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      Fact-Checking Trump’s Speech After His Arraignment

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      Hours after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of filing false business records, former President Donald J. Trump maintained his innocence before a crowd of supporters in Florida. Here’s a fact-check.WASHINGTON — Hours after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of filing false business records in a courtroom in Lower Manhattan, former President Donald J. Trump maintained his innocence on Tuesday before a crowd of supporters at Mar-a-Lago, his estate and private club in Florida.He repeated a host of familiar and inaccurate attacks on his opponents. Here’s a fact-check of his remarks.What WAS Said“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign, remember that? They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine impeachment hoax No. 1, impeachment hoax No. 2, the illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here.”This is misleading. This list covers five years’ worth of grievances that Mr. Trump long harbored and largely misconstrues the various investigations into his campaign, administration and conduct.Mr. Trump has complained for years that the counterintelligence investigation the F.B.I. opened in July 2016 about Russia’s interference in the presidential election was an attack on his campaign.He was first impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for soliciting election assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was withholding a White House meeting and nearly $400 million in vital military assistance for the country.He was impeached again in 2021, one week before he left office, for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 presidential election.The F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago in August for classified documents that Mr. Trump was thought to have improperly removed from the White House. The search was not illegal and occurred after the Justice Department obtained a warrant.What WAS Said”And now this massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country, beginning with the radical left George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg of New York.”This needs context. The links between Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who has brought the case against Mr. Trump, and George Soros, the financier and Democratic megadonor, are real but overstated. (Attacks that portray Mr. Soros as a “globalist” mastermind often veer into antisemitic tropes.)In reality, Mr. Soros donated to a liberal group that endorses progressive prosecutors and supports efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system — in line with causes that he has publicly supported for years. That group used a significant portion of the money, but not all of it, to support Mr. Bragg in his 2021 campaign.A spokesman for Mr. Soros said that the two men had never met and that Mr. Soros had not given money directly to Mr. Bragg’s campaign.What WAS Said“That has absolutely nothing to do with openly taking boxes of documents and mostly clothing and other things to my home, which President Obama has done.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.False. Mr. Trump has repeatedly and wrongly compared his handling of classified documents to that of his predecessor.After his presidency, Mr. Trump took a trove of classified documents — including 18 marked as top secret — to Mar-a-Lago.In contrast, the National Archives and Records Administration, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, has said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law.The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.What WAS Said“In fact, they seem to have forgotten about his documents entirely, so many, thousands and thousands. It’s OK with him. They like to say that I’m obstructing, which I’m not, because I was working with NARA very nicely until the raid on my home. Biden is obstructing by making it impossible to get the 1,850 boxes.”False. Mr. Trump is again drawing an inaccurate comparison between his and President Biden’s improper handling of classified documents.The Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate Mr. Biden’s handling of documents in January, two months after the initial discovery of classified material at an office he had used at a Washington think tank. So clearly the matter was not “forgotten,” nor was Mr. Biden given an “OK.”Officials at the National Archives and Records Administration might also disagree with Mr. Trump’s assertion that he was cooperating “very nicely” with archivists responsible for storing and accounting for his presidential records. NARA asked Mr. Trump to return documents in spring 2021 once it had discovered files were missing and received them only after months of asking.As for Mr. Biden’s 1,850 boxes, that was referring to a collection of documents he had donated to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential documents, which must be released to NARA once a president leaves office, documents from members of Congress are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. It is not uncommon for senators and representatives to give such items to research or historical facilities.The university agreed to not give the public access to Mr. Biden’s documents from his time as senator until two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the collection in February as part of the special counsel investigation and in cooperation with Mr. Biden’s legal team. The New York Times reported at the time that the material was still being analyzed but did not appear to contain any classified documents.What WAS Said“I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.”This needs context. Loren Merchan, the daughter of the judge presiding over the case, is the president and a partner at a digital campaign strategy agency that has done work for many prominent Democrats, including the 2020 campaigns of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris. Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Trump argued that Justice Juan M. Merchan should recuse himself because of her work, but experts in judicial ethics agreed that this was not adequate grounds for recusal.Under New York State rules on judicial conduct, a judge should disqualify himself or herself from a case if a relative within the sixth degree had “an interest that would be substantially affected by the proceeding.” Ms. Merchan’s work on Democratic campaigns does not give her enough of an interest that would qualify, experts said.“Political interests are widely shared and thus diffused,” said Arthur D. Hellman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Pittsburgh. “If this kind of work by a relative within the sixth degree were enough to require recusal, it would be hard to find any judge who could hear the case.” More

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      Donald Trump Prepares to Surrender

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      The Manhattan indictments may not even present his biggest legal threat.Donald Trump is expected to turn himself in to the Manhattan authorities today. Further down, you can read about the latest developments and what to expect today.I also want to devote part of today’s newsletter to the other three criminal investigations of Trump — because at least one of them could end up being more significant than the charges in Manhattan, both legally and politically.Why?For one thing, some legal experts view the Manhattan case skeptically. The closest analogy to it may be the 2012 trial of John Edwards, the former Democratic presidential candidate, who was accused of violating campaign-finance law by hiding payments to cover up an extramarital affair. Jurors acquitted Edwards of one charge and deadlocked on the others, a reminder that many people are uncomfortable criminalizing scandals that revolve around consensual sex.The political impact of sex scandals is similarly questionable. Trump has a long, public history of cheating on his wives, as any reader of New York’s tabloid newspapers knows. It did not keep him from being elected president any more than Bill Clinton’s reputation for infidelity kept him from winning in 1992. Clinton also lied about an affair while he was president — under oath, no less — but many Americans nonetheless believed he should remain in the job.The case against Trump could turn out differently, of course: He could be convicted. Even if he is, though, the charges do not seem likely to change many voters’ views of Trump.Two of the other three investigations into Trump are somewhat different. They are about democracy, not sex, and there is already reason to believe that they are more politically threatening to him.One of the two is a federal investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The second involves those same efforts, but only in Georgia, where local prosecutors are looking into his failed attempt to overturn the result. Prosecutors have not yet announced whether they will bring charges in either case.Both stem from Trump’s rejection of basic democratic principles that other leaders of both parties have long accepted — that the loser of an election should concede; that politicians should not tell brazen and repeated lies; that violence is an unacceptable political tactic. Over the past few years, a small — but crucial — slice of voters who are otherwise sympathetic to the Republican Party have indicated that they are uncomfortable with Trump’s attacks on democracy.In 2020, he became only the fourth president in the past century to lose re-election, even as Republican congressional candidates fared better than expected. Last year, Trump’s preferred candidates performed about five percentage points worse than otherwise similar Republicans, my colleague Nate Cohn estimates. As a result, every election denier who ran to oversee elections in a battleground state last year lost.An indictment and a trial in either the Jan. 6 case or the Georgia case would again focus attention on Trump’s anti-democratic behavior. Most of his supporters would probably stick by him, but the cases probably present a greater risk to his standing with swing voters than a case revolving around the cover-up of an affair. And if polls were to show Trump clearly losing a hypothetical rematch with President Biden, some Republican primary voters might become nervous, hurting Trump in the primaries.I’m not predicting that outcome or any other specific scenario. There is a great deal of uncertainty about Trump’s legal problems and the 2024 election. I merely want to remind you that while attention will understandably focus on the Manhattan case this week, Trump’s legal problems are larger than this one case.Here’s our overview of the other three cases, compiled by my colleague Ian Prasad Philbrick.1. Jan. 6This is a federal investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The investigation appears to be focusing on Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack, on attempts by him and his allies to recruit fake presidential electors in key states, and on their fund-raising off false voter-fraud claims.Typically, the Justice Department tries to avoid taking actions that could influence the outcome of a campaign that has formally begun. (James Comey’s rejection of this tradition in the Hillary Clinton email case was a major exception.) If Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing this Trump inquiry, follows the tradition, Smith may make an announcement about whether to bring charges well before the end of this year.“He wants to resolve things quickly. But we cannot say how quickly,” my colleague Alan Feuer, who’s been covering the case, said.2. GeorgiaAfter Trump lost the 2020 election, he pressured Georgia’s top elections official “to find 11,780 votes,” enough to overturn his defeat. A grand jury investigating those efforts heard from 75 witnesses, including Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham, and recommended that prosecutors charge multiple people with crimes. It’s unclear whether Trump is among them, because much of the grand jury’s report remains secret. But the jury’s forewoman has hinted he was among them.The charges could include attempted election fraud and racketeering related to Trump’s involvement in a plan to recruit fake presidential electors. Prosecutors will likely decide whether to charge anyone by next month.3. Government documentsThe third case — involving the handling of classified documents — is probably less threatening to Trump, at least from a political standpoint. Many politicians, apparently including Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, have broken the rules for handling classified material. It’s partly a reflection of what many experts consider the over-classification of documents, including many that contain mundane information.Trump’s case does seem more extreme, however. He not only took hundreds of classified documents from the White House but also repeatedly resisted giving many of them back. Charges could include obstruction of justice for defying a subpoena. Smith is overseeing this inquiry as well, and the timing of a resolution remains unknown.The latest newsPolice officers and Secret Service agents will escort Trump from his home in Trump Tower to the district attorney’s office in Lower Manhattan, where he will surrender. Follow today’s developments.The New York Police Department has been put on alert. But officials say they do not expect a major backlash.Trump added a lawyer to his defense team, a former federal prosecutor with experience in white-collar cases.The case against Trump could hinge on an untested legal theory. Here’s what we know.THE LATEST NEWSPoliticsVoters head to the polls today to decide the runoff for Chicago mayor and to choose a new judge for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.About 15 million Americans could soon lose their health insurance because of the expiration of a pandemic program that automatically extended Medicaid coverage.Some Republicans fear that legislation to limit press freedom in Florida, drafted at Ron DeSantis’s urging, could expose conservative outlets to libel suits.Other Big StoriesClockwise from left: Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman.Josh Valcarcel/NASA Johnson Space Center, via ReutersMeet the astronauts of the Artemis II mission: They’ll be the first people to fly around the moon in more than 50 years.Finland joins NATO today. It’s a strengthening of the Western alliance and a strategic setback for Vladimir Putin.More severe weather is on the way to the Midwest and parts of the South, the same area that tornadoes hit a few days ago.From convenient to a nuisance: Parisians voted to ban electric rental scooters.Freeing Paul Rusesabagina, depicted in the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” involved secret diplomacy, lawsuits and Hollywood.A ranch owner in Arizona was charged in the shooting death of a migrant. Some conservative ranchers say the owner was the real victim.OpinionsMatthew Walther supports gun rights, but he thinks that the fetishism of AR-15 fandom is dangerous.Baseball’s new rules are a desperately needed makeover, Steve Kettmann writes.MORNING READSA member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana resting after shooting a bison last month.Michael Hanson for The New York TimesThe hunt: Their job is to kill bison who roam beyond Yellowstone’s borders.Up in the air: Take a close look at California’s snowy mountains.Baby’s first social media handle: Sorry, that profile name is taken. It belongs to a newborn.Love story: She thought her crush on a colleague was secret. Until someone asked, “Why do you have Jake pinned to your screen?”A Morning watch: She survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This is her story, in her voice.Lives Lived: As a young man, Raghavan Iyer didn’t know how to cook a simple potato curry. He went on to teach America’s heartland how to prepare Indian cuisine. Iyer died at 61.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICConnecticut players celebrating their win yesterday.Godofredo A. Vasquez/Associated PressN.C.A.A. men’s tournament winners: The UConn Huskies claimed their fifth national title with a 76-59 drubbing of upstart San Diego State. They survived a chaotic men’s tournament which saw all four No. 1 seeds lose before the Elite Eight.From the sideline: UConn’s dominance in the men’s tournament has brought out the inner calm in its head coach.A possible invite: Jill Biden suggested that the women’s runner-up, Iowa, could also be invited to the White House alongside national champion L.S.U. Tigers star Angel Reese responded with laughing emojis.Oral history: Twenty years ago, the Boston Red Sox created “the most fun clubhouse in baseball.” The Athletic called those players.ARTS AND IDEAS Revising classicsAuthors’ estates have been altering the text of well-known books to remove language that some may consider offensive, raising questions about art and censorship. But for publishers, there’s another important factor: making sure those books still sell.Agatha Christie continues to find new fans, and her estate had those readers in mind when it recently removed bigoted language from some of her novels. Christie’s estate learned long ago how lucrative such a change could be: In the 1980s, it dropped the title from the U.K. edition of one novel, which contained a slur, and adopted the U.S. title, “And Then There Were None.” It remains her best-selling book.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookDavid Malosh for The New York TimesPair radicchio with a tasty dressing.What to WatchThe documentary “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” includes an absorbing collage of archival footage.What to ReadIn “A Fever in the Heartland,” Timothy Egan traces the Ku Klux Klan’s expansion in the 1920s.Late NightStephen Colbert wondered if Trump would get a mug shot taken.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was commodity. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Sports stadium (five letters).And here’s today’s Wordle. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. We have winners in The Morning’s March Madness pools: “KarlyRenee” in the women’s bracket, and “Archytas” in the men’s. Congratulations! If you’re one of them, email us at themorning@nytimes.com to receive your prize.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election. More

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      Donald Trump también debe responder ante la justicia

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      Por primera vez en la historia de Estados Unidos, un gran jurado ha acusado formalmente a un expresidente del país. Donald Trump estuvo durante años, como candidato, en la presidencia y tras su salida de ella, ignorando las normas y los precedentes democráticos y legales, intentando plegar al Departamento de Justicia y al poder judicial a sus caprichos y comportándose como si él no estuviese sujeto a las reglas.Como demuestra su acusación, sí lo está.El reiterado desprecio por la ley suele conducir a una acusación penal, y esa es la consecuencia a la que se enfrenta hoy Trump. Los fiscales federales y estatales hicieron bien en dejar de lado las preocupaciones por las consecuencias políticas, o la reverencia por la presidencia, e iniciar exhaustivas investigaciones penales sobre la conducta de Trump en al menos cuatro casos. La investigación del fiscal de distrito de Manhattan es la primera que conduce a una acusación formal.Trump transformó por completo la relación entre la presidencia y el Estado de derecho, y a menudo afirmaba que el presidente está por encima de la ley. De modo que es adecuado que sus actos como presidente y como candidato sean ahora ponderados oficialmente por jueces y jurados, con la posibilidad de que se enfrente a sanciones penales. Trump dañó gravemente las instituciones políticas y legales de Estados Unidos, y volvió a amenazarlas con llamados a protestas generales cuando fuera acusado. Sin embargo, esas instituciones han demostrado ser lo bastante fuertes para exigirle responsabilidades por ese daño.Un sano respeto por el sistema legal también requiere que los estadounidenses dejen de lado sus opiniones políticas a la hora de formarse un juicio sobre estos casos. Aunque Trump pidió habitualmente que el FBI investigara a sus enemigos, que fueran imputados o enfrentaran la pena de muerte, su indiferencia hacia las garantías procesales para los demás no debería negarle los beneficios del sistema, incluidos un juicio imparcial y la presunción de inocencia. Al mismo tiempo, ningún jurado debería extenderle ningún privilegio como expresidente. Debería seguir los mismos procedimientos que cualquier otro ciudadano.La acusación es aún confidencial, y es posible que no se conozcan los cargos contra Trump hasta dentro de unos días. Pero Alvin Bragg, el fiscal de distrito, ha estado investigando un caso de posible fraude e infracciones por parte de Trump en la financiación de su campaña, al ocultar los pagos que le hizo a la estrella del cine porno Stormy Daniels antes de las elecciones de 2016. Sus actos —utilizar dinero para silenciar a los críticos y ocultar información políticamente perjudicial— estuvieron mal. La pregunta que se le planteará al jurado es si esa conducta alcanza el umbral suficiente para ser susceptible de una condena por delito grave.Si son esas las acusaciones, la condena dependerá de demostrar que Trump participó en la falsificación de registros mercantiles mientras se infringía la ley sobre financiación de campañas, una estrategia jurídica un tanto novedosa. La falsificación de registros puede ser imputable como delito menor en Nueva York; para que sea un delito más grave, se debe probar que lo hizo junto con un segundo delito, en este caso, una posible vulneración de la ley en la financiación de la campaña. El expresidente, que aspira a un segundo mandato en 2024, ha negado las acusaciones y ha dicho que la causa presentada contra él por Bragg, demócrata, obedece a motivaciones políticas.Si bien algunos expertos jurídicos han cuestionado la teoría en que se apoya el caso de Bragg, no hay ninguna base para acusarlo de motivaciones políticas, una afirmación que Trump ha hecho durante muchos años, cada vez que se investigaba su conducta. Del mismo modo que a los miembros del jurado se les instruye para que ignoren las pruebas indebidamente introducidas en un juicio, también deberán ignorar todas las insinuaciones sin fundamento de los partidarios y los defensores de Trump en estos casos, y juzgarlas estrictamente por sus méritos.Tres de las otras investigaciones que podrían dar lugar a acusaciones son más graves, porque conllevan acusar a Trump, no solo de haber vulnerado la ley, sino también de haber abusado de su cargo presidencial.Las imputaciones contra él en Georgia están entre las más vergonzosas. Fani Willis, fiscal de distrito del condado de Fulton, está considerando presentar cargos penales contra varias personas, incluido Trump, por intentar anular los resultados de las elecciones presidenciales de 2020 en ese estado, que ganó el presidente Biden por 11.779 votos. Trump presionó repetidas veces al secretario de Estado de Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, para que “buscara” votos adicionales que pudieran cambiar el resultado de las elecciones en el estado, parte de un plan para socavar la voluntad de los votantes.Un gran jurado especial formado por Willis recomendó en febrero que se presentaran cargos en el caso; todavía se desconoce qué personas o acusaciones se incluirán en las recomendaciones del gran jurado o a quién podría intentar acusar Willis, si es que procede.Una investigación del Departamento de Justicia federal dirigida por un fiscal especial, Jack Smith, también podría dar lugar a acusaciones formales contra Trump. Smith está investigando los intentos del expresidente de impedir el traspaso pacífico del poder el 6 de enero de 2021, cuando Trump incitó a una turba armada que atacó el Capitolio de Estados Unidos, amenazando a los legisladores allí reunidos para certificar los resultados de las elecciones presidenciales. Un informe del Senado realizado por los dos partidos concluyó que siete muertes estaban relacionadas con el ataque.El equipo de Smith también está investigando al expresidente por su indebido manejo de los documentos clasificados que fueron retirados de la Casa Blanca y llevados a Mar-a-Lago, su residencia privada en Florida. En el caso se han recuperado unos 300 documentos clasificados. Los fiscales también están estudiando si Trump, sus abogados o miembros de su personal trataron de confundir a los funcionarios del Estado que pidieron la devolución de los documentos.Además de los cargos penales, Trump se enfrenta a varias demandas civiles. La fiscal general de Nueva York, Letitia James, ha demandado al expresidente por inflar de forma “flagrante” y fraudulenta el valor de sus activos inmobiliarios. Tres de los hijos adultos de Trump también figuran en la demanda. Un grupo de policías del Capitolio y legisladores demócratas han demandado al presidente, aduciendo que sus actos del 6 de enero incitaron a la turba que les provocó daños físicos y emocionales. E. Jean Carroll, una escritora que acusó a Trump de haberla violado, ha demandado al expresidente por difamación. Trump niega las acusaciones.Sin duda, procesar al expresidente ahondará las divisiones políticas existentes que tanto daño han hecho al país en los últimos años. Trump ya ha avivado esa división, al tachar a los fiscales que están detrás de las investigaciones —varios de ellos personas negras— de “racistas”. Afirmó en un mensaje publicado en las redes sociales que sería detenido, y se dirigió así a sus simpatizantes: “¡PROTESTEMOS, RECUPEREMOS NUESTRA NACIÓN!”. Con ese lenguaje, estaba repitiendo el grito de guerra que precedió a los disturbios en el Capitolio. Las autoridades de la ciudad de Nueva York, que no se arriesgan a que se repitan los actos de los partidarios de Trump, se han estado preparando para la posible agitación.Esas acusaciones del expresidente están claramente dirigidas a socavar las denuncias contra él, protegerse de las consecuencias de su mala conducta y utilizar los casos para su beneficio político. Los dos fiscales de distrito en estas causas son demócratas electos, pero su raza y sus afinidades políticas no tienen ninguna relevancia para los procesos judiciales. (Smith no está afiliado a ninguno de los dos partidos). No obstante, el presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Kevin McCarthy, demostró de inmediato la intención de su partido de politizar la imputación al calificar a Bragg de “fiscal radical” que persigue “la venganza política” contra Trump. McCarthy no tiene la jurisdicción sobre el fiscal de distrito de Manhattan ni le corresponde interferir en un proceso penal y, sin embargo, se ha comprometido a que la Cámara de Representantes determine si la fiscalía de Bragg está recibiendo fondos federales.La decisión de procesar a un expresidente es una tarea solemne, sobre todo teniendo en cuenta las profundas fisuras nacionales que Trump exacerbará, inevitablemente, a medida que se acerque la campaña de 2024. Pero el costo de no buscar la justicia contra un dirigente que puede haber cometido esos delitos sería aún más alto.El Comité Editorial es un grupo de periodistas de opinión cuyas perspectivas están sustentadas en experiencia, investigación, debate y ciertos valores arraigados por mucho tiempo. Es una entidad independiente de la sala de redacción. More

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      Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says

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      The ruling paves the way for testimony from Mark Meadows and others. Separately, a Trump lawyer appeared before a grand jury looking into the former president’s handling of classified documents.A federal judge has ruled that a number of former officials from President Donald J. Trump’s administration — including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows — cannot invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying to a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The recent ruling by Judge Beryl A. Howell paves the way for the former White House officials to answer questions from federal prosecutors, according to two people briefed on the matter.Judge Howell ruled on the matter in a closed-door proceeding in her role as chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, a job in which she oversaw the grand juries taking testimony in the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump. Judge Howell’s term as chief judge ended last week.The existence of the sealed ruling was first reported by ABC News.Mr. Trump’s lawyers had tried to rebuff the grand jury subpoenas issued to more than a half-dozen former administration officials in connection with the former president’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat at the polls. The lawyers argued that Mr. Trump’s interactions with the officials would be covered by executive privilege.Prosecutors are likely to be especially eager to hear from Mr. Meadows, who refused to be interviewed by the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Meadows was a central player in various efforts to help Mr. Trump reverse the election outcome in a number of contested states.Before he stopped cooperating with the committee, Mr. Meadows provided House investigators with thousands of text messages that gave them a road map of events and people to interview. He has also appeared before a fact-finding grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., investigating the efforts to overturn the election, according to the grand jury’s forewoman, who described him as not very forthcoming.Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, George Terwilliger, did not respond to a phone call on Friday seeking comment.Other officials whose grand jury testimony Judge Howell compelled in her order vary in significance to the investigation, and in seniority. They include John McEntee, who served as Mr. Trump’s personnel chief and personal aide; Nick Luna, another personal aide; Robert C. O’Brien, who was national security adviser; Dan Scavino, who was a deputy chief of staff and social media director in the White House; John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence; Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s speechwriter and adviser; and Ken Cuccinelli, who served as acting deputy secretary of homeland security.Word of the ruling came as the Justice Department pressed ahead in its parallel investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and whether he obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them. The twin federal investigations are being led by Jack Smith, the special counsel who was appointed after Mr. Trump announced his latest candidacy in November.In the documents case, one of the central witnesses, M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who represented Mr. Trump in the inquiry, appeared before a grand jury on Friday after both Judge Howell and a federal appeals court in Washington rejected his attempts to avoid answering questions by asserting attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mr. Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In making her ruling last week to force Mr. Corcoran to testify, Judge Howell upheld the government’s request to invoke the crime-fraud exception, a provision of the law that allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege if they have reason to believe that legal advice or services were used to further a crime. The judge also said that Mr. Corcoran would have to turn over some documents related to his representation of Mr. Trump.Judge Howell’s order exposed the continuing legal peril confronting Mr. Trump, as it noted that Mr. Smith’s team had made “a prima facie showing that the former president committed criminal violations,” according to people familiar with the decision.Her order made clear that prosecutors have questions not just about what Mr. Trump told Mr. Corcoran as he prepared to respond to a grand jury subpoena seeking any remaining classified material in Mr. Trump’s possession, but who else may have influenced what Mr. Corcoran told Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the ruling.In December, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, Timothy Parlatore, also appeared in front of the grand jury, to answer questions about a subpoena prosecutors had issued in May seeking all classified material in the possession of the custodian of records for Mr. Trump’s presidential office.Mr. Parlatore said on Friday that he had gone in front of the grand jury because at that point Mr. Trump’s office no longer had a custodian of records. He also said that he had been involved in several efforts to comply with the subpoena in the weeks and months after the F.B.I., acting on a search warrant in August, hauled away hundreds of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.Among the things that Mr. Parlatore said he discussed with the grand jury were additional searches he oversaw at the end of last year, of other properties belonging to Mr. Trump, including Trump Tower in New York; Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J.; and a storage site in West Palm Beach, Fla.During the search of the storage site, investigators found at least two more documents with classified markings.During his grand jury testimony, Mr. Parlatore said he also mentioned an empty folder bearing the words “classified evening summary” that had remained on Mr. Trump’s bedroom night stand even after the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago.He said prosecutors immediately drew up a subpoena for the folder, demanding its return.“The D.O.J. is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long-accepted, long-held, constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,” a Trump spokesman said in a statement, saying the cases are political and that “there is no factual or legal basis or substance to any case against President Trump.”Prosecutors in Mr. Smith’s office have also been pressing forward with seeking grand jury testimony in a separate investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office. 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      Book Review: ‘Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs,’ by Kerry Howley

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      In “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs,” Kerry Howley explores how the erosion of privacy has fueled conspiracy theories and the national security state.BOTTOMS UP AND THE DEVIL LAUGHS: A Journey Through the Deep State, by Kerry HowleyThe people in Kerry Howley’s new book include fabulists, truth tellers, combatants, whistle-blowers. Like many of us, they have left traces of themselves in the digital ether by making a phone call, texting a friend, looking up something online. Certain conveniences have become so frictionless that we reflexively entrust devices with mundane yet intimate secrets: group-chat gossip, numbers of steps taken, dumb selfies.“It is our fate to live in the age of the indelible,” Howley writes in “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs,” her account of the national security state and the people entangled in it. “It’s best to just take another photograph. Keep building up the database. Throw it into the cloud, whatever that is.”Howley is a writer for New York magazine and the author of “Thrown” (2014), a book about mixed martial arts fighters (real) that was narrated by a philosophy student named Kit (not real). As far as I can tell, “Bottoms Up” seems to be narrated by Howley — though who she “really is” and, by extension, who any of us “really are” is something that this book encourages us not to take for granted.The book is riveting and darkly funny and, in all senses of the word, unclassifiable. Howley writes about privacy and its absence; about hiding and leaking and secrets and betrayal. But she also writes about the strange experience of living, and how it gets flattened and codified into data that can be turned into portraits of static, permanent beings — creatures who would be unrecognizable to ourselves.“With endless information comes the ability to take information from its context, to tell stories perfectly matched to the intentions of the teller, freed from the complex texture of reality,” Howley writes. Countering that slide toward bland propaganda, “Bottoms Up” returns information to its context, capturing as much as possible the texture of reality, showing us how bewildering it often is.She reintroduces us to figures like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and John Walker Lindh. We revisit the case of John Kiriakou, the ex-C.I.A. officer who disclosed on television that the American government had waterboarded (that is, tortured) a detainee. Kiriakou would become the first C.I.A. officer convicted of a leak. He later took a job at the Russian propaganda outfit Sputnik Radio.Kerry Howley, the author of “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs.” Jordan GeigerBut at the center of this book is Reality Winner (“her real name, let’s move past it now”), who was 9 years old on 9/11. What happened to Winner is the point on which a number of the book’s themes converge. She joined the Air Force at 18, becoming a linguist who spoke Dari and Pashto. She later worked as a contractor for the National Security Agency. In 2017 she was arrested for mailing five printed pages of classified information to The Intercept that detailed Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 elections.Howley got to know Winner and her family, depicting a young woman who “took ideas in their fullness, ignorant of their social context, and therefore radically open to argument.” Winner worked as a translator for the drone program while teaching yoga and worrying about global warming. “She was not on a team,” Howley writes. The book suggests it was this — the fact that nothing Winner did was easily amenable to the narrative of a particular side — that eventually did her in.Winner sent the classified information to The Intercept because she visited the site for news; she knew that some of its journalists were skeptical about the allegation of Russian meddling, and she wanted to show them evidence of the meddling. Howley explains, step-by-step, how The Intercept bungled the handling of those five pages, neglecting to consult its own first-rate digital security experts, eventually showing the document — creases and watermarks intact, betraying the source — to the N.S.A. for verification. “It would prove extremely unfortunate for Reality that the audience who might be most interested in and moved by her case was largely captured by a publication embarrassed by it,” Howley notes.It would also prove extremely unfortunate for Reality that the American government used her work for the American government against her. “It had taught her obscure languages,” Howley writes, “knowledge of which it now implied was dangerous.” A note Winner had made about wanting to “burn the White House down” was taken as proof of malevolent intent, omitting the “ha, ha” that followed it. (Winner later wondered if she would have fared better with an “lol jk.”) She was sentenced to 63 months — “the longest sentence ever handed down for an Espionage Act conviction.” The government assembled the fragments from Winner’s life and projected a story into the absences, essentially creating what Howley elsewhere calls a “fantasy built on solid ground.”This warped kind of world-building bears more than a passing resemblance to what conspiracy theorists do. So it’s fitting that the title “Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs” comes from a 2014 viral video of a Christian woman at a conference who presents a (remarkably polished and assured) case that Monster Energy drinks are a vehicle for Satan. From there it’s just a short crawl to QAnon’s elaborate nightmares about Satan-worshiping pedophiles.The arc of Howley’s extraordinary book feels both startling and inevitable; of course a journey through the deep state would send her down the rabbit hole. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a congresswoman from Georgia, said in 2017. How’s that for the banality of evil? As Howley puts it, “True believers speak of Satanism with the bored fluency of someone selling condos.”But it’s not as if QAnon has had to make up its nonsense out of whole cloth. Its propagation also relies on the not uncommon impulse to worry for one’s children. It was only toward the end of the book that I noticed how children were a recurrent presence — Howley’s, her friend’s, those of a camera assistant in Baghdad killed by an American strike.Howley learned she was pregnant while reporting the book. “I despaired many times, in the writing, about my ability to protect the thing I was growing,” she says. She was immersed in a world “that had forgotten what it was like to construct a self in the dark.” We become ourselves by shedding our past selves — but now those discarded selves are recorded somewhere, potentially living longer than we do. In her acknowledgments, Howley ends with a note to her children that could serve as a blessing for us all: “May you be only as remembered as you wish.”BOTTOMS UP AND THE DEVIL LAUGHS: A Journey Through the Deep State | By Kerry Howley | 233 pp. | Alfred A. Knopf | $28 More

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      Claims of Chinese Election Meddling Put Trudeau on Defensive

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      Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada is battling critics and leaked intelligence reports that opponents say show he ignored warnings of Chinese interference in past elections.OTTAWA — The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy.But as two prominent Canadian news organizations have published a series of leaks over the past month, Mr. Trudeau has refused calls to launch a public inquiry into the matter, angering political opponents and leading to accusations that he is covering up foreign attempts to undermine his country’s elections.The news reports do not present any evidence that the Chinese carried out any of their plans for meddling or changing election outcomes. And an independent review released this month as part of Canada’s routine monitoring of election interference upheld the integrity of the 2019 and 2021 votes.Even so, the leaks pose a risk for Mr. Trudeau of appearing weak in the face of potential Chinese aggression and indecisive as a leader acting to preserve election integrity. His political opponents have accused him of being disloyal to Canada.As the intelligence leaks have flowed, Mr. Trudeau has shifted from trying to dismiss them and refusing to discuss them because of secrecy laws, to announcing a series of closed-door reviews related to election integrity.Still, he continues to rebuff repeated calls for a public inquiry — which would include not just an independent investigation, but public hearings — arguing that other inquiries are more appropriate. He said he would only establish a public inquiry if one of his other reviews concludes it’s necessary.“Canada has some of the best and most robust elections in the world,” Mr. Trudeau told reporters. “All Canadians can have total confidence that the outcomes of the 2019 and 2021 elections were determined by Canadians, and Canadians alone, at the voting booth.”The Liberals have accused Conservatives of undermining the public’s confidence in Canada’s electoral system by falsely claiming that the government ignored warnings of potential Chinese interference. Liberals have also accused Conservatives of using the leaks to fan fear and suspicion of Chinese-Canadian elected officials, in an effort to discredit them and undermine their participation in electoral politics.The political attacks on Mr. Trudeau have been spearheaded by the leader of the Conservative Party, which says it is raising legitimate threats to Canadian democracy. “He’s covered it up, even encouraged it to continue,” said the leader, Pierre Poilievre, who suggested that “the prime minister is acting against Canada’s interest and in favor of a foreign dictatorship’s interests.”Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party, suggested that Mr. Trudeau was “acting against Canada’s interest.”Blair Gable/ReutersCurrent and past inquiries about recent elections are not transparent and, in some cases, they lack independence from the Liberals, Mr. Poilievre said. “He wants closed and controlled and we want an open and independent inquiry to make sure it never happens again,” Mr. Poilievre said in the House of Commons.Heightened scrutiny of China’s efforts to subvert Canada’s political process — and corresponding pressure on Mr. Trudeau — started in mid-February after the publication of an article in the Globe and Mail, a Toronto newspaper.According to the newspaper, its reporters had seen unspecified secret and top secret reports from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, commonly called CSIS, that described the intentions of Chinese officials to manipulate the last two elections. The goal, according to the paper’s description of the leaks, was to prevent a win by the Conservative Party, which the Chinese viewed as excessively hard line toward China.A Chinese consular official boasted to her superiors that she had engineered the defeat of two Conservative candidates in 2021, the Globe and Mail reported, though the newspaper provided no evidence to support her claim.The Globe and Mail’s articles and reports on Global News, a broadcaster based-in Canada, said the leaks described orders given to Chinese diplomats based in Canada and, according to the news reports, involved 11 of Canada’s 338 electoral districts.The leaks to both news organizations described illegal cash payments to Liberals and illegal hiring by Chinese officials or their agents in Canada of international students from China, who were reportedly then presented to Liberal campaigns as volunteers. Mr. Trudeau and other Liberals have characterized the reports as “inaccurate.”Some of the supposed plans would have been difficult to execute within Canada’s electoral system, analysts said, because Canada limits and tightly controls campaign spending and fund-raising.“It does come across as a highly unsophisticated understanding of Canadian politics,” said Lori Turnbull, an associate professor of political science at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.An independent review released this month upheld the integrity of the votes in 2019 and 2021.Cole Burston/BloombergAside from originating with the intelligence service, little has been revealed about the exact nature of most of the documents leaked to the two news outlets and it is unclear if the reporters saw them in their entirety. The sources for the information contained in the intelligence reports haves also not been revealed.“It’s not necessarily evidence that a crime took place,” said Stephanie Carvin, a professor of national security studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, and a former Canadian government intelligence analyst. “We frankly don’t know. The way I feel about this issue is that it’s a puzzle. There’s a thousand pieces that the service has and we’re seeing 10 of them.”Even so, Conservatives have been able to push Mr. Trudeau into a corner, while casting doubt on the allegiance of certain Chinese-Canadian elected officials in the Liberal Party, such as Michael Chan, a former Liberal cabinet minister in Ontario’s provincial government.Global News reported last month that CSIS said that at Beijing’s request, Mr. Chan arranged to replace a Liberal member of Parliament from Toronto with a different candidate.Mr. Chan called that report nonsense because he’s never had the authority to orchestrate such a thing. “I don’t know where the heck CSIS gets this information,” he said. Mr. Chan and other Chinese-Canadian officials have been subject to increased scrutiny and what he says are false, racially motivated accusations that he was under the influence of officials in the Chinese consulate in Toronto.He has asked Mr. Trudeau to open an inquiry into “racial profiling” of the Chinese community by the intelligence service. “The informant who informed them just got it wrong, completely wrong,” he said.Michael Chan, a former Liberal cabinet minister in Ontario’s provincial government, has asked Mr. Trudeau to investigate “racial profiling” by CSIS.Galit Rodan/The Canadian Press via, The Associated PressMr. Trudeau initially responded to allegations of Chinese interference in elections by urging the public to wait for the release of a routine review that Canada uses to monitor foreign interference in elections.That report, made public on March 2, concluded that while China, Russia and Iran tried to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 elections, they had no effect on their results. But that did not quell the calls from opposition parties for a public inquiry.Mr. Trudeau recently announced several moves to examine foreign interference. And he committed to holding a public inquiry if it is recommended by a special reviewer who will make recommendations on preventing election subversion.“We all agree that upholding confidence in our democratic process in our elections in our institutions, is of utmost importance,” Mr. Trudeau said. “This is not and should never be a partisan issue.”On Friday, the Globe and Mail published an essay it said was written by its source, who was only described as “a national security official.” The newspaper’s source said that he or she acted because after years of what he or she saw as serious escalation of the threat from foreign interference in votes, “it had become increasingly clear that no serious action was being considered.”The writer lamented that the political debate sparked by the leaks has been “marked by ugliness and division,” and added that he or she does not believe that any foreign power has “dictated the present composition of our federal government.”David J. Bercuson, the director emeritus of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta, said he believes that Mr. Trudeau will eventually have to allow a public inquiry.Mr. Trudeau, Professor Bercuson, has yet to “do anything to resolve the growing mistrust.”Mr. Trudeau has committed to holding a public inquiry if it is recommended by a special reviewer.Carlos Osorio/Reuters More

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      The Trump Aide Who Helps the Former President Navigate Legal Peril

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      Boris Epshteyn is the latest aide to take on the role of slashing defender of the former president, even as the Justice Department seeks information about him in the Jan. 6 and documents inquiries.Boris Epshteyn has had his phone seized by federal agents investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to remain in power after his election loss. Lacking any track record as a political strategist, he has made more than $1.1 million in the past two years for providing advice to the campaigns of Republican candidates, many of whom believed he could be a conduit to Mr. Trump.A cryptocurrency with which he is involved has drawn scrutiny from federal prosecutors. And he has twice been arrested over personal altercations, leading in one case to an agreement to attend anger management classes and in another to a guilty plea for disorderly conduct.As the former president faces escalating legal peril in the midst of another run for the White House, Mr. Epshteyn, people who deal with him say, mirrors in many ways Mr. Trump’s defining traits: combative, obsessed with loyalty, transactional, entangled in investigations and eager to make money from his position.Mr. Epshteyn is the latest aide to try to live up to Mr. Trump’s desire for a slashing defender in the mold of his first lawyer protector, Roy M. Cohn. He serves as a top adviser and self-described in-house counsel for Mr. Trump, at a time when the former president has a growing cast of outside lawyers representing him in a slew of investigations and court cases.A Trump spokesman, Steven Cheung, called Mr. Epshteyn “a deeply valued member of the team” and said he has “done a terrific job shepherding the legal efforts fighting” the Justice Department and congressional investigations.Mr. Epshteyn declined to comment for this article.Mr. Epshteyn speaks with Mr. Trump several times a day and makes it known that he does so, according to interviews with Trump associates and other Republicans. He has recommended, helped hire and negotiated pay for several lawyers working for Mr. Trump on civil litigation and the federal and local criminal investigations swirling around him.As Mr. Epshteyn has worked to establish his place as a key legal adviser to Mr. Trump, he has profited from his ties to the former president — and come under scrutiny himself.Desiree Rios/The New York Times“Boris is a pair of heavy hands — he’s not Louis Brandeis,” said Stephen K. Bannon, a close ally of Mr. Epshteyn and former adviser to Mr. Trump, referring to the renowned Supreme Court justice. But Mr. Trump, he said, “doesn’t need Louis Brandeis.”“You need to be a killer, and he’s a killer,” Mr. Bannon added.But Mr. Epshteyn’s attacking style grates on other people in Mr. Trump’s circle, and he has encouraged ideas and civil lawsuits that have frustrated some of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, like suits against the journalist Bob Woodward and the Pulitzer Prize committee. His detractors see him as more of a political operative with a law license than as a provider of valuable legal advice.“As soon as anybody starts making anything happen for Trump overall, the knives come out,” Mr. Bannon said. He described Mr. Epshteyn as “a wartime consigliere.”Federal records show that Mr. Epshteyn was paid nearly $200,000 by Mr. Trump’s political action committee over seven months in 2022, and $30,000 by his 2024 campaign. The past payments were almost all listed in Federal Election Commission records as for “strategy consulting,” not legal work.After the search last summer of Mar-a-Lago by F.B.I. agents looking for classified documents still in Mr. Trump’s possession, Mr. Epshteyn retroactively changed his agreement with the political action committee. The agreement, which had been primarily for communications strategy, was updated to include legal work, and to say it covered legal work since the spring of last year, a campaign official said. His monthly retainer doubled to $30,000.But he dropped a separate effort to have Mr. Trump sign a letter retroactively designating him as a lawyer for Mr. Trump personally, dating to March of last year, soon after Mr. Trump’s post-presidency handling of classified documents became an issue. The letter specifically stated that their communications would be covered by attorney-client privilege, multiple people familiar with the request said.The Justice Department has recently sought to pierce assertions of attorney-client privilege by another of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, M. Evan Corcoran, and compel him to answer more questions before a grand jury in the special counsel’s investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents.But even as Mr. Epshteyn has worked to establish his place as a key legal adviser to Mr. Trump, he has also profited from his ties to the former president and his supporters as a strategist and political adviser.Prosecutors have sought information related to Mr. Epshteyn in investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to thwart the transfer of power. They have also asked about Mr. Epshteyn’s role connecting two attorneys to respond to the Justice Department inquiry into classified material. Hailey Sadler for The New York TimesFederal records show the only candidates who paid Mr. Epshteyn for work before 2020 were the Republican senator John McCain, for his 2008 presidential race, and Mr. Trump. But in the 2022 midterm election cycle, he had contracts with at least 13 candidates, some of them interested in having Mr. Trump’s support, or in preventing attacks from him or other MAGA figures with whom Mr. Epshteyn has close connections.Bernard B. Kerik, a close Epshteyn ally who worked with him on a few races, said Mr. Epshteyn has an expansive list of contacts and offered advice on polling and social media. Some Republicans said he provided help with opinion essays and fund-raising targets. But some campaigns that paid his monthly retainers said they were skeptical of his value..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“It’s a mystery; we’re still trying to figure it out,” said Carl Paladino, a Republican who failed in his primary race in a congressional district in Western New York last year, when asked what Mr. Epshteyn did for $20,000 on what was a three-month House primary campaign.“He was highly recommended as having good relations with some people that work for Trump,” said Mr. Paladino, who did not receive Mr. Trump’s endorsement. He added: “I was told that it would be in my interest if I sent money to this Boris. I did, and we heard nothing from the man. He was totally useless.”Some former aides to Mr. Paladino said that the candidate was livid over his loss and that Mr. Epshteyn had in fact provided advice and assistance to senior aides.An adviser to another candidate seeking a Trump endorsement, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the candidate’s team had hoped Mr. Epshteyn would praise the candidate to Mr. Trump or at least help avoid public criticism from him. Advisers to Mr. Trump have long said Mr. Epshteyn often tries to influence the former president’s views.Several people involved with campaigns that hired Mr. Epshteyn said he had made it clear that he could not promise an endorsement from Mr. Trump. But some said Mr. Epshteyn described himself as someone who understood Mr. Trump’s hard-core base. Some campaigns, one Republican operative said, saw him as an effective way to get information about what was happening within Mr. Trump’s orbit.Mr. Epshteyn was paid $95,000 over four months by Senator Katie Britt’s campaign in Alabama. Another $82,500 came from Eric Greitens’s losing Senate campaign in Missouri. Over three months, he was paid $60,000 by the losing Don Bolduc Senate campaign in New Hampshire.Representative Eli Crane’s campaign in Arizona paid him $125,000. The cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce in Vermont paid him $100,000, but ultimately did not run for a Senate seat.Mr. Epshteyn’s legal role with Mr. Trump, while less often focused on gritty legal details, has been to try to serve as a gatekeeper between the lawyers on the front lines and the former president, who is said to sometimes roll his eyes at the frequency of Mr. Epshteyn’s calls but picks up the phone.“Boris has access to information and a network that is useful to us,” said one of the team’s lawyers, Timothy Parlatore, whom Mr. Epshteyn hired. “It’s good to have someone who’s a lawyer who is also inside the palace gates.”Mr. Parlatore suggested that he was not worried that Mr. Epshteyn, like a substantial number of other Trump lawyers, had become at least tangentially embroiled in some of the same investigations on which he was helping to defend Mr. Trump.“Absent any solid indication that Boris is a target here, I don’t think it affects us,” Mr. Parlatore said.“Going after the lawyers is a tactic D.O.J. uses to wear you down and remove your defenses,” he added, referring to the Justice Department. “And it’s dirty.”Prosecutors have sought information related to Mr. Epshteyn in investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to thwart the transfer of power. Of particular interest are his work with Rudolph W. Giuliani and his alleged involvement in securing so-called alternate electors in an attempt to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Epshteyn also testified before a fact-finding grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., looking into efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s election loss in that state.Prosecutors investigating Mr. Trump’s handling of classified material have looked at whether Mr. Epshteyn improperly sought a common-interest agreement among witnesses as a shield against the investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.Prosecutors have also asked about his role connecting two attorneys to respond to the Justice Department inquiry into classified material. The two lawyers then produced a statement in June saying that to the best of their knowledge all of the classified documents being kept at Mar-a-Lago had been returned to the government in compliance with a subpoena — which turned out to be untrue.More recently, a pro-Trump cryptocurrency that Mr. Epshteyn and Mr. Bannon are involved with managing is facing an inquiry from federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, according to a person familiar with the matter. ABC News reported that the management of the cryptocurrency has been criticized, including for not fulfilling charitable pledges.Mr. Epshteyn, whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was young and who grew up in New Jersey, attended Georgetown University with Mr. Trump’s son, Eric, and then Georgetown’s law school. He worked at the firm Milbank Tweed for nearly three years.He became a television surrogate on the 2016 Trump campaign, hired late in the race.“He desperately wanted to be part of the inner circle,” said Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer who is now a key witness against Mr. Trump.Mr. Epshteyn, left, speaking at Trump Tower in 2016. He became a television surrogate on the 2016 Trump campaign and also joined Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMr. Epshteyn worked on the presidential inaugural committee after Mr. Trump’s victory, and then briefly in the White House, leaving after an issue arose with his security clearance. (A person briefed on the matter said the issue has been resolved.)He was the chief political analyst for Sinclair Broadcast Group until December 2019. After losing his on-air role, Mr. Epshteyn remained a consultant with Sinclair. He was hired months later by the 2020 Trump campaign as a strategic adviser.He has faced other legal entanglements over the years.Mr. Epshteyn was arrested in Arizona in 2014 for an alleged assault in a bar; the charges were dropped when he agreed to anger management classes.In October 2021, he was arrested in Arizona again after a woman claimed he had inappropriately touched her and a friend, telling the police he appeared as a less attractive “version of Tony Soprano,” according to a copy of the police report. Mr. Epshteyn denied the claims to the police. Prosecutors dropped charges related to sexual misconduct; Mr. Epshteyn pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct. He was ordered to attend an alcohol abuse prevention program and put on probation, which ended last year. The conviction was set aside last year.Several people who have worked closely with Mr. Epshteyn compared his impulse to please Mr. Trump to that of Mr. Cohen, a comparison disputed by supporters of Mr. Epshteyn but backed by Mr. Cohen.“He’s a great mimic,” Mr. Cohen said. “He watched me with hungry eyes in terms of how to maneuver around Trump.”Ben Protess More

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      Here’s the Status of the Four Criminal Investigations Into Donald Trump

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      The revelations from grand jury proceedings in Georgia are the latest signs that federal and local inquiries into the former president could reach key decision points in coming months.When the forewoman of a Georgia grand jury investigating allegations of election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his advisers gave a series of highly public — and highly unusual — interviews this week, she suggested that the case might soon be headed toward indictment.Three other criminal inquiries involving Mr. Trump have also been progressing relatively quickly — if not quite as fast — in recent months, with the Justice Department pressing forward in Washington and a local prosecutor moving ahead in New York.No former president has ever confronted the barrage of legal threats that Mr. Trump now faces, all of which appear to be heading toward decision points by the authorities in coming months. Heightening the stakes, the inquiries have intensified just as Mr. Trump has started ramping up his third campaign for the White House.Beyond the Georgia case, Mr. Trump is under investigation by a special counsel in Washington for his role in seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election and for his potential mishandling of classified documents. At the same time, local authorities in New York are looking into whether Mr. Trump authorized and was involved in falsely accounting for hush money payments to a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with him.Even though much about the inquiries seems straightforward — “It’s not rocket science,” the forewoman in Georgia, Emily Kohrs, told The New York Times — each of the cases is layered with its own array of legal complexities that make predicting an outcome difficult. And that is to say nothing about the potential complications of bringing charges in the midst of a presidential campaign against a pugnacious figure like Mr. Trump, who has long assailed attempts by the authorities to hold him accountable as hoaxes and politically motivated witch hunts.Here is a look at the status of each of the criminal investigations confronting Mr. Trump.In Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, is looking at a variety of possible charges related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in the state.Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesGeorgia: Election InterferenceThe Georgia investigation presents two areas of exposure for Mr. Trump.One is his direct involvement in recruiting a slate of alternate presidential electors, even after Georgia’s results were recertified by the state’s Republican leadership. “We definitely talked about the alternate electors a fair amount,” Ms. Kohrs said. The other centers on phone calls Mr. Trump made to pressure state officials after the election, including one in which he told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he needed to “find” 11,780 votes — one more than Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s margin of victory in the state.The decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump will ultimately be made by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, who has been investigating the case for the last two years. Ms. Willis’s office has said it is considering everything from conspiracy and racketeering to narrower charges, such as criminal solicitation to commit election fraud.The special grand jury that Ms. Kohrs served on produced a report last month after hearing testimony since last June, but most of the report has been kept secret. In an interview this week, Ms. Kohrs said the grand jurors had recommended that several people be indicted on a range of charges, but declined to provide names before the full report was released.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.In the small portion of the report that was released, the jurors said they saw potential evidence of perjury by “one or more” witnesses. But Ms. Kohrs said the jurors appended eight pages of criminal code citations to their report, hinting at its breadth.A number of legal experts have said Mr. Trump faces significant jeopardy in the Georgia inquiry.“His risk of being charged was already substantial even before the grand jury report excerpts,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial. “The foreperson’s comments make that virtually certain.”Special Counsel: Overturning the ElectionThe Justice Department has been asking questions for more than a year about Mr. Trump’s sprawling efforts to overturn the election and whether he committed any crimes in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The investigation — one of two inherited in November by the special counsel, Jack Smith — has used a variety of methods and has gathered an enormous amount of information.Federal agents have seized cellphones and other devices from pro-Trump lawyers like John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark — as well as from one of Mr. Trump’s chief congressional allies, Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania.Prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to several state Republican officials and to dozens of Trump administration lawyers and officials. Those include people like Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s onetime chief of staff, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who presumably have knowledge of the former president’s thoughts and behavior in weeks leading up to Jan. 6. In the most recent sign the investigation is continuing apace, Mr. Smith has issued subpoenas to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Investigators have also been poring over thousands of pages of interviews conducted by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, which recommended that Mr. Trump be prosecuted for crimes including inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and the obstruction of a proceeding before Congress.One of the chief strands of the inquiry has focused on the plan to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in swing states actually won by Mr. Biden, mirroring one element of the Georgia investigation. Federal investigators have also been scrutinizing the broad claims by Mr. Trump and his allies that the election was marred by fraud, and a series of payments made by Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s chief postelection fund-raising vehicle.Mr. Smith’s office has been tight-lipped about his plans, although several people familiar with the investigation have said that prosecutors could complete their work by spring or early summer. The process has often been slowed by time-consuming litigation as witnesses like Mr. Pence have sought to avoid or limit their grand jury testimony with various legal arguments.It remains unclear if Mr. Smith will ultimately indict Mr. Trump. But several legal experts — including Timothy J. Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney who led the House’s Jan. 6 investigation — have said that the key to bringing charges is obtaining clear-cut evidence that Mr. Trump intended to break the law.“When we started to see intentional conduct, specific steps that appear to be designed to disrupt the joint session of Congress, that’s where it starts to sound criminal,” Mr. Heaphy told The Times this week. “The whole key for the special counsel is intent.”Last August, the F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence, and found more than 100 classified documents, after one of his lawyers had attested that no more were there.Marco Bello/ReutersSpecial Counsel: Classified DocumentsThe investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents began in earnest last May with a subpoena. It sought the return of any classified material still in his possession, after he had voluntarily handed over an initial batch of records that turned out to include almost 200 classified documents.Within a month, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, M. Evan Corcoran, gave investigators more than 30 additional documents in response to the subpoena. Around the same time, another lawyer, Christina Bobb, asserted that a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, assuring prosecutors there were no more documents with classification markings.But the inquiry took a dramatic turn in August when acting on a search warrant, the F.B.I. descended on Mar-a-Lago and discovered more than 100 additional classified documents. The affidavit submitted by the Justice Department in seeking the search warrant said that investigators had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be discovered.Mr. Pence and President Biden have also faced scrutiny for having classified materials in their possession — in Mr. Biden’s case, a separate special counsel investigation is underway. In the case of Mr. Trump, prosecutors have focused on a few key questions: Did Mr. Trump knowingly remove the sensitive records from the White House and did he willfully hold on to them in violation of the Espionage Act? Moreover, did he try to hinder investigators from figuring out why or where he kept them?To answer those questions, prosecutors have interviewed several junior aides to Mr. Trump and compelled grand jury testimony from more senior aides like Kash Patel.They have also sought to force Mr. Corcoran to testify fully in front of the grand jury. Mr. Corcoran tried to avoid answering questions by asserting attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mr. Trump. But the prosecutors have sought to pierce that privilege with the so-called crime-fraud exception, which can be invoked when there is evidence that legal advice or services have been used in furthering a crime.It remains unclear whether Mr. Smith will bring charges in this inquiry either. While no evidence exists at this point that Mr. Biden or Mr. Pence have sought to obstruct investigations into their own handling of documents — both brought their possession of the documents to the attention of the Justice Department — the parallel probes have complicated the political landscape and could give Mr. Trump a reason to cry foul if he is charged and the others are not.Manhattan District Attorney: Stormy DanielsThe investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in paying hush money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels has spanned five years, two Manhattan district attorneys and multiple grand juries.But recently, prosecutors under the current district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, appear to have moved closer than ever to indicting the former president. Last month, they began presenting evidence to a newly seated grand jury, which has heard from several witnesses as the office lays the groundwork for potential charges against Mr. Trump.The case would likely center on whether Mr. Trump and his company falsified business records to hide the payments to Ms. Daniels in the days before the 2016 election. But an indictment — let alone a conviction — is hardly assured.Any prosecution of the case would rely on testimony from Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, who made the payment to Ms. Daniels and who pleaded guilty himself in 2018 to federal charges. Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid out, and according to court papers in Mr. Cohen’s case, Mr. Trump’s company falsely identified the reimbursements as legal expenses.In New York, it is a misdemeanor to falsify business records. To make it a felony, prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the records to help commit or conceal a second crime — in this case, violating New York State election law, a legal theory that has not been tested. Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and lashed out at the prosecutors for leading what he calls a partisan witch hunt against him. He has also denied having an affair with Ms. Daniels.Under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney’s office had begun presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury about a far broader case focused on Mr. Trump’s business practices, including whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his assets by billions of dollars to secure favorable loans and other benefits.But in the early weeks of his tenure last year, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about the strength of that case and halted the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of two senior prosecutors leading the investigation.Jonah E. Bromwich More