Conflicts of Interest

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      With Everything on the Line, Fani Willis Delivered Raw Testimony

      by

      Ms. Willis, the district attorney overseeing the Georgia prosecution of Donald J. Trump, searingly refuted allegations that she had a disqualifying conflict of interest.Fani T. Willis walked unaccompanied through the front door of a Fulton County courtroom on Thursday afternoon in a bright magenta dress and announced she was ready to testify. She was interrupting her lawyer, who at that very moment was trying to convince a judge that she should not have to testify at all.“I’m going to go,” Ms. Willis said.And so she did.For roughly three hours on Thursday, Ms. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., engaged in the fight of her life from the witness stand to try to salvage the case of her life, the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump. In a raw performance, Ms. Willis, 52, presented herself as a woman in full — by turns combative and serene, focused and discursive (at one point she declared her preference for Grey Goose vodka over wine). Her language toggled between casual (a thousand dollars was “a G”) and precise: On numerous occasions, she prefaced her statements with variations on the phrase, “I want to be very clear.”She upbraided Ashleigh Merchant, one of the defense lawyers questioning her, alleging that Ms. Merchant’s court filings — which accused Ms. Willis of having a disqualifying conflict of interest stemming from a romantic relationship with Nathan J. Wade, the special prosecutor on the case — were full of lies. At one point her voice approached a yell, prompting Scott McAfee, the mild-mannered judge, to call a five-minute recess in an apparent effort to cool things down.Elsewhere, Ms. Willis chided Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Steven Sadow, when he asked if she had been in contact with Mr. Wade in 2020. Noting that Mr. Wade had cancer at the time, she said, “I am not going to emasculate a Black man.” She spoke of giving Mr. Wade a trip to Belize for his 50th birthday — earlier in the day, Ms. Merchant had asked Mr. Wade about the couple visiting a tattoo parlor there. She also admitted, in a digression that the lawyers’ questions did not seem to prompt, that she thought Mr. Wade had a sexist view of the world, and said it was the reason they broke up last summer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      What Happens if Fani Willis Is Disqualified From the Trump Case?

      by

      The stakes will be high on Thursday when a judge in Atlanta seeks to determine whether the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, should be disqualified from leading the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump on election interference charges.If Judge Scott McAfee determines that Ms. Willis has a conflict of interest because of her romantic relationship with the prosecutor she hired to manage the case, and that it merits disqualification, his decision would, by extension, disqualify her entire office.The case would then be reassigned to another Georgia prosecutor, who would have the ability to continue with the case exactly as it is, make major changes — such as adding or dropping charges or defendants — or to even drop the case altogether. The latter decision would end the prosecution of Mr. Trump and his allies for their actions in Georgia after the 2020 election, when the former president sought to overturn his loss in the state.It would be up to a state entity called the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find someone else to take up the case. More specifically, the decision would fall to the council’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, an experienced former prosecutor.In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Skandalakis said that he could ask a prosecutor to take on the Trump case voluntarily. But he could also appoint a prosecutor to do the job — whether they wanted to or not.Mr. Skandalakis said he could also try to find a lawyer in private practice to replace Ms. Willis. But that is an unlikely scenario, he said, because he could only pay such a lawyer roughly $70 per hour.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      In Trump Case, Thorny Conflict of Interest Question Looms

      by

      At the heart of the effort to disqualify the prosecutors in Donald J. Trump’s election interference case is the argument that the romantic relationship between Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and Nathan J. Wade, the special prosecutor she hired, created a conflict of interest.That argument has been put forth primarily by Ashleigh Merchant, the lawyer for Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign official and a co-defendant in the case. Ms. Merchant accuses the district attorney of hiring Mr. Wade after they became romantically involved, and notes that the pair took several vacations together that were paid for by Mr. Wade.But Mr. Wade says the romantic relationship began after he was hired. And according to Ms. Willis, they “roughly divided” the costs of the trips.Ms. Merchant said in a recent court filing that the pair had “personally enriched themselves off the case.” That enrichment, she wrote, “is a form of self-dealing, which creates a personal interest in the case. In other words, the more work that is done on the case (regardless of what justice calls for) the more they get paid.”That personal interest, she added, is “at odds with the district attorney’s obligation to seek justice.” Ms. Merchant and other defense lawyers have also argued that the situation violates various laws and the State Bar of Georgia’s rules of professional conduct.Some legal observers have rejected out of hand the idea that the relationship and Mr. Wade’s financing of the couple’s vacations amount to a conflict of interest under Georgia law. But the presiding judge in the matter, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, has indicated that he thinks that it is at least possible that such a conflict exists, depending on what additional details emerge in Thursday’s hearing.“The state has admitted that a relationship existed,” Judge McAfee said earlier this week. “And so what remains to be proven is the existence and extent of any financial benefit — again, if there even was one.”He said that even “the appearance of” a conflict could lead to disqualification. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      How Nikki Haley’s Lean Years Led Her Into an Ethical Thicket

      by

      From her earliest days in South Carolina politics, Ms. Haley’s public service paid personal financial dividends.Nikki Haley had been serving in the South Carolina legislature for less than two years when she applied for a job in late 2006 as an accounting clerk at Wilbur Smith Associates, an engineering and design firm with state contracts.She needed work. Her parents’ clothing business, where she and her husband, Michael Haley, had both worked, was winding down. Ms. Haley was earning a salary of just $22,000 as a part-time state legislator. And her husband’s own enterprise, involving businesses swapping goods and services, was losing money.Wilbur Smith executives regarded Ms. Haley as overqualified for the accounting job. But because of her wide-ranging network, they would later say, they put Ms. Haley on a retainer, asking her to scout out potential new business. She never found any, a top executive later said. Over the next two years, the firm paid her $48,000 for a job the executive described as “a passive position.”That contract, and a subsequent, much more lucrative one as a fund-raiser for a prominent hospital in her home county, allowed Ms. Haley to triple her income in just three years. But they also led her into an ethical gray area that tarnished her first term as South Carolina’s governor.Ms. Haley did not disclose her Wilbur Smith contract until 2010, keeping it secret for more than three years. She also pushed for the hospital’s top priority — a new heart-surgery center — at the same time she was on its payroll. And Ms. Haley raised money for the hospital’s charitable foundation from lobbyists and businesses who may have had reason to curry favor with her.The donations, one lobbyist wrote, were a way of “sucking up” to a rising political player.The blurry line between Ms. Haley’s personal and public interests became the subject of a State House ethics investigation in 2012. The Republican-led committee concluded that Ms. Haley, by then the governor, had not violated any state ethics rules. But ethics experts and even some of her past supporters say the outcome was more an indictment of the lax rules and cozy ties between lawmakers and special interests than a vindication of her actions.“Was Nikki Haley acting unethically? Maybe,” said Scott English, who was chief of staff to former Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican and Ms. Haley’s predecessor. “Was she acting unethically according to the jungle rules of South Carolina politics at the time? Not at all.”Ms. Haley’s early ethics controversy is a far cry from the legal morass entangling her top rival for the Republican nomination, former President Donald J. Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges, including obstruction of justice and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Mr. Trump is also facing civil penalties for a yearslong fraud scheme involving his real estate business.Yet Ms. Haley’s actions broke ethical norms, according to Kedric Payne, who directs the ethics program for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group. In most states, at least some of her conduct would have been out of bounds, he said, because it created the appearance of a conflict of interest.A core principle of most state ethics laws is that “you cannot have outside employment that could in any way conflict with your official duties,” Mr. Payne said.In South Carolina, the ethics investigation of Ms. Haley undermined her image as a broom-sweeping crusader working to shake up the political establishment — a persona she is still cultivating. Campaigning in New Hampshire on Saturday, Ms. Haley dismissed her lack of endorsements from politicians in her home state and in Washington as a result of her stances on transparency and ethics.“I’ve called elected officials out because accountability matters,” she said.The questions about Ms. Haley’s potential conflicts revealed how her work in politics had produced financial dividends almost from the beginning of her career in public life.In recent years, Ms. Haley has made millions from consulting fees, paid speeches, stock and seats on corporate boards. In the year leading up to her presidential bid, she made around $2.5 million in income on speaking engagements alone, according to her financial disclosures.This account of Ms. Haley’s early ethics troubles is drawn from testimony, filings and exhibits released by the South Carolina House in response to a public information request from The New York Times, as well as other documents, interviews and media accounts.Ms. Haley’s presidential campaign did not respond to questions about the controversy. She said at the time that she had followed the existing rules and cast the episode as an attempt by her political enemies to keep her from fighting South Carolina’s pay-to-play culture.“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” she told the ethics committee in 2012.Yet when she campaigned for a second term as governor, Ms. Haley worked to rehabilitate her image and ran on a promise to reform the state’s ethics rules. Once re-elected, she signed a law that outlawed secret sources of income like her Wilbur Smith contract.The lean yearsIn 2010, prodded by her opponent in her first run for governor, Ms. Haley disclosed six years of her joint tax returns with her husband, Michael Haley. They showed a stretch of modest earnings, thousands of dollars in penalties and interest for late tax payments, and close to $21,000 in business losses from Mr. Haley’s brief business venture, according to published accounts and summaries of the tax returns given to House ethics committee investigators.(Although Ms. Haley has repeatedly said that candidates for president should release their tax returns, she has not released her own, nor have her opponents in the Republican primary race.)Michael and Nikki Haley in New York in 2012. In 2010, she released six years of joint income tax returns showing a stretch of modest earnings.Uli Seit for The New York TimesAs young adults, both Ms. Haley and her husband had worked for her parents’ clothing business, Exotica International, she as the firm’s chief financial officer, he in charge of men’s wear. But the Haleys’ income from the store petered out in 2006, two years before it closed. The couple, who then were both in their mid-30s, had two children. Ms. Haley’s legislative job was only a part-time position. Mr. Haley joined the South Carolina National Guard that fall, but initially earned little.The Wilbur Smith contract helped fill in the financial gaps. The tax documents suggest that the engineering firm’s retainer amounted to nearly half of her family’s income of $64,000 in 2007.A top executive at the firm testified that he could recall only one or two meetings with Ms. Haley and that they never discussed state contracts. Ms. Haley said a House lawyer had advised her that she was not required to report the payments. She recused herself from a vote on one of the firm’s projects out of an abundance of caution, but voted on a second bill that canceled the project. She testified she didn’t see a conflict in that vote.Wilbur Smith ended her retainer in late 2008.Wearing two hatsBy then, Ms. Haley was onto something new. That summer, she asked Michael J. Biediger, then the chief executive of Lexington Medical Center, to hire her.Ms. Haley said her parents were either losing or selling their business, Mr. Biediger testified. Her job application listed her salary at Exotica as $125,000 and requested the same amount. But her tax returns indicated she never earned more than $47,000 a year from the clothing firm.Ms. Haley did not fill out or sign the application, a top aide told reporters, although the application stated that her typed name constituted a signature.Mr. Biediger created a $110,000-a-year position for Ms. Haley as a fund-raiser for the hospital’s foundation, a subsidiary of the hospital. At the time, she was a member of the powerful House Labor, Commerce and Industry committee and was also majority whip.He told the ethics committee he had hired her for her networking skills and personality and relied on a consulting firm’s recommendation to set her salary. A survey by the state’s Association of Nonprofit Organizations found that her salary was two and a half times as high as the average for similar organizations.The job came with inherent ethical dilemmas. Legislators were prohibited from serving as lobbyists, but now Ms. Haley was wearing two hats: as a lawmaker trying to help the hospital win state approval to open the heart-surgery center, and as a paid employee of a hospital subsidiary.Ms. Haley continued to work with other lawmakers on a plan to build support for the heart-surgery center, according to emails. She also spoke with an official on the state board with decision-making authority over the center, and communicated with hospital officials about the proposed project.Asked about her dual roles, Ms. Haley, who disclosed her hospital work on her financial disclosures, told the ethics committee she had kept her jobs separate.“I never had a legislative conversation in any way mixed with a foundation conversation,” she said.Ms. Haley also brushed off concerns that her fund-raising job opened up a potential avenue for special interests that might want to influence her. She solicited donations from various corporate interests, including an association of financial services firms and Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina.To contact Blue Cross executives, Ms. Haley first reached out to a prominent lobbyist, Larry Marchant, she testified. Mr. Marchant told her that if the company contributed, “You are going to owe me,” she said, and she replied, “You know I don’t work like that.”The health insurer’s donations grew from $1,000 in 2007, the year before Ms. Haley joined the foundation, to $20,000 in 2010.In January of that year, as Ms. Haley was running for governor, Mr. Marchant advised the firm not to lower its donation, writing to one company official: “I’m still sucking up to Nikki in the event she comes on strong in the primary.”Blue Cross officials told the ethics committee they had conducted an internal investigation and determined that the donations were not an attempt to influence Ms. Haley, but a typical effort to build good will with the community.‘The people deserved to know’Ms. Haley and Lexington Medical cut ties during her campaign. As governor, she attacked the House ethics inquiry as a distraction engineered by Democrats. A surprise witness in her own defense, Ms. Haley accused the influential Republican lawyer who had filed the initial ethics complaint, John Rainey, of being a “racist, sexist bigot” and of suggesting that her family was related to terrorists. Mr. Rainey later said that Ms. Haley, whose parents are Indian immigrants, had misconstrued the remark.The Republican-led committee dismissed each of the charges with little explanation. Democrats argued that the lawmakers never fully investigated the allegations because they were loath to go up against a sitting governor.In South Carolina, the episode was soon overshadowed by a barrage of other corruption scandals. John Crangle, the former head of South Carolina’s chapter of Common Cause, said that Ms. Haley’s conduct didn’t “smell good,” but that it paled in comparison to the convictions of half a dozen legislators, including the Speaker of the House, of crimes involving misuse of campaign funds and payments from lobbyists.Ms. Haley promoting a plan for ethics reform in 2012, shortly after a state ethics investigation into her work on behalf of a hospital.Steve Jessmore/The Sun News, via Associated PressThe Center for Public Integrity, in a state-by-state survey of ethics rules, gave South Carolina an F rating in 2012, saying the state’s loopholes were “large enough to dock a Confederate submarine.”Soon after the ethics investigation, Ms. Haley went on a whistle-stop tour of the state promoting an ethics overhaul. In 2016, she signed two bills that required lawmakers to disclose the sources, but not the amounts, of private income, and revamped the process for reviewing allegations.Mr. Crangle said the changes did not go far enough.“Special interests want to invest large amounts of money to buy legislation and legislators, and Nikki never really challenged that institutional system of corruption,” he said.In her own retelling of her political rise, Ms. Haley made no mention of her ethics issues. In a 2012 memoir, she wrote that she believed that letting lawmakers hide the sources of their income — as she herself had done — was wrong.“It breeds conflicts of interest,” she wrote. “The people deserved to know who paid us.”Kitty Bennett More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Fani Willis Faces Upheaval in Trump Georgia Inquiry

      by

      Accusations involving her relationship with the lead prosecutor she hired are seen as unlikely to derail the case but could cause serious distractions.Nearly three years after she began investigating former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, Fani T. Willis is facing the biggest test of her handling of the landmark election interference case.Ms. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., was accused this week of being romantically involved with the lead prosecutor she hired for the Trump case, a turn of events that has invigorated Republicans and raised a flurry of questions about her conduct and judgment. The prosecutor, Nathan Wade, has reaped more than $650,000 in legal fees.While many legal experts doubt that the accusations — if true — will derail the case, they could present significant problems for Ms. Willis and create distractions around the case. The allegations have already created a firestorm on the political right, with Mr. Trump and his allies accusing her of violating a raft of county and state laws. They have even given pause to some Democrats.“If the allegations are true — and it’s a big if — it’s troubling,” Robb Pitts, a Democrat who is chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said in an interview this week. “To have this come up at this point in time, and at this point in this trial, can raise questions.”The allegations, which were lodged without supporting documents or named witnesses, surfaced in a court filing on Monday from a lawyer for Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign staff member who faces charges in the case along with Mr. Trump and 13 others.The filing suggested that the relationship was the reason Ms. Willis had chosen Mr. Wade, who had never led a high-profile criminal case and had largely worked as a suburban defense lawyer and municipal judge.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Ukraine Indicts Officials Linked to Efforts to Investigate the Bidens

      by

      Three officials were accused of operating at the behest of Russian intelligence when they aligned with efforts by Rudolph W. Giuliani to tie the Biden family to corruption in Ukraine. Ukrainian police and prosecutors have accused two politicians and a former prosecutor of treason, saying they colluded with a Russian intelligence agency in aiding an effort by Rudolph W. Giuliani several years ago to tie the Biden family to corruption in Ukraine.Those accused include Kostyantyn Kulyk, a former Ukrainian deputy prosecutor general who had drafted a memo in 2019 suggesting Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, for his role serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. Also implicated were a current member of Ukraine’s Parliament, Oleksandr Dubinsky, and a former member, Andriy Derkach, who had publicly advocated for an investigation in Ukraine into Hunter Biden. They had also promoted a spurious theory that it was Ukraine, and not Russia, that had meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the United States.The three were indicted on charges of treason and belonging to a criminal organization. The charges refer to “information-subversive activities” and focus on actions in 2019 before the American presidential election. They do not say if or when the activity stopped. In the run-up to the 2020 election in the United States, Mr. Giuliani and later former President Donald J. Trump had encouraged Ukrainian officials to follow up on the allegations against Hunter Biden. The effort included a phone call by Mr. Trump to President Volodymyr Zelensky in July of 2019 urging an investigation into the Bidens, at a time when the Trump administration was withholding military aid for the Ukrainian Army. Andriy Derkach attends a news conference in Kyiv in 2019.Gleb Garanich/ReutersCritics say that pressure to investigate the Bidens was politically motivated, aimed at harming the elder Mr. Biden’s chances against Mr. Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani denied that there was anything inappropriate about their contact with Ukrainian officials, with Mr. Trump describing his phone call to Mr. Zelensky as “perfect.” The administration said military aid to Ukraine was withheld over concerns about corruption in the Ukrainian government. The events led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment in the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate.Ukrainian media on Tuesday suggested the indictments, too, had a political component for Mr. Zelensky: that they were intended to send a signal to Mr. Biden now, as his administration is pressing Congress for military assistance to Ukraine, that Kyiv will root out accused Russian agents, including those who had promoted accusations against his family.In statements released on Monday, Ukrainian police and the country’s domestic intelligence agency said all three men were members of a spy network established inside the Ukrainian government and handled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the G.R.U.The intelligence agency’s statement said the Russians paid members of the group $10 million. An aide to Mr. Derkach, Ihor Kolesnikov, was detained earlier and convicted on treason charges.Two members of the group, Mr. Derkach and Mr. Kulyk, fled Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the statement said. Mr. Dubinsky was remanded to pretrial detention in a Ukrainian jail on Tuesday.Mr. Dubinsky, in a statement posted on the social networking site Telegram, said that the prosecutors had “not presented one fact” to support the accusations, and that the charges were retribution for criticizing Mr. Zelensky’s government in his role as a member of Parliament. He said that he testified a year and a half ago as a witness in a treason investigation of Mr. Derkach but at the time had not been accused of any wrongdoing. Mr. Dubinsky was expelled from Mr. Zelensky’s political party, Servant of the People, in 2021 after the United States sanctioned him for meddling in the American political process. The Ukrainian intelligence agency’s statement said that Mr. Kulyk had used his position in the prosecutor general’s office to promote investigations that worked “in favor of the Kremlin,” without specifying any cases.In late 2018, Mr. Kulyk compiled a seven-page dossier asserting that Ukrainian prosecutors had evidence that “may attest to the commission of corrupt actions aimed at personal unlawful enrichment by former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden,” according to a copy leaked by a Ukrainian blogger.The dossier suggested that Mr. Biden, when he had served as vice president, had tried to quash a corruption investigation into the natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, where his son served on the board. Former colleagues of Mr. Kulyk at the prosecutor’s office confirmed he had written the document, which helped set in motion an effort by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, and other supporters to press for an investigation in Ukraine.In a phone call with Mr. Zelensky that became central to the impeachment case, Mr. Trump had asked the Ukrainian president to investigate supposed conflicts of interest by Mr. Biden when he was vice president, according to White House notes of the call. Mr. Trump denied he had linked military aid to Ukraine to the investigation of the Biden family.Allegations of corruption and ties to Russia had trailed Mr. Kulyk for years in the Ukrainian media and among anti-corruption watchdog groups before he compiled the dossier.In 2016, he was indicted in Ukraine on charges of illegal enrichment for owning apartments and cars that seemed beyond the means of his modest official salary. One car, a Toyota Land Cruiser, had been bought by the father of a military commander fighting on the Russian side in the war in eastern Ukraine. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Clarence Thomas Recuses as Supreme Court Rejects Trump Lawyer’s Appeal

      by

      John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had advised President Donald J. Trump, had sought to wipe out a decision that he said had harmed his reputation and that of his client.Justice Clarence Thomas, in a break from his practices in earlier cases involving the 2020 election, recused himself on Monday when the Supreme Court turned down an appeal from an architect of a plan to subvert the 2020 election.As is its custom, the court gave no reasons for denying review in the appeal, which was filed by John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had advised President Donald J. Trump. Justice Thomas, for whom Mr. Eastman had served as a law clerk, offered no explanation for his decision to disqualify himself from the case. The justice’s wife, Virginia Thomas, known as Ginni, had participated in efforts to overturn the election.Mr. Eastman’s petition was viewed as a long shot. It elicited no response from any other party, and Mr. Trump did not file a brief in the case.Justice Thomas took part in a ruling last year on an emergency application from Mr. Trump asking the court to block the release of White House records concerning the Capitol attack. The court rejected the request. Only Justice Thomas noted a dissent, giving no reasons.He also participated in the court’s consideration of whether to hear a related appeal. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, without noted dissent. There was no indication that Justice Thomas had recused himself.In December 2020, Justice Thomas participated in a ruling on an audacious lawsuit by Texas asking the court to throw out the election results in four battleground states. The court rejected the request, with Justices Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. issuing a brief statement suggesting the majority had acted too soon in shutting down the case.In the case the court rejected on Monday, Mr. Eastman had asked the justices to wipe out a lower-court ruling that allowed a now disbanded House committee to see emails that he said were protected by attorney-client privilege. A federal trial judge said the privilege did not apply, citing an exemption to it for crimes and fraud.The committee, which investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, obtained and disclosed the contested emails.The case was thus in important ways moot, but Mr. Eastman said the rulings had damaged his reputation and that of Mr. Trump.“The crime-fraud ruling of the district court imposes a stigma not only on petitioner,” the petition said, “but also on his former client, the former president of the United States and current candidate for the presidency in 2024.”In a ruling last year in a lawsuit over whether the committee could obtain the emails, Judge David O. Carter ruled that it was more likely than not that the communications involved crimes, prompting the exception to the attorney-client privilege.“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” he wrote. “Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the vice president to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election.”The judge added, “Based on the evidence, the court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.” More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Trump señala a Hunter Biden por sus negocios. Sobre su familia, no habla

      by

      El expresidente ha arremetido contra Joe Biden por los negocios de su hijo en el exterior, a pesar de que la familia Trump hace muchos tratos de ese tipo.Tras su cuarta acusación formal, que eleva a 91 el total de cargos en su contra por delitos graves, el expresidente Donald Trump publicó en línea la semana pasada un video en el que tilda de delincuentes al presidente Joe Biden y su familia.“La familia de delincuentes Biden”, según él, recibió millones de dólares de países extranjeros. “Creo que tenemos un presidente que es vulnerable”, señaló Trump, y añadió: “Es un pelele. Por eso el corrupto Joe deja que otros países pisoteen a Estados Unidos”.Para Trump, la indignación es selectiva cuando se trata de familias presidenciales que reciben millones de dólares de países extranjeros. Durante sus cuatro años en la Casa Blanca y los más de dos años y medio que han pasado desde entonces, Trump y sus familiares han recibido dinero de todo el planeta en cantidades muy superiores a las que, según se ha informado, recibió Hunter Biden, el hijo del presidente.A diferencia de otros presidentes modernos, Trump nunca renunció al control sobre sus extensos negocios con intereses en múltiples países y tampoco dejó de hacer tratos en el extranjero, incluso durante su mandato como presidente. Ganó dinero y promovió con total descaro su empresa familiar, ignorando todo tipo de normas. Por ejemplo, el hotel de lujo que abrió muy cerca de la Casa Blanca se convirtió en el destino preferido de grupos de cabildeo, negociadores y gobiernos extranjeros, incluidos los de Arabia Saudita, Kuwait y Baréin, que gastaron a manos llenas en hospedaje, galas y otros eventos.Además, Trump permitió que su familia ocupara puestos en el gobierno sin ninguna división clara con sus intereses privados. A diferencia de Hunter Biden, tanto la hija de Trump, Ivanka Trump, como su yerno, Jared Kushner, formaron parte del personal de la Casa Blanca, donde podían definir políticas decisivas para las empresas del extranjero.Kushner estuvo muy involucrado en la definición de la estrategia gubernamental para Medio Oriente y estableció múltiples contactos en la región. Después de salir de la Casa Blanca, Kushner fundó una firma de capital de inversión con 2000 millones de dólares en fondos de Arabia Saudita y cientos de millones más de otros países árabes para los que las políticas estadounidenses fueron ventajosas, y a los que les conviene que Trump regrese a la presidencia.“Los enredos comerciales de la familia Trump en el extranjero fueron mucho más numerosos e involucraron decenas de conflictos con empresas foráneas”, señaló Norman Eisen, abogado que objetó ante tribunales, sin éxito, la costumbre del exmandatario de aceptar dinero del extranjero durante su mandato.Estos enredos “implicaban a gente como Jared e Ivanka, que sí trabajaban en el gobierno; Hunter, en cambio, nunca fue empleado gubernamental”, añadió Eisen. “De hecho, el mismo Trump se benefició abiertamente, mientras que no hay ni la más mínima prueba de que Biden se haya beneficiado nunca”.Los negocios de Hunter Biden generaron inquietudes debido a que, tanto en testimonios como en noticias, se dio a entender que aprovechó su apellido para concretar acuerdos lucrativos. Un antiguo socio comercial les comentó a investigadores del Congreso que el joven Biden aprovechaba “la ilusión de acceso a su padre” para conseguir posibles socios.Jared Kushner, yerno del expresidente, creó una empresa de capital riesgo con 2000 millones de dólares en fondos procedentes de Arabia Saudita.Tamir Kalifa para The New York TimesNo se ha presentado ninguna prueba real de que Joe Biden, mientras fue vicepresidente, haya participado en esos negocios o se haya beneficiado, ni de que haya aprovechado su cargo para favorecer a los socios de su hijo.No obstante, aunque Biden afirma haberse mantenido distanciado de las actividades de su hijo, sus afirmaciones se han visto socavadas porque, según algunas declaraciones, Hunter puso a su padre en el altavoz durante conversaciones con socios internacionales de negocios; el futuro presidente hablaba sobre temas informales como el clima, no de negocios, según las declaraciones, pero al parecer el objetivo era impresionar a los colaboradores de Hunter.Por lo regular, todo esto originaría algún tipo de escrutinio en Washington, donde los familiares de los presidentes desde hace tiempo han aprovechado su posición para ganar dinero. La fama y el acceso al poder valen mucho en la capital de la nación, así que un familiar que frecuenta Camp David, tiene un buen asiento en una cena oficial o vuela en el Air Force One tiene garantizado que le regresen las llamadas. Esta tradición ha enfadado a muchos estadounidenses, e incluso los demócratas expresan en privado su desagrado por las actividades de Hunter Biden.“Si hizo negocios gracias a la influencia de su padre, debería rendir cuentas por eso”, dijo hace poco el representante Jim Himes, demócrata de Connecticut, en MSNBC. “Y lo enfatizo porque nunca nadie ha escuchado a un republicano decir lo mismo sobre Donald Trump o su familia”.Los republicanos que investigan a la familia Biden señalan que ganaron más de 20 millones de dólares de fuentes extranjeras en China y Ucrania, entre otros lugares, pero un análisis de memorandos del Congreso efectuado por el Washington Post indicó que la mayoría del dinero lo recibieron sus socios de negocios y la familia Biden solo obtuvo siete millones de dólares, principalmente Hunter.“Lo que tienen en común Hunter y Jared es que son hijos bien educados de personas prominentes, además de que sus relaciones familiares sin duda les ayudaron en los negocios”, explicó Don Fox, antiguo abogado general de la Oficina de Ética del Gobierno de Estados Unidos. “Pero las similitudes no pasan de ahí”.“Hunter nunca ha ocupado un cargo en el gobierno y realizó gran parte de su trabajo relacionado con Ucrania cuando su padre no estaba en el poder”, prosiguió Fox. La cantidad de dinero que Kushner podría ganar gracias a los fondos que invirtieron los sauditas, añadió, “eclipsa lo que cualquiera le haya pagado a Hunter”.La analogía con Hunter Biden irrita a Kushner, que ya tenía una larga trayectoria en los negocios antes de trabajar en el gobierno y se enorgullece de haber negociado los Acuerdos de Abraham, los convenios diplomáticos que normalizaron las relaciones entre Israel y varios de sus vecinos árabes.Algunas personas de su círculo cercano afirman que la inversión de los sauditas y otros árabes se debe a que confían en que puede ayudarles a ganar dinero, no a que estén agradecidos por las políticas que impulsó. Además, resaltaron que el gobierno de Biden no ha dado marcha atrás a esas políticas, sino que ha tratado de lograr más avances a partir de los Acuerdos de Abraham.“No existe ninguna comparación de hecho entre Hunter y Jared”, indicó un representante de Kushner en un comunicado. “Jared ya era un empresario exitoso antes de incursionar en la política, logró concretar acuerdos de paz y de comercio históricos y, al igual que muchos antes que él, regresó a los negocios después de prestar sus servicios gratuitamente en la Casa Blanca, donde cumplió por completo con las normas de la Oficina de Ética del Gobierno”.Chad Mizelle, director legal de Affinity Partners, la empresa de Kushner, señaló en un comunicado: “Fuera de la política partidista, nadie ha identificado nunca algún lineamiento específico, legal o ético, que Jared o Affinity hayan contravenido”.Uno de los contados republicanos que han criticado la forma en que la familia Trump combinó el servicio en el gobierno con los negocios en el extranjero es Chris Christie, antiguo gobernador de Nueva Jersey que compite con el expresidente por la nominación republicana. “La familia Trump ha estado involucrada en actividades fraudulentas desde hace algún tiempo”, aseveró en CNN en junio.Christie, que como fiscal de Estados Unidos procesó al padre de Kushner, señaló los negocios del yerno del expresidente.“Jared Kushner, seis meses después de abandonar la Casa Blanca, obtiene 2000 millones de dólares del fondo soberano saudita”, dijo. “¿Qué estaba haciendo Jared Kushner en Oriente Medio? Teníamos a Rex Tillerson y Mike Pompeo como secretarios de Estado. No necesitábamos a Jared Kushner. Lo pusieron ahí para hacer esas relaciones, y luego las aprovechó cuando dejó el cargo”.Durante su tiempo en la Casa Blanca, Kushner reafirmó las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y Arabia Saudita y convenció a su suegro de que el reino fuera su primer destino en el extranjero como presidente, ayudó a negociar miles de millones de dólares en ventas de armas y forjó una relación estrecha con el príncipe heredero Mohamed bin Salmán.Kushner defendió al príncipe heredero Mohamed después de que los agentes sauditas asesinaron a Jamal Khashoggi, columnista de The Washington Post y residente en Estados Unidos. La CIA concluyó que el príncipe heredero Mohamed ordenó el asesinato en 2018. En 2021, el fondo soberano del príncipe heredero Mohamed aprobó la inversión de 2000 millones de dólares en la nueva firma de Kushner, a pesar de las objeciones de los propios asesores del fondo.El representante James Comer, republicano por Kentucky y presidente del Comité de Supervisión de la Cámara de Representantes que está investigando a los Biden, reconoció tener preocupaciones por el acuerdo saudita de Kushner.“Creo que lo que hizo Kushner cruzó la línea de la ética”, dijo Comer cuando se lo preguntó Jake Tapper de CNN a principios de este mes. “Lo que dijo Christie, sucedió después de que dejó el cargo. Igual, no hay excusa, Jake. Pero ocurrió después de que dejara el cargo. Y Jared Kushner en realidad tiene un negocio legítimo. Este dinero de los Biden ocurrió mientras Joe Biden era vicepresidente, mientras volaba a esos países”.Trump ha atacado al presidente Biden por los negocios de su hijo, Hunter Biden, en el extranjero.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesDe hecho, como indican los informes del comité de Comer, parte del dinero de Hunter Biden en el extranjero llegó mientras su padre era vicepresidente, pero una parte significativa llegó después.Los portavoces de Comer y Trump no respondieron a las peticiones de comentarios.Trump nunca ha rehuido el dinero del extranjero. Incluso cuando era candidato en 2016, trató de concretar en secreto un convenio para construir una Torre Trump en Moscú hasta después de haber obtenido la nominación republicana. Uno de sus abogados se comunicó con el Kremlin para lograr que apoyaran el proyecto, el mismo Kremlin con el que interactuó Trump unos meses más tarde en carácter de presidente.Para calmar las inquietudes en torno a sus intereses financieros fuera del país, Trump prometió no emprender nuevos negocios en el extranjero mientras ocupara la presidencia. Pero no renunció a los numerosos proyectos que ya tenía en otros países y que le generaban dinero, y su empresa, la Organización Trump, cuyos directores formales son sus hijos Donald Trump Jr. y Eric Trump, tampoco dejó de ampliar sus operaciones en el extranjero.Durante los cuatro años de Trump en la Casa Blanca, la Organización Trump recibió la aprobación de 66 marcas comerciales en el extranjero, según un informe de la organización Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics en Washington, la mayoría de ellas de China y otras de Argentina, Brasil, Canadá, Perú, Filipinas, Indonesia, México, Emiratos Árabes Unidos y la Unión Europea.Las empresas extranjeras fueron buenos clientes de Trump. Mientras estuvo en el cargo, 145 funcionarios extranjeros de 75 gobiernos visitaron inmuebles de Trump y gobiernos extranjeros o grupos afiliados a ellos organizaron 13 eventos en sus hoteles y resorts, según el informe del grupo defensor de la ética.Aunque Trump describió en el video de la semana pasada a Biden como marioneta de los chinos y agregó la falsedad de que “China le ha pagado una fortuna”, su propia familia ha tenido relaciones significativas con Pekín. Además de las marcas comerciales mencionadas, Forbes calculó que un negocio de Trump durante su presidencia recaudó por lo menos 5,4 millones de dólares por concepto de renta del Banco Industrial y Comercial de China, controlado por el gobierno.La familia de Kushner negoció con firmas chinas y cataríes el rescate de la torre ubicada en el número 666 de la Quinta Avenida en la ciudad de Nueva York, que estaba sumida en deudas, y al final se concretó un contrato de arrendamiento de 1100 millones de dólares con una empresa estadounidense que tenía entre sus inversionistas al fondo soberano de Catar (para entonces, Kushner había vendido la parte de la torre que era de su propiedad a un fideicomiso familiar del que no era beneficiario, y las personas involucradas en el acuerdo indicaron que los cataríes no supieron nada de ese acuerdo con anterioridad).Por su parte, cuando se integró al personal de la Casa Blanca, Ivanka Trump conservó en un principio su línea de ropa y accesorios y recibió autorización para 16 marcas comerciales de China en 2018; más adelante, decidió suspender las operaciones del negocio.Aunque Eisen y otros promovieron demandas por violaciones a la cláusula de emolumentos de la Constitución, ninguna autoridad ha declarado ilícita alguna de las operaciones comerciales de la familia Trump en el extranjero. Tampoco ha sido así en el caso de Hunter Biden.Pero, según Donald Trump, un negocio es suficiente para comprometer a un presidente y del otro no hay que hablar.Peter Baker es el corresponsal jefe de la Casa Blanca y ha cubierto a los últimos cinco presidentes estadounidenses para el Times y The Washington Post. Es autor de siete libros, el más reciente The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, con Susan Glasser. Más de Peter Baker More