Amnesties, Commutations and Pardons

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      Thai Hunger Strikers Calling for Changes to Monarchy Are at Risk of Dying

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      The two young women have not had food for 44 days, part of a campaign urging the government to repeal a law that criminalizes criticizing the royal family.A stream of protesters outside the Supreme Court in Bangkok held up the three-fingered salute — a symbol of defiance against the government. “Fight, fight, fight,” they yelled to two young women who were taken out of a makeshift tent in stretchers, both so weak that they could not open their eyes.The women, Tantawan “Tawan” Tuatulanon, 21, and Orawan “Bam” Phuphong, 23, were taken to a hospital on Friday evening after their family members and lawyer said that they were on the brink of death. They were on their 44th day of a hunger strike, protesting the detention of Thai political prisoners, calling for judiciary changes and the repeal of a law that criminalizes criticizing the Thai monarchy. Their plight has been discussed by Thailand’s House of Representatives and has drawn urgent expressions of concern from international human rights groups, which have called on the government to engage with the activists. In 2022, both women were accused of violating the law against criticizing the monarchy after they conducted a poll asking whether the royal motorcade was an inconvenience to Bangkok residents. They were released on bail in March that year under the condition that they no longer participate in protests or organize activities that defame the royal family.The doctors are now most concerned about the women’s kidneys failing, according to their lawyer, Krisadang Nutcharut. “Their parents and I were consulting each other and saw that they wouldn’t make it past tonight, according to the blood results,” Mr. Krisadang said.The women’s protest has presented the Thai government with a political dilemma two months before a general election: Meet their demands and risk appearing weak among voters or do nothing and face a potential fallout that could trigger widespread unrest.Kasit Piromya, a former Thai foreign minister, has called on Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand to address the women’s demands. Mr. Prayuth, through a government spokesman, has said he hopes the two women are safe but urged parents to “monitor their children’s behavior” and for all Thais to “help protect the nation, religion and monarchy.”The women began their hunger strike in January. Last month, Ms. Tantawan, a university student, and Ms. Orawan, a grocery store worker, were hospitalized and put on saline drips after their conditions became critical. They have stopped drinking water but are sipping electrolytes on doctors’ orders.Orawan “Bam” Phuphong after leaving the hospital in Bangkok in February.Rungroj Yongrit/EPA, via ShutterstockOn Thursday, the pair announced that they would stop taking electrolytes, too. In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday evening, Mr. Krisadang said the women’s spirits remain unbowed.In January, Thailand’s justice minister told Ms. Tantawan and Ms. Orawan that the government would consider reforming the bail system, though he did not address their core demands, which include reforming the country’s judicial system.Thailand’s opposition parties, Pheu Thai and Move Forward, submitted an urgent motion for a debate in the House of Representatives in February to propose measures to save the women’s lives. The debates stopped short of addressing the activists’ demands to abolish lèse-majesté, the law that makes criticizing the monarchy illegal, fearful of alienating royalists before the election. (The protesters are also calling for the abolition of Thailand’s sedition laws.)Thailand has one of the world’s strictest lèse-majesté laws, which forbids defaming, insulting or threatening the king and other members of the royal family. Known as Article 112, the charge carries a minimum sentence of three years and a maximum sentence of up to 15 years. It is the only law in Thailand that imposes a minimum jail term.Previously, Thai authorities confined the use of lèse-majesté against people who explicitly criticized the leading members of the monarchy. But after Mr. Prayuth seized power in a coup in 2014, the number of topics that constituted lèse-majesté expanded to include criticism of the institution, and even deceased kings.Thailand informally suspended the use of the lèse-majesté law in 2018, according to Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong, Amnesty International’s regional researcher on Thailand. The move coincided with calls from the international community for Thailand to respect their commitments to the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.But after the 2020 protests, Mr. Prayuth, who has repeatedly vowed to remain loyal to the monarchy, instructed all government officials to “use every single law” to prosecute anyone who criticized the monarchy.The authorities have charged at least 225 people, including 17 minors, for violating the lèse-majesté law since 2020. Thousands more have been slapped with other criminal charges. As more activists were targeted, the mass protests slowly began to wane.Protesters attending a pro-democracy rally demanding that Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn hand back royal assets to the people and reform the monarchy, in Bangkok in 2020. Adam Dean for The New York TimesSunai Phasuk, the senior researcher for Thailand for Human Rights Watch, said the case of Ms. Tantawan and Ms. Orawan and their public survey was the clearest example of how the law is being arbitrarily enforced. “The use of the lèse-majesté law has become more and more arbitrary, in that even the slightest criticism of both the individuals and the institution can lead to legal action,” he said.On Thursday evening, dozens of supporters appeared outside the Supreme Court in support of the women. They held sunflowers and cards that read, “Abolish lèse-majesté law.” (Ms. Tantawan’s name in Thai means “sunflower.”)“These kids are so brave, my generation cannot compete with them,” said Yupa Ritnakha, a 65-year-old supporter who was holding a bunch of sunflowers outside of the Supreme Court. “They are willing to die for their cause.”This is not Ms. Tantawan’s first hunger strike. In April 2022, she went on a hunger strike for over a month after she was detained for violating her bail by posting details of the royal motorcade on Facebook. She was released on bail once again, but placed under house arrest.Friends of Ms. Tantawan and Ms. Orawan say they are disappointed that the women’s campaign has failed to sway the general public or motivate the government to introduce reforms.“It’s unfortunate for them that this is happening at a low point of the protest movement,” said Mr. Chanatip, of Amnesty. “After three years of an official crackdown on the protests, people are quite burned out.”Ryn Jirenuwat More

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      Fetterman-vs.-Oz Campaign Turns to a Focus on Criminal Justice

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      Lee and Dennis Horton maintained their innocence through 27 years behind bars. The brothers were convicted in a 1993 robbery and fatal shooting in Philadelphia that they say they did not commit.“We were forgotten men,” Lee Horton said. “Nobody was paying us any mind. John Fetterman reached out and pulled us up. He saved our lives because there’s no doubt we would have died in prison.”Mr. Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, ran for lieutenant governor in 2018 in large part to rejuvenate the Board of Pardons as a last stop for justice. One of the lieutenant governor’s few duties is to be the chair of the board, which had grown moribund.Under his leadership, the number of inmates serving life sentences who were recommended for clemency and release, including the Hortons, has greatly increased.Now that record has become a top issue for Mr. Fetterman’s opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, with Republicans training intense fire on the Democrat on social media, in email blasts and in $4.6 million in TV ads accusing him of “trying to get as many criminals out of prison as he can.”After the Horton brothers were released in 2021, Mr. Fetterman gave them jobs as field organizers for his campaign.“If John Fetterman cared about Pennsylvania’s crime problem, he’d prove it by firing the convicted murderers he employs on his campaign,” Brittany Yanick, a spokeswoman for Dr. Oz, said this month.Mr. Fetterman, in an interview, accused Dr. Oz of fear-mongering and twisting the facts of the Hortons’ case and those of others he championed. “Of course, these ghouls are going to do that kind of thing and distort and lie about the truth,” he said.Across the country, Republicans have taken up the issue of crime to rally midterm voters, confronting a rise in violence in most major cities that began during the coronavirus pandemic. Among them is Philadelphia, which is on pace to equal last year’s record 562 homicides.While attacking Democrats as soft on crime may be standard for Republicans in most election years, Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed contrast because Mr. Fetterman has turned the pardons board into a cause célèbre over four years.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Focus on Crime: In the final phase of the midterm campaign, Republicans are stepping up their attacks about crime rates, but Democrats are pushing back.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry: Against the backdrop of their re-election bids, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship.Rushing to Raise Money: Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington — and close their fund-raising gap with Democratic rivals.Rather than soft-pedaling his record, Mr. Fetterman expressed satisfaction in winning the release of inmates who served decades in prison, generally with model records.“There were some wrongs that needed to be put right, and there were a lot of people caught up in this system that were innocent or deserving” of release, he said.If Republicans “weaponize” his record and “destroy” his career over his advocacy for second chances, Mr. Fetterman added, including for the Hortons and other men he said were wrongly convicted, “then so be it.”Mr. Fetterman with the Horton brothers on Saturday at a rally in Philadelphia. Hannah Beier/ReutersIn a poll of Pennsylvania voters by The Morning Call/Muhlenberg College last week, only 3 percent named crime as the most important issue in the midterms, well behind the economy (22 percent) and abortion (20 percent). But the pollster, Chris Borick, suggested Mr. Fetterman’s 41 percent disapproval was driven by Republican portrayals of him as “too left-leaning,” which have included attacks on his pardons record. The lieutenant governor led Dr. Oz, a former heart surgeon and celebrity TV host, by 49 percent to 44 percent, within the margin of error.Barney Keller, a spokesman for Dr. Oz, said his campaign would continue to attack Mr. Fetterman on crime. “Dr. Oz has surged in the polls because John Fetterman is the most pro-murderer candidate in America,” Mr. Keller said.While individual pardon cases are complex, requiring voters to absorb details and nuance, the G.O.P. attacks on Mr. Fetterman are meant to deliver the opposite: a blunt, visceral punch.The Oz campaign created a website called Inmates for Fetterman, highlighting the crimes of convicted murderers whose release Mr. Fetterman sought, and asking for donations to Dr. Oz.The Oz campaign has singled out the Horton brothers, whose release Mr. Fetterman calls one of the pinnacles of his career in public office. The brothers share a name but are not related to the most infamous released inmate in a political attack ad, Willie Horton, whose crime spree while on a furlough program hurt the presidential candidacy of Michael Dukakis in 1988.Invoking that episode explicitly, Mr. Fetterman said he had anticipated that opponents would “Horton us” over his championing the brothers’ release.Like more than 1,100 lifers in Pennsylvania’s prisons, 70 percent of them Black, the Horton brothers were convicted of second-degree murder, a charge filed against suspects who participate in a felony — such as robbery, arson or rape — that leads to a death. It also includes accomplices not directly responsible for a fatality who drove a getaway car or acted as a lookout..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Pennsylvania is an outlier in mandating life without parole for second-degree murder, and reformers argue that it violates constitutional protections against unduly cruel punishments.With no possibility of release through the normal parole process, these inmates have been encouraged by Mr. Fetterman to seek commutations before the pardons board. The board can recommend either pardons (for inmates already released) or commutations (for those still behind bars). The five-member board, which includes Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democrats’ nominee for governor, must unanimously approve commutations, and the governor must sign off. Mr. Fetterman said that in each commutation case he supported, he asked the prisoner’s warden if he would want that individual as a neighbor. “And they’re like, ‘Absolutely,’” he said.Commutations — typically, a reduction of a life sentence to time served — were once common, but in the tough-on-crime era beginning in the 1990s they all but ended. Mr. Fetterman argued that “those who didn’t take a life” and had clean records over decades in prison should be “living out their lives at home.”Under his chairmanship, the board has recommended 50 commutations of life sentences, compared with just 10 in the preceding two decades.In addition to commutations, Mr. Fetterman is under fire from Republicans for opposing certain life sentences for murder and for a statement he once made that he “agreed” with a corrections official that prison populations could be cut by a third with no harm to the public.“John Fetterman wants to release one-third of prisoners and eliminate life sentences for murderers,” claimed Dr. Oz’s first TV ad of the general election. The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, has run five ads leveling similar attacks, including its latest, which calls Mr. Fetterman “dangerously liberal on crime.”For purposes of soft-on-crime attacks, it little matters that murders rose during the pandemic in blue states and in red states alike, and in cities, suburbs and rural areas. Studies show low recidivism rates for lifers released after their sentences were commuted: about 1 percent for inmates over age 50, in a Pennsylvania study from 2005.Mr. Fetterman said he did not support releasing a third of all prisoners — about 12,000 of Pennsylvania’s 36,000 inmates. He said the official who remarked that cutting prison populations by a third would not threaten public safety was a former secretary of corrections appointed by a Republican governor. And the life sentences he seeks to end are for second-degree murder.Last week, in a visit to Philadelphia to promote safe streets, Dr. Oz criticized Mr. Fetterman’s record on the pardons board and proposed his own anticrime measures, including support for the First Step Act. That law, passed in 2018 with bipartisan support, includes sentence reductions for federal inmates with good behavior — a version of the second chances that Mr. Fetterman espouses.At a campaign event last week in Philadelphia, Dr. Mehmet Oz spoke with Sheila Armstrong, who lost her brother to gun violence.Ryan Collerd/Associated PressMalcolm Kenyatta, a Democratic state representative from Philadelphia, said that if Dr. Oz and Senate Republicans cared about high crime rates, they would support investments in poor communities such as raising the minimum wage, and gun safety measures that go beyond the limited bipartisan bill signed by President Biden in June. That law expanded background checks for gun buyers under age 21 and funds red-flag laws that let authorities take guns from people deemed dangerous.“Dr. Oz and Senate Republicans do not give a damn about people in Philadelphia and about the crime that folks are enduring,” Mr. Kenyatta said.Mr. Keller, the Oz spokesman, did not answer directly when asked whether Dr. Oz would have voted for the bipartisan gun law. “Doctor Oz is interested in how the implementation of this law will occur, and was particularly interested in the new funding for mental health,” Mr. Keller said.Mr. Fetterman was so convinced that the Horton brothers were wrongfully convicted that after the pardons board rejected their first clemency petition in 2019 — Mr. Shapiro, the attorney general, voted against it — he suggested he would run for governor if that’s what it took to get them out.“The trajectory of my career in public service will be determined by their freedom or lack thereof,” he once told The Philadelphia Inquirer.The deputy superintendent of the state corrections department endorsed the Hortons’ release. A brother of the man killed in the 1993 shooting, for which the Hortons and a third man were convicted, was opposed. “They took a human life, and they don’t deserve to be out in society,” the victim’s brother, Reinaldo Alamo, told The Inquirer. The third man in the case, who police records said was the actual gunman, was released in 2008.The brothers finally won clemency in their second try, in 2020. Mr. Fetterman set his sights on the Senate, and Mr. Shapiro ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination for governor.Since the brothers returned home to Philadelphia, the corrections department has invited them to speak monthly to cadets training to be prison guards, Lee Horton said.Their work for the Fetterman campaign includes attending ward meetings, telling their story at rallies and simply walking the streets.“On any given day we’re out talking to people about John Fetterman’s policies about minimum wage, how he would make average, everyday working people’s lives better,” Dennis Horton said.His brother added: “We’re not angry. We gave up the anger years ago but, you know, we want to be able to live our lives and to be able to feed our families. We want to be able to have jobs.”Lee Horton dropping campaign signs off at businesses in Philadelphia on Friday.Hannah Beier for The New York Times More

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      Giuliani Associate Sought Pardon for Him After Jan. 6, Book Says

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      The letter, which also requested that Rudolph W. Giuliani be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was intercepted before reaching President Donald J. Trump.An associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, tried to pass a message to Mr. Trump asking him to grant Mr. Giuliani a “general pardon” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom just after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a new book.The associate, Maria Ryan, also pleaded for Mr. Giuliani to be paid for his services and sent a different note seeking tens of thousands of dollars for herself, according to the book, “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor,” by Andrew Kirtzman, who had covered Mr. Giuliani as a journalist. The New York Times obtained an advance copy of the book, which is set to be released next month.Bernard B. Kerik, Mr. Giuliani’s close adviser and the New York City police commissioner for part of his time as mayor, stopped the letter from getting to Mr. Trump. And it is unclear if Mr. Giuliani, who helped lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election but has repeatedly insisted he did not seek a pardon shielding him from potential charges, was involved in the request.But the letter adds another layer to the complex picture now swirling around Mr. Giuliani as he faces legal fallout from his efforts to try to help Mr. Trump cling to power, including being notified that he is a target in at least one investigation.“Dear Mr. President,” Ms. Ryan wrote in the letter, dated Jan. 10, 2021, according to the book, “I tried to call you yesterday to talk about business. The honorable Rudy Giuliani has worked 24/7 on the voter fraud issues. He has led a team of lawyers, data analysts and investigators.”Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsMaking a case against Trump. More

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      Panel Provides New Evidence That G.O.P. Members of Congress Sought Pardons

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      At least half a dozen Republican members of Congress sought pre-emptive pardons from President Donald J. Trump as he fought to remain in office after his defeat in the 2020 election, witnesses have told the House Jan. 6 committee, the panel disclosed on Thursday.Mr. Trump “had hinted at a blanket pardon for the Jan. 6 thing for anybody,” Mr. Trump’s former head of presidential personnel, Johnny McEntee, testified.Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, appeared to ask for a broad pardon, not limited to his role in Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse the outcome of the election. Mr. Gaetz even invoked the pardoned former President Richard M. Nixon as he did so, Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer for Mr. Trump, testified.“He mentioned Nixon, and I said, ‘Nixon’s pardon was never nearly that broad,’” Mr. Herschmann recounted.Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama sent an email seeking a pre-emptive pardon for all 147 members of Congress who objected to the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College win.A former adviser to Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, testified that Mr. Gaetz, Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona all expressed interest in pardons.She also testified that Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio “talked about” pardons but did not directly ask for one, and that she heard of newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia also expressing interest to the White House Counsel’s Office.Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida arriving at the Capitol in May.Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesTaken together, the former White House aides portrayed members of Congress concerned about potential exposure to prosecution in the wake of their support for Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power. And the accounts provided an extraordinary, under-penalty-of-perjury portrait of efforts to use a president’s broad clemency powers for nakedly political purposes.In a statement, Mr. Perry denied seeking a pardon. “I stand by my statement that I never sought a presidential pardon for myself or other members of Congress,” he said. “At no time did I speak with Miss Hutchinson, a White House scheduler, nor any White House staff about a pardon for myself or any other member of Congress — this never happened.”Ms. Greene posted a clip of Ms. Hutchinson on Twitter and added: “Saying ‘I heard’ means you don’t know. Spreading gossip and lies is exactly what the January 6th Witch Hunt Committee is all about.” Mr. Gohmert also denied making such a request, and condemned the committee for how it has comported itself. Mr. Biggs similarly said that Ms. Hutchinson was “mistaken,” and that her testimony was edited “deceptively.”Mr. Gaetz did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Brooks confirmed seeking a pardon, but said it was because he believed the Justice Department would be “abused” by the Biden administration. He released the letter he sent the White House, in which he said he was putting the request in writing at the instruction of Mr. Trump.The fact that it had evidence that pardons were under discussion was previewed by the committee at an earlier hearing. And the panel previously revealed that a key figure in Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the election, the conservative lawyer John Eastman, had emailed another Trump lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, after the Capitol riot, asking to be “on the pardon list, if that is still in the works.”Mr. Eastman appeared before the committee and invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination repeatedly.It is unclear whether Mr. Gaetz’s reported request for a blanket pardon was driven by concerns about his attempts to overturn the election or other potential criminality. At the time Mr. Gaetz made the request, he had just come under Justice Department investigation for sex-trafficking a minor. He has not been charged.The question of who was getting pardons, and for what, was a source of enormous consternation in the final days of the Trump White House. The House select committee is using the information about the pardons to describe a broader effort to protect people who carried out Mr. Trump’s desires.In his final weeks, Mr. Trump randomly offered pardons to former aides who were jarred because they were not sure what he thought they had done that was criminal, two former officials have said. Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 6Making a case against Trump. More

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      5 Takeaways From Thursday’s Jan. 6 Hearing

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      The House committee’s fifth hearing focused on President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to harness the powers of the Justice Department to remain in office. Relying on testimony of three former top Justice Department officials who played central roles in the episode, the committee laid out in detail how Mr. Trump and his allies in the department and on Capitol Hill sought to install a loyalist atop the Justice Department and reverse the election results from a key swing state.Here are five key takeaways.It was the most blatant attempt to use the Justice Department for political ends at least since Watergate.Mr. Trump aggressively pursued a plan to install as acting attorney general a little-known Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, who was prepared to take actions to reverse the election results. As they fought to head off the move, a group of White House lawyers and the leadership of the Justice Department feared that the plan was so ill-conceived and dishonest that it would have spiraled the country into a constitutional crisis if it had succeeded.The president came so close to appointing Mr. Clark that the White House had already begun referring to him as the acting attorney general in call logs from Jan. 3, 2021. Later that day, Mr. Trump had a dramatic Oval Office showdown with top Justice Department officials and White House lawyers, who told Mr. Trump that there would be a “graveyard” at the Justice Department if he appointed Mr. Clark because so many top officials would resign.In the meeting, Mr. Trump chastised the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, for refusing to do more to help him find election fraud. Only after hours of argument — partly about the lack of substance behind Mr. Trump’s claims of election fraud but also about the political ramifications for him if he took action that led to the exodus of top Justice Department officials — did Mr. Trump relent and back off his plan to replace Mr. Rosen with Mr. Clark.The heart of the scheme was a draft letter to officials in Georgia.At the center of the plan was a letter drafted by Mr. Clark and another Trump loyalist that they hoped to send to state officials in Georgia. The letter falsely asserted that the department had evidence of election fraud that could lead the state to rethink its certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory there. The letter recommended that the state call its legislature into session to study allegations of election fraud and consider naming an alternate slate of electors pledged to Mr. Trump.The department’s top officials and Mr. Trump’s legal team in the White House were all appalled by the letter because it would be giving the imprimatur of the nation’s top law enforcement agencies to claims of election fraud that the department had repeatedly investigated and found baseless. The letter was so outrageous that a top White House lawyer, Eric Herschmann, testified that he told Mr. Clark that if he became attorney general and sent the letter he would be committing a felony.The Justice Department’s acting deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, testified at the hearing that sending it would have been tantamount to the Justice Department intervening in the outcome of the election.“For the department to insert itself into the political process this way, I think would have had grave consequences for the country,” Mr. Donoghue said. “It may have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis.”Trump would not give up on his claims of fraud.Time after time, the White House brought baseless and sometimes preposterous claims of election fraud — including internet conspiracy theories — to Justice Department officials so that they could use the nation’s law enforcement powers to investigate them. And time after time, the department and the F.B.I. found the claims had no validity.The pattern became so extraordinary that at one point the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, sent a YouTube video to department officials from Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania, that claimed an Italian defense contractor uploaded software to a satellite that switched votes from Mr. Trump.A top Defense Department official, Kashyap Patel, followed up with Mr. Donoghue about the claim, and the acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, reached out to a defense attaché in Italy to discuss the claim, which was never substantiated.About 90 minutes after Mr. Donoghue had helped persuade Mr. Trump not to install Mr. Clark as acting attorney general, Mr. Trump would still not let go, calling Mr. Donoghue on his cellphone with another request: to look into a report that an immigration and customs agent in Georgia had seized a truck full of shredded ballots. There turned out to be nothing to it, Mr. Donoghue testified.Trump considered naming a loyalist lawyer as a special counsel.As Mr. Trump searched for any way to substantiate the false fraud claims, he tried to install a loyalist as a special counsel to investigate them. One of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Sidney Powell — who had become a public face of Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election — said in testimony played by the committee that Mr. Trump discussed with her the possibility of taking on that position in December.The committee also played testimony of William P. Barr, who was attorney general until the middle of December 2020, saying that there was no basis to appoint a special counsel. And the committee suggested that the idea was part of the larger effort to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Biden’s victory and open the door to Congress considering alternate slates of Trump electors from swing states.“So let’s think here, what would a special counsel do?” said Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois, who led the day’s questioning. “With only days to go until election certification, it wasn’t to investigate anything. An investigation, led by a special counsel, would just create an illusion of legitimacy and provide fake cover for those who would want to object, including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.”Mr. Kinzinger added: “All of President Trump’s plans for the Justice Department were being rebuffed.”Members of Congress sought pardons — and Trump considered the requests.In the days after Jan. 6, several of Mr. Trump’s political allies on Capitol Hill, who had helped stoke the false election claims and efforts to overturn the results, sought pardons from Mr. Trump, who considered granting them, according to testimony on Thursday.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 6Making a case against Trump. More

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      The Democrats’ Use of Dark Money: Is It Hypocritical?

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      More from our inbox:Trump’s Big ‘If’Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Taking Cancel Culture Too FarEpilepsy and LEDs  Mark HarrisTo the Editor:“Denouncing Dark Money, Then Deploying It in 2020” (front page, Jan. 30) is one of many examples of attempts to gin up controversy over Democrats’ understandable reaction to Republican fund-raising operations.The piece details, at length, the many “dark money” activities of both Democrats and Republicans, while characterizing the Democrats’ behavior as exposing “the stark tension between their efforts to win elections and their commitment to curtail secretive political spending by the superrich.”Really? Is it valid to negatively judge Democrats for being forced to use dark money to level the playing field after Republicans’ long history of influencing elections with dark money? Dark money shouldn’t be legal, but it is. Until that changes Democrats can’t be held to a higher standard that puts their candidates at a serious disadvantage to Republicans.Gail M. BartlettChicagoTo the Editor:While your front-page story provided a great analysis of “dark money” spending in the 2020 election, it did not highlight who is working for and against regulation and transparency in campaign spending.For the past three years, my organization has been part of the Declaration for American Democracy coalition, working to pass the For the People Act. This legislation will reduce the influence of money in politics and create more robust ethics rules for elected officials.Almost every House and Senate Democrat has endorsed this legislation, and it has broad support from Democratic, independent and Republican voters. Conversely, every Republican member of Congress has voted against these bills when they’ve come up for a vote.I encourage all of us, when writing about subjects that significantly shape our elections, to think about who is working for the people and who is standing in the way of change.Alex MorganChicagoThe writer is executive director of the Progressive Turnout Project.To the Editor:While it would be healthy for the nation to regulate or eliminate dark money, I cannot criticize Democratic large donors for preserving their anonymity. There was a fair chance that Donald Trump, the most vengeful president in my time and probably in the nation’s history, was going to be re-elected. He has an enemies list a mile long, and I don’t envy anyone on it.Many of his supporters and fellow Republicans have been acting in like fashion. Respect for one’s opponents or their donors is a remnant of the past.George UbogySarasota, Fla.Trump’s Big ‘If’“If I run and I win, we will treat those people from Jan. 6 fairly,” former President Donald J. Trump said at a speech on Saturday in Conroe, Texas.Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Suggests He May Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters if He Has Another Term” (news article, Jan. 31):Former President Donald Trump said at a political rally on Saturday night that if he wins the White House back, he may pardon people sentenced for the Capitol riot. He said they “are being treated so unfairly.”These words are important on three levels. First, he’s seriously thinking about running in 2024. Second, stunningly, he would actually consider pardoning convicted insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.But most remarkable of all, perhaps, is that he said, “If I run and I win.” This man with a monstrous ego and narcissism said “if”! Who knew that word was even in his vocabulary?It’s telling as he consciously and steadfastly remains to this day true to his “Big Lie” that he actually won the 2020 election. His “if” he wins in 2024 suggests that he knows, at least subconsciously, that he truly lost in 2020 and could do so again, if he runs in 2024.When Mr. Trump rambles on long enough, the truth sometimes spills out, as it seems to have at this rally. Our truth is that it is incumbent on all of us who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 to not allow Donald Trump to ever disgrace the office of the presidency again!Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, Taking Cancel Culture Too FarJoni Mitchell was honored by the Kennedy Center last year.Pool photo by Ron Sachs/EPA, via ShutterstockDarren Hauck/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Joni Mitchell Plans to Follow Neil Young Off Spotify, Citing ‘Lies’” (Daily Arts Briefing, nytimes.com, Jan. 28):So Joni Mitchell and Neil Young don’t want their music played on Spotify because it also carries “The Joe Rogan Experience.” Am I now supposed to follow their example and cancel my cable TV subscription because Spectrum carries Fox News, an even greater source of misinformation?Once in a while, the radical right has a legitimate point about “cancel culture” going too far, and this is one of them.Lawrence PeitzmanStudio City, Calif.Epilepsy and LEDsDeborah Turner of Columbus, Ohio, found that her local dollar stores didn’t stock LED bulbs, which could have saved her hundreds of dollars in electricity bills.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“Obsolete Bulbs Fill the Shelves at Dollar Stores” (front page, Jan. 24) ignores a critical problem with LED lighting: It’s making many people seriously ill. I am one. I have epilepsy, and even the briefest glimpse of an LED light instantly throws me into a seizure. It’s incredibly dangerous for me to be anywhere near LEDs.LED-triggered seizures have left me with broken teeth, bruises and excruciating pain that lingers for days. I need to be able to buy incandescent bulbs. I can’t enter LED-lit stores, doctor’s offices, hospitals or civic buildings. How am I supposed to live if no one can purchase incandescent light bulbs?Super-efficient incandescent bulbs were developed but put aside by the industry in favor of LEDs. For the tens of thousands of Americans with light-reactive conditions, having access to incandescent bulbs is no mere “consumer choice”; it is a medical necessity.MarieAnn CherryCambridge, N.Y. More

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      Justice Dept. Is Said to Be Examining Stone’s Possible Ties to Capitol Rioters

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeMurder Charges?The Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJustice Dept. Is Said to Be Examining Stone’s Possible Ties to Capitol RiotersA full criminal investigation is far from certain, a person familiar with the inquiry said.Trump loyalists storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 in an effort to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s electoral victory.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York TimesFeb. 20, 2021Updated 9:22 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The Justice Department is examining communications between right-wing extremists who breached the Capitol and Roger J. Stone Jr., a close associate of former President Donald J. Trump, to determine whether Mr. Stone played any role in the extremists’ plans to disrupt the certification of President Biden’s electoral victory, a person familiar with the matter said on Saturday.Should investigators find messages showing that Mr. Stone knew about or took part in those plans, they would have a factual basis to open a full criminal investigation into him, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing inquiry. While that is far from certain, the person said, prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington are likely to do so if they find that connection.Mr. Stone, a self-described fixer for Mr. Trump, evaded a 40-month prison term when the former president commuted his sentence in July and pardoned him in late December. Mr. Stone had been convicted on seven felony charges, which included obstructing a House inquiry into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, lying to Congress and witness tampering. But that pardon does not protect Mr. Stone from future prosecutions.Justice Department officials have debated for weeks whether to open a full investigation into Mr. Stone, the person said. While Mr. Stone spoke at an incendiary rally a day before the attack, had right-wing extremists act as his bodyguards and stood outside the Capitol, those actions themselves are not crimes.But the F.B.I. also has video and other information to suggest that in the days leading to and including the day of the assault, Mr. Stone associated with men who eventually stormed the building and broke the law, said the person familiar with the inquiry. That has given investigators a window to examine communications to see whether Mr. Stone knew of any plans to breach the complex.The Washington Post earlier reported that the Justice Department was scrutinizing Mr. Stone’s possible ties to right-wing extremists at the Capitol.The New York Times has identified at least six members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right extremist group founded by former military and law enforcement personnel, who guarded Mr. Stone and were later seen inside the Capitol after a pro-Trump mob took the building by force. Prosecutors have charged two of those men with conspiring to attack Congress.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Stone did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In a statement posted online this month, Mr. Stone denied any role in the “lawless attack” and said that members of the Oath Keepers “should be prosecuted” if there was proof that they had broken the law. He added that he “saw no evidence whatsoever of illegal activity by any members” of the group.A day after the Capitol assault, Michael Sherwin, the U.S. attorney in Washington, told reporters that he would not rule out pursuing charges against Mr. Trump or his associates for their possible role in inciting or otherwise encouraging the mob..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.“We are looking at all actors, not only the people who went into the building,” Mr. Sherwin said. Asked whether such targets would include Mr. Trump, who exhorted supporters during a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, telling them that they could never “take back our country with weakness,” Mr. Sherwin stood by his statement. “We’re looking at all actors,” he said. “If the evidence fits the elements of a crime, they’re going to be charged.”Another member of Mr. Sherwin’s office appeared to walk back those remarks soon after, suggesting that people in Mr. Trump’s orbit were unlikely to be investigated. But Mr. Sherwin later said he stood by his original statement.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How Alan Dershowitz Became a Force in Clemency Grants

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentLatest UpdatesWhere Each Senator StandsTimelineHow the House VotedHow the Trial Will UnfoldAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyUsing Connections to Trump, Dershowitz Became Force in Clemency GrantsThe lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz, who represented the former president in his first impeachment trial, used his access for a wide array of clients as they sought pardons or commutations.Alan M. Dershowitz had substantial influence with the White House as President Donald J. Trump decided who should benefit from his pardon powers.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesKenneth P. Vogel and Feb. 8, 2021Updated 7:30 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — By the time George Nader pleaded guilty last year to possessing child pornography and sex trafficking a minor, his once strong alliances in President Donald J. Trump’s inner circle had been eroded by his cooperation with the special counsel’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s team and its connections to Russia.So as Mr. Nader sought to fight the charges and reduce his potential prison time, he turned to a lawyer with a deep reservoir of good will with the president and a penchant for taking unpopular, headline-grabbing cases: Alan M. Dershowitz.Mr. Dershowitz told Mr. Nader’s allies that he had reached out to an official in the Trump administration and one in the Israeli government to try to assess whether they would support a plan for Mr. Nader to be freed from United States custody in order to resume a behind-the-scenes role in Middle East peace talks, and whether Mr. Trump might consider commuting his 10-year sentence.Mr. Dershowitz helped craft a proposal — which Mr. Nader’s allies believed he was floating at the White House in the final days of the Trump presidency — for Mr. Nader to immediately “self-deport” after his release from a Virginia jail. Under the plan, Mr. Nader would board a private plane provided by the United Arab Emirates to return to the Gulf state, where he holds citizenship and has served as a close adviser to the powerful crown prince.Given the nature of Mr. Nader’s crimes and his cooperation with the Russia investigation, his bid for clemency was a long shot that did not work out. But Mr. Dershowitz’s willingness to pull a range of levers to try to free him shows why he emerged as a highly sought-after and often influential intermediary as Mr. Trump decided who would benefit from his pardon powers.Many of Mr. Dershowitz’s clients got what they wanted before Mr. Trump left office, an examination by The New York Times found. The lawyer played a role in at least 12 clemency grants, including two pardons, which wipe out convictions, and 10 commutations, which reduce prison sentences, while also helping to win a temporary reprieve from sanctions for an Israeli mining billionaire.His role highlighted how Mr. Trump’s transactional approach to governing created opportunities for allies like Mr. Dershowitz — an 82-year-old self-described “liberal Democrat” who defended the president on television and in his first impeachment trial — to use the perception that they were gatekeepers to cash in, raise their profiles, help their clients or pursue their own agendas.Mr. Dershowitz received dozens of phone calls from people seeking to enlist him in clemency efforts. The cases in which he did assist came through family members of convicts, defense lawyers enlisting him because they thought he could help their court cases as well as their clemency pushes and Orthodox Jewish prisoners’ groups with which he has long worked.In a series of interviews, Mr. Dershowitz — who in a career spanning more than half a century has represented a roster of tabloid-magnet clients accused of heinous acts, including O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein — cast his defense of Mr. Trump and his clemency efforts as a natural extension of his work defending individual rights against a justice system that could be harsh and unfair. “I’m just not a fixer or an influence peddler,” he said.Mr. Dershowitz said his efforts on behalf of Mr. Nader reflected “a multifaceted approach to these problems. So I don’t separate out diplomacy, legality, courts, executive, Justice Department — they’re all part of what I do.”He said that “the idea that I would ever, ever ingratiate myself to a president in order to be able to advertise myself as a person that could get commutations is just totally false and defamatory.”Among those Mr. Dershowitz sought to help was George Nader, a figure in the special counsel’s Russia investigation who pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography and sex trafficking a minor.Credit…C-SPAN, via Associated PressHe acknowledged, though, that his relationship with Mr. Trump increased interest in his services, and potentially his effectiveness.“Of course I’m not surprised that people would call me because they thought that the president thought well of me,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “If somebody is seeking a pardon from Clinton, you’re not going to go to somebody who is a friend of Jerry Falwell. You’re going to go to somebody who is a Democrat. That’s the way the system works.”He said he had agonized over cases in which he had failed to persuade Mr. Trump, including that of a federal death row inmate he had represented who was executed in December.Still, Mr. Dershowitz had an outsize influence over how Mr. Trump deployed one of the most profound unilateral powers of the presidency, including:Commutations to three people on whose behalf he personally lobbied Mr. Trump after working on their cases with Jewish prisoners’ rights groups. They included two New York real estate investors who had been convicted of defrauding more than 250 investors out of $23 million and a former executive at a kosher meatpacking plant who was convicted in 2009 of bank fraud.Commutations to several people who received long sentences at trial after turning down shorter sentences in plea deals offered by prosecutors, an outcome known as the trial penalty, against which Mr. Dershowitz has long crusaded. A commutation for a New Jersey man who was sentenced in 2013 to 24 years in prison for charges related to a Ponzi-style real estate scheme that caused $200 million in losses. Pardons to two conservative political figures, the author Dinesh D’Souza and the former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis Libby Jr., and a commutation to the former Illinois governor Rod R. Blagojevich. Mr. Dershowitz did not work on their cases, but he recommended clemency grants when Mr. Trump asked his opinion.It is difficult to determine how much money the work brought Mr. Dershowitz.Mr. Dershowitz, an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School who described himself as semiretired, said more than half of his clemency work was pro bono, and most of it was done on behalf of pre-existing clients. When he was paid, it was at an hourly rate in line with the fees charged by senior partners at law firms, Mr. Dershowitz said.In one case, he was paid by the family of Jonathan Braun, whose 10-year sentence for drug smuggling was commuted by Mr. Trump in his final hours in office. But after The Times reported that Mr. Braun had a history of violence and threatening people, Mr. Dershowitz said he donated the fees to charity.Mr. Dershowitz emerged as a favorite of Mr. Trump’s after he publicly criticized the Russia investigation.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesBut Mr. Dershowitz — who volunteered examples of Mr. Trump seeking his advice while in the next breath protesting that he was “not a Trump supporter” and had no more influence with Mr. Trump than with past presidents — obtained something that his defenders and detractors alike described as especially important to him: renewed political relevance and an increased reputation as a power player, particularly in the Jewish community.Mr. Dershowitz emerged as a favorite of Mr. Trump from his early days in office as a result of his criticism of the investigation being carried out by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.Mr. Dershowitz, an ardent supporter of Israel, was invited to the White House in 2017 for two days of private talks about a Middle East peace plan being assembled by Mr. Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and other officials.Mr. Dershowitz was invited back to the White House last year, when Mr. Trump unveiled the peace plan, and for a Hanukkah party in 2019 where Mr. Trump signed an executive order Mr. Dershowitz had helped draft targeting anti-Semitism on college campuses.The week after the Hanukkah party in 2019, Mr. Dershowitz attended a Christmas Eve dinner at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, where he said Mr. Trump lobbied him to join his impeachment legal defense team. Mr. Dershowitz said he decided to join as a matter of principle and noted that he had also consulted with President Bill Clinton’s legal team during his impeachment.Mr. Dershowitz acknowledged taking advantage of his access to push for clemency grants, starting with the invitation to the White House for talks about the Middle East peace plan. He used the opportunity to urge Mr. Trump to grant clemency to Sholom Rubashkin, the kosher meatpacking executive convicted in 2009.Sholom Rubashkin, a former kosher meatpacking executive, was convicted of bank fraud in 2009. Mr. Dershowitz pressed Mr. Trump to commute his 27-year prison sentence. Credit…Matthew Putney/The Waterloo Courier, via Associated PressMr. Rubashkin’s case had become a cause in Orthodox Jewish circles, and Mr. Dershowitz had worked on it on a pro bono basis. A few months after Mr. Dershowitz made the case to Mr. Trump in the White House, Mr. Rubashkin was free.That outcome emboldened a network of activists and groups supporting prisoners’ rights, social service and clemency, including some associated with Orthodox Jewish leaders.Mr. Dershowitz and a Jewish group with which he has worked closely, the Aleph Institute, were central players in the network. As word spread of their successes, they were inundated with requests from prisoners and their families, including many Orthodox Jews. Late last year, Mr. Trump called Mr. Dershowitz to ask about clemency grants he was advocating on a pro bono basis with the Aleph Institute for Mark A. Shapiro and Irving Stitsky, the New York real estate investors convicted in the $23 million fraud. Mr. Dershowitz cast the cases as emblematic of the trial penalty.Mr. Dershowitz had written op-eds in Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal denouncing the trial penalty and citing unnamed cases. One matched the details of Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Stitsky, who were each sentenced to 85 years in prison after they turned down plea agreements of less than 10 years. Mr. Dershowitz said one or both of the articles had circulated in the White House, and Mr. Trump had asked him about the trial penalty.“He was very interested” in the penalty, Mr. Dershowitz said, and also “the concept of the pardon power being more than just clemency, but being part of the system of checks and balances for excessive legislative or judicial actions.”Mr. Stitsky had no prior relationship with Mr. Trump. But last year, friends of Mr. Stitsky helped retain a Long Island law and lobbying firm, Gerstman Schwartz, that did. One of the firm’s partners had parlayed previous New York public relations work for Mr. Trump into a new Washington lobbying business after he became president.And Mr. Stitsky’s new lawyers also tapped into the pardon-seeking network by working with both Mr. Dershowitz and the Aleph Institute.Mr. Trump commuted the sentences of Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Stitsky.In another case championed by Mr. Dershowitz and the Aleph Institute, Mr. Trump commuted the 20-year sentence of Ronen Nahmani, an Israeli-born Florida man convicted in 2015 of selling synthetic marijuana. The appeal to the White House, which Mr. Dershowitz helped devise, included an assurance that Mr. Nahmani would leave the country and never return — a framework that Mr. Dershowitz said served as a model for Mr. Nader’s case.Mr. Dershowitz at the White House last year, before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel visited Mr. Trump.Credit…Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesMr. Dershowitz was enlisted to help Mr. Nader by Joey Allaham, a Syrian-born New York restaurateur and businessman, who paid Mr. Dershowitz to consult on Middle East issues, including working with Mr. Nader.After Mr. Nader was arrested in 2019, Mr. Allaham connected Mr. Dershowitz to Mr. Nader’s criminal defense lawyer, Jonathan S. Jeffress, who paid Mr. Dershowitz at an hourly rate.Mr. Nader’s team grew to include the lobbyist Robert Stryk, who filed a disclosure statement saying he was working to win a presidential commutation, and the lawyer Robin Rathmell, who filed a clemency petition at the Justice Department citing Mr. Nader’s help to the United States in Middle East relations. Mr. Nader’s allies had also used that argument in the early 1990s in an effort to win a reduced sentence when he pleaded guilty to a different child pornography charge.Mr. Dershowitz said he thought it would help Mr. Nader’s current case if the American, Israeli and Emirati governments would vouch for his assistance to the United States in the region, and if Mr. Nader would pledge to leave the country upon his release.Mr. Dershowitz told Mr. Nader’s allies that he made one call last year to a Trump administration official who handled Middle East policy and who was discouraging about the idea. He also called Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, who was noncommittal. After that, Mr. Dershowitz said, he shifted his efforts on behalf of Mr. Nader to focus almost exclusively on his fight to reduce his sentence in the courts.“That was 99 percent of the effort,” Mr. Dershowitz said, “because the clemency effort directed at commutation was always so uphill considering the nature of the crime that it was never realistic.”Mr. Nader’s allies had a different impression of Mr. Dershowitz’s efforts.“We understood that Mr. Dershowitz was seeking clemency on behalf of Mr. Nader,” Mr. Jeffress said, “and that he was rejected for the sole reason that Mr. Nader had cooperated in the Mueller investigation.”Nicholas Confessore More