Elections

Throughout the Republican primary campaign (such as it was), it was perfectly clear that the multiple indictments of Donald Trump helped him consolidate support. This was a source of moral exasperation to liberals, but their bafflement coexisted with the hope that what played well with the MAGA faithful would have the opposite effect in the general election. Trump’s cries of persecution might rally conservatives in a primary, but the trials themselves would help Joe Biden cruise to re-election.The trial that we’re actually getting, the prosecution of Trump for falsified business records related to hush money payments related to his assignation with the porn star Stormy Daniels, could theoretically still have that effect; a guilty verdict could shake loose a couple of points from Trump’s modest but consistent polling lead.But watching the trial play out so far, it seems just as likely that as in the primaries, so now in the general election: Any political effect from being charged and tried is probably working marginally in Trump’s favor.First, consider how this trial plays if you are not paying close attention to the legal details. Follow the coverage casually, the headlines about Daniels’s testimony especially, and it appears that Trump is on trial for cheating on his wife in a distinctly sordid way and then trying to conceal it — for being a political figure, a candidate for high office, and lying about sex.As it happens, America spent a pretty important period of time litigating the question of whether it’s a serious offense for a lecherous politician (one whose campaign apparatus notoriously labored to prevent “bimbo eruptions”) to conceal an inappropriate sexual liaison. Indeed, we even litigated the question of whether committing brazen perjury while trying to conceal a sexual liaison is a serious offense. And the country answered this question by embracing the consensus position of American liberalism at the time and offering Bill Clinton tolerance, forgiveness, absolution.Admittedly some politically engaged Americans are too young to directly recall the Clinton presidency. But the Lewinsky affair still casts a meaningful cultural shadow, and many of the Trump trial’s headlines cast the prosecutors in a Kenneth Starr-like part. Nothing really new is being revealed about Trump’s conduct here; the country already knows that he’s a philanderer and scoundrel. Instead the revelations are about the seeming hypocrisy of his political enemies, and how easily the former Democratic indifference to lying-about-sex gave way to prurience when it offered a path to getting Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

They confronted the institute’s director, the former senator Heidi Heitkamp. At the University of Pennsylvania, demonstrators also tried to occupy a building.Pro-Palestinian protesters stormed the Institute of Politics building at the University of Chicago on Friday afternoon, overturning furniture, damaging property and confronting the institute’s director, former Senator Heidi Heitkamp. She refused their demand that she leave her office, university officials said, adding that she was the only staff member in the building.The demonstration continued into the evening outside the institute, which is about two blocks from where the police removed a protest encampment last week.In a statement, the protest group on Friday said that it had occupied the building to protest the University of Chicago’s ties to Israel. Bystander video showed protesters climbing through second-floor windows to leave the building, as the crowd below cheered.After demonstrators were cleared from the building by the police, other protesters remained outside and in yards nearby, chanting, yelling and pounding drums.Jeremy Manier, a university spokesman, said in a statement that protesters had tried to block the entrance of the building, damaged property and ignored orders from law enforcement officials to leave.“The University of Chicago is fundamentally committed to upholding the rights of protesters to express a wide range of views,” he said. “At the same time, university policies make it clear that protests cannot jeopardize public safety, disrupt the university’s operations or involve the destruction of property.”Officials said that earlier in the day, the institute held a board meeting in the building that included David Axelrod, the organization’s founder who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama.The Institute of Politics is two doors away from the University of Chicago Hillel and across the street from Rohr Chabad, where some students were having a Sabbath dinner when the demonstration began. As the protest continued, counterprotesters held Israeli flags within sight of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Rock music blasted from a nearby house, in what appeared to be an effort to drown out the protest chants.A sign identifying the Institute of Politics building was covered with a cardboard placard that read “permanent cease-fire now,” and a set of demands were hung from the building. Among the demands was “abolish the university.”A group of protesters at the University of Pennsylvania also tried on Friday evening to occupy a campus building. The university police and the Philadelphia police made several arrests and cleared the building, Fisher-Bennett Hall. The hall is across the street from College Green, the site of the encampment that was cleared last week by the police.Mattathias Schwartz More

The Virginia governor rejected efforts by the state’s Democrats to reshape the Commonwealth’s relationship with its Confederate past. Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia vetoed on Friday two bills that would have revoked tax exemptions for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, a century-old organization that has often been at the center of debates over the state’s Confederate past and its racial history.In doing so, Mr. Youngkin sided with fellow Republicans in the legislature who almost unanimously opposed the bills and the efforts by the state’s Democrats to curtail the Commonwealth’s relationship with Confederate heritage organizations. The bills had nearly unanimous Democratic support in both chambers of the legislature. (One Democrat did not participate in one of the votes.) The organization’s property tax exemptions were added to the state code in the 1950s, during segregation and when the Commonwealth maintained a closer relationship with the group. The organization’s Virginia division is also exempt from paying recordation taxes, which are levied when property sales are registered for public record.In a statement explaining his decision, Mr. Youngkin acknowledged that the property tax exemption was “ripe for reform, delineated by inconsistencies and discrepancies.” But, he said that the bills were too narrow, specifically targeting the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and approving them would set “an inappropriate precedent.” Lawmakers who introduced the bills said that they had wanted to modernize the tax code to reflect the state’s current values; they also stated that the government should not support organizations that promote myths romanticizing the Confederacy. Critics of the legislation said that the bills unfairly targeted the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and claimed that the group and its purposes were misunderstood.Alex Askew, a Democratic delegate who introduced one of the bills, called the governor’s vetoes “perplexing.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Justice Juan M. Merchan, the judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan, donated modest amounts to Democratic groups in 2020.A state ethics panel quietly dismissed a complaint last summer against the New York judge presiding over the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump, issuing a warning over small donations the judge had made to groups supporting Democrats, including the campaign of Joseph R. Biden Jr.The judge, Juan M. Merchan, donated a total of $35 to the groups in 2020, including a $15 donation earmarked for the Biden campaign, and $10 to a group called “Stop Republicans.”Political contributions of any kind are prohibited under state judicial ethics rules.“Justice Merchan said the complaint, from more than a year ago, was dismissed in July with a caution,” the spokesman for the court system, Al Baker, said in a statement.A caution does not include any penalty, but it can be considered in any future cases reviewed by the state’s Commission on Judicial Conduct. A letter outlining the caution was not released because of the commission’s rules, and Justice Merchan did not make the letter available.“The Commission on Judicial Conduct is governed by a confidentiality statute and cannot comment on nonpublic dispositions,” said Robert Tembeckjian, the commission’s administrator.The commission’s decision was first reported by Reuters.In its 2024 annual report, the commission said it was made aware of dozens of New York judges who had violated the rules against political contributions in recent years. Most were modest amounts, the report said, and many appeared to stem from the misperception that the rules only apply to state campaigns. In fact, judges are prohibited from contributing to any campaigns, including for federal office.“Like so much of the misconduct the Commission encounters, making a prohibited political contribution is a self-inflicted mistake,” the commission wrote in the report.For Justice Merchan, the stakes of such a mistake are considerably higher than most: He is the first judge in American history to preside over the criminal trial of a former president.The donations in part fueled Mr. Trump’s efforts to have Justice Merchan removed from the case before the trial began. Mr. Trump’s lawyers also focused on Justice Merchan’s adult daughter and her work at a Democratic consulting firm.But Justice Merchan declined to recuse himself, appeals court judges declined to step in, and the trial is now nearing its conclusion.The case centers on a hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, in the last days of the 2016 presidential campaign. Ms. Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, but a $130,000 payment from Mr. Trump’s fixer bought her silence. Mr. Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up his reimbursement of the fixer, Michael D. Cohen, casting them as routine legal expenses.Mr. Trump has denied the accusations against him — and has lashed out at Justice Merchan and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the case, noting that both are Democrats. More

The votes came weeks after students at a pro-Palestinian encampment were attacked for hours by a large group of counterprotesters without police intervention.The Academic Senate at the University of California, Los Angeles, voted against two resolutions seeking to rebuke the school’s chancellor, Gene Block, largely over his handling of an attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment two weeks ago.The results of the votes, conducted after a three-hour meeting on Thursday, were released on Friday and showed that only 43 percent of voting members had backed a no-confidence motion. A motion to censure Dr. Block was evenly split, 88 for and 88 against, failing to achieve a simple majority of support.“It is clear that we are not united in how we view the major events of the past weeks and the campus response to them,” Andrea M. Kasko, the Senate chair, said in a statement. “I hope that we can try to find common ground as colleagues, and have the courage to listen with open minds and open hearts even when we do not agree.”Formal rebukes by faculty were unlikely to have practical implications for Dr. Block, 75, who is set to step down as chancellor in July, said William G. Tierney, a professor emeritus of higher education at the University of Southern California who has written about the response to campus protests across the nation.Dr. Tierney said he doubted that Michael V. Drake, the president of the University of California system, would require Dr. Block’s resignation “before that time.”But faculty members who backed the resolutions said they felt compelled to speak up on behalf of students and show resolve to Dr. Block’s successor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Former President Donald J. Trump, who has been spending much of his time recently as a criminal defendant in a Manhattan courtroom, will be in a different New York borough next Thursday, when he will hold a campaign event in the Bronx.The gathering is scheduled to take place at Crotona Park, his campaign announced in a statement on Friday evening, declaring that Mr. Trump would “ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in New York!”It is an unusual location for a Republican presidential campaign event: The area went for President Biden by about 77 percentage points in the 2020 election. And despite a shift to the right in some of New York State’s congressional districts and neighborhoods, including in the Bronx, in recent years, the state as a whole is not considered a general-election battleground.But Mr. Trump’s aides have been discussing an event in the South Bronx for weeks. The gathering, they said, would not be a traditional rally.The idea has been to make appearances around New York City during Mr. Trump’s required attendance at his criminal trial in Manhattan, on charges he falsified business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star during the 2016 presidential election.Last month, in his first campaign stop since the start of the trial, Mr. Trump visited a bodega in Harlem, attacking the district attorney prosecuting him and casting himself as tough on crime.The former president told donors at a Manhattan fund-raiser this week that he was planning something in the South Bronx, making a joke that he might get hurt in the neighborhood.“We’re going to have a tremendous rally. You may never see me again,” he said, prompting laughter, according to an attendee who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private event. “That could be a tricky one.”Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat who represents the South Bronx, wrote on social media that the area had “no greater enemy than Donald Trump,” casting him as a threat to the social safety net “on which Bronx families depend for their survival.”“The South Bronx — the most Democratic area in the nation — will not buy the snake oil that he is selling,” Mr. Torres wrote. More

A violent encounter captured on video was part of a surge in jail deaths that spurred an inquiry into the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.Video from inside a Southern California jail shows a violent confrontation in October 2020 in which 10 sheriff’s deputies burst into the cell of a man who was having delusions and resisting medical care, restrained him and repeatedly shocked him, leading to his death days later.Officials in Riverside County did not bring charges against any of the deputies involved in the encounter with the man, Christopher Zumwalt, 39, but quietly agreed in December 2023 to pay $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by his family.Depositions from the case and video footage obtained by The New York Times show the frantic and violent minutes when deputies tried to force Mr. Zumwalt out of his cell as he paced and talked incoherently. In the video, deputies wearing helmets and shields toss canisters of pepper spray into the small concrete room, struggle with Mr. Zumwalt, and strap him to an emergency restraint chair. They cover his head with a spit mask and move him to another cell, where he sat unmonitored and appeared to stop breathing for at least five minutes. He died on Oct. 25, 2020, after experiencing cardiac arrest.Mr. Zumwalt, who was arrested near his home on Oct. 22, 2020, on suspicion of public intoxication, was never charged with a crime, and the arrest report indicates that he was to be released with a citation after he sobered up from the methamphetamine he admitted to taking the night before. On the day of his arrest, he was issued a citation for bringing drugs into a jail.In a statement Friday, Sheriff Chad Bianco said his deputies did nothing wrong and characterized the settlement as a business decision by lawyers that does not imply wrongdoing.“The facts of this case clearly show the actions of our deputies were appropriate and lawful,” Sheriff Bianco said, adding that actions taken by Mr. Zumwalt in a “methamphetamine-induced psychosis caused his death.” More

M. Cohen
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Cross/Blanche
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And you had been hearing on television that they were
dangling pardons. So, you directed your lawyer, hey, find out
if I can get a pardon. I want this nightmare to end, right?
A Not if I can get a pardon. If the President was going
to be doing these pre-pardons.
But you
—
you testified that you were 100 percent
open to accepting it, anything to end this, right?
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Yes, sir.
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And so
—
and you did that with a couple of your
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lawyers, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Costello, correct?
Mr. Costello was never my lawyer.
Well, you asked Mr. Costello, putting aside whether he
was your lawyer, you asked Mr. Costello to reach out to people
in the administration, including Mr. Giuliani, about the
possibility of a pardon?
A We spoke about it.
And as part of your conversation with him, you asked
him to reach out to Mr. Giuliani and explore it, correct?
Yes, sir.
And so, when you testified under oath less than one
year later, February, on February 27th, 2019, that you never
asked for, nor would you ever accept a pardon, that was a lie,
wasn’t it?
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At the time it was accurate.
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Well, the very next day so, again, February 27th,
Susan Pearce-Bates, RPR, CCR, RSA
Principal Court Reporter More