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      The Dangers of Election-Denying Secretary of State Campaigns

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      Around a dozen election-denying Republican candidates secured their party’s nomination for secretary of state this fall. This is the reality, two years on, that Donald Trump’s election lies have created.There are three types of election-denying candidates, and each one poses distinct problems for civic integrity. There are the swing-state candidates getting lots of justified attention, running in places like Arizona and Michigan, because their elections could have pivotal, clear national implications in the 2024 presidential campaign.Chuck Gray, the Republican nominee for Wyoming secretary of state, in 2018.Jacob Richard Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, via Associated PressThere are candidates like Chuck Gray in Wyoming, who is all but certain to take office in January, as Democrats didn’t field an opponent. Election-denying candidates in very red states aren’t getting as much attention now, but they likely will come January, when they are officeholders. They will help set policies in their states — many of which will also have Republican-led legislatures and governors — where extremist ideas could become law.And there are people like Dominic Rapini, Connecticut’s Republican secretary of state nominee, who are running in blue states and unlikely to win. Their campaigns, though, will have critical fallout effects. By virtue of their statewide platforms, even losing candidates can further damage the discourse — in their states and nationally — and increase the risks to our democracy. Election deniers in blue states can uniquely exacerbate Mr. Trump’s undermining of faith in our elections, and they, like their winning counterparts in red states, can set the stage for local election-denying candidates to win now or in the future.Dominic Rapini, the Republican nominee for Connecticut secretary of state, at a Boaters for Trump parade in 2020.Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Sixteen days after the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Rapini sent 23 tweets containing the same message to a wide range of figures, from a local radio host to Mr. Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “It’s time to admit fraud is real and stop denying it! #fraudeniers,” Mr. Rapini wrote.A month and a half later, while the Capitol building was under invasion by Mr. Trump’s supporters and more than an hour after Mike Pence, who was then the vice president, was whisked into hiding, Mr. Rapini tweeted at the official account for the Office of Connecticut’s Secretary of the State: “The real COUP has been prosecuted by Democrats with fake Russian collusion theories and wide spread, systematic voter fraud.”Like Republicans’ recently softened stance on abortion, Mr. Rapini has toned down his rhetoric in recent months. Yet as late as last summer, he remained the board chair of Fight Voter Fraud, a group that claims to “have assembled a ‘silent army’ of volunteer and professional investigators” to look for voter fraud. (He has said he left the board last year.) As recently as this spring, the group was aligned with the attorney Cleta Mitchell’s organization, the Election Integrity Network. Ms. Mitchell was one of the lawyers advising Mr. Trump on the Jan. 2, 2021, call where he asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” more votes for him there.With a candidate like Mr. Rapini running in a state like Connecticut, where the last Republican secretary of state left office in 1995 (and the last one before that left office in 1959), it would be easy enough to mistake his nomination as unimportant.Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at U.C.L.A. and a leading election law expert, cautioned anyone who might ignore such candidacies. “First of all, just running these races politicizes even further the office of secretary of state,” he told me. Additionally, Mr. Hasen said that having a candidate on a statewide ballot making “constant false claims of massive voter fraud can’t help but create more doubt about election integrity in the minds of a lot of people.”Although President Biden carried Connecticut by over 20 points in 2020, about 715,000 residents voted for Mr. Trump. If national estimates of support for Mr. Trump’s election lies were to apply in Connecticut, that would mean as many as half a million voters don’t trust elections there already. A statewide candidacy by someone so dedicated to pressing unfounded claims — even if unsuccessful — could, at the least, solidify that election skepticism.It’s crucial to remember what the office actually means: In Connecticut, as in many states across the country, the secretary of state is the lead elections official. As the commissioner of elections, Connecticut’s secretary of state is responsible for administering its election laws and, under federal law, doing the same for federal elections. Mr. Rapini has made clear that he would use the position to focus on “election security,” as he wrote on the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. This would be a marked change from the former secretary of state, who was elected three times and focused on “making voter registration and casting a ballot more convenient and obstacle free for every eligible Connecticut citizen.”Stephanie Thomas, a first-term Connecticut state representative and longtime nonprofit fund-raising and strategy consultant, is the Democratic nominee facing Mr. Rapini in November. “As a nonprofit fund-raiser, the adage used to be if you send someone an email three times, they think they know your organization and they’re more likely to give. So we know that repetition can sometimes prove effective, even if the message is incorrect,” she said in an interview last month. “This type of false narrative just chips away at the fabric of the integrity of our elections, and I think that is just as dangerous as someone in a more reliably red state saying the election was stolen.”One of the people already in these offices who went through the 2020 election and its aftermath agrees. Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state and the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, is running for re-election this year. She told me she worries about a wide range of state and local dangers to voting rights, including threats to election workers, excuses for voting restrictions and local election security breaches, because “local officials embrace conspiracies and become security threats themselves.”The point that harm doesn’t just build up but also trickles down is what most worries Sam Oliker-Friedland, who previously worked on voting rights cases at the Justice Department and is now the executive director at the Institute for Responsive Government.He said his concern in a state like Connecticut is the effect the candidacy “will have on lower races, especially races for local election officials.” While the secretary of state is the formal head of elections, it’s the registrars of voters and town clerks in Connecticut who are doing “the day-to-day work of running elections.” Many more people are involved in carrying out elections than just the top officials in a given state, and while their roles are important, they’re also much lower profile. Those officials and their races going forward “will be influenced by this discourse coming from the person running for the top elections post in the state,” Mr. Oliker-Friedland warned, adding that the discourse will also affect primary elections in those races going forward and the way those people do their jobs once elected.Mr. Rapini’s claims of voter fraud spill over into other areas as well, a dynamic that can further politicize other policy decisions. When Connecticut passed a law in the summer of 2021 restoring the right to vote to many who had returned to their communities from prison, Mr. Rapini criticized the move in part as a failure of priorities — he said it meant officials weren’t doing the work to “fix our elections in Connecticut.”Not a lot of people are giving optimistic pitches about the state of things these days, so it stood out to me when Ms. Thomas presented what she sees as a positive path out of this moment. She points to civic education and civic engagement — beyond just a focus on voting and Election Day. “We have to start thinking about this as a holistic, 365-day-a-year process,” she told me. That could restore trust in the system, she said, because the outcomes would be “more reflective of the values.”We still have a long way to go for that to happen, but it’s good that people are talking about it — and working toward it.Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) is a journalist who writes about U.S. legal matters, including the Supreme Court and politics, and publishes the newsletter Law Dork.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Second Sandy Hook defamation trial for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones begins

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      Second Sandy Hook defamation trial for conspiracy theorist Alex Jones beginsConnecticut jury hears arguments in trial to decide how much Jones should pay victims of school shooting he said was hoax A Connecticut jury began hearing arguments Tuesday in a trial to decide how much money the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting for spreading a lie that the massacre was a hoax.The trial is being held in Waterbury, less than 20 miles from Newtown, where a man shot 26 children and teachers dead in 2012.More than a dozen family members, including parents of some victims, filed into the courtroom to listen to the opening statements and first day of evidence.It is the second such trial in just a few weeks for Jones, who was ordered by a Texas jury last month to pay nearly $50m to the parents of one of the children who was killed.A jury of three men and three women – along with several alternates – will decide how much the conspiracy theorist should pay relatives of eight victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school massacre. Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones liable without a trial last year after he failed to turn over documents to the families’ lawyers.Damaging Alex Jones texts mistakenly sent to Sandy Hook family’s lawyersRead moreOn Tuesday, she sanctioned Jones for failing to turn over analytic data related to his website and the popularity of his show. She told his lawyers that because of that failure, they will not be allowed to argue he didn’t profit from his Sandy Hook remarks.Jones did not attend the opening of the trial Tuesday. He said on his show Monday that he would be traveling to Connecticut next week.The trial is expected to last about a month and feature testimony from both Jones and the families.Bellis instructed the jury that Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, have already been found liable for damages to the plaintiffs for calling the shooting a hoax on multiple media platforms and saying that no one died.The Sandy Hook families and former FBI agent William Aldenberg say they have been confronted and harassed for years by people who believed Jones’s false claim that the shooting was staged by crisis actors as part of a plot to empower the government to confiscate people’s guns.Some say strangers have videotaped them and their surviving children. They have also endured death threats and been subjected to abusive comments on social media. And some families have moved out of Newtown to avoid harassment. They accuse Jones of causing them emotional and psychological harm.Jones, whose Infowars web show and brand are based in Austin, Texas, has been banned from YouTube, Facebook and Spotify for violating hate-speech policies.He now says he believes the shooting was real. At the Texas trial, he testified that he realizes what he said was irresponsible and is now sorry for hurting people’s feelings.He continues, however, to insist that his comments were protected free speech. He views the lawsuits as efforts to silence him and put him out of business.Jones’s lawyers say he intends to pursue an appeal of the judgment against him in Texas. Jones also will face a third trial back in Texas involving the parents of another slain child.TopicsUS newsUS politicsConnecticutNewtown shootingReuse this content More

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      Zinke Is Accused of Misleading Interior Dept. Investigators in Casino Inquiry

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      Ryan Zinke, a former interior secretary during the Trump administration, intentionally misled investigators looking into his department’s decision not to act on two Native American tribes’ requests to open a new casino in Connecticut, the Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General concluded in a report released on Wednesday.Mr. Zinke, who served as interior secretary from 2017 to 2019, is now the Republican nominee for a congressional seat in Montana. He is widely expected to win the general election this November.The 44-page report on Wednesday focused not on the casino decision itself — litigation over that was resolved separately — but on whether Mr. Zinke and his former chief of staff had been honest about it.Extensive efforts by unnamed lobbyists to persuade Mr. Zinke not to approve the tribes’ applications, as well as conversations between Mr. Zinke and an unnamed senator, are described in the report. It says that, in interviews with investigators, Mr. Zinke denied having significant conversations with the lobbyists and stated repeatedly that he had decided not to approve the tribes’ applications based on advice from the Interior Department’s Office of the Solicitor. But lawyers in that office told the investigators that they had never spoken directly with Mr. Zinke.A lawyer for Mr. Zinke, Danny C. Onorato, said in a statement that Mr. Zinke had “cooperated fully in a politically motivated investigation.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAug. 23 Primaries: The Democratic establishment in Florida and New York had a good night. Here are some key takeaways and a rundown of who won and who lost.The Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s increasingly hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a special election in New York’s Hudson Valley is the latest example.Bruising Fights in N.Y.: A string of ugly primaries played out across the state, as Democrats and Republicans fought over rival personalities and the ideological direction of their parties.Challenging DeSantis: Florida Democrats chose Representative Charlie Crist, a former Republican, to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis, setting up a contest between a centrist and a hard-right G.O.P. incumbent.“Secretary Zinke repeatedly told the inspector general that he was not subject to any influence in that matter because he lacked jurisdiction to act on the application,” Mr. Onorato said. “That should have ended the inquiry. Instead, on the eve of an election, the I.G. has released a misleading and inaccurate report that suggested Secretary Zinke lacked candor in his interview with I.G. agents. That is wrong.”The report said it would be “a fair reading of Secretary Zinke’s statements” to conclude that he had based his decision about the casino request on the advice of lawyers for the Office of the Solicitor and that “he was not influenced by the considerations or recommendations of third parties.”“Given the number and extent of communications with these outside personnel, combined with the absence of information that anyone — counsel or otherwise — within the agency advised this course of action, we find that Secretary Zinke’s description of events was not accurate,” the report continued. It characterized Mr. Zinke and his chief of staff as not complying “with their duty of candor when questioned.”Mr. Zinke’s former chief of staff was not named in the report. A person who held that position did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through the organization he currently works for.“Lack of candor” is defined in the report as “a broader and more flexible concept” than falsification, emphasizing that it does not necessarily require intent to deceive. Rather, it requires proof that a person “gave incorrect or incomplete information” and “did so knowingly.”Wednesday’s report is a final, revised version of a draft report that Mr. Zinke was given an opportunity to respond to; his response was included in the final version. The Office of Inspector General submitted its initial findings in 2018 to the Justice Department, which declined to file charges in 2021. The office said in the final report that it would provide it to the current interior secretary, Deb Haaland, “for any action deemed appropriate.”Mr. Zinke has been the subject of multiple ethics investigations related to his actions as interior secretary. Earlier this year, the Office of Inspector General found that he had improperly participated in negotiations about a real estate project in Whitefish, Mont., and then lied to investigators about his involvement.Before becoming interior secretary, Mr. Zinke represented Montana’s at-large congressional district from 2015 to 2017. He is now running in the First District, newly drawn after Montana gained a seat in the 2020 census. Three major election forecasters — the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato’s Crystal Ball — all rate the race as “likely Republican,” and a fourth, FiveThirtyEight, rates it as “solid Republican.” More

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in Minnesota

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in MinnesotaDemocrats select progressive Becca Balint for Vermont House seat while Trump-backed candidate nominated for Wisconsin governor Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.Pro-Israel groups denounced after pouring funds into primary raceRead moreThe evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.But Tim Michels, backed by Donald Trump, was projected to win the Republican nomination for governor of Wisconsin, a day after the FBI searched the former US president’s home in Florida reportedly seeking classified documents.Michels defeated rival and former lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who had been endorsed by Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence.Kleefisch served with right-wing former governor Scott Walker and she conceded to Michels on Tuesday night.Michels has falsely asserted that Trump, rather than Democratic US president, Joe Biden, won the vital swing state in the 2020 presidential election, echoing the former president’s claims.Michels has also vowed to enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that went into effect in Wisconsin after the US supreme court in June eliminated the nationwide right to the procedure with its overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.He will face the incumbent Wisconsin governor and Democrat, Tony Evers, in November’s election.With a Republican-majority legislature, Michels could push through new abortion restrictions if elected. Evers and his administration have filed litigation challenging the 1849 law while promising not to prosecute doctors who violate it.Other Trump-backed candidates also prevailed.In Connecticut, Leora Levy surprised observers by winning the Republican primary race for the US Senate after being supported by Trump, upending moderate Themis Klarides who had a lot of party support in the state, the Hartford Courant reported.Levy faces the high-profile incumbent Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal.In her Minneapolis district, Omar, who is one of the left’s leading voices in Congress, has defended calls to redirect public safety funding more into community-based programs.She squared off with former city council member Don Samuels, whose north Minneapolis base suffers from more violent crime than other parts of the city.Samuels argued that Omar is divisive and helped defeat a ballot question last year that sought to replace the city police department with a new public safety unit.He and others also successfully sued the city to force it to meet minimum police staffing levels called for in Minneapolis’s charter.But Omar narrowly prevailed on the night, seeking her third term in the House. She crushed a similar primary challenge two years ago from a well-funded but lesser-known opponent.“She’s had a lot of adversity already and pushback. I don’t think her work is done,” said Kathy Ward, a 62-year-old property caretaker for an apartment building in Minneapolis who voted for Omar. “We’ve got to give her a chance.”Two other members of the Squad – Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri – won their Democratic primaries last week.Meanwhile, Republicans see a pickup opportunity in Wisconsin’s third congressional district, the seat being vacated by the retiring Democratic incumbent Ron Kind.The district covers a swath of counties along Wisconsin’s western border with Minnesota and includes La Crosse and Eau Claire.Republican Derrick Van Orden was unopposed in his primary on Tuesday and has Trump’s endorsement.Van Orden narrowly lost to Kind in the 2020 general election. He attended Trump’s rally near the White House on 6 January 2021, where the then president urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, but has said he never set foot on the grounds of the Capitol during the insurrection that followed.State senator Brad Pfaff topped three other Democrats to secure the party’s nomination and will face Van Orden in the fall. Pfaff, a one-time state agriculture secretary, had previously worked for Kind and received his endorsement.Vermont is the last state in the country yet to add a female member to its congressional delegation. Balint, who immediately becomes the favorite in November’s general election, would also be the first openly gay member of Congress from Vermont.She was endorsed by some of the nation’s leading leftwing figures, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.“Vermont has chosen a bold, progressive vision for the future, and I will be proud to represent us in Congress,” Balint said in a statement.Balint is vying to fill the state’s lone House seat, which is being vacated by Peter Welch who is running for Senate and easily secured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.Welch is trying to succeed retiring senator Patrick Leahy, the US Senate’s longest-serving member.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Ilhan OmarUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansMinnesotaVermontnewsReuse this content More

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      What’s On the Ballot and How to Vote in Connecticut’s Primary

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      Connecticut might be known as a campaign fund-raising powerhouse that rarely deviates from electing Democrats statewide, but even its primary on Tuesday is drawing the attention of former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump made a late endorsement in the Republican Senate primary race. Its winner will challenge Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on whom the former president has aimed his attention.The three-way Republican contest is not the only competitive race on the ballot.Here is a refresher on the rules for voting and what’s at stake.How to voteThe registration deadlines for voting in person and requesting an absentee ballot have passed. Connecticut does not have same-day registration for the primary, though it does for the general election.You have to be registered with a political party to vote in the primary. The cutoff for switching parties is three months before a primary.No-excuse absentee voting is no longer available in Connecticut, which mailed ballots to all voters at the onset of the pandemic. A referendum would be required for it to be reinstated.Where to voteClick here to look up your assigned place to vote. Absentee ballots must be returned — by mail or by hand to drop boxes or local clerks — by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is also when the polls close for in-person voting.What is on the ballotRepublicans will winnow the field of candidates for the Senate, the House in southwestern Connecticut and secretary of the state, an open-seat race to decide who will oversee elections.Democrats have competitive primaries for state treasurer and secretary of the state.Voters will also decide various intraparty races for the Connecticut Legislature. Click here for your sample ballot. More

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      An American’s Murky Path From Russian Propagandist to Jan. 6

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      Charles Bausman, a former financial executive who runs websites that promote far-right views, recorded footage in the Capitol for a Russian television producer. Soon after, he fled to Moscow as a “political refugee.”In security footage from Jan. 6, it is easy to overlook the thin man wearing a red Trump hat who filters into the U.S. Capitol Building to record the mayhem with his phone.He blends in with the mob, seemingly unexceptional by the chaotic standards of that day. But what he did afterward was far from routine.Within 24 hours, the man, Charles Bausman, gave his recordings and commentary to a Russian television producer for a propaganda video. He then decamped to Moscow, where, appearing on a far-right television network owned by a sanctioned oligarch, he recently accused American media of covering up for neo-Nazis in Ukraine.“We must understand that in the West,” Mr. Bausman told Russian viewers, “we are already in a situation of total lies.”For Mr. Bausman — an American alumnus of Phillips Exeter Academy and Wesleyan University who speaks fluent Russian — it was the latest chapter in a strange odyssey. Once a financial executive who voted for President Barack Obama, he emerged in 2014 as a public critic of the left and of the United States, boosted by Russian state-sponsored organizations through speaking invitations, TV appearances and awards.Central to his transformation was a series of websites he created pushing anti-America, pro-Russia themes, as well as racist and homophobic messaging. Some of his posts have racked up millions of views, and his 5,000-word screed on “the Jewish problem” has been hailed by antisemites around the world and translated into multiple languages.Mr. Bausman’s path in some ways tracks a broader shift on the political right that embraces misinformation and sympathy toward Russia while tolerating an increasingly emboldened white nationalism. For its part, the Kremlin has sought to court conservatives in the United States and sow discord through a network of expats, collaborators and spies.People who have written for Mr. Bausman’s websites or promoted his work have come under scrutiny by American intelligence, and the founder of a pro-Russia forum that hosted him and others was charged in March with being an unregistered agent of Moscow.Mr. Bausman initially gained some prominence as a Russia apologist, but he has lowered his profile in recent years as he has espoused more extreme views. Yet he has been Zelig-like in exploiting cultural and political flash points, racing from cause to cause.After surfacing as a voluble defender of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, Mr. Bausman became an outspoken Trump supporter. With white nationalism on the rise, he threw himself into promoting it, relocating to rural Pennsylvania and hosting neo-Nazis at his property. He joined Republican protests against coronavirus restrictions and the 2020 election and most recently has reappeared in Russian media to criticize the West’s response to the war in Ukraine.Mr. Bausman attended a 2015 conference hosted by RT, a news channel tied to the Kremlin.Mikhail Voskresenskiy/Sputnik, via APKonstantin Malofeev, an influential oligarch indicted by the United States over alleged sanctions violations, said he had asked Mr. Bausman to appear on his television network because Mr. Bausman was one of the few Russian-speaking Americans willing to do it.“Who else is there to invite?” Mr. Malofeev asked.Mr. Bausman, 58, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. No charges have been brought against him related to the events of Jan. 6, though he appears inside the Capitol in video clips introduced in court cases against others. When a Russian TV host referred to him as “a participant” in storming the Capitol, Mr. Bausman interrupted to say that the description could get him into trouble, and that he was a journalist.Better Understand the Russia-Ukraine WarHistory and Background: Here’s what to know about Russia and Ukraine’s relationship and the causes of the conflict.How the Battle Is Unfolding: Russian and Ukrainian forces are using a bevy of weapons as a deadly war of attrition grinds on in eastern Ukraine.Russia’s Brutal Strategy: An analysis of more than 1,000 photos found that Russia has used hundreds of weapons in Ukraine that are widely banned by international treaties.Outside Pressures: Governments, sports organizations and businesses are taking steps to punish Russia. Here are some of the sanctions adopted so far and a list of companies that have pulled out of the country.Stay Updated: To receive the latest updates on the war in your inbox, sign up here. The Times has also launched a Telegram channel to make its journalism more accessible around the world.But, on other occasions, he has described himself differently. Speaking on a white nationalist podcast in April, in which he attacked critics of Russia as “evil pedophile globalists” who control the “enslaved West,” he explained why he was back in Moscow:“I’m a political refugee here.”Connecticut to MoscowPresident Vladimir V. Putin had just invaded Crimea in 2014 when Mr. Bausman said he had an idea. He would create an alternative news source to counter what he called Western media’s “inaccurate, incomplete and unrealistically negative picture of Russia.”The website, Russia Insider, was directed at an English-speaking audience and offered stories like, “Putin to Obama: You’re Turning the U.S.A. Into a Godless Sewer,” and “Anti-Christian Pogrom Underway in Ukraine.” Content was often aggregated from other pro-Russia sources, including RT, the Kremlin-funded television network.The role of online agitator was not an obvious one for Mr. Bausman, who grew up in the wealthy suburb of Greenwich, Conn., attended prep school and went on to earn a history degree from Wesleyan and study business at Columbia. His experience with Russia dates to his childhood, when his father served as the Moscow bureau chief for The Associated Press.Mr. Bausman with his father, who worked in Moscow for The Associated Press.As a college graduate in the late 1980s, he returned to Russia, and, with help from his father’s connections, worked briefly for NBC News. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, Mr. Bausman found a new role: as a multilingual fixer for entrepreneurs scrambling to cash in on the emerging economy.A. Craig Copetas, a former Wall Street Journal correspondent who wrote a book about the post-Soviet business era, said Mr. Bausman worked with Russians who “were the forerunners of the oligarchs.”“Charlie speaks excellent Russian,” he said, “so he was a valuable asset — he was like the young American prince of Moscow.”Mr. Bausman’s early success was not to last. There are gaps in his résumé, and U.S. court records show that he filed for bankruptcy in 1999.A former business associate recalled Mr. Bausman’s father beseeching people to “help my son” with his career. This person — one of several who did not want to be identified because of Mr. Bausman’s ties to extremists — described him as “just this lost guy” who seemed to struggle professionally despite impressive qualifications. He worked a succession of Russian private equity jobs, never staying in any position longer than a few years.Mr. Bausman’s last role was with the agribusiness investor AVG Capital Partners. A 2012 company presentation, which listed him as director of investor relations, boasted of “strong partnerships” with Russian authorities and included a photo of Mr. Putin.The exact timing of Mr. Bausman’s switch to propagandist is murky, but two profiles on the Russian social media platform VK offer a clue. The first, from 2011, is a sparse page featuring a wan Mr. Bausman in a suit and a link to a group interested in tennis.In the second profile, from two years later, he looks tan and confident in an open-collared shirt. The VK groups he joined were strikingly radical, including a militant Russian Orthodox sect and another called the Internet Militia, whose goal echoed what would soon become Mr. Bausman’s focus: “to protect and defend our native information field” against American attack.Oligarch ConnectionsPublicly, Mr. Bausman turned to crowd funding to pay for Russia Insider. Behind the scenes, however, he was in contact with Mr. Malofeev, a promoter of Orthodox nationalist propaganda.Leaked emails made public in 2014 revealed Mr. Bausman corresponding with a Malofeev associate, saying “we published your Serbia info” and asking for money. In an email to Mr. Malofeev, the associate praised Mr. Bausman’s site as “pro-Russian” and noted that he “wants to cooperate.”Mr. Malofeev was backing another media project at the time with a similar agenda: Tsargrad TV, which he created with a former Fox News employee, John Hanick. Both Mr. Hanick and Mr. Malofeev were charged by the United States this year with violating sanctions imposed in 2014.Mr. Bausman has appeared on the television network of Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian oligarch indicted by the U.S. for alleged sanctions violations.Tatyana Makeyeva/ReutersIn an interview, Mr. Malofeev said he believed Mr. Bausman “has done a great job and that he is a very brave person,” but he denied they had “a financial relationship.”Mr. Bausman has always said he did not receive support from Russian authorities. But there is little doubt that his emergence as an American salesman of pro-Kremlin views was aided greatly by entities controlled by or tied to the Russian state.After Russia Insider went live, Mr. Bausman began appearing on RT and other Russian media, and a news crew from a major state-owned TV channel traveled to his parents’ home in Connecticut to film him discussing his new website. On Facebook, he boasted that “our traffic exploded after this aired.”He was invited to join panel discussions at another state-owned outlet, received an award in 2016 named after a pro-Russia journalist killed in Ukraine, and spoke at a Kremlin-sponsored youth conference in newly captured Crimea. He gave interviews to Russian Orthodox figures, speaking approvingly of Mr. Malofeev.In April 2016, Mr. Bausman’s work was promoted by a Russian website, RIA FAN, that has been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch indicted by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller. The website initially shared an address with the Internet Research Agency, the Russian government “troll factory” accused of using fake social media accounts and online propaganda to disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Russia analysts who have followed Mr. Bausman’s work say it has the hallmarks of a disinformation project. Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis who researches Russian propaganda campaigns, said his messaging merged seamlessly with that of Mr. Putin’s government.“The initial purpose of his outlet was to muddle the truth in American circles about Crimea,” she said. “And then you see his outlet and others repurposed to support the Kremlin narrative about Syria, and then the 2016 U.S. elections.“It appears,” she said, “to be a classic Russian influence operation.”Hard-Right TurnWith Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential victory, Mr. Bausman’s media outlet began to promote more extreme views. In a celebratory post after the election, he struck a militant chord that shocked old friends.“Trump’s election is perhaps akin to Luther nailing his theses to the door, but now the demons are wakened, and they know they must fight or be killed, and as in the 16th century, they will not go quietly,” he wrote. “And there will be blood. Let us hope that it is the figurative, digital kind, and not the real, red, hot, sticky stuff.”A turning point came in January 2018, when Mr. Bausman posted a lengthy polemic, “It’s Time to Drop the Jew Taboo,” that was both an antisemitic manifesto and a call to action for the alt-right.“The evidence suggests that much of human enterprise dominated and shaped by Jews is a bottomless pit of trouble with a peculiar penchant for mendacity and cynicism, hostility to Christianity and Christian values, and in geopolitics, a clear bloodlust,” he wrote.It was welcomed by white nationalist figures like Richard Spencer, who called it “a major event.”Outside the far right, Mr. Bausman’s embrace of antisemitism was widely condemned. The U.S. State Department flagged it in a report on human-rights concerns in Russia, and the diatribe prompted a disavowal from RT.After the death in August 2018 of his mother, who left an estate valued at about $2.6 million, Mr. Bausman bought two properties in Lancaster, Pa., where his family had roots.His older sister, Mary-Fred Bausman-Watkins, said last year that her brother “was always short on money” and that their parents frequently helped him out, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has compiled several reports on his activities. Ms. Bausman-Watkins died in May.“They funded his whole life,” she told the center, “and then he inherited their money when they died, and they’re still funding his life.”The InsurrectionWhile living in Lancaster with his Russian wife and two young daughters, Mr. Bausman turned his attention to two new websites devoted largely to white nationalist content. Headlines included: “Out of Control Black Violence” and “Jewish Intellectuals Call on Gays to Perform Sex Acts in Front of Children.”Mr. Bausman concealed his ownership of one of these sites, National Justice, through a private registration, which The New York Times confirmed by reviewing data leaked last year from Epik, a web-hosting service favored by the far right. The site has the same name as a white nationalist organization and featured posts by one of its leaders, though it is not the group’s official site, according to its chairman, Michael Peinovich.In an interview, Mr. Peinovich said Mr. Bausman had hosted party members at his farmstead for an inaugural meeting in 2020 (a large event first reported by a local news outlet, LancasterOnline). But afterward, he said, his group “went our own way” because it did not agree with Mr. Bausman’s preoccupation with supporting Mr. Trump.Three days before Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Bausman allowed Rod of Iron Ministries, a gun-themed religious sect led by a son of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, to meet at his property, according to photos on social media. Members of the sect had been active in “Stop the Steal” rallies, some of which Mr. Bausman had also attended, and were at the Capitol on Jan. 6.On Facebook, Mr. Bausman posted an appeal for people to go to Washington “to support Trump.” At various points during the riot, Mr. Bausman can be seen inside the Capitol, often using his phone to record the chaos.Mr. Bausman, right, has said he entered the Capitol in the capacity of a journalist.via YouTubeAfterward, he returned to Lancaster and gave a lengthy interview for a video about the insurrection produced by Arkady Mamontov, a Russian television host known for splashy pro-Kremlin propaganda pieces. The video also included footage of Mr. Bausman outside his home that appears to have been filmed months earlier. Mr. Mamontov did not respond to a request for comment.In the video, Mr. Bausman suggested, without evidence, that federal agents had instigated the violence at the Capitol to “discredit Trump,” and he painted a dystopian, conspiratorial picture of American society. It is a theme that he has carried forward to more recent appearances on Mr. Malofeev’s television network, in which he has accused Western media of lying about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.It is not clear when Mr. Bausman left the U.S., but he was in Moscow for a TV appearance on the day of President Biden’s inauguration, two weeks after the insurrection at the Capitol. In the white nationalist podcast interview he gave in April from Russia, he said he had not been back home since.When asked by the host if he was still a Trump fan, Mr. Bausman said he was not, before adding with a laugh that there was one thing that could restore his loyalty.“When he pardons me for Jan. 6,” he said.Anton Troianovski More

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      Stefanowski, G.O.P. Hopeful in Connecticut, Tests Positive for Coronavirus

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      One day after attending an anti-mask group’s “Freedom Family Cookout,” Bob Stefanowski, the presumptive Republican nominee for governor in Connecticut, announced on Monday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.Mr. Stefanowski, 60, who is seeking to avenge his 2018 election loss to Ned Lamont, a Democrat, said in a statement that he was asymptomatic.“I just wanted to let everyone know that I tested positive for COVID-19 this morning after finding out I had a positive exposure,” Mr. Stefanowski said. “I am vaccinated, boosted, and feeling fine so far. I will continue to follow all C.D.C. protocols.”Mr. Stefanowski and his campaign would not elaborate about the circumstances of his exposure to the virus, which has come roaring back in Connecticut this spring, making the state one of the nation’s hotspots for infections.How cases, hospitalizations and deaths are trending in ConnecticutThis chart shows how three key metrics compare to the corresponding peak per capita level reached nationwide in January 2021. More

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      Bobby Valentino, Ex-Mets Manager, Wants to Be the Mayor of Stamford

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      The mayor’s race in Stamford has been flooded with money and intrigue, thanks largely to the flamboyant presence of Bobby Valentine, a first-time candidate and former Mets and Red Sox manager.In Stamford, the second-largest city in Connecticut, a province of mixed baseball loyalties lying between New York and Boston, one of the last remaining names on the ballot for mayor this fall is more familiar to sports fans than to municipal policy wonks: Bobby Valentine.It’s a name that needs little introduction in this city of 135,000 people, which has emerged from its 20th-century role as a financial services exurb to become a magnet for apartment developers and tech companies. All through Stamford, lawns and traffic islands are carpeted with the campaign signs of Mr. Valentine, who managed the New York Mets from 1996 to 2002, including a World Series loss to the Yankees, and lasted one tumultuous season as the skipper of the Boston Red Sox.That Bobby Valentine, the former ESPN commentator whose managerial career took him from the employ of George W. Bush with the Texas Rangers to the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan. And yes, the same Bobby Valentine who once disguised himself with a fake mustache in the Mets dugout after being ejected from a game. He also claims to have invented the sandwich wrap.His outsize presence as a first-time candidate who circumvented the party establishment (he will appear on the ballot as a “petitioning candidate”) has generated intrigue in the race far beyond Stamford and made it one of Connecticut’s most expensive municipal races this year. As of the start of October, the candidates had raised close to $1 million and already spent more than four times what was spent on the mayor’s race in 2017. This puts them on pace to break the $1.3 million record set in 2013.This has brought a great deal of attention, especially to Mr. Valentine, who has never held an elective office but is trying to pull together disparate voter blocs in Stamford, where Democrats outnumber Republicans more than 2 to 1 but there are nearly as many unaffiliated voters as registered Democrats.There are doubters, as Mr. Valentine, 71, a longtime Stamford restaurant owner, acknowledged on Oct. 12 in the first mayoral debate, saying that people told him he was trying to do the impossible.“I said, ‘Again?’” Mr. Valentine recounted to an audience of about 150 people at a banquet hall for the debate. “When I was told there was no way of winning in Stamford, Conn., because the voters were dumb and they were lazy, that was my call to action, to make something happen. What I want to make happen is to bring our community together. Not that our potholes are red or they’re blue. Not that our schools are D’s or they’re R’s.”His opponent is Caroline Simmons, a four-term state representative who defeated the mayor, David Martin, in the Democratic primary in September. Ms. Simmons, 35, who graduated from Harvard, previously worked on the Women’s Business Development Council in Stamford and was a special projects director for the Department of Homeland Security before that.Caroline Simmons, center, the Democratic candidate for mayor, canvassing in North Stamford this month.Desiree Rios for The New York TimesYet despite her résumé, Ms. Simmons finds herself battling a celebrity candidate with high name recognition.“It’s definitely a challenge,” Ms. Simmons said on a recent Saturday while knocking on doors and introducing herself to voters in North Stamford. “I have some friends in Boston, and they’re like, ‘What, you’re running against Bobby V?’ ”In the 2020 census, Stamford surpassed New Haven in population having attracted millennials to turnkey apartment buildings along its once-industrial waterfront and tech companies, like the job-search giant Indeed.But with growth has come high housing prices, on top of aging infrastructure and a mold crisis in public schools, all of which has been amplified during the mayoral contest.Ms. Simmons, despite her youth, is clearly the establishment candidate. She doesn’t have Mr. Valentine’s profile or history, but does have the Democratic machine in her corner. Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut campaigned in September for Ms. Simmons, whom he endorsed. On Thursday, Ms. Simmons announced that Barack Obama had given her his endorsement.Ms. Simmons also has the upper hand when it comes to ballot placement. Her name will appear on the top line as the Democratic nominee and also the third line, having been cross-endorsed by the Independent Party.Mr. Valentine’s name will appear on Line F, the equivalent to batting sixth on a lineup card, because he is not affiliated with a political party.Famous donors have gravitated toward both candidates. Bette Midler, Michael Douglas and Rita Wilson gave to Ms. Simmons. So did Larry Summers, the former Treasury secretary.Two of Mr. Valentine’s most prominent donors also dismissed him as a baseball manager: Mr. Bush with the Rangers and Larry Lucchino, the former president and chief executive of the Red Sox. The former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent gave to Mr. Valentine, who received the endorsement of police union leaders and the Republican candidate, who dropped out of the race in September.In Stamford, Democrats have controlled the mayor’s office for all but four of the past 26 years. For 14 of those years, the office was held by Dannel P. Malloy, who went on to become a two-term Connecticut governor.But Chris Russo, a former WFAN radio host who has his own channel on SiriusSM satellite radio, Mad Dog Sports Radio, thinks Mr. Valentine has the edge.“I’d be surprised if he didn’t win,” Mr. Russo, who lives in neighboring New Canaan, Conn., said in an interview. “He is Mr. Stamford, and he has been here forever. He’s got a lot to lose. If he goes in there and doesn’t do a good job, it’s going to hurt his legacy.”Mr. Valentine appeared on Mr. Russo’s show on Sept. 11 to reflect on the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, which occurred when he was managing the Mets. Mr. Russo described Mr. Valentine as “glib,” smart and a “young 70,” but acknowledged that people’s perceptions may differ, especially for those not from Stamford.“He can be a little over the top,” Mr. Russo said. “Again, Bobby’s quirky.”Bobby Valentine in 1998 during his tenure as the manager of the New York Mets.Al Bello/Getty ImagesIn one video that emerged online this year, Mr. Valentine appeared to inadvertently record himself while his dog defecated on someone’s lawn and he hurried away. The video has since been removed from YouTube.Ellen Ashkin, 70, a retired public-school teacher who lives in North Stamford and is a registered Democrat, told Ms. Simmons that she would vote for her. As she greeted Ms. Simmons on her doorstep, Ms. Ashkin was snide about Mr. Valentine’s qualifications and his ubiquitous campaign paraphernalia.“Bobby Valentine, really?” Ms. Ashkin said. “Honest to God. The signs are everywhere.”Ms. Ashkin added in an interview that Ms. Simmons faced a unique challenge.“The name recognition of Valentine is kind of scary,” she said.Ms. Simmons is married to Art Linares, a former Republican state senator who proposed to her in a full-page ad in The Stamford Advocate. She is campaigning while pregnant with their third child. She was raised in Greenwich — which the rest of the state regards as somewhat patrician — and moved to Stamford as an adult, which Mr. Valentine’s campaign has sought to exploit. Mr. Valentine frequently tells voters that his family arrived in Stamford in 1910.“I don’t think we consider her a Stamfordite,” Daniel M. McCabe, a lawyer and former longtime Stamford G.O.P. chairman, said before Mr. Valentine and Ms. Simmons debated for the first time.Ms. Simmons said in an interview that she has a proven track record of delivering results for Stamford in the Legislature.“I’ve known my constituents for years, and the issues that they care about,” she said.Early this month, Mr. Valentine regaled about 60 residents of Edgehill, a luxury retirement community, with stories about growing up as a star athlete in Stamford and being the first foreigner to manage a Japan Series winner. He called himself the “protruding nail” that the Japanese “wanted to hammer down.”Mr. Valentine making his case this month at Edgehill, a retirement community in Stamford.Desiree Rios for The New York Times“I was the manager of the year, and I was replaced as manager,” Mr. Valentine said of his career.Before entering the mayor’s race in May, Mr. Valentine spent eight years as the executive director of athletics at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, which had grown from a commuter school to the second-largest Catholic university in New England after Boston College. He boasted that he had presided over a $25 million budget at the university — a fraction of Stamford’s $615 million city and school budget. He has taken a leave of absence from the job to campaign.Mr. Valentine also emphasized his tenure a decade ago as Stamford’s public safety director in the administration of Mayor Michael Pavia, a Republican. Mr. Valentine likes to tell the story of how, when a major sewer pipe broke in 2011, inundating part of the city with millions of gallons of sewage, he went door to door, telling residents to evacuate to hotels.But Ms. Simmons has seized on Mr. Valentine’s absence from Stamford during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 — he traveled to Texas for his “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcasting duties on ESPN, a job he kept while being public safety director. A campaign mailer for Ms. Simmons noted, “When Stamford needed Bobby Valentine, he looked out for himself instead.”Dan Miller, Mr. Valentine’s campaign manager, rejected the criticism in an interview, saying that Mr. Valentine was in constant communication with city officials during the storm and had been transparent about his weekend broadcasting commitments when he took the job. Mr. Valentine offered to take no salary, but when that was not allowed donated his entire $10,000 pay to the Boys & Girls Club, Mr. Miller said.Ms. Simmons stood by her criticism.“He abandoned the people of Stamford to go to a baseball game,” she said.Still, this is as heated as it gets between the two candidates. They exchanged few barbs in the first debate, where they vowed to eradicate mold in the schools, fix potholes, cut red tape and recruit new businesses to the city.Ann Mandel, an Edgehill resident who helped to organize Mr. Valentine’s visit there, escorted him through a temperature-screening kiosk and into a community room where dozens of seniors in masks sat spaced apart. Ms. Mandel, a former elected official in Darien, Conn., told him that he could “work the crowd.”“Stamford,” Ms. Mandel told audience, “has never seen a mayoral race like this.” More