“I’ve been very active and vocal on my feelings on Trump’s abuses of the rule of law, of his terrible policies, of his indecency,” said Dan Quart, a New York State assemblyman who is a candidate in the race. “But that’s different than being a district attorney who has to judge each case on the merits.”“It’s incumbent upon me not to say things as a candidate for this office that could potentially threaten prosecution in the future,” he added.The stakes are high. Should Mr. Trump be charged and the case go to trial, a judge could find that the statements made by the new district attorney on the campaign trail tainted the jury pool and could transfer the case out of Manhattan — or even remove the prosecutor from the case, according to legal ethics experts.Mr. Trump is already laying the groundwork for that argument. In a lengthy statement he released on Monday condemning Mr. Vance’s investigation and the Supreme Court decision, he attacked prosecutorial candidates in “far-left states and jurisdictions pledging to take out a political opponent.”“That’s fascism, not justice,” the statement said. “And that is exactly what they are trying to do with respect to me.”Mr. Vance’s investigation has unfolded as a growing number of Democratic leaders have called for Mr. Trump and his family to be held accountable for actions that they believe broke the law.After the Senate acquitted the former president on a charge of incitement in his second impeachment trial this month, the public interest quickly shifted to the inquiry in Manhattan, one of two known criminal investigations facing Mr. Trump.Mr. Vance was widely criticized after he declined in 2012 to charge Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. after a separate fraud investigation and then accepted a donation from their lawyer. The investigation examined whether Trump Organization executives had misled buyers of units at a Trump condo building in Lower Manhattan. (Mr. Vance returned the donation after the public outcry.)Mr. Vance’s victory over the ex-president at the Supreme Court may temper that criticism. But many of the district attorney candidates have still attacked his decision to close the earlier Trump investigation, campaigning on the belief that his office gave too many free passes to the wealthy and powerful.In August, Ms. Orlins, a former public defender, suggested on Twitter that, if she were to become district attorney, she would open an investigation into Ivanka Trump.“You won’t get off so easy when I’m Manhattan D.A.,” she wrote, referring to the fraud investigation that Mr. Vance had shut down. The message drew cheers from her supporters but raised eyebrows among some lawyers.Erin Murphy, a professor who teaches professional responsibility in criminal practice at New York University School of Law, said the message suggested Ms. Orlins was more focused on a desired outcome than she was on due process.“It feels like a vindictive thing,” said Ms. Murphy, who supports a rival candidate, Alvin Bragg.In an interview, Ms. Orlins said that she did not regret the tweet.“I’m passionate about what I believe,” she said. She maintained that, if elected, she would still evaluate evidence against the Trump family without prejudice.Some candidates have been more circumspect in addressing the elephant in the room, responding to questions about Mr. Trump by emphasizing their experience investigating powerful people.Liz Crotty, who worked for Mr. Vance’s predecessor, Robert M. Morgenthau, said in an interview that she would be well-equipped to oversee a complicated case because as a prosecutor she had investigated the finances of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator.Diana Florence, a former Manhattan prosecutor, cited her history of taking on real estate and construction fraud to demonstrate that she would not be afraid to pursue the rich and influential.Mr. Vance’s office began its current investigation into Mr. Trump in 2018, initially focusing on the Trump Organization’s role in hush money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who claimed to have had affairs with Mr. Trump.Since then, prosecutors have suggested in court filings that their investigation has expanded to focus on potential financial crimes, including insurance and bank-related fraud. Mr. Vance has not revealed the scope of his investigation, citing grand jury secrecy.In August 2019, Mr. Vance’s office sent a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s accounting firm seeking eight years of his tax returns. Mr. Trump repeatedly attempted to block the subpoena. On Monday, the Supreme Court put an end to his efforts, with a short, unsigned order that required Mr. Trump’s accountants to release his records.Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights lawyer who is running, said Mr. Vance’s failure to prosecute Mr. Trump earlier reflected a central theme of her campaign. She sees the former president as the beneficiary of a system that allows powerful people to get away with misconduct for which poor people and people of color are harshly punished.“None of my policies are targeted at Trump or a direct response to Trump,” she said in an interview. “It’s the system as a whole and how it’s historically operated.”Other candidates have focused on their experience managing complex cases, in tacit acknowledgment of the obstacles ahead in a potential prosecution of a former president. Lucy Lang, a former prosecutor under Mr. Vance running in the race, has touted her familiarity with long-term cases in Manhattan courts, including her leadership of a two-year investigation into a Harlem drug gang.Daniel R. Alonso, who was Mr. Vance’s top deputy from 2010 to 2014 and is now in private practice, said that any potential case would be an “uphill battle.”“You can’t have a D.A. who doesn’t have the gravitas and the level of experience to know how to handle the case,” he said.Several of the contenders already have experience suing the Trump administration and dealing with the scrutiny that comes with it.Tali Farhadian Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, has pointed to her role in a lawsuit that successfully stopped federal immigration authorities last year from arresting people at state courthouses. She handled the case as the former general counsel for the Brooklyn district attorney.Mr. Bragg, who served as a chief deputy at the New York attorney general’s office when it sued Mr. Trump’s charity in 2018, said it was critical in politically charged cases to ignore the public pressure.“When you do the right thing for the right reason in the right way, justice is its own reward,” he said. “You can’t be motivated by public passions. You have to be rooted in the facts.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Not to Be at the Mercy of a Trumpified G.O.P.Barack Obama asked Democrats to kill the filibuster and pass a voting rights bill because it was the right thing to do. There’s a stronger argument.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 23, 2021Credit…Elizabeth Bick for The New York TimesLast year, in his eulogy for Representative John Lewis, President Barack Obama urged Congress to pass a new voting rights act to continue the work of the lifelong civil rights activist.“If politicians want to honor John, and I’m so grateful for the legacy of work of all the Congressional leaders who are here, but there’s a better way than a statement calling him a hero,” Obama said. “You want to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.”Obama then called on federal lawmakers to lift as many barriers to voting as they could. “Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching to make it even better,” he said, listing automatic voter registration, felon re-enfranchisement, a national voting holiday, D.C. statehood and curbs on partisan gerrymandering as reforms that would do justice to Lewis’s memory. “And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster,” Obama concluded, “then that’s what we should do.”Although he probably expected them to win in November, Obama said this not knowing whether Democrats would have a majority in the Senate come the start of the next Congress. Well, Democrats have that majority. And thanks in large part to the work of John Lewis and those who followed in his footsteps, it rests on two senators from Georgia, whose political futures rest in turn on whether every voter in the state has equal access to the ballot.The same is true in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where slim margins made the difference between Democratic victory and Republican defeat in the last election, and where Republican legislative majorities are determined to keep Democrats as far from power as possible — and not to lose the next presidential election the way they lost the last one. To that end, they have introduced bills to restrict the vote, to make the race for the Electoral College — as well as any race for statewide office — as noncompetitive as possible, by taking as many Democratic voters off the board as they can.Obama asked Democrats to kill the filibuster and pass a voting rights bill because it was the right thing to do. But there’s a stronger argument: that if Democrats don’t do this, they’ll be at the mercy of a Trumpified Republican Party that has radicalized against democracy itself.Democrats have already written the kind of voting rights bill Obama spoke about. It’s the For the People Act, designated as H.R. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate. If passed and signed into law, it would establish automatic, same-day and online voter registration, protect eligible voters from overly broad purges that remove them from the rolls, restore the Voting Rights Act with a new formula for federal preclearance (which would require select cities and localities to submit new voting rules to the Justice Department for clearance), re-enfranchise the formerly incarcerated, strengthen mail-in voting systems, institute nationwide early voting and increase criminal penalties for voter intimidation.House Democrats introduced H.R. 1 in 2019 at the start of the 116th Congress. Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader of the Senate, denounced the bill as a “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party” and told reporters it was dead on arrival. “This is a terrible proposal,” he said that March, “it will not get any floor time in the Senate.”McConnell no longer controls the floor, but with a de facto supermajority requirement in the Senate, the For the People Act is still dead on arrival. That is, unless Democrats kill the legislative filibuster and restore majority rule to the chamber. Right now, Senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are the most vocal Democratic opponents of ending the filibuster. “I want to restore the 60-vote threshold for all elements of the Senate’s work,” Sinema said earlier this month, seemingly mistaking McConnell’s Obama-era innovation for an age-old tradition. Manchin has also been emphatic about keeping the supermajority requirement, telling Politico that he will “not vote in this Congress” to change the filibuster.Manchin, who has been winning elections in West Virginia for the last 20 years, is safe in his seat for as long as he wants it. Sinema, on the other hand, is much more vulnerable. Not the least because Arizona’s Republican state Legislature, to say nothing of its Republican Party, is all-in on “stop the steal” and Donald Trump’s war on mail-in voting. Arizona Republicans have already introduced bills to limit voter registration drives, require notarized signatures for mailed ballots and forbid voters from actually mailing-in completed ballots.Arizona Republicans are not alone. To date, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at N.Y.U.’s law school, Republicans in 33 states have introduced more than 165 bills to restrict voting, part of the national conservative backlash to the results of the 2020 presidential election. A bill in Georgia would put new restrictions on absentee and in-person early voting; four different bills in Pennsylvania would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting less than two years after Republican lawmakers voted it into law.Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican in the House, captured the mood of the party when, on Sunday, he refused to say that the election wasn’t stolen from Trump. “Once the electors are counted, yes, he’s the legitimate president,” Scalise said in an interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News, speaking of Joe Biden. “But if you’re going to ignore the fact that there were states that did not follow their own state legislatively set laws. That’s the issue at heart, that millions of people still are not happy with and don’t want to see happen again.”This is euphemism. There was no issue with the election. State legislatures passed laws, courts interpreted them, and officials put them into action. This was true in states Trump won, like Texas and North Carolina, as much as it was in states he lost. It almost goes without saying that the real issue, the reason Republicans are actually unhappy, is that Biden is president and Democrats control Congress.Devoted to Trump, and committed to his fictions about the election, Republicans are doing everything they can to keep voters from holding them and their leaders accountable. They will restrict the vote. They will continue to gerrymander themselves into near-permanent majorities. A Republican in Arizona has even proposed a legislative veto over the popular vote in presidential elections, under the dubious theory that state legislatures have unconditional, unlimited and unrestricted power to allocate electoral votes.The good news is that Democrats in Congress have it in their power to stop a lot of this nonsense, to pre-emptively weaken the rising tide of voter suppression. All it takes is a simple vote to make the Senate work according to majority rule, as the founding fathers intended.The alternative is to allow the supermajority requirement to stand, to allow endless stagnation, to abdicate the authority of Congress to govern the country and tackle its problems, to deny the party of collective action the ability to act for the public good and to give the party of plutocrats and demagogues free rein to twist the institutions of the American republic against its values.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

AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySupreme Court Won’t Hear Pennsylvania Election Case on Mailed BallotsIn dissent, three justices said the court should have used the case to provide guidance in future elections.Election workers counting ballots in Philadelphia after the presidential election last year.Credit…Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesFeb. 22, 2021Updated 7:58 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would not hear an appeal from Pennsylvania Republicans who sought to disqualify mailed ballots in the 2020 presidential election that arrived after Election Day.The court’s brief order gave no reasons for turning down the case, which as a practical matter marked the end of Supreme Court litigation over the election. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented, saying the court should have used it to provide guidance in future elections.The dissenting justices acknowledged that the number of ballots at issue in the case was too small to affect President Biden’s victory in the state. But the legal question the case presented — about the power of state courts to revise election laws — was, they said, a significant one that should be resolved without the pressure of an impending election.The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in September that ballots sent before Election Day could be counted if they arrived up to three days after. On two occasions before the election, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case, though several justices expressed doubts about the state court’s power to override the State Legislature, which had set an Election Day deadline for receiving mailed ballots.On Monday, Justice Thomas wrote that the time was now right to take up the case.“At first blush,” he wrote, “it may seem reasonable to address this question when it next arises. After all, the 2020 election is now over, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision was not outcome determinative for any federal election. But whatever force that argument has in other contexts, it fails in the context of elections.”“Because the judicial system is not well suited to address these kinds of questions in the short time period available immediately after an election,” Justice Thomas wrote, “we ought to use available cases outside that truncated context to address these admittedly important questions.”In a separate dissent, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Gorsuch, agreed that “our review at this time would be greatly beneficial.”“A decision in these cases would not have any implications regarding the 2020 election,” Justice Alito wrote. “But a decision would provide invaluable guidance for future elections.”On Oct. 19, before Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court, the justices deadlocked, 4 to 4, on an emergency application in the case. Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh said they would have granted a stay blocking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision. On the other side were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the court’s three-member liberal wing: Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.Later that month, the justices refused a plea from Republicans in the state to fast-track a decision on whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had acted lawfully.In a statement issued at the time, Justice Alito, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, criticized the court’s treatment of the matter, which he said had “needlessly created conditions that could lead to serious postelection problems.”“The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has issued a decree that squarely alters an important statutory provision enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature pursuant to its authority under the Constitution of the United States to make rules governing the conduct of elections for federal office,” Justice Alito wrote, adding that he regretted that the election would be “conducted under a cloud.”“It would be highly desirable to issue a ruling on the constitutionality of the State Supreme Court’s decision before the election,” Justice Alito wrote. “That question has national importance, and there is a strong likelihood that the State Supreme Court decision violates the federal Constitution.”But there was not enough time, he wrote. Still, Justice Alito left little doubt about where he stood on the question in the case.“The provisions of the federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections would be meaningless,” he wrote, “if a state court could override the rules adopted by the legislature simply by claiming that a state constitutional provision gave the courts the authority to make whatever rules it thought appropriate for the conduct of a fair election.”Even after the election, Pennsylvania Republicans continued to seek Supreme Court review in the case, Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, No. 20-542, saying the justices should address the issue it presented in an orderly way.“By resolving the important and recurring questions now, the court can provide desperately needed guidance to state legislatures and courts across the country outside the context of a hotly disputed election and before the next election,” their brief said. “The alternative is for the court to leave legislatures and courts with a lack of advance guidance and clarity regarding the controlling law — only to be drawn into answering these questions in future after-the-fact litigation over a contested election, with the accompanying time pressures and perceptions of partisan interest.”On Monday, Justice Thomas wrote that the court had missed an opportunity.“One wonders what this court waits for,” he wrote. “We failed to settle this dispute before the election, and thus provide clear rules. Now we again fail to provide clear rules for future elections.”“The decision to leave election law hidden beneath a shroud of doubt is baffling,” Justice Thomas wrote. “By doing nothing, we invite further confusion and erosion of voter confidence. Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeThe Lost HoursThe Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGarland, at Confirmation Hearing, Vows to Fight Domestic ExtremismPresident Biden’s nominee for attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee that investigating the Capitol riot would be his first priority.Judge Merrick B. Garland said he would restore independence to the Justice Department if confirmed as attorney general.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesKatie Benner and Feb. 22, 2021, 7:16 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Biden’s nominee for attorney general, said on Monday that the threat from domestic extremism was greater today than at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and he pledged that if confirmed he would make the federal investigation into the Capitol riot his first priority.Judge Garland, who led the Justice Department’s prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombing, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on the first day of his confirmation hearings that the early stages of the current inquiry into the “white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol” seemed to be aggressive and “perfectly appropriate.”He received a largely positive reception from members of both parties on the panel, five years after Senate Republicans blocked his nomination to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.Judge Garland, 68, who was confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1997, pledged on Monday to restore the independence of a Justice Department that had suffered deep politicization under the Trump administration.“I do not plan to be interfered with by anyone,” Judge Garland said. Should he be confirmed, he said, he would uphold the principle that “the attorney general represents the public interest.”Judge Garland also said he would reinvigorate the department’s civil rights division as America undergoes a painful and destabilizing reckoning with systemic racism.“Communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, education, employment and the criminal justice system,” Judge Garland said in his opening statement. But he said he did not support the call from some on the left that grew out of this summer’s civil rights protests to defund the police.The Trump administration worked to curb civil rights protections for transgender people and minorities. It also barred policies intended to combat systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and other implicit biases.“I regard my responsibilities with respect to the civil rights division at the top of my major priorities list,” Judge Garland said.Judge Garland answered questions on a wide array of additional topics, including criminal justice reform, antitrust cases, the power of large technology companies, congressional oversight and departmental morale.Discussing the threat of domestic terrorism, Judge Garland said that “we are facing a more dangerous period than we faced in Oklahoma City.”He called the assault on the Capitol “the most heinous attack on the democratic processes that I’ve ever seen, and one that I never expected to see in my lifetime.”In addition to an immediate briefing on the investigation, he said he would “give the career prosecutors who are working on this manner 24/7 all the resources they could possibly require.”Battling extremism is “central” to the Justice Department’s mission, and has often overlapped with its mission to combat systemic racism, as with its fight against the Ku Klux Klan, Judge Garland said.But the hearing was also a reminder of how politics hovers over so many of the high-profile issues that will confront Judge Garland if the full Senate confirms him, especially as the Capitol riot investigation touches on members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle and more defendants claim that they acted on former President Donald J. Trump’s command to stop Mr. Biden from taking office.Asked by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, whether the investigation into the Capitol riot should pursue people “upstream” of those who breached the building, including “funders, organizers, ringleaders or aiders and abettors who were not present in the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Judge Garland replied, “We will pursue these leads wherever they take us.”Republicans focused primarily on two politically charged investigations from the Trump era: a federal tax investigation into Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden, and the work of a special counsel, John H. Durham, to determine whether Obama-era officials erred in 2016 when they investigated Trump campaign officials and their ties to Russia.Judge Garland said he had not discussed the Hunter Biden case with the president, and he reiterated that the Justice Department would make final decisions about investigations and prosecutions.“That investigation has been proceeding discreetly, not publicly, as all investigations should,” he said. He noted that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware had been asked to stay on and oversee the investigation into Hunter Biden.“I have absolutely no reason to doubt that was the correct decision,” he said.Responding to a question about Mr. Durham’s investigation, Judge Garland suggested that he would let the inquiry play out but avoided making any explicit promises about how he would handle it.“I don’t have any reason — from what I know now, which is really very little — to make any determination,” Judge Garland said. “I don’t have any reason to think that he should not remain in place,” he said of Mr. Durham.About the disclosure of any report from Mr. Durham, he added, “I would though have to talk with Mr. Durham and understand the nature of what he has been doing and the nature of the report.”Senators Charles E. Grassley, left, Republican of Iowa, and Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee, during the hearing. Mr. Grassley called Judge Garland “an honorable person.”Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSenator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the committee, said he would not “take exception” to answers about the Durham investigation that were “not quite as explicit” as he wanted “because I think you’re an honorable person.”Judge Garland has sterling legal credentials, a reputation as a moderate and a long history of service at the Justice Department. After clerking for Justice William J. Brennan Jr., he worked as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington under President George H.W. Bush and was chosen by Jamie Gorelick, the deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, to serve as her top deputy..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.In addition to Oklahoma City, Judge Garland supervised high-profile cases that included Theodore J. Kaczynski (a.k.a. the Unabomber) and the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 before being confirmed to the federal appeals court. When Mr. Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court in 2016, he was widely portrayed as a moderate.Key Republicans including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the committee, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have said they would support Judge Garland to serve as Mr. Biden’s attorney general.Democrats cast him on Monday as the necessary antidote to four years in which Mr. Trump had treated Justice Department investigators as enemies to be crushed or players to be used to attack his political enemies and shield his allies, especially as he sought to thwart and undo the Russia investigation.Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in his opening remarks that “the misdeeds of the Trump Justice Department brought this nation to the brink,” and that Judge Garland would need to “restore the faith of the American people in the rule of law and deliver equal justice.”Asked about Mr. Trump’s statement, “I have the absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” Judge Garland said that the president “is constrained by the Constitution” and that in any case Mr. Biden had pledged to not interfere with the department’s work.Judge Garland’s answer drew an implicit contrast with William P. Barr, who served under Mr. Trump as attorney general for nearly two years and appeared to see his role as serving the interests of the president much more than did other post-Watergate attorneys general.“Decisions will be made by the department itself and led by the attorney general,” he said, “without respect to partisanship, without respect to the power of the perpetrator or the lack of power, respect to the influence of the perpetrator or the lack of influence.”Judge Garland was for the most part measured and even-tempered, but he became emotional when he described his family’s flight from anti-Semitism and persecution in Eastern Europe and asylum in America.“The country took us in — and protected us,” he said, his voice halting. “I feel an obligation to the country to pay back. This is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back. And so I want very much to be the kind of attorney general that you are saying I could become.”Judge Garland pledged to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Trump Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration that led to large numbers of parents being separated from their children.“I think that the policy was shameful,” Judge Garland said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than tearing parents from their children. And we will provide all of the cooperation that we possibly can.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More