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      F.E.C. Drops Case Reviewing Trump Hush-Money Payments to Women

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      The case had examined whether Donald Trump violated election law with a $130,000 payment shortly before the 2016 election to a pornographic-film actress by his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.The Federal Election Commission said on Thursday that it had formally dropped a case looking into whether former President Donald J. Trump violated election law with a payment of $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to a pornographic-film actress by his personal lawyer at the time, Michael D. Cohen.The payment was never reported on Mr. Trump’s campaign filings. Mr. Cohen would go on to say that Mr. Trump had directed him to arrange payments to two women during the 2016 race, and would apologize for his involvement in a hush-money scandal. Mr. Cohen was sentenced to prison for breaking campaign finance laws, tax evasion and lying to Congress.“It was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light,” Mr. Cohen said of Mr. Trump in court in 2018.While Mr. Cohen has served time in prison, Mr. Trump has not faced legal consequences for the payment.“The hush money payment was done at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald J. Trump,” Mr. Cohen said in a statement to The New York Times. “Like me, Trump should have been found guilty. How the F.E.C. committee could rule any other way is confounding.”In December 2020, the F.E.C. issued an internal report from its Office of General Counsel on how to proceed in its review in December 2020. The office said it had found “reason to believe” violations of campaign finance law were made “knowingly and willfully” by the Trump campaign.But the election commission — split evenly between three Republicans and three Democratic-aligned commissioners — declined to proceed in a closed-door meeting in February. Two Republican commissioners voted to dismiss the case while two Democratic commissioners voted to move forward. There was one absence and one Republican recusal.That decision was announced on Thursday.Two of the Democratic commissioners on the F.E.C., Shana Broussard, the current chairwoman, and Ellen Weintraub, objected to not pursuing the case after the agency’s staff had recommended further investigation.“To conclude that a payment, made 13 days before Election Day to hush up a suddenly newsworthy 10-year-old story, was not campaign-related, without so much as conducting an investigation, defies reality,” they wrote in a letter.The Republican commissioners who voted not to proceed with an investigation, Trey Trainor and Sean Cooksey, said that pursuing the case was “not the best use of agency resources,” that “the public record is complete” already and that Mr. Cohen had already been punished.“We voted to dismiss these matters as an exercise of our prosecutorial discretion,” Mr. Cooksey and Mr. Trainor wrote.A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Cohen case captured the public’s attention in 2018 after the F.B.I. raided his office, apartment and hotel room, hauling off boxes of documents, cellphones and computers. Months later, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to, among other charges, campaign finance violations.He said in court that he had arranged payments — including $130,000 to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.”The payment was far in excess of the legal limit for individual contributions for president, which was then $2,700.Mr. Cohen further said he had arranged for a $150,000 payment by American Media Inc. to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy playmate, earlier in 2016.Mr. Cohen would later turn on Mr. Trump and write his own book about serving as the former president’s enforcer while he was a businessman. The book was called “Disloyal: A Memoir.” More

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      Constitutional Challenges Loom Over Proposed Voting Bill

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      The sprawling legislation, known as H.R. 1, could result in lawsuits leading to a dozen Supreme Court cases, legal experts said.WASHINGTON — If the sweeping voting rights bill that the House passed in March overcomes substantial hurdles in the Senate to become law, it would reshape American elections and represent a triumph for Democrats eager to combat the wave of election restrictions moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures.But passage of the bill, known as H.R. 1, would end a legislative fight and start a legal war that could dwarf the court challenges aimed at the Affordable Care Act over the past decade.“I have no doubt that if H.R. 1 passes, we’re going to have a dozen major Supreme Court cases on different pieces of it,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard.The potential for the bill to set off a sprawling constitutional battle is largely a function of its ambitions. It would end felon disenfranchisement, require independent commissions to draw congressional districts, establish public financing for congressional candidates, order presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, address dark money in political advertising and restructure the Federal Election Commission.The bill’s opponents say that it is, in the words of an editorial in The National Review, “a frontal assault on the Constitution” and “the most comprehensively unconstitutional bill in modern American history.”More measured critics take issue with specific provisions even as they acknowledge that the very nature of the bill — a grab bag of largely unrelated measures — would make it difficult to attack in a systematic way. In that respect, the anticipated challenges differ from those aimed at the Affordable Care Act, some of which sought to destroy the entire law.John O. McGinnis, a law professor at Northwestern University, said the bill went too far, partly because it was first proposed as an aspirational document rather than a practical one in 2019, when Republicans controlled the Senate and it had no hope of becoming law.“It seems very willing to brush past, at least in some cases, some relatively clear constitutional provisions,” he said, citing parts of the bill that require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns and force advocacy groups to disclose their contributors.In March, 20 Republican state attorneys general said they were ready to litigate. “Should the act become law,” they wrote in a letter to congressional leaders, “we will seek legal remedies to protect the Constitution, the sovereignty of all states, our elections and the rights of our citizens.”Representative John Sarbanes, Democrat of Maryland and one of the lead authors of the package, said drafters had written it with a fusillade of Republican legal challenges in mind and were confident that it would “survive the great majority of them” in the Supreme Court.“I’m extremely comfortable that we built this to last,” Mr. Sarbanes said. “We think that the components are ones that are well girded against constitutional challenge — even by a court that we can imagine will probably start from a place of favorability to some of these challenges.”Democrats have made the bill a top legislative priority. But with Republicans united in opposition in the Senate, its path forward is rocky.Before a key committee vote this month, proponents of the overhaul are expected to introduce a slew of technical changes meant to address concerns raised by state elections administrators. But pushing it through the full chamber and to President Biden’s desk would require all 50 Senate Democrats to agree to suspend the filibuster rule and pass it on a simple party-line vote, a maneuver that at least two Democrats have so far rejected.Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at a news conference promoting H.R. 1 in March. Democrats have made the bill a top legislative priority.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesSome scholars have urged congressional Democrats to concentrate their efforts on narrower legislation, notably the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which seeks to restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court effectively eliminated by a 5-to-4 vote in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder.The provision, the law’s Section 5, required states with a history of discrimination to obtain federal approval before changing voting procedures. In the Shelby County decision, the court ruled that the formula for deciding which states were covered violated the Constitution because it was based on outdated data.“Congress — if it is to divide the states — must identify those jurisdictions to be singled out on a basis that makes sense in light of current conditions,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the civil rights leader who served in the House for more than three decades until his death last year, responds to that invitation by updating the coverage formula. Whether the Supreme Court — which has become more conservative since 2013 — would uphold the new formula and allow Section 5 to be restored is an open question, but the Shelby County decision at least allows Congress to try.Similarly, the court’s precedents suggest that not all of the anticipated challenges to the much broader H.R. 1 would succeed.As a general matter, few doubt that Congress has broad authority to regulate congressional elections because of the elections clause of the Constitution.To be sure, the clause specifies that “the times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”The clause’s next phrase, though, allows federal lawmakers to override most of the power granted to state legislatures: “But the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing senators.”The elections clause, supplemented by other constitutional provisions, Professor Stephanopoulos wrote in an article to be published in the journal Constitutional Commentary, means that “even the bill’s most controversial elements lie within Congress’s electoral authority, and Congress could actually reach considerably further, if it were so inclined.”But he acknowledged that there was controversy over the sweep of the provision. In a majority opinion in 2013, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in an aside that the clause “empowers Congress to regulate how federal elections are held, but not who may vote in them.” That statement was in tension with the controlling opinion in a 1970 decision that allowed Congress to lower the minimum voting age in congressional elections to 18 from 21.The Supreme Court justices last month. The court has become more conservative since 2013, when it effectively eliminated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf the statement from Justice Scalia is followed, it would raise questions about language in H.R. 1 that seeks to restore voting rights to people with felony convictions who have completed their sentences in states that would otherwise disenfranchise them.Several scholars said the provision might be vulnerable to a legal challenge. “That’s probably the most obvious red flag,” said Franita Tolson, a law professor at the University of Southern California.The Constitution grants Congress considerably less authority over presidential elections than congressional ones, allowing it to set only the timing. But some Supreme Court opinions have said the two kinds of authority are comparable.The bill’s requirement that states create independent commissions to draw congressional districts could also lead to litigation. Such commissions were upheld by a 5-to-4 vote in 2015 in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission.Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said Arizona voters were entitled “to address the problem of partisan gerrymandering — the drawing of legislative district lines to subordinate adherents of one political party and entrench a rival party in power.”With changes in the makeup of the Supreme Court since then, the Arizona precedent might be vulnerable, said Travis Crum, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.“In litigation over the 2020 election, several justices — including Justice Brett Kavanaugh — questioned the validity of that precedent,” Professor Crum said. “Given the possibility that the court might overturn that decision in the near future, it is even more imperative that Congress step in and mandate the use of independent redistricting commissions for congressional districts.”In dissent in the Arizona case, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the Constitution specified that only state legislatures had the power to draw congressional maps. Four years later, though, writing for the majority in rejecting a role for federal courts in addressing partisan gerrymandering, he wrote about independent commissions created by ballot measures with seeming approval and said Congress also had a role to play, citing an earlier version of H.R. 1.Representative John Lewis of Georgia outside the Supreme Court in 2013. A voting bill named for him seeks to restore enforcement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, after the court effectively eliminated it.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesThe provision in H.R. 1 establishing a public financing system appears to be consistent with current Supreme Court precedentsIn 2011, by a 5-to-4 vote, the court struck down a different Arizona law, which provided escalating matching funds to participating candidates based on their opponents’ spending. But Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in the case, Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, indicated that more routine public financing systems remained a valid constitutional option.“We do not today call into question the wisdom of public financing as a means of funding political candidacy,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “That is not our business.”Some of the disclosure requirements in H.R. 1 have drawn objections from across the ideological spectrum. The American Civil Liberties Union has said that it supports disclosures tied to “express advocacy” of a candidate’s election or defeat. The bill goes further, though, requiring disclosures in connection with policy debates that refer to candidates.That measure, two A.C.L.U. lawyers wrote in The Washington Post in March, “could directly interfere with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about and that impact their lives by imposing new and onerous disclosure requirements on nonprofits committed to advancing those causes.”“When a group is advocating policy changes outside the mainstream,” they continued, “they need privacy protections to be able to speak freely and without fear of reprisal.”The Citizens United decision in 2010 upheld the disclosure requirements before it by an 8-to-1 vote, but a pending Supreme Court case, American for Prosperity v. Bonta, might alter the constitutional calculus.Professor McGinnis said he also questioned a provision in the bill that required leaders of organizations to say they stood by the messages in political advertisements. “This seems to me to be eating up airtime without any real justification and subjecting people to harassment,” he said.He also took issue with the bill’s requirement that presidential candidates disclose their tax returns, saying Congress cannot add qualifications to who can run for president beyond those set out in the Constitution: that candidates be natural-born citizens, residents for 14 years and at least 35 years old.A 1995 Supreme Court decision rejecting an attempt by Arkansas to impose term limits on its congressional representatives appears to support the view that lawmakers cannot alter the constitutional requirements.Even if every one of the objections to the bill discussed in this article were to prevail in court, most of the law would survive. “Part of why the attack on H.R. 1 is unlikely to be successful in the end is that the law is not a single coherent structure the way Obamacare was,” Professor Stephanopoulos said. “It’s a hundred different proposals, all packaged together.”“The Roberts court would dislike on policy grounds almost the entire law,” he added. “But I think even this court would end up upholding most — big, big swaths — of the law. It would still leave the most important election bill in American history intact even after the court took its pound of flesh.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      Swiss Billionaire Quietly Becomes Influential Force Among Democrats

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      Hansjörg Wyss, who recently dropped his bid to buy Tribune Publishing, has been a leading source of difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats.WASHINGTON — He is not as well known as wealthy liberal patrons like George Soros or Tom Steyer. His political activism is channeled through a daisy chain of opaque organizations that mask the ultimate recipients of his money. But the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has quietly become one of the most important donors to left-leaning advocacy groups and an increasingly influential force among Democrats.Newly obtained tax filings show that two of Mr. Wyss’s organizations, a foundation and a nonprofit fund, donated $208 million from 2016 through early last year to three other nonprofit funds that doled out money to a wide array of groups that backed progressive causes and helped Democrats in their efforts to win the White House and control of Congress last year.Mr. Wyss’s representatives say his organizations’ money is not being spent on political campaigning. But documents and interviews show that the entities have come to play a prominent role in financing the political infrastructure that supports Democrats and their issues.While most of his operation’s recent politically oriented giving was channeled through the three nonprofit funds, Mr. Wyss’s organizations also directly donated tens of millions of dollars since 2016 to groups that opposed former President Donald J. Trump and promoted Democrats and their causes.Beneficiaries of his organizations’ direct giving included prominent groups such as the Center for American Progress and Priorities USA, as well as organizations that ran voter registration and mobilization campaigns to increase Democratic turnout, built media outlets accused of slanting the news to favor Democrats and sought to block Mr. Trump’s nominees, prove he colluded with Russia and push for his impeachment.Several officials from organizations started by Mr. Wyss and his team worked on the Biden transition or joined the administration, and on environmental policy in particular Mr. Wyss’s agenda appears to align with President Biden’s.Mr. Wyss’s growing political influence attracted attention after he emerged last month as a leading bidder for the Tribune Publishing newspaper chain. Mr. Wyss later dropped out of the bidding for the papers.Born in Switzerland and living in Wyoming, he has not disclosed publicly whether he holds citizenship or permanent residency in the United States. Foreign nationals without permanent residency are barred from donating directly to federal political candidates or political action committees, but not from giving to groups that seek to influence public policy — a legal distinction often lost on voters targeted by such groups.Mr. Wyss’s role as a donor is coming to light even as congressional Democrats, with support from Mr. Biden, are pushing legislation intended to rein in so-called dark money spending that could restrict some of the groups financed by Mr. Wyss’s organizations.This type of spending — which is usually channeled through nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose much information about their finances, including their donors — was embraced by conservatives after campaign spending restrictions were loosened by regulatory changes and court rulings, most notably the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case.While progressives and election watchdogs denounced the developments as bestowing too much power to wealthy interests, Democratic donors and operatives increasingly made use of dark money. During the 2020 election cycle, groups aligned with Democrats spent more than $514 million in such funds, compared to about $200 million spent by groups aligned with Republicans, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.Some of the groups financed by Mr. Wyss’s organizations played a key role in that shift, though the relatively limited disclosure requirements for these types of groups make it impossible to definitively conclude how they spent funds from the Wyss entities.Mr. Wyss and his advisers have honed a “strategic, evidence-based, metrics-driven and results-oriented approach to building political infrastructure,” said Rob Stein, a Democratic strategist.Mr. Stein, who founded the influential Democracy Alliance club of major liberal donors in 2005 and recruited Mr. Wyss to join, added that “unlike most wealthy political donors on the right and left,” Mr. Wyss and his team “know how to create measurable, sustainable impact.”Mr. Wyss, 85, was born in Bern, first visited the United States as an exchange student in 1958, and became enchanted with America’s national parks and public lands. After becoming wealthy while helping lead the Switzerland-based medical device manufacturer Synthes, he began donating his fortune through a network of nonprofit organizations to promote conservation, environmental causes and other issues.The organizations gradually increased their donations to other causes backed by Democrats, including abortion rights and minimum wage increases, and eventually to groups more directly involved in partisan political debates, particularly after Mr. Trump’s election.Asked about the shift, Howard H. Stevenson, who has been close to Mr. Wyss since the two were classmates at Harvard Business School in the 1960s, pointed to Mr. Trump’s sharp reduction to the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. One of Mr. Wyss’s foundations had teamed with five other foundations to commit $1.5 million to preserving the monument. (The Biden administration is now reviewing Mr. Trump’s policy on Bear Ears, which was broadly opposed by Democrats and conservation groups.)“You don’t have to look at people destroying your work to say maybe you want to try and figure out how you respond in the most effective way,” said Mr. Stevenson, who is an adviser to one of Mr. Wyss’s foundations and whose son sits on the board of another Wyss organization.One of Mr. Wyss’s foundations teamed with five other foundations to commit $1.5 million to preserving Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.KC McGinnis for The New York TimesMr. Wyss did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article, and most of the people interviewed either declined to discuss him or requested anonymity to do so.Price Floyd, a spokesman for two of Mr. Wyss’s operations — the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund, both of which are based in Washington — pushed back on suggestions that his giving was intended to help the Democratic Party, suggesting that his focus was on issues important to him.He described Mr. Wyss in a statement as “a successful businessman turned philanthropist who has pledged over a billion dollars to conserve nature and also sought to bolster social welfare programs in the United States.”The Wyss Foundation, which is housed in a stately 19th-century Georgian Revival mansion in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, had assets of more than $2 billion at the end of 2019, according to its most recent tax filing.It is registered under a section of the tax code that prohibits it from spending money to expressly support partisan political campaigns.But it can, and does, donate to groups that seek to influence the political debate in a manner that aligns with Democrats and their agenda, including the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank where Mr. Wyss sits on the board. The organization was started by John D. Podesta, a top White House aide to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. A foundation that Mr. Wyss led as chairman and that has since merged with the Wyss Foundation paid Mr. Podesta as an adviser, and the two men remained close, according to associates.The Berger Action Fund, which shares facilities and staff with the Wyss Foundation, had assets of nearly $65 million at the end of March 2020, according to its most recent tax filing. The fund is registered under a section of the tax code that allows it to spend money supporting and opposing candidates, or to donate to groups that do.Mr. Floyd said Berger Action had its own policy barring “any of its funding from being used to support or oppose political candidates or electoral activities.”Because the recipients of funds from Mr. Wyss’s organizations do not have to disclose many details about their finances, including which donations are used for which projects, it is not clear how they have used the money originating from Mr. Wyss’s operation. But some of the groups funded by Berger Action helped pay for campaign ads helping Democrats and attacking Republicans including Mr. Trump, or gave to other groups that did.The voluntary restriction is potentially notable, given questions about Mr. Wyss’s citizenship.While Mr. Wyss donated nearly $70,000 to Democratic congressional candidates and left-leaning political action committees from 1990 to 2003, he does not appear to have made any such donations to federal candidates or PACs since.Mr. Wyss’s representatives provided the tax filings documenting the expansion of recent giving to politically oriented groups only after requests from a lawyer for The New York Times, and after Mr. Wyss dropped his bid for Tribune Publishing. Such filings are legally required to be made public upon request. The tax filings show that his organizations’ biggest grants in recent years went to entities that mostly dispense funds to other groups, and sometimes act as incubators for new outfits intended partly to serve functions seen as lacking on the left. Voters casting their ballots in Topeka, Kan., in the 2018 midterm elections. While little known by the public, Mr. Wyss and his foundations have come to play an increasing role in financing the political infrastructure that supports Democrats and their issues.Barrett Emke for The New York TimesBetween the spring of 2016 and the spring of 2020, the Berger Action Fund donated more than $135 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which has become among the leading dark money spenders on the left, filings from the Internal Revenue Service and Federal Election Commission show.One of the nonprofit groups managed by a for-profit consulting firm called Arabella Advisors, Sixteen Thirty donated more than $63 million to super PACs backing Democrats or opposing Republicans in 2020, including the pro-Biden groups Priorities USA Action and Unite the Country and the scandal-plagued anti-Trump group Lincoln Project, according to Federal Election Commission filings.Another nonprofit managed by Arabella, the New Venture Fund, which is set up under a section of the tax code barring it from partisan political spending, received more than $27.6 million from the Wyss Foundation from 2016 through 2019.Tax filings by the Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund do not indicate how they spent the funds from Mr. Wyss’s groups, nor do tax filings submitted by the Sacramento-based Fund for a Better Future, which passes money from donors to groups that push to shape the political process in a way that helps Democrats. The Fund for a Better Future has received the majority of its funding — nearly $45.2 million between the spring of 2016 and the spring of 2020 — from the Berger Action Fund.The Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund and Fund for a Better Future did not answer questions about how they spent funds from Mr. Wyss’s organizations, except to say that the money did not go to partisan campaign efforts.Sixteen Thirty and New Venture have helped create and fund dozens of groups, including some that worked to block Mr. Trump’s nominees and push progressive appointments by Mr. Biden.Among the groups under the umbrella of Sixteen Thirty and New Venture is the Hub Project, which was started by Mr. Wyss’s philanthropic network in 2015 as a sort of incubator for groups backing Democrats and their causes, as first reported by The Times. It created more than a dozen groups with anodyne-sounding names that planned to spend $30 million attacking Republican congressional candidates before the 2018 election.In response to questions about donations being passed through to other organizations, Mr. Floyd said the board of the Berger Action Fund has begun in recent years placing “a greater emphasis on supporting other nonprofit organizations or grant-making organizations, like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, that help identify, support and grow promising public interest projects.”Several officials from the Hub Project were hired by the Biden administration, including Rosemary Enobakhare, a former Environmental Protection Agency official in the Obama administration who returned to the agency under Mr. Biden; Maju Varghese as director of the White House Military Office; and Janelle Jones as chief economist for the Labor Department.Molly McUsic — the president of the Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund, and a former board member of the Fund for a Better Future and the Sixteen Thirty Fund — was a member of the Biden transition team that reviewed Interior Department policies and personnel. 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      Sexual Harassment Allegations Roil N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race: 5 Takeaways

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      Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, has faced criticism for his aggressive defense against accusations from a former campaign worker.For much of the New York City mayor’s race, Andrew Yang has been a dominating presence, leading in limited early polling and siphoning attention from his rivals.That largely remained true last week, but an unexpected story line — the sexual assault allegations lodged against Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller — gave the race another focal point.A former campaign worker, Jean Kim, said Mr. Stringer sexually abused her during his 2001 campaign for public advocate. At least four mayoral candidates have called on Mr. Stringer to drop out of the race.On Friday, Mr. Stringer lost several major endorsements from left-leaning politicians and political organizations, which has thrown his campaign into turmoil, and altered the dynamics of the contest — one of the city’s most consequential mayoral elections in a generation. More leaders withdrew their support over the weekend, including Representative Adriano Espaillat, a key Latino ally.Here is what you need to know:Stringer accused of “smear campaign”Jean Kim said that she had expected Mr. Stringer’s attempt to discredit her, characterizing the strategy as “lie, attack and retaliate.”Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesMr. Stringer has vociferously denied Ms. Kim’s accusations, saying that they once had a consensual relationship over the course of a few months. He vowed to “fight for the truth because these allegations are false.” Part of that effort seems to be rooted in discrediting Ms. Kim, and portraying her as politically motivated.Soon after Ms. Kim went public with her accusation, Mr. Stringer said that his relationship with Ms. Kim was friendly until 2013, when she wanted a job on his campaign for comptroller and did not get one. On Friday, his campaign accused her of “working for Mr. Yang.”Ms. Kim pushed back strongly.“I do not work and have never worked for the Andrew Yang campaign,” Ms. Kim said in a statement. “I’ve never met him, and I have not decided who my choice is for mayor of New York City.”The Stringer campaign said Ms. Kim had filed petitions to help Mr. Yang get on the ballot. Ms. Kim said she was circulating the petitions for her friend, Esther Yang, who is running as a district leader in Manhattan and is aligned with Mr. Yang.Ms. Kim, a lobbyist who has worked in politics for years, said she believed it might be time for the city to elect its first female mayor. She said that she came forward because of the “gnawing feeling in my gut every time I saw him touting his support for women” and was not surprised by Mr. Stringer’s efforts to discredit her.“It is exactly what I expected him to do,” she said. “Lie, attack and retaliate.”Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and one of three female mayoral candidates calling on Mr. Stringer to drop out, said on Twitter that Mr. Stringer had started a “smear campaign” against Ms. Kim and called it “disgusting.”A city councilwoman calls Stringer “vengeful”The sexual assault allegations opened another line of criticism against Mr. Stringer, as several local leaders said that his aggressive response toward Ms. Kim’s claims was part of a broader pattern.Helen Rosenthal, a city councilwoman on the Upper West Side, said she had been “on the receiving end of his crude and vengeful actions.”Ms. Rosenthal, who is supporting Ms. Wiley in the mayor’s race, said that when she and Mr. Stringer were on opposing political sides, he threatened not to work with groups that supported Ms. Rosenthal.Others including Ben Kallos, a city councilman from the Upper East Side who is running for Manhattan borough president, and Marti Speranza Wong, the leader of a group, Amplify Her, that seeks to elect women, shared stories of bullying behavior by Mr. Stringer.At the same time, a group of women including Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s former public advocate, and Ruth Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 1997, urged caution when considering the allegations.Their statement, released through the Stringer campaign, said: “Believing women means accepting the allegation and investigating it thoroughly and objectively.”Adams wins transit union endorsementMr. Yang, the former presidential hopeful, has done well in the race despite not landing major endorsements; he had hoped to change that by getting the backing of the powerful union that represents subway and bus workers.Mr. Yang had met in March with John Samuelsen, a top leader of the Transport Workers Union of America, who had expressed support for Mr. Yang’s views on automation.“There is a technological revolution coming across all transport sectors, with a huge potential negative impact on public transit workers and service delivery,” Mr. Samuelsen said at the time. “Andrew Yang speaks powerfully in defense of workers, and understands that people come before profits.”But the union ultimately backed Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, whom officials have known for much longer. Mr. Adams has been a voice for subway riders and workers as the system fell into crisis in recent years.“He’s stood with us in many battles and has always been there for us,” said Tony Utano, the president of the local transit union. “He’s earned this endorsement and richly deserves it.”Mr. Yang did win the support last week of leading Hasidic sects in the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. Mr. Yang has been courting Orthodox Jewish voters and has defended the yeshiva education system, which has faced criticism over not providing a basic secular education.Donovan criticizes male candidates’ response to Stringer allegationsAfter Mr. Stringer was accused of sexual assault by Ms. Kim, the three top-tier female candidates for mayor quickly called for Mr. Stringer to either withdraw from the mayor’s race, resign as city comptroller or both.They were joined by Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, but not by the three other leading male candidates.Mr. Yang, Mr. Adams and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, all said that they believed Ms. Kim but stopped short of calling for Mr. Stringer to withdraw from political life.Mr. Donovan said that his views lined up with Ms. Wiley, who believes that a man cannot tell a woman if a relationship is consensual, as Mr. Stringer has claimed. But because Mr. Stringer was Ms. Kim’s boss, the relationship could never have been consensual, Mr. Donovan said..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;}“One of the fundamental issues in the #MeToo movement is the use of power by men to take advantage of women, sexually and otherwise,” Mr. Donovan said. “Men have to speak out against that if it will change. It shouldn’t be just women.”Sasha Ahuja, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, said he believed Ms. Kim and that there should be “a thorough investigation as soon as possible.” Mr. Adams’s campaign pointed to his remarks earlier in the week when he said that Mr. Stringer should do some “soul searching and make the appropriate decisions on how to move forward.”Basil Smikle, Mr. McGuire’s campaign manager, called Mr. Donovan’s comments a sign of privilege and said rushing to judgment before due process is not a good idea.“For a guy whose entire campaign consists of him talking about his Black friends from work, Shaun Donovan is showing himself to be totally ignorant of what it’s like to be Black in America,” said Mr. Smikle, who is Black.McGuire’s fund-raising efforts indirectly help his rivalsRay McGuire has raised $7.4 million, triggering a boost in the city’s spending cap for his rivals participating in the matching funds program.James Estrin/The New York TimesMr. McGuire, who has support from numerous Wall Street types, has done so well in fund-raising that the New York City Campaign Finance Board was forced to raise the spending cap for all mayoral candidates participating in the city’s public financing system.Under the system, small dollar donations from New Yorkers are matched at a rate of up to $8 for every $1 contributed.Mr. McGuire is not participating in the matching program, which had allowed candidates to spend up to $7.3 million in the primary.Under campaign finance rules, if a candidate, like Mr. McGuire, who is not participating in public financing, raises or spends more than half of the $7.3 million cap, the spending cap for participating clients is raised by half.Mr. McGuire, who entered the race in October, has now raised $7.4 million — triggering an automatic raise in the spending cap to $10.9 million.With super PACs supporting individual candidates proliferating for the first time in the race for mayor, the increased spending cap is likely to help Mr. Adams, Mr. Stringer and Mr. Yang.Mr. Adams has raised a total of $8.9 million and has $7.9 million on hand, according to the most recent campaign finance filings. Mr. Stringer had raised $8.7 million and has $7.4 million on hand. Mr. Yang has raised $6 million and has $5 million on hand.Super PACs supporting Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan’s campaigns have each raised more than $4 million. Mr. Donovan’s father contributed $4 million to the super PAC supporting his son. And there are at least two PACs expected to support Mr. Yang’s campaign.Mayoral candidates participating in the matching program can receive a maximum of $6.5 million in public money for the primary.Evan Thies, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said that “having more to spend is helpful” and that Mr. Adams will be able to “meet the new limit.” More

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      Ray McGuire Wants to Show He’s Not Just the Wall Street Candidate

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      Mr. McGuire has landed endorsements from Representative Gregory W. Meeks and three hip-hop giants as his campaign for New York mayor enters a crucial phase.In the intensifying race for mayor of New York City, numerous endorsements have trickled out, but few with the star power of the one jointly given to Raymond J. McGuire last week: Jay-Z, Diddy and Nas.For Mr. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, the endorsement from the three entrepreneurial giants of the hip-hop world was meant to reinforce a message: He was not merely a candidate who emerged from, and was favored by, big business; he could be a mayor to heal New York from its financial crisis and its racial inequities.Six months ago, Mr. McGuire entered the crowded race for mayor at the urging of several top business leaders, who hoped that he could translate his success on Wall Street into a viable candidacy for mayor, and be a more business-friendly choice than most of the other major candidates. He quickly raised more than $7.4 million to fund his campaign, and a super PAC has raised another $4 million. He has also spent far more on political advertising than any other candidate: $1.2 million, with the super PAC spending another $1.7 million.On Sunday, Representative Gregory W. Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democratic Party, endorsed Mr. McGuire, in what some of his campaign aides are calling their “Clyburn moment,” a reference to an endorsement given by Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to Joseph R. Biden; the endorsement is widely considered to have helped save Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign after his poor performances in two early primaries.But with two months until the June 22 primary, Mr. McGuire’s campaign has yet to catch fire, and his goal of becoming the city’s second Black mayor is entering a critical phase.There is no question that New York City faces a series of severe challenges as it emerges from the pandemic. But Mr. McGuire has so far been unable to persuade voters, according to early polling, that he is best suited to guide the city’s recovery.Mr. McGuire, right, visiting the First Baptist Church East Elmhurst in Queens. He has begun to step up his in-person campaigning.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesOther Democratic candidates have far more experience in city government, including the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer; the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams; the former sanitation commissioner, Kathryn Garcia; and the former head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, Maya Wiley.Mr. McGuire is essentially hoping to use his corporate background — much like the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg did in 2001, after the Sept. 11 attack — to convince New Yorkers that a different type of nonpolitical leadership is needed in a post-crisis city. At the same time, Mr. McGuire is trying to broaden his appeal beyond business leaders. Earlier this month, Mr. McGuire appeared in Minneapolis outside the courthouse where the former police officer Derek Chauvin is on trial in the killing of George Floyd, praying for justice with Mr. Floyd’s family. Last month, he signed a letter with dozens of the most prominent Black business executives in the country calling on companies to fight restrictive voting laws being pushed by Republicans in more than 40 states.“Now more than ever, we need a mayor who can unify, who can bring together every walk of life, every race, every community and every industry,” Mr. McGuire said on Sunday.Mr. McGuire, seen on the steps of Queens Borough Hall, is trying to broaden his appeal beyond business leaders. Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesHe used the language of New York’s first and only Black mayor, David N. Dinkins, calling the city a “beautiful mosaic” and promising to revive it.Mr. McGuire also referenced fellow candidates who had been “running for decades” or others who were “gimmicking as if this were a game show.”On the streets, Mr. McGuire, who is 6-foot-4, seems at ease, mixing jokes with passers-by with more substantive discussions with a community activist about his plans for young people.“All that has to happen between now and June is more people getting to know and meet Ray,” said Assemblyman Robert J. Rodriguez, a Democrat from East Harlem who has endorsed Mr. McGuire and joined him at campaign events. “Some of the other candidates like Yang had the benefit of a presidential campaign to help solve that problem. If that’s our biggest issue, then it’s just really a race against time.”Indeed, Mr. McGuire has begun to step up the pace of his in-person campaigning, following the example of Andrew Yang, the presumptive front-runner who has aggressively courted voters in person during the pandemic.But it is Mr. Meeks’s endorsement that may carry the most weight among engaged voters, particularly in the Black community, whose support he and Mr. Adams, a founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, are competing for. A group of 150 supporters from East Asian, South Asian and Black communities gathered on the steps of Queens Borough Hall for the endorsement.“Meeks represents Black homeowners who turn out to vote in primaries, have a nuanced understanding of policing and economics and a clear picture of what they want New York City and their community to look like,” said Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University. “They are not looking for the most progressive candidate.”Asked about Mr. McGuire’s performance in early polls, Mr. Meeks said he was unconcerned because many voters remained undecided.“This is the beginning,” Mr. Meeks said. “I refer everyone back to eight years ago. At this time, Bill de Blasio was nowhere to be seen on a polling site.” Mr. de Blasio later staged a surprise victory.Unlike Mr. Adams and other candidates more established in New York politics, Mr. McGuire must “simultaneously introduce people to who he is and articulate his vision,” Professor Greer said, and he is trying to do so by using the “shortcut of celebrity to introduce himself and then talk about his policies.”He is also using television ads, spending far more than the rest of the field combined.Some ads relate Mr. McGuire’s rise from his childhood in Dayton, Ohio, where he was raised by a single mother. He would attend private school before going on to attain three degrees at Harvard University and launching a career in investment banking on Wall Street. Other ads emphasize that Mr. McGuire believes his management experience is what’s needed to help the city recover, but that he never forgot where he came from in spite of his wealth. The mayoral candidate speaking at Antioch Baptist Church of Corona in Queens. “We’ve got to come off Zoom and get into the streets,” Mr. McGuire’s campaign manager said.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesOther ads showcase his endorsement from Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, a man who died after being placed in a chokehold by the police on Staten Island in 2014, or highlight his “comeback plan” to create 500,000 jobs, support small and minority-owned businesses and promote early childhood education.The ads do not make much of his ties to his backers on Wall Street, or his relationships with various celebrities. At a virtual fund-raiser earlier this year, Mr. McGuire held court with Jeff Bewkes, the former chief executive of Time Warner; the actor and comedian Steve Martin; Peter Malkin, the developer whose family controls the Empire State Building; and Charles Oakley, the retired New York Knicks star.The road to the joint endorsement began when Jay-Z called Mr. McGuire last year to ask for help with starting a fund to benefit Black and Latino people. The rapper and entrepreneur wanted Mr. McGuire to head the enterprise.Mr. McGuire told Jay-Z that he had a different plan in mind, divulging his thoughts about running for mayor of New York City.“I was like, man, there goes that,” Jay-Z said in the video unveiling the endorsement.Steve Stoute, a former record executive who heads an ad agency, also endorsed Mr. McGuire on the video with Jay-Z, Diddy and Nas.“If we don’t get this right, we got problems,” Mr. Stoute said in an interview. “You need somebody to come in who’s been successful at building something before, at fixing a problem. Politicians manage the status quo.”Mr. Meeks, left, with Mr. McGuire, right, his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, and their son Leo in Queens on Sunday.Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesFor now, Mr. McGuire is busy managing his image with average voters. Instead of doing his usual Friday night virtual chat from his home on Central Park West, Mr. McGuire held the forum from Jamaica, Queens, where he was greeting voters at the AirTrain.On Wednesday, he was supposed to spend the day with advisers and his finance team, but the campaign called a last-minute audible and sent the candidate up to Harlem for a rally to honor Betty Park, the owner of Manna’s soul food restaurant, and to call for an end to anti-Asian violence.Mr. McGuire wore a backpack and a face mask, and worked the crowd before the event handing out fliers. He talked about his plan to create affordable housing and keep the neighborhood safe after it experienced an increase in gun violence during the pandemic. With Mr. McGuire already standing on one side of Ms. Park, Mr. Adams suddenly appeared and stood on the other.Brian Benjamin, a state senator representing the area who is running for city comptroller, spoke at the rally and was surprised to see Mr. Adams and Mr. McGuire.“I said, ‘What’s going on?’” Mr. Benjamin said. “It is very rare to have this kind of mayoral presence.”Mr. McGuire may have to continue to be visible at small community events over the next two months if he expects to win, according to Lloyd Williams, president of the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce.“He has major corporate supporters and money. What he doesn’t have is a history of working closely with the communities he wants to represent,” said Mr. Williams, who hasn’t endorsed in the race. “That means he has to spend more time, but he’s running out of time.” More

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      Donations Surge for Republicans Who Challenged Election Results

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      The lawmakers, who encouraged their followers to protest in Washington on Jan. 6, have capitalized on the riot to draw huge campaign donations.WASHINGTON — Republicans who were the most vocal in urging their followers to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to try to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s loss, pushing to overturn the election and stoking the grievances that prompted the deadly Capitol riot, have profited handsomely in its aftermath, according to new campaign data.Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the challenges to President Biden’s victory in their chamber, each brought in more than $3 million in campaign donations in the three months that followed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia who called the rampage a “1776 moment” and was later stripped of committee assignments for espousing bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence, raised $3.2 million — more than the individual campaign of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and nearly every other member of House leadership.A New York Times analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission disclosures illustrates how the leaders of the effort to overturn Mr. Biden’s electoral victory have capitalized on the outrage of their supporters to collect huge sums of campaign cash. Far from being punished for encouraging the protest that turned lethal, they have thrived in a system that often rewards the loudest and most extreme voices, using the fury around the riot to build their political brands. The analysis examined the individual campaign accounts of lawmakers, not joint fund-raising committees or leadership political action committees.“The outrage machine is powerful at inducing political contributions,” said Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from Florida.Shortly after the storming of the Capitol, some prominent corporations and political action committees vowed to cut off support for the Republicans who had fanned the flames of anger and conspiracy that resulted in violence. But any financial blowback from corporate America appears to have been dwarfed by a flood of cash from other quarters.Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, a freshman who urged his supporters to “lightly threaten” Republican lawmakers to goad them into challenging the election results, pulled in more than $1 million. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado — who like Ms. Greene compared Jan. 6 to the American Revolution — took in nearly $750,000.The sums reflect an emerging incentive structure in Washington, where the biggest provocateurs can parlay their notoriety into small-donor successes that can help them amass an even higher profile. It also illustrates the appetites of a Republican base of voters who have bought into Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud and are eager to reward those who worked to undermine the outcome of a free and fair election.Most of the dozens of corporations that pledged to cut off any Republican who supported overturning the election kept that promise, withholding political action committee donations during the most recent quarter. But for the loudest voices on Capitol Hill, that did not matter, as an energized base of pro-Trump donors rallied to their side and more than made up the shortfall.“We’re really seeing the emergence of small donors in the Republican Party,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. “In the past, Democrats have been the ones who have benefited most from small-dollar donations. We’re seeing the Republicans rapidly catching up.”Lawmakers have long benefited richly from divisive news coverage, especially around prominent events that play to the emotions of an enraged or fearful voter base. But the new filings illustrate a growing chasm between those who raise money through a bombastic profile — often bolstered by significant fund-raising expenditures — and those who have focused their attentions on serious policy work.As provocative freshmen like Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert and Mr. Cawthorn took in high-dollar figures, other more conventional members of their class in competitive districts — even those praised for their fund-raising prowess — were substantially behind.For instance, Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Young Kim of California, both of whom opposed the electoral challenges and have worked on bipartisan bills, each took in less than $600,000.Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert and Mr. Cawthorn raised more money than the top Republicans on the most powerful committees in Congress, such as appropriations, budget, education and labor, foreign affairs and homeland security.In many cases, Republican lawmakers who fanned the flames of the Jan. 6 violence have since benefited by casting themselves as victims of a political backlash engineered by the Washington establishment, and appealed to their supporters.“Pennsylvania wasn’t following their own state’s election law, but the establishment didn’t want to hear it. But that’s not who I work for,” Mr. Hawley wrote in January in a fund-raising message. “I objected because I wanted to make sure your voice was heard. Now, Biden and his woke mob are coming after me. I need your help.”Ms. Greene fund-raised off a successful effort to exile her from committees, led by furious Democrats incensed at her past talk in support of executing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and encouraging her followers to “Stop the Steal” on Jan. 6. Setting goals of raising $150,000 each day in the days before and after the unusual vote, she surpassed them every time.“The D.C. swamp and the fake news media are attacking me because I am not one of them,” one such solicitation read. “I am one of you. And they hate me for it.”But the polarizing nature of Mr. Trump also helped some Republicans who took him to task for his behavior surrounding the events of Jan. 6.Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican who voted to impeach Mr. Trump, took in $1.5 million, and Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who has started an organization to lead the Republican Party away from fealty to Mr. Trump, raised more than $1.1 million.“It’s obvious that there’s a strong market for Trumpism in the Republican base,” Mr. Curbelo said. “There is also a strong market for truth-telling and supporting the Constitution.”Mr. Conant questioned how much of the fund-raising surge for some candidates was directly tied to the Capitol assault, which he said the conservative news media had generally “moved on” from covering.Instead, he said that Republican voters were “very nervous” about the direction of the country under Democratic control and were eager to support Republicans they viewed as fighting a liberal agenda.“It pays to be high-profile,” Mr. Conant said. “It’s more evidence that there’s not a lot of grass-roots support for milquetoast middle of the road. It doesn’t mean you have to be pro-Trump. It just means you need to take strong positions, and then connect with those supporters.”But if the Republican civil war has paid campaign dividends for fighters on both sides, individual Democrats involved in prosecuting Mr. Trump for the riot in his impeachment trial have not reaped a similar windfall.With her $3.2 million raised this quarter, Ms. Greene brought in more money than the combined total raised by all nine impeachment managers — even though they won widespread applause in liberal circles for their case against the former president. Three of the managers have raised less than $100,000 each over the past three months, according to the data.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene brought in more than the combined total raised by nine impeachment managers, three of whom raised less than $100,000 over the past three months.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesAs money pours into campaigns, the Jan. 6 assault has also resulted in much spending around security precautions.The Federal Election Commission expanded guidance allowing lawmakers to use campaign contributions to install residential security systems at their homes, and top Capitol Hill security told lawmakers to consider upgrading their home security systems to include panic buttons and key fobs.Campaign filings show nearly a dozen lawmakers have made payments of $20,000 or more to security companies in the past three months, including Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who voted to convict Mr. Trump; Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who gave a harrowing account of the riot; and Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California and one of the impeachment managers against Mr. Trump.Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley were also among the biggest spenders on security.Lauren Hirsch More

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      Dark Money in the New York Mayor’s Race

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      This year’s election is shaping up to be the city’s first in which super PACs play a major role.The New York City mayor’s race already has a national-politics tinge thanks to one guy: the businessman Andrew Yang, whose long-shot campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination sputtered out early last year, but who is now seen as a front-runner in the city’s mayoral election. (That’s despite his knack for eliciting groans on Twitter.)But it’s not just the personalities that are bridging the divide between local and national politics. It’s also the money.This mayoral election is shaping up to be the city’s first in which super PACs — the dark-money groups that sprang up after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission — play a major role.But it’s also the first race in which a number of candidates are taking advantage of a city policy that allows campaigns to gain access to more generous public matching funds, based upon their level of grass-roots support.With the potentially decisive Democratic primary just over two months away, our Metro reporters Dana Rubinstein and Jeffery C. Mays have written an article looking at how the hunt for super PAC cash is complicating the race — and raising ethical questions about some campaigns, including a few that are also receiving public matching funds. Dana took a moment out of her Friday afternoon to catch me up on where things stand.Hi Dana. So, the Citizens United decision was handed down in 2010. Yet it seems as if this is the first time we’re hearing about super PACs being used in a big way in the New York mayor’s race. How does this development interact with the city’s newly beefed-up matching-funds policy, which is aimed at encouraging small donations? Is this a case of contradictory policies — or, as a source in your story put it, “like patching one part of your roof and the water finds another way in”?There was some independent-expenditure (or “I.E.”) activity in the 2013 mayoral primary, but it wasn’t candidate specific — with one possible exception. There was a super PAC called New York City Is Not for Sale that was candidate specific, in the sense that it was targeting one candidate, Christine Quinn, and it got its funding from Bill de Blasio supporters. But this is really the first time we’ve seen candidate-specific I.E.s. As they’ve proliferated on the national level, New York City candidates have been taking their cues from the national scene.If you talk to folks at the Brennan Center, who are big advocates for the matching-funds program, they’ll point to it and say that voters should take heart, because in many ways it is proving itself to be a success. The six mayoral candidates who qualified for matching funds this year were the most ever. The matching funds are being doled out in accordance with how many voters from New York City are contributing to campaigns, and that means someone like Dianne Morales, who has no previous electoral history and was not at all a big player in the New York political scene before this election, is able to make a real case for the mayoralty. She is able to mount a real campaign. She got like $2 million in matching funds in this round.But then you have this parallel universe of super PAC money. And in some cases you have candidates who are getting matching funds — which are our taxpayer dollars — and benefiting from super PACs. Of course, super PACs are supposed to be independent and not coordinate with campaigns, but regardless, for some voters it’s hard to see that and think it’s an ideal scenario.Basically, what we have is two parallel fund-raising systems: One is almost completely ungoverned, and the other is very strictly regulated and involves taxpayer money.Who is leading the race for super PAC money in New York? And what’s the overall state of the race these days, money matters aside?Shaun Donovan, the former housing secretary under President Barack Obama, is participating in the matching-funds program, and he has a super PAC. Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, has a super PAC too — although a much less lucrative one — and is also taking matching funds. Andrew Yang has one super PAC that was formed by a longtime friend of his named David Rose; it’s raised a nominal amount of money, but no one is under the illusion that it won’t start raising a lot soon. And there’s this other super PAC connected to Yang that’s supposedly in the works, and that Lis Smith, who was involved in Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, is involved with.Then there is Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive and one of the highest-ranking African-American bank executives ever. He has a super PAC that has raised $4 million from all kinds of recognizable names. They’re spending a lot, with the goal to just sort of increase his name recognition.As far as the state of the race, we have no idea. As you can attest, there’s been virtually no credible polling here. In terms of the available polls, there is some uniformity to what they suggest: Yang has a lead, yet half of voters are undecided. You have Eric Adams, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley, and then the rest of the pack.It is both too soon to say and also alarmingly close to the actual primary election day, June 22. We really don’t have a sense of where things stand. When you add to this ranked-choice voting, which is new this year, it’s really an open question.Earlier you mentioned Shaun Donovan, whose story figures prominently into the article you and Jeff just wrote. Fill us in on what’s going on there.In addition to being the former housing secretary for Obama, he was the budget director. So he’s a very well-regarded technocrat — who also is the son of a wealthy ad-tech executive. Someone formed a super PAC to support his candidacy for mayor; that super PAC has raised a little over $2 million, and exactly $2 million of that sum was donated by his dad.It’s completely within the realm of possibility that his dad was like, “You know what, I really love my son, I think he’d be a great mayor, I’m going to fund his super PAC,” without any coordination about how that money would be used. But it’s hard for some people to imagine a scenario where a father and son don’t talk about this kind of thing. Or maybe it isn’t! The point is that it’s almost unknowable, isn’t it?There’s a lot of winking and nodding involved in this stuff, and you don’t necessarily need direct coordination in order to have what is effectively coordination.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Outside Money Floods Mayor’s Race, Raising Ethics Concerns

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      For the first time since the Supreme Court allowed unlimited spending in elections, candidate super PACs are flooding money into a New York mayoral election.New York City’s pivotal mayor’s race has unleashed an army of super PACs the likes of which the city has never seen.Raymond J. McGuire, the former Citigroup executive, has one. So, too, does Shaun Donovan, President Barack Obama’s former housing secretary, and Scott Stringer, New York City’s comptroller. Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate, has one and soon may get another.The proliferation of super PACs supporting individual candidates in the race — a familiar theme in presidential races, but unheard of in a New York City mayoral contest — points to the gravity of this year’s election in the midst of a pandemic.But it also raises the question of whether the super PACs are simply a way to get around campaign finance limits and may lead to scrutiny of possible coordination between the outside funds and political campaigns, a practice that would violate campaign finance rules.The issue came into sharp focus on Thursday, when New York City’s Campaign Finance Board withheld the release of public matching funds to Mr. Donovan’s campaign. The board said it wanted to ensure there had been no coordination between the campaign and the super PAC supporting him, which is largely funded by his father.In a statement he read during the Thursday meeting, board chairman Frederick Schaffer said the board required further information from the Donovan campaign and New Start N.Y.C., the super PAC created to support Mr. Donovan’s campaign.The board first reached out to New Start N.Y.C. for more information on March 25, following a New York Times article on the super PAC, according to its treasurer, Brittany Wise. The super PAC responded the very next day.Michael Donovan, Mr. Donovan’s father, said there has been absolutely no coordination between him and his son. They talk “about the grandchildren” and other personal matters, he said.“I’m very dis-involved, and my son is very very careful that we don’t talk about anything involving the PAC,” said Mr. Donovan, an ad tech executive, when reached by phone.Ms. Wise said there had been no coordination with the campaign. Jeremy Edwards, a spokesman for Mr. Donovan, said, “We follow the law.”The questions surrounding Mr. Donovan illustrate the continued repercussions of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed unlimited outside spending in elections.Coordination between super PACs and political campaigns is notoriously hard to prove. And the penalties, when there are any, are often slaps on the wrist.The stakes are particularly high in New York City, which is deploying its new, more generous matching funds program — designed to reward candidates who raise small-dollar donations from New York City residents — for the first time in a mayor’s race. On Thursday, the board doled out another $10 million to six qualifying candidates in the race, including Mr. Stringer and Mr. Yang.The board gave out $2.3 million to Kathryn Garcia, the former sanitation commissioner; $2.2 million to Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit head; $900,000 to Maya Wiley, the MSNBC analyst and former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio; and $300,000 to the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams — candidates who so far have no apparent super PAC support.Critics argue that the rise of super PACs threatens the efficacy of the new system by allowing candidates to effectively have it both ways. Mr. Donovan, Mr. Stringer and Mr. Yang are participating in the matching funds program. Mr. McGuire is not.“Right now, independent expenditures are a monster that’s getting bigger and bigger, and the good guys have not figured out a way to slay it yet,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group. “It’s like patching one part of your roof and the water finds another way in.”There were no super PACs explicitly supporting individual candidates in the 2013 mayoral primary, officials said.This mayoral election is different. Mr. McGuire’s super PAC has raised more than $4 million dollars from donors like Kenneth Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot; the art world philanthropist Agnes Gund; and the real estate developer Aby J. Rosen.Mr. Donovan’s has raised more than $2 million, nearly all of it from his father. The super PAC for Mr. Stringer, a collaboration between Food and Water Action and New York Communities for Change, a social justice group, was just formed on Monday. It aims to raise a modest $50,000 to $100,000, using those resources to mobilize a pre-existing volunteer network, according to its treasurer, Sam Bernhardt.Mr. Yang’s super PAC, Future Forward NYC, has only raised $35,000 so far, according to state records, though its founder, the entrepreneur and investor David Rose, said he aims to raise more than $7 million.Mr. Rose suggested that the existing spending limit for campaigns that participate in the matching funds system — $7.3 million — was not enough to win a New York City mayor’s race.“New York City is the single biggest market around, and to try to do a big campaign on quote-un-quote that kind of money is challenging in this media market,” he said in an interview. “My goal is to see if we can double that.”Lis Smith, a former adviser to the presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg, said she was also in the process of organizing a super PAC supporting Mr. Yang’s candidacy, aiming to counteract the bombardment of negative advertising that the presumptive front-runner is expected to face in the coming weeks.The goal is to raise $6 million, Ms. Smith said, so that Mr. Yang’s message was not “drowned out by millions of dollars in negativity.”The PAC, reported by Politico, is partnering with veteran ad makers and political operatives who have worked on behalf of Mr. Obama and Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.“Every day Andrew’s opponents wake up, get out of bed, attack Andrew, and then go to sleep,” Ms. Smith said. “We need to make sure their negativity doesn’t drown out Andrew’s message.”Kimberly Peeler-Allen, the treasurer of New York for Ray, the super PAC supporting Mr. McGuire’s candidacy, said the spending allows Mr. McGuire to compete. The PAC has spent more than $2 million on ads to introduce the candidate to the general public.Ms. Peeler-Allen acknowledged that super PACs are problematic. But she and Ms. Smith also argued that it makes no sense to unilaterally disengage in a race with so much at stake.“Until there is significant campaign finance reform in this country, we have to use the tools that we have to create the change that we want to have,” Ms. Peeler-Allen said.Mayor de Blasio, who has himself engaged in creative fund-raising efforts that have drawn legal scrutiny, agreed.“We need a reset in this whole country on campaign finance,” he said on Thursday. “We need a constitutional amendment to overcome the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, and we need to reset the whole equation to get money out of politics across the board.” More