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      What Next for Dominion After Its $787.5 Million Fox Settlement

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      The election technology company has several more defamation lawsuits pending against public figures and news outlets.Dominion Voting Systems did more on Tuesday than settle its lawsuit against Fox News for $787.5 million: It also set the tone for the many related defamation cases it has filed. Legal experts say the settlement with Fox News, one of the largest defamation payouts in American history, could embolden Dominion as it continues to defend its reputation, which it says was savaged by conspiracy theories about vote fraud during the 2020 election. The company has several cases pending against public figures including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow executive, and news outlets such as Newsmax.The targets of Dominion’s remaining lawsuits, few of which have deep pockets and legal firepower at Fox’s level, will likely take a cue from Dominion and Fox’s face-off, legal experts said.“Even though it was a settlement, it certainly was a victory for Dominion,” said Margaret M. Russell, a law professor at Santa Clara University. “For other possible defendants, I don’t think this will make them double down; it will make them fearful.”Dominion is the second-largest election technology company operating in the United States, where there are few other major players. The company, whose majority owner is the private equity firm Staple Street Capital, was made “toxic” by the false fraud narratives in 2020, one of Staple Street’s founders said in court documents. At one point, Dominion estimated that misinformation cost it $600 million in profits.Fox said in its court filings that Dominion did not have to lay off employees, close offices or default on any debts, nor did it suffer any canceled business contracts as a result of the news network’s coverage. Fox said in one filing that Dominion had projected $98 million in revenue for 2022, which would make Tuesday’s settlement the equivalent of eight years of sales.Dominion’s customers are largely officials who oversee voting in states and counties around the country; the company served 28 states, as well as Puerto Rico, in the 2020 election. The false stories about fraud that were directed at the company were embraced by some local election officials.In court documents, an expert enlisted by Dominion said that the company had very low early contract termination rates and very high contract renewal rates before the 2020 election, but blamed the preoccupation with the false fraud claims for prompting some clients to exit deals after the vote.Now, Dominion has emerged from its tussle with Fox in a stronger position to win back any skittish clients or score new business, legal experts said.Last month, the judge in Dominion’s case against Fox reviewed evidence of the false claims and wrote that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” effectively confirming that the company was aboveboard.The secretary of state of New Mexico, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, applauded Tuesday’s settlement.“The harm done by election lies/denialism since 2020 is immeasurable, but this settlement against Fox News provides accountability & sends a strong message we’re happy to see,” Ms. Toulouse Oliver wrote on Twitter. During the midterm primaries last year, she blamed “unfounded conspiracy theories” when she sued officials in Otero county who had cited concerns about Dominion machines in their refusal to certify election results.Fox acknowledged in a statement on Tuesday that some of the claims it had made about Dominion were false, saying that the admission “reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”John Poulos, Dominion’s founder and chief executive, said in a statement on Tuesday that Fox caused “enormous damage” to his company and “nothing can ever make up for that.” He also thanked the election officials who make up Dominion’s clientele, and nodded to Staple Street’s support. “Lies have consequences,” a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems said during a news conference.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesDominion drew some complaints that by settling, it had given up the opportunity to extract an apology from Fox or force it through a potentially embarrassing trial. An opinion article in the Daily Beast bemoaned that the voting technology company had “decided to step out of the ring with a bag of money instead of vanquishing one of the country’s most destructive and influential peddlers of hate and disinformation.”Mr. Poulos called the settlement “a big step forward for democracy” in an interview with ABC News broadcast on Wednesday.Legal experts noted that even if Dominion had prevailed in a jury verdict, it would have risked years of expensive battles over appeals from Fox.“The tort of defamation is not about saving democracy from liars,” said Enrique Armijo, a professor and First Amendment expert at Elon University School of Law. “It’s about saving the reputation of the people who have been lied about and making those liars compensate them for the harms to their reputations.”Fox still faces other legal challenges, including a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from another election technology company, Smartmatic. Fox said it planned to defend freedom of the press in the case and called Smartmatic’s damages claims “outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis.” Smartmatic said in a statement that, after the Dominion settlement, it “will expose the rest” of the “misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign.”Dominion, too, has more cases pending, including against the pro-Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and One America News Network. Although the lawsuits involve similar false claims of election fraud, the facts of each case vary, experts said.Attorneys for Mr. Lindell and Mr. Giuliani did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Newsmax or OAN.For the individuals and smaller companies facing legal claims, for whom a substantial jury judgment could be an “existential” threat, settlement may seem more attractive after Tuesday, Mr. Armijo said.“They’re not going to be able to put up the same level of defense that Fox did; they just don’t have the resources to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to see the other defamation defendants in the remaining cases getting any further than Fox did, which, as we saw, is not very far.” More

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      Where the Likely 2024 Presidential Contenders Stand on Abortion

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      Not quite a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion continues to be one of the main issues shaping American politics.Abortion is not fading as a driving issue in America, coming up again and again everywhere policy is decided: in legislatures, courts, the Oval Office and voting booths.An 11-point liberal victory in a pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court race last week was fueled by the issue. Days later, a Texas judge invalidated the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion drug mifepristone (late Wednesday, an appeals court partly stayed the ruling but imposed some restrictions). And Florida, under Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely Republican presidential candidate, is poised to ban abortion after six weeks’ gestation.The fallout from the Supreme Court’s revocation of a constitutional right to abortion last year looks poised to be a major issue in the upcoming presidential race. So where do the likely candidates stand?Here is what some of the most prominent contenders, declared and likely, have said and done:Anti-abortion protesters rallying in Indiana last July while lawmakers there debated an abortion ban during a special session.Kaiti Sullivan for The New York TimesPresident BidenPresident Biden condemned the ruling invalidating the approval of mifepristone, which his administration is appealing, and called it “another unprecedented step in taking away basic freedoms from women and putting their health at risk.”Mr. Biden has a complicated history with abortion; before his 2020 presidential campaign, he supported restrictions, including the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for most abortions. But he has since spoken more forcefully in defense of unfettered access, including endorsing congressional codification of the rights Roe v. Wade used to protect.White House officials have said he is not willing to disregard the mifepristone ruling, as some abortion-rights activists have urged.Mr. Biden has said he is planning to run in 2024, but has not formally declared his candidacy.Donald J. TrumpMore than perhaps any other Republican, former President Donald J. Trump is responsible for the current state of abortion access: He appointed three of the six Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and the district judge who invalidated the approval of mifepristone. But lately, he has been loath to talk about it.Last year, Mr. Trump privately expressed concern that the ruling overturning Roe would hurt Republicans — and it did, both in the midterms and in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.If elected again, he would be under tremendous pressure from the social conservatives who have fueled the Republican Party for decades — and who helped elect him in 2016 — to support a national ban. He has not said whether he would do so.Ron DeSantisGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom polls show as the top potential Republican competitor to Mr. Trump, is pushing forward with the Florida Legislature to ban most abortions after six weeks. The bill passed on Thursday and was sent to Mr. DeSantis’s desk. Polls show that most Americans, including Floridians, oppose six-week bans.It is a more aggressive posture than he took last year, when Florida enacted a ban after 15 weeks and Mr. DeSantis — facing re-election in November — did not commit to going further. He made his move after winning re-election by a sweeping margin.Nikki HaleyAt a campaign event in Iowa this week, Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador, gestured away from anti-abortion absolutism — saying that she did not “want unelected judges deciding something this personal.”But her comments were muddled: She said she wanted to leave the issue to the states, but at the same time suggested that she would be open to a federal ban if she thought there was momentum for one.“This is about saving as many babies as we can,” she said, while adding that she did not want to play the “game” of specifying when in pregnancy she believed abortion should be allowed.Asa HutchinsonSince starting his presidential campaign this month, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas has said only that he is “proud to stand squarely on my pro-life position” when it comes to abortion.He has not detailed what, if any, federal legislation he would support.Last year, Mr. Hutchinson criticized the lack of an exception for rape and incest in an Arkansas abortion ban he had signed. When he signed it, he said that he wanted the exception but legislators didn’t, and that he accepted their judgment as the will of voters — though a poll last year found that more than 70 percent of Arkansans supported such an exception.Mike PenceA staunch social conservative, former Vice President Mike Pence has been more open than most Republicans about continuing to advertise his opposition to abortion.“Life won again today,” he said in a statement on the mifepristone ruling. “When it approved chemical abortions on demand, the F.D.A. acted carelessly and with blatant disregard for human life.” Last year, Mr. Pence said anti-abortion activists “must not rest” until abortion was outlawed nationwide. Mr. Pence is considering a 2024 run, but has not formally joined the race.Tim ScottSenator Tim Scott of South Carolina repeatedly dodged questions about whether he supported federal restrictions on abortion in the days after announcing a presidential exploratory committee this week.Asked in an interview with CBS News whether he supported a 15-week ban, he called himself “100 percent pro-life.” When the interviewer suggested that his stance indicated he would support a 15-week ban, he replied, “That’s not what I said.”On Thursday, he told WMUR, a New Hampshire news station, that he would support a 20-week ban, but still did not say whether he would back something stricter. More

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      Fox News Sanctioned by Judge for Withholding Evidence in Dominion Case

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      Judge Eric Davis also said an investigation was likely into Fox’s handling of documents and whether it had withheld details about Rupert Murdoch’s corporate role.WILMINGTON, Del. — The judge overseeing Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News said on Wednesday that he was imposing a sanction on the network and would very likely start an investigation into whether Fox’s legal team had deliberately withheld evidence, scolding the lawyers for not being “straightforward” with him.The rebuke came after lawyers for Dominion, which is suing for defamation, revealed a number of instances in which Fox’s lawyers had not turned over evidence in a timely manner. That evidence included recordings of the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking with former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, which Dominion said had been turned over only a week ago.In imposing the sanction on Fox, Judge Eric M. Davis of the Delaware Superior Court ruled that if Dominion had to do additional depositions, or redo any, then Fox would have to “do everything they can to make the person available, and it will be at a cost to Fox.”He also said he would very likely appoint a special master — an outside lawyer — to investigate Fox’s handling of discovery of documents and the question of whether Fox had inappropriately withheld details about the scope of Rupert Murdoch’s role. Since Dominion filed its suit in early 2021, Fox had argued that Mr. Murdoch and Fox Corporation, the parent company, should not be part of the case because Mr. Murdoch, the chair, and other senior executives had nothing to do with running Fox News. But in the past few days, Fox disclosed to Dominion that Mr. Murdoch was a corporate officer at Fox News.Dominion, a voting technology company, accused Fox and some of the network’s executives and hosts of smearing its reputation by linking it to a nonexistent conspiracy to rig voting machines in the 2020 presidential election. Fox had said that it was just reporting on newsworthy allegations from Mr. Trump, who was then the president, as well as his lawyers and supporters, who told Fox’s hosts and producers that they would prove their allegations in court.Fox’s lawyers had only recently disclosed that Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox Corp., was also the executive chair of Fox News, a role that pointed to more responsibility for its broadcasts.Mike Segar/ReutersJury selection starts on Thursday, and the trial is scheduled to begin on Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Dominion would avail itself of the judge’s ruling allowing its lawyers to conduct additional depositions. But it was clear from Judge Davis’s stern reprimand of Fox’s lawyers on Wednesday — and similarly piqued remarks from him during another hearing on Tuesday — that he was losing patience. The judge told Fox’s lawyers to retain all internal communications, starting from March 20 of this year, that related to Mr. Murdoch’s role at Fox News. That was the date the lawyers submitted a letter to Judge Davis asking that Mr. Murdoch and other Fox Corporation executives not be forced to testify at the trial in person, saying they had “limited knowledge of pertinent facts.” The letter did not mention that Mr. Murdoch was also a Fox News executive.Judge Davis said he would weigh whether any additional sanctions should be placed on Fox.He also said he was very concerned that there had been “misrepresentations to the court.”“This is very serious,” Judge Davis said.Davida Brook, a lawyer for Dominion, told the court that they were still receiving relevant documents from Fox, with the trial just days away.“We keep on learning about more relevant information from individuals other than Fox,” she said. “And to be honest we don’t really know what to do about that, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.”She pointed to one email that had recently been handed over, between Ms. Bartiromo and Ms. Powell on Nov. 7, 2020. In the email, Ms. Powell was forwarding evidence to Ms. Bartiromo that Dominion said was proof Fox had acted recklessly: an email from a woman Ms. Powell relied on as a source who exhibited signs of delusion, claiming, for instance, that she was aware of voter fraud because she had special powers, including the ability to time travel.“I just spoke to Eric and told him you gave very imp info,” Ms. Bartiromo wrote back to Ms. Powell, most likely referring to Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s son.Ms. Brook also played two recordings for the court of pre-interviews, which are preliminary conversations before an on-air interview, conducted by Ms. Bartiromo that Ms. Brook said were received only after they were revealed in legal complaints filed by Abby Grossberg, a former Fox News producer who is suing the network.The evidence included recordings of the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo talking with former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani.Roy Rochlin/Getty ImagesIn one of the recordings, on Nov. 8, 2020, Ms. Bartiromo asks Mr. Giuliani about Dominion’s software. In it, he admits that he doesn’t have hard evidence to back up the claim that the software could be manipulated, saying it was “being analyzed right now.” When Ms. Bartiromo asks about a conspiracy theory circulating at the time that claimed Dominion was connected to Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, Mr. Giuliani says: “Yeah, I’ve read that. I can’t prove that yet.”A Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement on Wednesday: “As counsel explained to the court, Fox produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it.”Justin Nelson, another lawyer for Dominion, told Judge Davis that had Fox Corporation, the parent company, been quicker to share the information about Mr. Murdoch’s role as an officer of Fox News, the universe of documents Dominion could have obtained during discovery from him and other Fox Corporation executives would have been much larger. He also said that Fox might have failed to produce relevant documents.“We have been litigating based upon this false premise that Rupert Murdoch wasn’t an officer of Fox News,” he said.The question of whether Mr. Murdoch made decisions as a corporate officer of Fox News cuts to the heart of Dominion’s case. It has tried to prove — and Fox has repeatedly denied — that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation, were closely involved in overseeing Fox News coverage of the 2020 election. Their decisions, Dominion has argued, directly affected what Fox broadcast about the voting technology company and, more broadly, fed a climate inside the network where hosts and producers amplified misinformation as part of a plan to win back viewers who had stopped watching after Mr. Trump’s loss.Proving so would mean that the larger Fox Corporation — not just Fox News — could also be found liable for defaming Dominion.Mr. Nelson argued that the case should be split in two so that Dominion lawyers could separately pursue action against Fox Corporation now that Dominion could obtain more information from executives. Judge Davis declined, but he expressed concern that Fox’s legal team had not been forthcoming with the information, despite being asked multiple times whether Mr. Murdoch was a corporate officer for Fox News.“I need people to tell me the truth,” he said. “And by the way, omission is a lie.”Dan K. Webb, a lawyer for Fox, pushed back on the assertion from Dominion, saying that both he and even Mr. Murdoch didn’t realize he also held the executive chair role at Fox News.“On a day-to-day basis, Mr. Rupert Murdoch had nothing to do with making decisions with what goes on the air on Fox News,” Mr. Webb said.In an emailed statement, a Fox News spokeswoman said: “Rupert Murdoch has been listed as executive chairman of Fox News in our S.E.C. filings since 2019 and this filing was referenced by Dominion’s own attorney during his deposition.”Judge Davis admonished Fox’s lawyers, saying he had previously asked for clarity on who had corporate responsibilities at Fox News but had not heard back.“What do I do with attorneys that aren’t straightforward with me?” he asked. More

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      Judge Limits Fox’s Options for Defense in Dominion Trial

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      A Delaware judge said Fox News could not argue newsworthiness to defend airing false claims, and limited how Dominion Voting Systems could refer to the Jan. 6 attack.WILMINGTON, Del. — A judge ruled on Tuesday that Fox News could not argue that it broadcast false information about Dominion Voting Systems on the basis that the allegations were newsworthy, limiting a key line of defense for the network as it faces the beginning of a potentially costly defamation trial next week.The judge, Eric M. Davis of Delaware Superior Court, also ruled that Dominion could not refer to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol except in very narrow circumstances, saying he did not want jurors to be prejudiced by events that weren’t relevant to the central question in the case: Did Fox air wild claims about Dominion’s purported involvement in a conspiracy to steal the 2020 presidential election from Donald J. Trump knowing that they were lies?In the first of two days of pretrial hearings, Judge Davis set many of the parameters that will govern how the trial is run, including what kinds of arguments the 12-person jury can hear and what questions lawyers may ask during jury selection to weed out those they believe would not be impartial.The hearing covered matters large and seemingly small, from the application of the First Amendment to how jurors may take notes.Judge Davis said he would allow lawyers to ask potential jurors about their cable news viewing habits and whether they watched Fox News programs — or intentionally avoided them. He will not, however, permit questions about how someone voted.In another ruling, the judge denied a motion from Dominion that sought to limit how Fox lawyers could invoke the First Amendment, leaving the network with some space to argue that the Constitution shields it from liability.The lawsuit, in which Dominion is seeking $1.6 billion in damages, is teeing up a major test of the First Amendment and, depending on the outcome, could renew questions about whether defamation law adequately protects victims of misinformation campaigns.While legal experts have said Dominion’s case is unusually strong, defamation suits are extremely difficult to win because the law essentially requires proof of the defendants’ state of mind. Dominion’s burden will be to convince a jury that people inside Fox acted with actual malice, meaning either that they knew the allegations they broadcast were false but did so anyway, or that they acted so recklessly they overlooked facts that would have proved them wrong.Fox has argued that while it understood many of the claims made by its guests about Dominion were false, they were still worth covering as inherently newsworthy. Fox’s lawyers have taken the position that there is nothing more newsworthy than claims by a former president of the United States that an election wasn’t credible.Judge Eric M. Davis said he would allow lawyers to ask potential jurors about their cable news viewing habits and whether they watched Fox News programs.John Taggart for The New York TimesBut Judge Davis disagreed.“Just because someone is newsworthy doesn’t mean you can defame someone,” he said, referring to pro-Trump lawyers like Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, who appeared repeatedly on Fox News and Fox Business in the weeks after the 2020 election and linked Dominion to various conspiracy theories.The judge admonished Fox’s lawyers, saying they cannot make the argument that the false statements about Dominion came from guests like Ms. Powell and not from Fox hosts. That argument is irrelevant, he said, because the fact remains that Fox is responsible as the broadcaster.Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani. The pro-Trump lawyers appeared repeatedly on Fox News and Fox Business in the weeks after the 2020 election and linked Dominion to various conspiracy theories.Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press“It’s a publication issue, not a who-said-it issue,” he said.Dan K. Webb, a lawyer representing Fox, explained that hosts would testify that they weren’t certain about the truth of the allegations but covered them because the former president and his lawyers said they could prove them.“The hosts will say during that time period, 15, 20 days, they were careful not to repeat the allegation,” Mr. Webb said.Judge Davis responded, “Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it’s true.”It was not the only tense exchange between the judge and Fox lawyers on Tuesday. At one point, a lawyer for Dominion, Justin Nelson, informed Judge Davis that Fox had disclosed only within the last 48 hours that Rupert Murdoch, whose family controls the Fox media empire, had a larger role in Fox News than the company had initially let on.By not acknowledging the extent of Mr. Murdoch’s responsibility for Fox News, the personal communications of his that Dominion could review were “significantly more limited,” Mr. Nelson said.Judge Davis was not pleased. “This is a problem,” he said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me that it’s true,” he added.Fox has also made the argument that its actions were not defamatory because many hosts and guests said on the air that there was a lack of convincing evidence that suggested widespread voter fraud.Judge Davis rejected this position, too.“You can’t absolve yourself of defamation by merely putting somebody on at another time to say something different,” he said.In asking for such a large settlement against Fox, Dominion has cited the death threats its employees have received. People have shown up outside its Denver headquarters armed and left voice mail messages threatening to blow up its offices.Judge Davis on Tuesday limited how Dominion can refer to those threats in front of jurors, ruling that it may not mention specific content. He said he did not want to leave jurors with the impression that Fox was responsible for the actions of third parties.The trial begins on Monday, with jury selection expected to wrap up by the end of this week.Before Tuesday, the judge had already ruled that Dominion could compel several high-profile Fox executives and hosts to testify in person, including Mr. Murdoch; Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media; and the Fox News personalities Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro. More

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      In Hundreds of Jan. 6 Cases, Justice Dept. Wins a Battle (for Now)

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      The ruling of a federal court left open the possibility of future challenges to a law that has been used against hundreds of people charged in the Capitol attack.A federal appeals court on Friday upheld the viability of a criminal charge that has been used against hundreds of people indicted in connection with the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — and that congressional investigators have recommended using in a potential criminal case against former President Donald J. Trump.The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia means that the charge — the obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress — can continue to be used in the Justice Department’s prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 riot. It could also ultimately be used against Mr. Trump should the special counsel, Jack Smith, decide to file a case against him related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.But even though the three-judge panel, in a 2-1 ruling, left in place the status quo and temporarily avoided crippling hundreds of Jan. 6 cases by invalidating the obstruction count, it still presented a serious challenge to the Justice Department moving forward.A provision of the law requires proving that any interference with a congressional proceeding be done “corruptly.” Two of the judges said they were inclined to define that term in a narrow way as receiving a personal benefit — even though the panel as a whole put off a final decision on the issue.The split decision left wiggle room for defense lawyers to try a flurry of complicated new efforts to invalidate the charge in all of the cases in which it has been used.A future ruling that narrowed the definition of “corruptly” could have significant effects on the Jan. 6 prosecutions.It could bar the Justice Department from using the obstruction count against defendants who did not commit other unlawful acts like assaulting a police officer. It could even lead to the charge being dropped in situations in which defendants did not personally benefit from the obstruction they are accused of taking part in — circumstances that could be hard to apply to Jan. 6 defendants.Almost from the start of the vast investigation of the Capitol attack, prosecutors have used the obstruction count to describe the event at the heart of Jan. 6: how, by storming the Capitol that day, members of a pro-Trump mob disrupted the certification of Mr. Trump’s electoral defeat that was taking place inside during a joint session of Congress.Defense lawyers have long maintained that prosecutors overreached in their use of the law, stretching the statute beyond its intended scope and using it to criminalize behavior that too closely resembled protest protected by the First Amendment. In December, they challenged the viability of the law in arguments in front of the appeals court, making various claims that the charge was a poor fit for what happened at the Capitol and that it should not have been used against any of the rioters.In its ruling, the appellate panel acknowledged that the obstruction count had never been used in the way it has been used in Jan. 6 cases, but decided that it was nonetheless a viable charge in the riot prosecutions. The ruling reversed decisions made in three separate Jan. 6 cases by Judge Carl J. Nichols, the only judge in Federal District Court in Washington, where the cases are being heard, to have struck down the obstruction charge..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The obstruction charge — formally known in the penal code as 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) — was never a perfect fit for the many cases stemming from the Capitol attack. It was passed into law as part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which sought to clamp down on corporate malfeasance.The measure was initially intended to prohibit actions like shredding documents that were part of a congressional proceeding. In his initial rulings, Judge Nichols said the count had been used inappropriately because the cases of the three rioters he was considering had nothing to do with destroying or tampering with documents or records.The appellate panel — made up of two Trump appointees and one judge appointed by President Biden — ruled that Judge Nichols’s interpretation of the law was too narrow and that the obstruction committed by the three defendants in question did not have to relate solely to documents.The panel noted that the defendants had been rightfully charged with obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The cases included those of Joseph Fischer, a Pennsylvania police officer accused of pushing at law enforcement officers during the Capitol attack; Garret Miller, a Dallas man charged with storming the building and facing off with officers inside; and Edward Jacob Lang, a self-described social media influencer from New York who prosecutors say attacked the police with a baseball bat.The obstruction charge has been used so far in more than 300 riot cases, including against prominent defendants in far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia. Part of the appeal of the count to prosecutors is that it carries a hefty maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.In December, in one of its final acts, the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 included the obstruction count in its recommendations to the Justice Department of what charges should be filed against Mr. Trump. A federal judge in California, considering a lawsuit stemming from the committee’s work, separately determined that Mr. Trump had likely committed obstruction as defined by the law.The appellate panel reserved judgment on the definition of “corruptly” because it was not directly part of the appeal of Judge Nichols’s earlier decisions, leaving open the possibility of future challenges on that issue.In its arguments before the appeals court, the government claimed that acting corruptly should be broadly construed and include various unlawful behavior like destroying government property or assaulting police officers. The defense had argued for a narrower interpretation, seeking to define the term as acting illegally to procure something to directly benefit oneself or another person.The panel split on the issue, with two of the judges — Gregory G. Katsas and Justin R. Walker — agreeing on the narrow, more personal view of “corruptly.” The third judge, Florence Y. Pan, took the broader view of the term but was able to get Judge Walker to vote with her to uphold the obstruction law overall.Judge Walker only agreed to join Judge Pan if they adopted the narrow definition, setting up a conflict that will, eventually, have to be resolved. More

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      Trump Will Be Indicted Today. Clinton Will Be Honored.

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      Hours after Donald Trump appears in court, his former opponent, Hillary Clinton, will be the honoree at a dinner 10 blocks from Trump Tower.Good morning. It’s Tuesday. We’ll look at one of those coincidences in scheduling that can only happen in New York. We’ll also look at whether a court ruling might prompt prosecutors to abandon difficult cases.Mark Kauzlarich/The New York TimesToday New York will be focused on the arraignment of a former president, the first proceeding of its kind in American history.But other things are on the day’s agenda besides Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance for booking, fingerprinting and entering a plea in court. This evening a private club on East 66th Street will continue a tradition dating to the 1870s with a black-tie dinner.The honoree will be Hillary Clinton, who lost the presidency to Trump in 2016.The timing is a coincidence, said John Sussek III, the president of the Lotos Club. The date was chosen around the beginning of the year, long before the grand jury hearing the case against Trump voted on the indictment that brought Trump to Manhattan from Mar-a-Lago, his resort in Florida.“We have had princes and princesses, senators and congressmen,” Sussek said, noting that one recent honoree was Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leader in the federal response to the pandemic. Another past honoree was Robert Morgenthau, a predecessor of Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, whose office brought the case against Trump.The criteria, Sussek said, “are essentially an individual who has made great contributions in whatever field or fields they’re in. It’s recognition of their accomplishments in society.”The club, which took its name from the lotos-leaf-eaters in a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, has held state dinners since the 1870s. Its early members included Samuel Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, who took a nap during the 12-course meal lauding him. Also on the club’s membership roll in its early years was John Hay, who held a job that Clinton later took; he was secretary of state under President William McKinley and President Theodore Roosevelt.Democrats and Republicans have been cheered at state dinners, as the club calls gatherings like the one tonight. Former President Harry Truman, a Democrat, and former President Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican, were each hailed at state dinners after leaving the White House. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court was celebrated at one in 1996, a couple of years after President Bill Clinton nominated her to the court.Over the years, the club has invited people with no political connections, including the Yankees star Joe DiMaggio, the astronaut John Glenn and at least two musical theater teams: Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II (of “Oklahoma!” and “South Pacific,” among others) and John Kander and Fred Ebb (of “Cabaret” and “Chicago”).Lotos gives state dinner honorees lifetime memberships ($4,800 a year for regular resident members). Clinton will also be presented with a small bust of Ginsburg by the sculptor Zenos Frudakis, a Lotos member who did the larger busts of Twain and Ulysses S. Grant at the club.“You may recall what Donald Trump said in 2016, that if we voted for Hillary Clinton we’d have a criminal president under constant investigation and who would soon be indicted,” Sussek said in the speech he planned to deliver tonight. “And you know what? Trump was right. I voted for Hillary Clinton and ended up with a criminal president under constant investigation and has now just been indicted.”WeatherIt’s a partly sunny day near the high 60s. Expect a chance of showers at night, with temps around the low 50s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Thursday (Passover).The latest New York newsJustin Lane/EPA, via ShutterstockTrump indictmentTrump in New York: Donald Trump arrived in New York on Monday, kicking off a 24-hour visit that will culminate with a polarizing arraignment in the city where he grew up and rose to the fame that catapulted him to the presidency.Jan. 6: Trump’s arraignment differs from the Capitol riot, but law enforcement’s response is informed by lessons learned on Jan. 6, as well as the nationwide protests against police violence.CrimeA cold-case detective’s quest: Jasmine Porter’s 4-year-old son watched as a man killed her in their Bronx apartment in 1996. In 2020, a police investigator began trying to crack the case.Arrests made for murders and robberies: Three men were arrested and charged in connection with a series of killings and robberies at Manhattan gay bars.More local newsConstruction workers dead: Two workers were killed at Kennedy International Airport when they were buried under construction rubble inside a trench, officials said.Yeshiva University scrutiny on funding: A lawmaker asked a state inspector to look at millions given to Yeshiva University, which has argued it is a religious institution, not an educational one, to justify its ban on an L.G.B.T.Q. club.The suburbs and the housing debate: Gov. Kathy Hochul is promoting a housing plan that she says could create 800,000 new homes across the state over the next decade. Officials from Westchester County and Long Island are resisting the effort.Could a recent ruling give prosecutors a reason to abandon difficult cases?Christopher Lee for The New York TimesA recent decision by New York State’s highest court invalidated a rape conviction. Advocates for sexual assault survivors worry that the ruling could give prosecutors a reason not to bring sexual assault charges when the victim and the defendant know each other and there are no other witnesses.My colleague Maria Cramer writes that the 4-to-2 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals could also give defendants a reason to do everything they can to resist investigations and run out the clock.That is because the court threw out the first-degree rape conviction of Andrew Regan, noting that it took 31 months to obtain a warrant for a DNA sample. Judge Rowan Wilson wrote in the majority opinion that prosecutors had violated Regan’s rights to speedy prosecution, as guaranteed by a state law intended to prevent prosecutors from slow-walking cases without good reason.The court acknowledged that vacating his conviction could create “a genuine risk that a guilty person will not be punished, or, as in this case, not finish out his full sentence.” Regan was in the ninth year of a 12-year sentence when the ruling was handed down last month.The case began in 2009, when two couples went drinking after attending a wedding. At the end of the night, one of the four, a 22-year-old woman, invited her boyfriend and the other couple to stay at her home in upstate Norwood, N.Y.The woman went to sleep alone but woke during the night to find the other man, Regan, crushing her beneath him, according to court documents. She woke her boyfriend and told him she had been sexually assaulted, and they called the police. Regan was interviewed and released. At a hospital, a nurse collected evidence with a rape kit.The investigation dragged on for four years, in part because prosecutors in St. Lawrence County said they did not know how to obtain a warrant to get a DNA sample from Regan, something he repeatedly refused to provide. The police had taken a DNA sample from the woman’s boyfriend after she reported the assault and found that it did not match the semen on her underwear. Regan told the police he had not had sex with her.The prosecutors struggled for at least a year over how to obtain his DNA, a straightforward procedure that involves submitting an affidavit to a judge. The woman said that in the years that followed the incident, she had called the district attorney’s office in St. Lawrence County or the police at least once a month to find out what was happening with the case. She said that new investigators were assigned to the case at least three times, but no one provided a clear explanation for the delays.Gary Pasqua, who became the St. Lawrence County district attorney in 2018, said he did not believe that the ruling would set a precedent — even though Judge Madeline Singas wrote in a dissenting opinion that the decision would “be weaponized against victims.”She said the court “fails to appreciate the practice implications of the precedent they are creating: If law enforcement negligently delays rape investigations, women’s voices will continue to be stifled, rapists held unaccountable and jury verdicts discarded.”METROPOLITAN diaryDirtDear Diary:At Prince StreetI suck a smalltart found in apocket nest oftobacco and lintfrom last winter.The train pulls in.A woman isfolding a mapmouthing the routeto herself,girls in dark lipsticksget on, talkingloudly of rats,drowning the chime.The doors shudderthen close, openand shut once more.I’m nodding offby 34thand top out atTimes Square, each spotlighted a show:saxophone playerin shorts blows outworkable riffscasting for earswith a brass pole.A conductresstelling stories.An old sailorconsiders fakeson black velvet.Further up agospel singerin beads and gown,a man rentinga telescope aimedat the moon.— William ClarkIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Fox News Suffers Major Setback in Dominion Case

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      A judge said the suit would go to trial, for a jury to weigh whether the network knowingly spread false claims about Dominion Voting Systems, and to determine any damages.Fox News suffered a significant setback on Friday in its defense against a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that claims it lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election.A judge in Delaware Superior Court said the case, brought by Dominion Voting Systems, was strong enough to conclude that Fox hosts and guests had repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a fictitious plot to steal the election from President Donald J. Trump.“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding,” Judge Eric M. Davis wrote, demonstrates that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true.”Judge Davis said the case would proceed to trial, for a jury to weigh whether Fox spread false claims about Dominion while knowing that they were untrue, and to determine any damages. The trial is expected to begin April 17.But he rejected much of the heart of Fox’s defense: that the First Amendment protected the statements made on its air alleging that the election had somehow been stolen. Fox has argued that it was merely reporting on allegations of voter fraud as inherently newsworthy and that any statements its hosts made about supposed fraud were covered under the Constitution as opinion.“It appears oxymoronic to call the statements ‘opinions’ while also asserting the statements are newsworthy allegations and/or substantially accurate reports of official proceedings,” Judge Davis said.For example, in a “Lou Dobbs Tonight” broadcast on Nov. 24, 2020, Mr. Dobbs said: “I think many Americans have given no thought to electoral fraud that would be perpetrated through electronic voting; that is, these machines, these electronic voting companies including Dominion, prominently Dominion, at least in the suspicions of a lot of Americans.”The judge said that statement was asserting a fact, rather than an opinion, about Dominion.Under defamation law, Dominion must prove that Fox either knowingly spread false information or did so with reckless disregard for the truth, meaning that it had reason to believe that the information it broadcast was false.Numerous legal experts have said that Dominion has presented ample evidence that Fox hosts and producers were aware of what they were doing.RonNell Andersen Jones, a law professor and First Amendment scholar at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law, said the judge had signaled that he disagreed with many of Fox’s arguments.“The case will head to the jury with several of the key elements already decided in Dominion’s favor,” Ms. Anderson Jones said.Dominion, in a statement, said: “We are gratified by the court’s thorough ruling soundly rejecting all of Fox’s arguments and defenses, and finding as a matter of law that their statements about Dominion are false. We look forward to going to trial.”A spokeswoman for Fox said the case “is and always has been about the First Amendment protections of the media’s absolute right to cover the news.”“Fox will continue to fiercely advocate for the rights of free speech and a free press as we move into the next phase of these proceedings,” she added.Both parties had asked for the judge to grant summary judgment, meaning to rule in their favor on the merits of the evidence that each side had produced so far, including at a pretrial hearing last week. Dominion has argued that texts and emails between Fox executives and hosts proved that many knew the claims were false but put them on the air anyway.Fox has accused Dominion of cherry-picking evidence and argued that the First Amendment protected it because it was reporting on newsworthy allegations.In Friday’s decision, Judge Davis said damages, if they were awarded to Dominion, would be calculated by the jury. Lawyers for Fox pushed back on Dominion’s claim for $1.6 billion in previous hearings, arguing that the company had overstated its valuation and failed to show it suffered any loss of business.Fox has argued that Fox Corp, the parent company of Fox News, was not involved in the broadcasting of the allegedly defamatory statements. In the decision, the judge left that question up to a jury.The case is the highest profile so far to test whether allies of former President Donald J. Trump would be held accountable for spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election. The prosecutions of those who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, have mostly been focused on petty criminals and low-level agitators.Major revelations have been buried in the suit’s filings. Hundreds of pages of internal emails and messages in the weeks around the 2020 election, some of which were redacted, showed that many Fox executives and hosts did not believe the false claims of voter fraud they were broadcasting and made derogatory comments about Mr. Trump and his legal advisers.Tucker Carlson, the popular prime-time host, described Mr. Trump as “a demonic force, a destroyer” in a text with his producer. In a separate message to the host Laura Ingraham, Mr. Carlson said Sidney Powell, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, was lying about the fraud claims, but “our viewers are good people and they believe it.”The trove of messages also revealed the panic inside Fox News in the weeks after the election. Leaders including Suzanne Scott, the network’s chief executive, and Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of its parent company, fretted about angering viewers who felt the network had betrayed Mr. Trump when it correctly called Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr.As some of those viewers left for more right-wing channels like Newsmax in the days after the election, Ms. Scott told Mr. Murdoch in an email that she intended to “pivot but keep the audience who loves us and trusts us.” She added: “We need to make sure they know we aren’t abandoning them and still champions for them.”Mr. Murdoch acknowledged in his deposition that some Fox News hosts had “endorsed” the false fraud claims. He added that he “would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight.”The suit has also had a recent complicating factor: A former Fox News producer filed her own lawsuits against the company this month, claiming that the network’s lawyers coerced her into giving a misleading testimony in the Dominion case. Fox News fired the producer, Abby Grossberg, who worked for the host Maria Bartiromo and Mr. Carlson, after she filed the complaints.On Monday, Ms. Grossberg’s lawyers filed her errata sheet, which witnesses use to correct mistakes in their depositions. She revised her comments to say she did not trust the producers at Fox with whom she worked because they were “activists, not journalists, and impose their political agendas on the programming.”Judge Davis’s ruling sets the stage for one of the most consequential media trials in recent history, with the possibility that Fox executives and hosts could be called to testify in person.In several recent hearings, the judge indicated that he was losing patience with Fox lawyers and their objections to Dominion’s efforts to introduce evidence into the record. And he said on Friday that he believed Dominion was correct in asserting that Fox had not “conducted good-faith, disinterested reporting.” More

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      Biden’s Response to Trump’s Indictment? 4 Ways to Say No Comment.

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      President Biden believes that presidents should not comment on pending legal matters. He also does not want to be baited into a reaction.WASHINGTON — President Biden has nothing to say about the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump. He had so little to say to reporters on Friday, in fact, that he said nothing in four different ways:Would the indictment divide the country? “I have no comment on that.”Was he worried about protests? “No. I’m not going to talk about the Trump indictment.”What did the indictment say about the rule of law? “I have no comment at all.”Are the charges politically motivated? “I have no comment on Trump.”The strategy behind his “no comment” response is twofold: Mr. Biden and his advisers want to avoid a situation in which Mr. Trump tries to bait him into a reaction, according to two people familiar with the thinking inside the White House.But most of all, White House officials say, Mr. Biden believes that presidents should not comment on pending legal matters. (Not commenting on legal investigations, of course, was a common practice for presidents until Mr. Trump took office.)Mr. Biden’s strategy encapsules the argument he is making as he prepares to run for a second term, with Mr. Trump as a potential opponent: that he can project calm and competence while Mr. Trump continues to sow chaos.So, as he fielded questions while leaving the White House to visit a part of Mississippi that has been battered by recent storms, the president almost studiously ignored his predecessor, who has gone on the attack against Democrats and members of the Biden family since the indictment news broke.The strategy, now and always, has been not to respond, even in recent days, when Mr. Trump warned of “potential death and destruction” if he were to face indictment. Early Friday morning, Mr. Trump posted a message to his social media account: “WHERE’S HUNTER?” — a reference to Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who is facing a federal investigation into his business dealings.“Absolutely, they should stay the hell out of it,” David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, said in an interview. “There’s nothing that Trump wants more than for the White House to try to chime in. It would help him make this whole thing look like a big Democratic political conspiracy, which it’s not.”The indictment of Mr. Trump, which stems from his role in paying hush money to a porn star, is a first that will test the country’s legal and political institutions. Still, Mr. Biden has faced questions about Mr. Trump’s legal exposure for years. In October 2020, Mr. Biden was asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC how a Biden Justice Department would handle the evidence produced in the Mueller investigation, which examined the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and interference in the 2016 election.People in favor of the indictment posed for pictures in front of the White House. Kenny Holston/The New York Times“What the Biden Justice Department will do is let the Department of Justice be the Department of Justice,” Mr. Biden said. “Let them make the judgments of who should be prosecuted. They are not my lawyers. They are not my personal lawyers.”But he does have opinions. In the past, Mr. Biden privately told his close circle of advisers that Mr. Trump posed a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted for his role in the events of Jan. 6, according to two people familiar with his comments. He also told confidants that he wanted Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to stop acting like a ponderous judge and to take decisive action.For now, the president and his advisers are waiting to see what the charges against Mr. Trump will be. The former president faces other legal peril as well: Prosecutors in Georgia are expected to make a decision soon on whether to seek indictments in their investigation of Mr. Trump and some of his allies over their efforts to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.There is little appetite inside the Biden administration to raise the temperature. In Africa on Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris, a former prosecutor, also declined to answer questions on Mr. Trump: “I am not going to comment on an ongoing criminal case as it relates to the former president,” Ms. Harris said during a news conference with the president of Zambia.On Friday, the Bidens walked among destroyed buildings in Rolling Fork, Miss., pausing to speak to families who had lost their homes in storms that have killed at least 21 people. At several points, Mr. Biden leaned down to talk to children, and the first lady chatted with workers who had been trying to clear the debris.Eric Schultz, a former spokesman for Mr. Obama, said that the president’s trip to Mississippi was likely to generate far fewer headlines than the Trump indictment, but that there was little reason for Mr. Biden, who is expected to announce a re-election campaign in the coming weeks, to step in as “the narrator” of Mr. Trump’s legal saga.“He’s so focused on what people are experiencing in their day-to-day lives,” Mr. Schultz said. “That’s where he should stay, no matter how many times his predecessor gets indicted.”Michael D. Shear contributed reporting from Rolling Fork, Miss. More