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      Cheney to Join Jan. 6 Inquiry, Drawing Threats of G.O.P. Retribution

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      Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to offer a slot to the Wyoming Republican was an effort to bring a veneer of bipartisanship to an investigation the G.O.P. has denounced as one-sided.Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday named Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming to a newly created special committee to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, choosing a Republican who has blamed former President Donald J. Trump for fomenting the assault to help conduct an inquiry that the rest of her party has fought to block at every turn.The appointment drew an angry response from the top House Republican, who suggested that Ms. Cheney — already ousted from party leadership for her insistence on calling out Mr. Trump’s election lies — could face fresh retribution for agreeing to help Democrats investigate the deadliest attack on Congress in centuries.The reaction was the latest bid by Republican leaders to turn public attention away from the assault on the Capitol and punish those who insist on scrutinizing the riot. It came as a fuller picture is emerging of how violent extremists, taking their cues from Mr. Trump, infiltrated the seat of American democracy just as Congress was meeting to validate President Biden’s election.A New York Times visual investigation published this week revealed in vivid detail how members of extremist groups incited others to riot and assault police officers, and underscored how the former president’s words resonated with the mob in real time as it staged the attack.Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, responded angrily to Ms. Cheney’s decision to accept the post, calling it “shocking” and implying that she could lose her seat on the Armed Services Committee as payback.“I don’t know in history where someone would get their committee assignments from the speaker and then expect to get them from the conference as well,” Mr. McCarthy said.Should he follow through with the threat, it would be a striking move for Mr. McCarthy, who has declined to penalize Republicans who have made anti-Semitic comments, called for the imprisoning of their Democratic colleagues or spread false conspiracy theories about the origins of the assault on the Capitol.It would also be the second time in two months that Mr. McCarthy punished Ms. Cheney for insisting that Congress should scrutinize the attack and Mr. Trump’s role in spreading the falsehoods about voting fraud that inspired it. In May, Mr. McCarthy led the charge to oust Ms. Cheney from her post as the No. 3 House Republican, saying her criticisms of Mr. Trump and efforts to sound the alarm about the riot were undermining party unity and hurting its chances of reclaiming the House in the 2022 elections.“My oath, my duty is to the Constitution, and that will always be above politics,” Ms. Cheney told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday, appearing alongside the seven Democrats Ms. Pelosi had selected for the 13-member panel.According to its rules, Mr. McCarthy has the right to offer five recommendations for Republican members, but he declined on Thursday to say whether he would do so.The select committee was established at Ms. Pelosi’s behest after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of a bipartisan commission to scrutinize the riot. It will investigate what its organizing resolution calls “the facts, circumstances and causes relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, domestic terrorist attack.” The committee is also charged with reporting its findings, conclusions and recommendations for preventing such attacks in the future.The panel’s creation comes as some far-right House Republicans have stepped up their efforts to deny or distort the riot, including by spreading misinformation about it. They have sought to portray it as a mostly peaceful event and voted against honoring police officers who responded. One House Republican accused a U.S. Capitol Police officer of “lying in wait” to carry out an “execution” of a rioter. Another compared the events of that day to a “normal tourist visit” to the Capitol. Still others have amplified the baseless theory that the F.B.I. was secretly behind the siege.Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, called Ms. Cheney’s decision to accept the post “shocking.”Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesOn Thursday, Mr. Trump amplified those narratives, releasing a one-sentence statement questioning the killing of Ashli Babbitt. Ms. Babbitt was shot as she tried to break into an area off the House floor where several lawmakers were taking cover, and her death has become a rallying cry of the far right.In taking the unusual step of giving one of her seats on the panel to a member of the opposing party, Ms. Pelosi was making a tactical move that appeared intended to drive a wedge among Republicans while putting a veneer of bipartisanship on an investigation that most of them have already dismissed as politically motivated and one-sided.The selection also all but ensures that Ms. Cheney, a prominent conservative from a storied Republican family, remains a high-profile voice countering her party’s attempts to downplay and deny the horrors of the attack, risking her political career to do so.For weeks, Republican leaders have tried to silence and ostracize Ms. Cheney, but she has remained undeterred. On Thursday, said she was “honored” to serve on the committee.“Those who are responsible for the attack need to be held accountable, and this select committee will fulfill that responsibility in a professional, expeditious and nonpartisan manner,” she said.Ms. Pelosi called Ms. Cheney personally on Thursday morning to offer her the post, and Ms. Cheney accepted on the spot, according to aides to both lawmakers. The two had not spoken previously about the prospect, the aides said, although Ms. Pelosi had let it be known this week that she was weighing naming a Republican to her side of the panel.Ms. Cheney’s selection was announced during Ms. Pelosi’s Thursday morning news conference, when she laid out a list of powerful lawmakers who would carry out the inquiry. The panel is to be led by Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. It includes two other committee leaders, Representatives Adam B. Schiff of the Intelligence Committee and Zoe Lofgren of the Administration Committee, both of California.Speaker Nancy Pelosi also selected, from left, Representatives Adam B. Schiff, Zoe Lofgren and Bennie Thompson to serve on the committee.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAlso included are Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead prosecutor in the impeachment case against Mr. Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” and Representative Pete Aguilar of California, a member of the party leadership. Ms. Pelosi also chose two moderate Democrats, Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia and Representative Stephanie Murphy of Florida, the leader of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{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;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{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;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{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-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Thompson pledged to deliver “a definitive accounting of the attack — an undertaking so vital to guarding against future attacks.”“We have to get to the bottom of finding out all the things that went wrong on Jan. 6,” he said.He also said the panel would hold a hearing in which “Capitol Police officers themselves could be able to testify about their experiences” during the attack.Several congressional investigations into the assault are already underway, but none have a mandate to look comprehensively at the event similar to how fact-finding commissions scrutinized the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941; and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.The F.B.I. has arrested nearly 500 people involved in the Capitol breach and is pursuing potentially hundreds more. Two Senate panels carrying out a joint investigation into the riot produced a report outlining large-scale failures that contributed to the assault. And several inspectors general have begun their own inquiries, finding lapses and miscalculations around the most violent attack on the Capitol since the War of 1812.But those inquiries, which have mostly focused on security failures, are no substitute for a select committee that can focus solely on investigating the attack and its root causes, Ms. Lofgren said.“It’s not a substitute for finding out what happened here,” Ms. Lofgren said. “What caused a mob of Americans to think they were somehow supporting the Constitution when they tried to disrupt the constitutional process of counting the Electoral College votes? Who paid for it? How was it organized? We need to find that out to keep the country safe.”The measure that created the panel was adopted on Wednesday over the opposition of nearly every Republican. Only Ms. Cheney and one other Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, supported it.“We cannot ignore what happened on January 6th; we cannot ignore what caused it,” Mr. Kinzinger wrote Thursday on Twitter, appending the hashtag “TheBigLie.” He pointed to the visual investigation The Times published on Wednesday, which provided the most complete picture to date of how supporters of Mr. Trump planned and carried out the deadly assault.Mr. McCarthy faces a challenge in deciding whom to recommend for the panel. Republicans, many of whom initially called for a full investigation, have long since lost their appetite for scrutinizing the assault, following Mr. Trump’s lead.Even without Mr. McCarthy’s appointments, however, the committee would have enough members to proceed with its work.Mr. McCarthy initially denied on Thursday that he would penalize any Republican for accepting an appointment to the panel from Ms. Pelosi, saying he was “not making any threats” on the matter.But he then appeared to do just that, saying that no Republican should expect to keep committee posts granted by the G.O.P. after accepting an appointment from the other party. He noted with displeasure that Ms. Cheney had not talked to him before taking Ms. Pelosi’s offer.“Maybe she’s closer to her than us,” Mr. McCarthy said. More

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      How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections

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      In Georgia, Republicans are removing Democrats of color from local boards. In Arkansas, they have stripped election control from county authorities. And they are expanding their election power in many other states.LaGRANGE, Ga. — Lonnie Hollis has been a member of the Troup County election board in West Georgia since 2013. A Democrat and one of two Black women on the board, she has advocated Sunday voting, helped voters on Election Days and pushed for a new precinct location at a Black church in a nearby town.But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, the result of a local election law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican. Previously, election board members were selected by both political parties, county commissioners and the three biggest municipalities in Troup County. Now, the G.O.P.-controlled county commission has the sole authority to restructure the board and appoint all the new members.“I speak out and I know the laws,” Ms. Hollis said in an interview. “The bottom line is they don’t like people that have some type of intelligence and know what they’re doing, because they know they can’t influence them.”Ms. Hollis is not alone. Across Georgia, members of at least 10 county election boards have been removed, had their position eliminated or are likely to be kicked off through local ordinances or new laws passed by the state legislature. At least five are people of color and most are Democrats — though some are Republicans — and they will most likely all be replaced by Republicans.Ms. Hollis and local officials like her have been some of the earliest casualties as Republican-led legislatures mount an expansive takeover of election administration in a raft of new voting bills this year.G.O.P. lawmakers have also stripped secretaries of state of their power, asserted more control over state election boards, made it easier to overturn election results, and pursued several partisan audits and inspections of 2020 results.Republican state lawmakers have introduced at least 216 bills in 41 states to give legislatures more power over elections officials, according to the States United Democracy Center, a new bipartisan organization that aims to protect democratic norms. Of those, 24 have been enacted into law across 14 states. G.O.P. lawmakers in Georgia say the new measures are meant to improve the performance of local boards, and reduce the influence of the political parties. But the laws allow Republicans to remove local officials they don’t like, and because several of them have been Black Democrats, voting rights groups fear that these are further attempts to disenfranchise voters of color.The maneuvers risk eroding some of the core checks that stood as a bulwark against former President Donald J. Trump as he sought to subvert the 2020 election results. Had these bills been in place during the aftermath of the election, Democrats say, they would have significantly added to the turmoil Mr. Trump and his allies wrought by trying to overturn the outcome. They worry that proponents of Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories will soon have much greater control over the levers of the American elections system.“It’s a thinly veiled attempt to wrest control from officials who oversaw one of the most secure elections in our history and put it in the hands of bad actors,” said Jena Griswold, the chairwoman of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State and the current Colorado secretary of state. “The risk is the destruction of democracy.”Officials like Ms. Hollis are responsible for decisions like selecting drop box and precinct locations, sending out voter notices, establishing early voting hours and certifying elections. But the new laws are targeting high-level state officials as well, in particular secretaries of state — both Republican and Democratic — who stood up to Mr. Trump and his allies last year.Republicans in Arizona have introduced a bill that would largely strip Katie Hobbs, the Democratic secretary of state, of her authority over election lawsuits, and then expire when she leaves office. And they have introduced another bill that would give the Legislature more power over setting the guidelines for election administration, a major task currently carried out by the secretary of state.Had Republican voting bills been in place during the aftermath of the election, Democrats and voting rights groups say, they would have significantly added to the turmoil Mr. Trump and his allies wrought by trying to overturn the results.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesUnder Georgia’s new voting law, Republicans significantly weakened the secretary of state’s office after Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is the current secretary, rebuffed Mr. Trump’s demands to “find” votes. They removed the secretary of state as the chair of the state election board and relieved the office of its voting authority on the board.Kansas Republicans in May overrode a veto from Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, to enact laws stripping the governor of the power to modify election laws and prohibiting the secretary of state, a Republican who repeatedly vouched for the security of voting by mail, from settling election-related lawsuits without the Legislature’s consent.And more Republicans who cling to Mr. Trump’s election lies are running for secretary of state, putting a critical office within reach of conspiracy theorists. In Georgia, Representative Jody Hice, a Republican who voted against certifying President Biden’s victory, is running against Mr. Raffensperger. Republican candidates with similar views are running for secretary of state in Nevada, Arizona and Michigan.“In virtually every state, every election administrator is going to feel like they’re under the magnifying glass,” said Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser to the States United Democracy Center.More immediately, it is local election officials at the county and municipal level who are being either removed or stripped of their power.In Arkansas, Republicans were stung last year when Jim Sorvillo, a three-term state representative from Little Rock, lost re-election by 24 votes to Ashley Hudson, a Democrat and local lawyer. Elections officials in Pulaski County, which includes Little Rock, were later found to have accidentally tabulated 327 absentee ballots during the vote-counting process, 27 of which came from the district.Mr. Sorvillo filed multiple lawsuits aiming to stop Ms. Hudson from being seated, and all were rejected. The Republican caucus considered refusing to seat Ms. Hudson, then ultimately voted to accept her.But last month, Arkansas Republicans wrote new legislation that allows a state board of election commissioners — composed of six Republicans and one Democrat — to investigate and “institute corrective action” on a wide variety of issues at every stage of the voting process, from registration to the casting and counting of ballots to the certification of elections. The law applies to all counties, but it is widely believed to be aimed at Pulaski, one of the few in the state that favor Democrats.State Representative Mark Lowery, a Republican, at the capitol in Little Rock, Ark. He said the new legislation provides a necessary extra level of oversight of elections.Liz Sanders for the New YorkThe author of the legislation, State Representative Mark Lowery, a Republican from a suburb of Little Rock, said it was necessary to remove election power from the local authorities, who in Pulaski County are Democrats, because otherwise Republicans could not get a fair shake. “Without this legislation, the only entity you could have referred impropriety to is the prosecuting attorney, who is a Democrat, and possibly not had anything done,” Mr. Lowery said in an interview. “This gives another level of investigative authority to a board that is commissioned by the state to oversee elections.”Asked about last year’s election, Mr. Lowery said, “I do believe Donald Trump was elected president.”A separate new Arkansas law allows a state board to “take over and conduct elections” in a county if a committee of the legislature determines that there are questions about the “appearance of an equal, free and impartial election.”In Georgia, the legislature passed a unique law for some counties. For Troup County, State Representative Randy Nix, a Republican, said he had introduced the bill that restructured the county election board — and will remove Ms. Hollis — only after it was requested by county commissioners. He said he was not worried that the commission, a partisan body with four Republicans and one Democrat, could exert influence over elections.“The commissioners are all elected officials and will face the voters to answer for their actions,” Mr. Nix said in an email.Eric Mosley, the county manager for Troup County, which Mr. Trump carried by 22 points, said that the decision to ask Mr. Nix for the bill was meant to make the board more bipartisan. It was unanimously supported by the commission.“We felt that removing both the Republican and Democratic representation and just truly choose members of the community that invest hard to serve those community members was the true intent of the board,” Mr. Mosley said. “Our goal is to create both political and racial diversity on the board.”In Morgan County, east of Atlanta, Helen Butler has been one of the state’s most prominent Democratic voices on voting rights and election administration. A member of the county board of elections in a rural, Republican county, she also runs the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a group dedicated to protecting the voting rights of Black Americans and increasing their civic engagement.Helen Butler, who has been one of the state’s most prominent voices on voting rights and election administration in Atlanta, on Saturday. Ms. Butler will be removed from the county board at the end of the month.Matthew Odom for The New York TimesBut Ms. Butler will be removed from the county board at the end of the month, after Mr. Kemp signed a local bill that ended the ability of political parties to appoint members. “I think it’s all a part of the ploy for the takeover of local boards of elections that the state legislature has put in place,” Ms. Butler said. “It is them saying that they have the right to say whether an election official is doing it right, when in fact they don’t work in the day to day and don’t understand the process themselves.”It’s not just Democrats who are being removed. In DeKalb County, the state’s fourth-largest, Republicans chose not to renominate Baoky Vu to the election board after more than 12 years in the position. Mr. Vu, a Republican, had joined with Democrats in a letter opposing an election-related bill that eventually failed to pass.To replace Mr. Vu, Republicans nominated Paul Maner, a well-known local conservative with a history of false statements, including an insinuation that the son of a Georgia congresswoman was killed in “a drug deal gone bad.”Back in LaGrange, Ms. Hollis is trying to do as much as she can in the time she has left on the board. The extra precinct in nearby Hogansville, where the population is roughly 50 percent Black, is a top priority. While its population is only about 3,000, the town is bifurcated by a rail line, and Ms. Hollis said that sometimes it can take an exceedingly long time for a line of freight cars to clear, which is problematic on Election Days.“We’ve been working on this for over a year,” Ms. Hollis said, saying Republicans had thrown up procedural hurdles to block the process. But she was undeterred.“I’m not going to sit there and wait for you to tell me what it is that I should do for the voters there,” she said. “I’m going to do the right thing.”Rachel Shorey contributed research. More

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      Senate Confirms Top Biden Judge as McConnell Threatens Future Nominees

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      As Ketanji Brown Jackson became the president’s first appellate judge, Senator Mitch McConnell suggested he would block a Biden Supreme Court pick in 2024 if Republicans gained the majority.The Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on Monday to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, giving President Biden his first pick on an appeals court even as the Senate Republican leader threatened future roadblocks for Biden administration judicial nominees.Following her approval by a bipartisan vote of 53 to 44, Judge Jackson, who served as a federal district judge, will join the court regarded as the second highest in the land, and considered an incubator for Supreme Court justices. She is widely considered a potential nominee for the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur during the tenure of Mr. Biden, who has promised to appoint the first African-American woman as a justice.“She has all the qualities of a model jurist,” Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said as he urged her approval. “She is brilliant, thoughtful, collaborative and dedicated to applying the law impartially. For these qualities, she has earned the respect of both sides.”Her approval came as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, threatened to open a new front in the judicial wars that have rocked the Senate for decades. In an interview with the conservative radio commentator Hugh Hewitt, Mr. McConnell said Republicans would most likely block any Supreme Court nominee put forward by Mr. Biden in 2024 if Republicans regained control of the Senate in next year’s elections and a seat came open.“I think in the middle of a presidential election, if you have a Senate of the opposite party of the president, you have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy was filled,” Mr. McConnell said. “So I think it’s highly unlikely.”His position was not surprising, since it was in line with his refusal in 2016 to consider President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick B. Garland, now the attorney general, saying it was too close to the presidential election even though the vacancy occurred in February. But it was nevertheless striking, given that Mr. McConnell was the architect of the strategy that allowed former President Donald J. Trump to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in the final six weeks before he stood for re-election.As for what would happen if a seat became open in 2023 and Republicans controlled the Senate, Mr. McConnell stopped short of declaring that he would block Mr. Biden from advancing a nominee so long before the election, but he left the door open to the possibility. “Well, we’d have to wait and see what happens,” Mr. McConnell said.Stonewalling a nominee in the year before a presidential election would amount to a significant escalation in the judicial wars.Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, said he is likely to block any Supreme Court nominee put forward by President Biden in 2024 if his party regains control of the Senate next year.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. McConnell’s pronouncements will most likely amplify calls from progressive activists for Justice Stephen G. Breyer to retire while Democrats hold the Senate and can push through a successor. Justice Breyer, 82, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, has resisted calls to step aside. Justices often time their retirements to the end of the court’s term, which comes in two weeks.Mr. McConnell’s position in 2016 stood in stark contrast to the one he took last year when Senate Republicans, still in the majority, rushed through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett just days before the presidential election, racing to fill the vacancy created by the death in September of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{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;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{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;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{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-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Republicans who had banded together in 2016 at Mr. McConnell’s urging and declared that it was not appropriate to confirm a Supreme Court nominee during an election year had remarkable conversions in the case of Judge Barrett. The Republican leader insisted that he had not changed his position, arguing that because Mr. Obama was a Democrat, it was entirely appropriate for members of his party to block his nominee.“What was different in 2020 was we were of the same party as the president,” Mr. McConnell told Mr. Hewitt. “And that’s why we went ahead with it.”Mr. McConnell’s decision to block Mr. Obama from filling the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia was widely credited with encouraging conservatives to rally around Mr. Trump for the presidency, and ultimately allowing him to name three justices to the court, which now has a 6-to-3 conservative majority.Working in concert with the White House, Mr. McConnell and Senate Republicans also installed 54 conservative judges on the nation’s federal appeals courts, leaving Mr. Biden and Senate Democrats with significant ground to make up as they try to compensate for the conservative success of the Trump era.Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called Judge Jackson “the first of many circuit court nominees we will confirm in this Congress.”Judge Jackson will now claim a seat on a court that is particularly prominent because of its routine involvement in Washington policy disputes and national security matters. She and other pending judicial nominees are part of a concerted effort by the Biden administration to diversify the federal courts, both in terms of the nominees themselves and their professional backgrounds.Judge Jackson counted being a public defender among her multiple legal jobs before becoming a federal judge, a role that her supporters note is different from the prosecutorial experience of many sitting on the federal bench.“Our judiciary has been dominated by former corporate lawyers and prosecutors for too long, and Judge Jackson’s experience as a public defender makes her a model for the type of judge President Biden and Senate Democrats should continue to prioritize,” said Christopher Kang, the chief counsel for the progressive group Demand Justice.Such experience has been an obstacle for judicial nominees in the past, and Republican opponents raised questions about her defense work at her confirmation hearing.Judge Jackson will replace Mr. Garland, who remained on the appellate court after his Supreme Court nomination was stymied before becoming attorney general. Mr. Biden has not named his choice for a second vacancy on the prestigious appeals court. More

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      The D.N.C. Didn’t Get Hacked in 2020. Here’s Why.

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      A devastating email breach of the D.N.C. roiled Democrats in the final months of 2016. An unassuming security official made it his mission to prevent a recurrence.As the country learns more about a broad Russian hijacking of American federal agencies and private companies and now another Russian hack, which was revealed on Thursday, it can look to the Democratic National Committee for a more positive development in the effort to prevent cyberattacks: Unlike four years ago, the committee did not get hacked in 2020.It’s worth remembering the D.N.C.’s outsized role in Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, when a spearphishing email roiled the Democratic Party in the final months of the campaign.That March, Russian hackers broke into the personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, unlocking a decade’s worth of emails, before dribbling them out to the public with glee. The D.N.C. chairwoman, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, resigned after emails appeared to show her favoring Mrs. Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.A simultaneous Russian hack of the D.N.C.’s sister organization, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, tainted congressional candidates with accusations of scandal in a dozen other races.By the time Donald J. Trump was in the White House in January 2017, “The D.N.C.’s house was ablaze,” Sam Cornale, the committee’s executive director, said in an interview this week.That month, Bob Lord, an unassuming, bespectacled chief security officer at Yahoo, was still mopping up the largest Russian hacks in history: a 2013 breach of more than three billion Yahoo accounts and a second breach in 2014 of 500 million Yahoo accounts. Mr. Lord, who discovered the breaches when he took over the job, helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation identify the assailants. A courtroom sketch of Karim Baratov, one of the hackers in the Yahoo case, still hangs on his wall.Mr. Lord left the team Yahoo affectionately calls “The Paranoids,” took a six-figure pay cut and headed to Washington in January 2017 to become the D.N.C.’s first chief information security officer.The way he saw it, the D.N.C.’s 2016 breach wasn’t so much a cybersecurity issue as it was a problem of workflow and corporate culture.Mr. Podesta’s aide, for instance, had asked a staff member to vet whether the infamous Russian spearphishing email was safe, and the aide responded that the email was “legitimate.” It was a typo; he later said he had meant to write “illegitimate.” By the time anyone realized what was happening, Mr. Podesta’s risotto recipes, and excerpts from Mrs. Clinton’s Wall Street speeches, were being dissected online by the news media and conspiracy theorists.“After that, few would even pick up a flier, let alone a hose to help in 2017,” Mr. Cornale said. “Bob showed up with five fire trucks while putting on his suspenders, and ran in to the house.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{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;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{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-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Lord told his staff on Friday that he was leaving, clearing the way for the D.N.C. to get a replacement to get ahead of whatever adversaries may have planned for the midterms.Over the past four years, Mr. Lord has been a persistent and pervasive presence, speaking at every all-hands meeting, reminding employees that staving off the next cyber threat would come down to individual accountability: not reusing passwords, turning on two-factor authentication, running software updates. He urged them to use Signal, an encrypted messaging app, to lock down their Venmo accounts; he also advised them to avoid clicking on suspicious links.A “Bobmoji”— a digital caricature of Mr. Lord — hangs above the men’s urinal and adorns the walls of the women’s restroom, reminding staff members of the checklist.Mr. Lord has had significantly smaller security budgets than he did at Yahoo, or that of any government agency and technology companies that Russia breached over the past year. And so he became something of a digital Marie Kondo — the Japanese tidying expert — decluttering the D.N.C.’s networks, excising old software and canceling extraneous vendor contracts, then took those extra discretionary funds and put them towards cybersecurity. But he knew cybersecurity technologies can go only so far. “If adding security technologies could fix our cybersecurity problems, we would have fixed things 25 years ago,” he said in an interview.His real legacy, D.N.C. staff members said, is that he single-handedly changed a culture.“To survive in Bob’s role, you have to drive people a little crazy,” Nellwyn Thomas, chief technology officer at the D.N.C., said.When the committee sent out an innocuous email asking staff members to enter their T-shirt size and address for some free swag, not a single employee complied, employees said.Mr. Lord had proudly turned them paranoid. More

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      Oklahoma A.G. Mike Hunter Resigns, Citing ‘Personal Matters’

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      Attorney General Mike Hunter announced his resignation one day after The Oklahoman said it had sent him questions about an extramarital affair.Attorney General Mike Hunter of Oklahoma announced his resignation on Wednesday, a day after a local newspaper said it had questioned him about an extramarital affair.“Regrettably, certain personal matters that are becoming public will become a distraction for this office,” Mr. Hunter said in a statement on Wednesday. “I cannot allow a personal issue to overshadow the vital work the attorneys, agents and support staff do on behalf of Oklahomans.”He said he would officially step down on Tuesday.His abrupt announcement came after The Oklahoman said it had sent him questions on Tuesday night about an extramarital affair that it said it had confirmed through people familiar with the situation.Mr. Hunter, a Republican, filed for divorce on Friday from Cheryl Hunter, his wife of 39 years, the newspaper reported. The Oklahoman reported that, according to the people it had spoken with, the affair had been with an employee of the state Insurance Department who had filed for divorce in April from her husband of 25 years.Under the state Constitution, Gov. Kevin Stitt, a fellow Republican, can appoint Mr. Hunter’s replacement to serve until the next election in 2022, Mr. Stitt’s spokeswoman, Carly Atchison, said.“The Attorney General informed me of his resignation this morning and I respect his decision to do what he thinks is best for his office and the State of Oklahoma,” Mr. Stitt said in a statement on Wednesday. “I know he is going through a difficult time and I wish him, his family, and the employees of his office well.”Ms. Hunter declined to comment on Wednesday. She told The Oklahoman on Tuesday that “I am heartbroken and my priorities are to take care of my sons, my daughter-in-law, my grandson and my parents.”Gov. Mary Fallin had appointed Mr. Hunter to serve as attorney general in February 2017 after Scott Pruitt, the previous attorney general, resigned to become administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Hunter had previously served as first assistant attorney general under Mr. Pruitt before Ms. Fallin named him secretary of state and special legal counsel.From 2010 to 2015, Mr. Hunter was the chief operating officer of the American Bankers Association, and from 2002 to 2009, he was executive vice president and chief operating officer of the American Council of Life Insurers, Ms. Fallin’s office said when she announced his appointment as attorney general.Mr. Hunter also served six years in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, representing District 85 in Oklahoma City, according to his office.In 2018, he was elected to a full four-year term as attorney general after he defeated a Democratic candidate in the November general election and a Republican challenger in the primary.As attorney general, Mr. Hunter was one of a number of Republicans who joined in support of a lawsuit filed by the Texas attorney general that challenged the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin, four states that Mr. Trump had lost to President Biden. The Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit in December.Mr. Hunter had also made fighting the opioid crisis a top priority.In 2019, he led the state’s case in the first civil trial against an opioid manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, the New Jersey-based medical giant, which produced a fentanyl patch. In August of that year, a judge in Oklahoma ruled that Johnson & Johnson had intentionally played down the dangers and oversold the benefits of opioids and ordered the company to pay the state $572 million.Mr. Hunter said the ruling was the first in the country to find an opioid manufacturer liable for the harm caused by the opioid crisis in the United States. More

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      Expanding Supreme Court Could Undermine It, Breyer Says

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      Justice Stephen G. Breyer warned on Tuesday that expanding the size of the Supreme Court could erode public trust in it by sending the message that it is at its core a political institution.Justice Breyer, 82, is the oldest member of the court and the senior member of its three-member liberal wing. He made his comments in a long speech streamed to members of the Harvard Law School community. He did not address the possibility that he might retire, giving President Biden a chance to name a new justice while the Senate is controlled by Democrats. But his talk had a valedictory quality.He explored the nature of the court’s authority, saying it was undermined by labeling justices as conservative or liberal. Drawing a distinction between law and politics, he said not all splits on the court are predictable and that those that are can generally be explained by differences in judicial philosophy or interpretive methods.Progressive groups and many Democrats were furious over Senate Republicans’ failure to give a hearing in 2016 to Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s third Supreme Court nominee. That anger was compounded by the rushed confirmation last fall of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald J. Trump’s third nominee.Liberals have pressed Mr. Biden to respond with what they say is corresponding hardball: expanding the number of seats on the court to overcome what is now a 6-to-3 conservative majority. Mr. Biden has been noncommittal, but has created a commission to study possible changes to the structure of the court, including enlarging it and imposing term limits on the justices.Justice Breyer said it was a mistake to view the court as a political institution. He noted with seeming satisfaction that “the court did not hear or decide cases that affected the political disagreements arising out of the 2020 election.” And he listed four decisions — on the Affordable Care Act, abortion, the census and young immigrants — in which the court had disappointed conservatives.Those rulings were all decided by 5-to-4 votes. In all of them, the majority included Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and what was then the court’s four-member liberal wing to form majorities.“I hope and expect that the court will retain its authority,” Justice Breyer said. “But that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust, a trust that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics. Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that perception, further eroding that trust.” More

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      Garland, at Confirmation Hearing, Vows to Fight Domestic Extremism

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      #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

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      Neera Tanden, Biden’s Budget Nominee, Faces Challenge to Confirmation

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNeera Tanden, Biden’s Budget Nominee, Faces Challenge to ConfirmationSenator Joe Manchin III said he would oppose President Biden’s nominee to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a move that could scuttle her chances.Neera Tanden would need the support of at least one Republican senator in order to pass confirmation, with the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris needed to break a tie.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesFeb. 19, 2021Updated 8:11 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Senator Joe Manchin III announced on Friday that he would oppose the nomination of Neera Tanden, President Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, imperiling her prospects for confirmation in an evenly divided Senate.The announcement by Mr. Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, underscored the fragility of the ambitions of the new Democratic majority in the Senate and the outsize power that any one senator holds over the success of Mr. Biden’s administration and agenda.The fate of the nomination is now in the hands of a party that Ms. Tanden has frequently criticized in the past, particularly moderate Republicans she has previously scorned. Ms. Tanden would need the support of at least one Republican senator in order to to be confirmed, with the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris needed to break a tie.Given Ms. Tanden’s previous litany of critical public statements and posts on Twitter against members of both parties, it is unclear whether such support exists.Mr. Manchin cited statements from Ms. Tanden that were personally directed at Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader; Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent now in charge of the Senate Budget Committee; and other colleagues.“I believe her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget,” said Mr. Manchin, who will also cast a decisive vote on Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. “For this reason, I cannot support her nomination. As I have said before, we must take meaningful steps to end the political division and dysfunction that pervades our politics.”Mr. Biden told reporters on Friday that he did not plan to withdraw her nomination.“I think we are going to find the votes and get her confirmed,” he said.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, reiterated that position in a statement: “Neera Tanden is an accomplished policy expert who would be an excellent budget director and we look forward to the committee votes next week and to continuing to work toward her confirmation through engagement with both parties.”But the lack of support from Mr. Manchin could be enough to derail the nomination altogether, should Republicans remain united against her selection.Ms. Tanden would be the first woman of color to head the Office of Management and Budget, an agency that is critical to the execution of the administration’s economic and policy agendas. But Mr. Biden’s decision to nominate her even before Democrats won control of the Senate in January stunned several lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill, given the slim margins in the upper chamber and Ms. Tanden’s prolific venom on social media.The New WashingtonLatest UpdatesUpdated Feb. 19, 2021, 7:17 p.m. ETGeorgia legislators want to restrict voting methods popular among Democrats.Lloyd Austin addressed a viral video about sexual harassment in the Marine Corps.House Budget Committee unveils a 600-page, $1.9 trillion economic relief bill.A senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, Ms. Tanden had frequently clashed with Mr. Sanders and other prominent liberals long after the conclusion of the primary race that year. Once she was formally nominated to oversee the budget agency, Ms. Tanden deleted more than 1,000 negative tweets, and liberal senators rallied to her defense.But she faced tough questioning from both Republicans and Democrats during her two confirmation hearings this month, with lawmakers from both parties examining her previous tweets and statements and grilling her over the millions of dollars of corporate donations that her think tank, Center for American Progress, received.Republicans spent the first hour of her first hearing before a Senate homeland security committee asking Ms. Tanden to explain her past tweets and why she deleted more than 1,000 shortly after the November election.Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and a former director of the Office of Management and Budget, read aloud posts in which she called Mr. McConnell “Moscow Mitch” and said that “vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz,” a Republican senator from Texas.Her second hearing was no less fiery, with Mr. Sanders confronting Ms. Tanden over her history of leveling personal attacks on social media. He also demanded details about the donations the Center for American Progress received from corporations under her leadership and a promise that it would not influence her work in the Biden administration.Ms. Tanden apologized to lawmakers during both hearings, saying she regretted many of her previous remarks, and she vowed that the donations would carry no weight over her role as budget director.“I worry less about what Mrs. Tanden did in the past than what she’s going to do in the future,” Mr. Sanders said Friday night on CNN. “I’m talking to her early next week.”Many Democrats accused Republicans of unfairly singling out Ms. Tanden’s social media posts after years of evading queries about President Donald J. Trump’s tweets, even when they espoused racist and offensive commentary or targeted their own colleagues.“Honestly, the hypocrisy is astounding,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said at the time. “If Republicans are concerned about criticism on Twitter, their complaints are better directed at President Trump. I fully expect to see some crocodile tears spilled on the other side of the aisle over the president-elect’s cabinet nominees.”Mr. Biden’s pick for deputy director of the agency, Shalanda Young, is respected by lawmakers and aides in both parties after serving as staff director for House Democrats on the Appropriations Committee. The first Black woman to serve in the role, she helped wrangle the compromise that ended the nation’s longest government shutdown in 2019 and the coronavirus relief packages Congress approved in 2020.Jim Tankersley More