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      Mark Meadows Is a Warning About a Second Trump Term

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      On Monday, Mark Meadows, a former White House chief of staff, testified in an effort to move the Georgia racketeering case against his former boss Donald Trump and co-defendants to federal court. On the stand, he said that he believed his actions regarding the 2020 election fell within the scope of his job as a federal official.The courts will sort out his legal fate in this and other matters. If convicted and sentenced to prison, Mr. Meadows would be the second White House chief of staff, after Richard Nixon’s infamous H.R. Haldeman, to serve jail time.But as a cautionary tale for American democracy and the conduct of its executive branch, Mr. Meadows is in a league of his own. By the standards of previous chiefs of staff, he was a uniquely dangerous failure — and he embodies a warning about the perils of a potential second Trump term.Historically, a White House chief of staff is many things: the president’s gatekeeper, confidant, honest broker of information, “javelin catcher” and the person who oversees the execution of his agenda.But the chief’s most important duty is to tell the president hard truths.President Dwight Eisenhower’s Sherman Adams, a gruff, no-nonsense gatekeeper, was so famous for giving unvarnished advice that he was known as the “Abominable No Man.” In sharp contrast, when it came to Mr. Trump’s myriad schemes, Mr. Meadows was the Abominable Yes Man.It was Mr. Meadows’s critical failure to tell the president what he didn’t want to hear that helped lead to the country’s greatest political scandal, and his own precipitous fall.Donald Rumsfeld, who served as a chief of staff to Gerald Ford, understood the importance of talking to the boss “with the bark off.” The White House chief of staff “is the one person besides his wife,” he explained, “who can look him right in the eye and say, ‘this is not right. You simply can’t go down that road. Believe me, it’s not going to work.’” A good chief is on guard for even the appearance of impropriety. Mr. Rumsfeld once forbade President Ford to attend a birthday party for the Democratic majority leader Tip O’Neill because it was being hosted by a foreign lobbyist with a checkered reputation.There used to be stiff competition for the title of history’s worst White House chief of staff. Mr. Eisenhower’s chief Adams was driven from the job by a scandal involving a vicuna coat; Mr. Nixon’s Haldeman served 18 months in prison for perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal; and George H.W. Bush’s John Sununu resigned under fire after using government transportation on personal trips.But the crimes Mr. Meadows is accused of are orders of magnitude greater than those of his predecessors. Even Mr. Haldeman’s transgressions pale in comparison. Mr. Nixon’s chief covered up a botched attempt to bug the headquarters of the political opposition. Mr. Meadows is charged with racketeering — for his participation in a shakedown of a state official for nonexistent votes — and soliciting a violation of an oath by a public officer.Mr. Meadows didn’t just act as a doormat to President Trump; he seemed to let everyone have his or her way. Even as he tried to help Mr. Trump remain in office, Mr. Meadows agreed to give a deputy chief of staff, Chris Liddell, the go-ahead to carry out a stealth transition of power to Joe Biden. This made no sense, but it was just the way Mr. Meadows rolled. Mr. Trump’s chief is a world-class glad-hander and charmer.As part of the efforts to subvert the 2020 election, Mr. Meadows paraded a cast of incompetent bootlickers into the Oval Office. This culminated in a wild meeting on the night of Dec. 18, 2020 — when Mr. Trump apparently considered ordering the U.S. military to seize state voting machines before backing down. (Even his servile sidekick Rudy Giuliani objected.) A few days later, Mr. Meadows traveled to Cobb County, Ga., where he tried to talk his way into an election audit meeting he had no right to attend, only to be barred at the door.All the while, the indictment shows that Mr. Meadows was sharing lighthearted remarks about claims of widespread voter fraud. In an exchange of texts, Mr. Meadows told the White House lawyer Eric Herschmann that his son had been unable to find more than “12 obituaries and 6 other possibles” (dead Biden voters). Referring to Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Herschmann replied sarcastically: “That sounds more like it. Maybe he can help Rudy find the other 10k?” Mr. Meadows responded: “LOL.”Mr. Meadows’s testimony this week that his actions were just part of his duties as White House chief of staff is a total misrepresentation of the position. In fact, an empowered chief can reel in a president when he’s headed toward the cliff — even a powerful, charismatic president like Ronald Reagan. One day in 1983, James A. Baker III, Mr. Reagan’s quintessential chief, got word that the president, enraged by a damaging leak, had ordered everyone who’d attended a national security meeting to undergo a lie-detector test. Mr. Baker barged into the Oval Office. “Mr. President,” he said, “this would be a terrible thing in my view for your administration. You can’t strap up to a polygraph the vice president of the United States. He was elected. He’s a constitutional officer.” Mr. Reagan’s secretary of state, George Shultz, who was dining with the president, chimed in, saying he’d take a polygraph but would then resign. Mr. Reagan rescinded the order that same day.Why did Mr. Meadows squander his career, his reputation and possibly his liberty by casting his lot with Mr. Trump? He once seemed an unlikely casualty of Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball — he was a savvy politician who knew his way around the corridors of power. In fairness to Mr. Meadows, three of his predecessors also failed as Mr. Trump’s chief. “Anyone who goes into the orbit of the former president is virtually doomed,” said Jack Watson, Jimmy Carter’s former chief of staff. “Because saying no to Trump is like spitting into a raging headwind. It was not just Mission Impossible; it was Mission Self-Destruction. I don’t know why he chose to do it.”In their motion to remove the Fulton County case to federal court, the lawyers for Mr. Meadows addressed Mr. Trump’s now infamous Jan. 2, 2021, call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — during which Mr. Meadows rode shotgun as the president cut to the chase: “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes ….” Addressing Mr. Meadows’s role, his lawyers wrote: “One would expect a Chief of Staff to the President of the United States to do these sorts of things.”Actually, any competent White House chief of staff would have thrown his body in front of that call. Any chief worth his salt would have said: “Mr. President, we’re not going to do that. And if you insist, you’re going to make that call yourself. And when you’re through, you’ll find my resignation letter on your desk.”Mr. Meadows failed as Mr. Trump’s chief because he was unable to check the president’s worst impulses. But the bigger problem for our country is that his failure is a template for the inevitable disasters in a potential second Trump administration.Mr. Trump’s final days as president could be a preview. He ran the White House his way — right off the rails. He fired his defense secretary, Mark Esper, replacing him with his counterterrorism chief, Chris Miller, and tried but failed to install lackeys in other positions of power: an environmental lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, as attorney general and a partisan apparatchik, Kash Patel, as deputy C.I.A. director.Mr. Trump has already signaled that in a second term, his department heads and cabinet officers would be expected to blindly obey orders. His director of national intelligence would tell him only what he wants to hear, and his attorney general would prosecute Mr. Trump’s political foes.For Mr. Meadows, his place in history is secure as a primary enabler of a president who tried to overthrow democracy. But his example should serve as a warning of what will happen if Mr. Trump regains the White House. All guardrails will be gone.Chris Whipple is the author of “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency” and, most recently, “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House.”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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      Ramaswamy Relies on Denialism When Challenged on Flip-Flopping Positions

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      In clashes with the news media and his rivals, the Republican upstart has retreated from past comments and lied about on-the-record statements.In his breakout performance in the Republican primary race, Vivek Ramaswamy has harnessed his populist bravado while frequently and unapologetically contorting the truth for political gain, much in the same way that former President Donald J. Trump has mastered.Mr. Ramaswamy’s pattern of falsehoods has been the subject of intensifying scrutiny by the news media and, more recently, his G.O.P. opponents, who clashed with him often during the party’s first debate last Wednesday.There are layers to Mr. Ramaswamy’s distortions: He has spread lies and exaggerations on subjects including the 2020 election results, the Jan. 6 attacks on the Capitol and climate change. When challenged on those statements, Mr. Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who is the first millennial Republican to run for president, has in several instances claimed that he had never made them or that he had been taken out of context.But his denials have repeatedly been refuted by recordings and transcripts from Mr. Ramaswamy’s interviews — or, in some cases, excerpts from his own book.Here are some notable occasions when he sought to retreat from his past statements or mischaracterized basic facts:A misleading anecdoteAt a breakfast round table event organized by his campaign on Friday in Indianola, Iowa, Mr. Ramaswamy recounted how he had visited the South Side of Chicago in May to promote his immigration proposals to a mostly Black audience.He boasted that nowhere had his ideas on the issue been more enthusiastically received than in the nation’s third most populous city, where his appearance had followed community protests over the housing of migrants in a local high school.“I have never been in a room more in favor of my proposal to use the U.S. military to secure the southern border and seal the Swiss cheese down there than when I was in a nearly all-Black room of supposedly mostly Democrats on the South Side of Chicago,” he said.But Mr. Ramaswamy’s retelling of the anecdote was sharply contradicted by the observations of a New York Times reporter who covered both events.The reporter witnessed the audience in Chicago pepper Mr. Ramaswamy about reparations, systemic racism and his opposition to affirmative action. Immigration was barely mentioned during the formal program. It was so absent that a Ramaswamy campaign aide at one point pleaded for questions on the issue. With that prompting, a single Republican consultant stood up to question Mr. Ramaswamy on his proposals.Trump criticismAt the first Republican debate, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey accused Mr. Ramaswamy of changing positions on Donald Trump.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn one of the more heated exchanges of last week’s G.O.P. debate, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey criticized Mr. Ramaswamy for lionizing Mr. Trump and defending his actions during the Jan. 6 attack.He sought to cast Mr. Ramaswamy as an opportunist who was trying to pander to Mr. Trump’s supporters by attributing the riot to government censorship during the 2020 election.“In your book, you had much different things to say about Donald Trump than you’re saying here tonight,” Mr. Christie said.Mr. Ramaswamy bristled and said, “That’s not true.”But in his 2022 book “Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence,” Mr. Ramaswamy had harsh words for Mr. Trump and gave a more somber assessment of the violence.“It was a dark day for democracy,” Mr. Ramaswamy wrote. “The loser of the last election refused to concede the race, claimed the election was stolen, raised hundreds of millions of dollars from loyal supporters, and is considering running for executive office again. I’m referring, of course, to Donald Trump.”When asked by The Times about the excerpt, Mr. Ramaswamy insisted that his rhetoric had not evolved and pointed out that he had co-written an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal five days after the Jan. 6 attack that was critical of the actions of social media companies during the 2020 election.“Also what I said at the time was that I really thought what Trump did was regrettable,” he said. “I would have handled it very differently if I was in his shoes. I will remind you that I am running for U.S. president in the same race that Donald Trump is running right now.”Mr. Ramaswamy parsed his criticism of the former president, however.“But a bad judgment is not the same thing as a crime,” he said.During the debate, Mr. Ramaswamy also sparred with former Vice President Mike Pence, whose senior aide and onetime chief of staff Marc Short told NBC News the next day that Mr. Ramaswamy was not a genuine populist.“There’s populism and then there’s just simply fraud,” he said.By blunting his message about the former president’s accountability and casting himself as an outsider, Mr. Ramaswamy appears to be making a play for Mr. Trump’s base — and the G.O.P. front-runner has taken notice.In a conversation on Tuesday with the conservative radio host Glenn Beck, Mr. Trump said that he was open to selecting Mr. Ramaswamy as his running mate, but he had some advice for him.“He’s starting to get out there a little bit,” Mr. Trump said. “He’s getting a little bit controversial. I got to tell him: ‘Be a little bit careful. Some things you have to hold in just a little bit, right?’”Conspiracy theories about Sept. 11Since entering the race, Mr. Ramaswamy has repeatedly floated conspiracy theories about a cover-up by the federal government in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a narrative seemingly tailored to members of the G.O.P.’s right wing who are deeply distrustful of institutions.In a recent profile by The Atlantic, he told the magazine, “I think it is legitimate to say how many police, how many federal agents, were on the planes that hit the twin towers.”While he acknowledged that he had “no reason” to believe that the number was “anything other than zero,” Mr. Ramaswamy suggested that the government had not been transparent about the attacks.“But if we’re doing a comprehensive assessment of what happened on 9/11, we have a 9/11 commission, absolutely that should be an answer the public knows the answer to,” he said.Yet when Mr. Ramaswamy was asked to clarify those remarks by Kaitlan Collins of CNN two nights before last week’s debate, he backtracked and accused The Atlantic of misquoting him.“I’m telling you the quote is wrong, actually,” he said.Soon after Mr. Ramaswamy claimed that his words had been twisted, The Atlantic released a recording and transcript from the interview that confirmed that he had indeed been quoted accurately.When asked in an interview on Saturday whether the audio had undercut his argument, Mr. Ramaswamy reiterated his contention that the news media had often misrepresented him.“I think there’s a reason why,” he said, suggesting that his free-flowing way of speaking broke the mold of so-called scripted candidates. “I just don’t speak like a traditional politician, and I think the system is not used to that. The political media is not used to that. And that lends itself naturally then to being inaccurately portrayed, to being distorted.”Mr. Trump’s allies have used similar justifications when discussing the former president’s falsehoods, citing his stream-of-consciousness speaking style. His allies and supporters have admired his impulse to refuse to apologize or back down when called out, an approach Mr. Ramaswamy has echoed.Mr. Ramaswamy said that he was asked about Sept. 11 while discussing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his repeated calls for an accounting of how many federal agents were in the field that day. His campaign described The Atlantic’s recording as a “snippet.”At the start of The Times’s conversation with Mr. Ramaswamy, he said that he assumed that the interview was being recorded and noted that his campaign was recording, too.“We’re now doing mutually on the record, so just F.Y.I.,” he said.Pardoning Hunter BidenIn one of many clashes with the news media, Mr. Ramaswamy accused The New York Post of misquoting him in an article about Hunter Biden.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesNo news outlet has been off-limits to Mr. Ramaswamy’s claims of being misquoted: This month, he denounced a New York Post headline that read: “GOP 2024 candidate Vivek Ramaswamy ‘open’ to pardon of Hunter Biden.”The Aug. 12 article cited an interview that The Post had conducted with him.“After we have shut down the F.B.I., after we have refurbished the Department of Justice, after we have systemically pardoned anyone who was a victim of a political motivated persecution — from Donald Trump and peaceful January 6 protests — then would I would be open to evaluating pardons for members of the Biden family in the interest of moving the nation forward,” Mr. Ramaswamy was quoted as saying.The next morning on Fox News Channel, which, like The Post, is owned by News Corp, Mr. Ramaswamy told the anchor Maria Bartiromo that the report was erroneous.“Maria, that was misquoted and purposeful opposition research with the headline,” he said. “You know how this game is played.”The Post did not respond to a request for comment.In an interview with The Times, Mr. Ramaswamy described the headline as “manufactured” and said it was part of “the ridiculous farce of this gotcha game.”Aid to IsraelMr. Ramaswamy clashed with Fox News host Sean Hannity Monday night when confronted with comments he has made about aid to Israel. Mr. Ramaswamy accused Mr. Hannity of misrepresenting his views.“You said aid to Israel, our No. 1 ally, only democracy in the region, should end in 2028,” Mr. Hannity said in the interview. “And that they should be integrated with their neighbors.”“That’s false,” Mr. Ramaswamy responded.“I have an exact quote, do you want me to read it?” Mr. Hannity asked.Mr. Ramaswamy’s rhetoric about support for Israel has shifted.During a campaign event in New Hampshire earlier this month, Mr. Ramaswamy called the deal to provide Israel with $38 billion over 10 years “sacrosanct.” But a few weeks later in an interview with The Free Beacon, a conservative website, he said that he hoped that Israel would “not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the U.S.” by 2028, when the deal expires.Wearing masksIn the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic, the Masks for All Act, a bill proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont that aimed to provide every person in the United States with three free N95 masks, appeared to receive an unlikely endorsement on Twitter — from Mr. Ramaswamy.“My policy views don’t often align with Bernie, but this strikes me as a sensible idea,” he wrote in July 2020. “The cost is a tiny fraction of other less compelling federal expenditures on COVID-19.”Mr. Ramaswamy was responding to an opinion column written for CNN by Mr. Sanders, who is a democratic socialist, and Andy Slavitt, who was later a top pandemic adviser to Mr. Biden. He said they should have picked someone from the political right as a co-author to show that there was a consensus on masks.But when he was pressed this summer by Josie Glabach of the Red Headed Libertarian podcast about whether he had ever supported Mr. Sanders’s mask measure, he answered no.When asked by The Times for further clarification, Mr. Ramaswamy acknowledged that he was an early supporter of wearing masks, but said that he no longer believed that they prevented the spread of the virus. He accused his political opponents of conflating his initial stance with support for mask mandates, which he said he had consistently opposed.An analogy to Rosa Parks?Mr. Ramaswamy appeared to compare Edward J. Snowden to Rosa Parks before immediately distancing himself from the comment.Kayana Szymczak for The New York TimesWhen he was asked by the conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt on his show in June whether he would pardon the former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden for leaking documents about the United States government’s surveillance programs, Mr. Ramaswamy said yes and invoked an unexpected name: the civil rights icon Rosa Parks.He said that Mr. Snowden, a fugitive, had demonstrated heroism to hold the government accountable.“Part of what makes that risk admirable — Rosa Parks long ago — is the willingness to bear punishment he already has,” he said. “That’s also why I would ensure that he was a free man.”To Mr. Hewitt, the analogy was jarring.“Wait, wait, wait, did you just compare Rosa Parks to Edward Snowden?” he said.Mr. Ramaswamy immediately distanced himself from such a comparison, while then reinforcing it, suggesting that they had both effectuated progress of a different kind.“No, I did not,” he said. “But I did compare the aspect of their willingness to take a risk in order for at the time breaking a rule that at the time was punishable.” More

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      A Trump Mug Shot for History

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      The former president’s booking photo is unprecedented. And that’s just the beginning of its significance.As soon as it was taken, it became the de facto picture of the year. A historic image that will be seared into the public record and referred to for perpetuity — the first mug shot of an American president, taken by the Fulton County, Ga., Sheriff’s Office after Donald J. Trump’s fourth indictment. Though because it is also the only mug shot, it may be representative of all of the charges.As such, it is also a symbol of either equality under the law or the abuse of it — the ultimate memento of a norm-shattering presidency and this social-media-obsessed, factionalized age.“It’s dramatically unprecedented,” said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University. “Of all the millions, maybe billions of photos taken of Donald Trump, this could stand as the most famous. Or notorious.” It is possible, he added, that in the future the mug shot will seem like the ultimate bookend to a political arc in the United States that began decades ago, with Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook.”In the photo, Mr. Trump is posed against a plain gray backdrop, just like the 11 of his fellow defendants whose mug shots were taken before him, including Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell and Rudolph Giuliani.As with them, his face is lit from above by a blinding white flash that hits his ash blond hair like a spotlight. As usual, he is dressed in the colors of the American flag: navy suit, white shirt, bright red tie — though his typical flag lapel pin is either absent or invisible in the picture. He glowers out from beneath his brows, unsmiling, eyes rendered oddly bloodshot, brow furrowed, chin tucked in, as if he is about to head-butt the camera. The image is stark, shorn of the flags and fancy that have been Mr. Trump’s preferred framings for photo ops at Mar-a-Lago or Trump Tower, or during his term in office, and that communicate power and the gilded glow of success.Was the photo necessary? In the last few years, a number of police departments and newsrooms around the country have been rethinking the practice of releasing mug shots to the public, viewing them as prejudicial at a time when a subject has not yet been proved guilty. The prosecutors in the other three Trump cases, both state and federal, have refrained from taking mug shots of Mr. Trump at all, given that he is one of the most recognizable people in the world and not considered a flight risk. Georgia laws, however, dictate that a mug shot be taken for a felony offense, and the Georgia sheriff in charge of booking has said that all defendants will be treated equally.Either way, it is part of the pageantry of the moment, part of the theater of law. And Mr. Trump is a man who has always understood the power and language of theater. Of putting on a show. Of the way an image can be used for viral communication and opinion-making.That’s part of why the “would they or wouldn’t they” discussion about mug shots resurfaced each time an indictment was handed down. In its concrete reality, the Fulton County mug shot may seem more irrevocable than anything else that has happened in the Trump cases thus far — at least until the two sides enter a courtroom. Perhaps that is why the concept alone started trending on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, even before Mr. Trump had boarded a plane to Georgia to surrender.While very few voters are likely to have read any of the Trump indictments in full, they will almost all definitely see the mug shot, and the former president — who posted this one on his recently reinstated feed on X, not long after it was released — cares deeply about his pictures. He always has.As far back as 2016, he was complaining about photos of him that NBC had used, especially one that he said showed him with a double chin. In 2017 he tweeted about a CNN book on the election: “Hope it does well but used worst cover photo of me!” In 2020, when a snap of him on the White House lawn with his hair blown back in the wind went viral, he chimed in: “More Fake News. This was photoshopped, obviously, but the wind was strong and the hair looks good? Anything to demean!”And earlier this month on Truth Social, he said of the Fox News show “Fox & Friends,” “They purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back.” (The picture he seemed upset about showed him with his chin tucked in, rather than jutting out, creating the appearance of a few extra chins.) The suggestion was that this was part of the reason he would not join the first Republican primary debate.He has crowed about how generals advising him were “better looking than Tom Cruise and stronger”; insisted that the women who work for him should “dress like women,” according to Axios; and griped that Vogue never gave Melania a cover while he was in the White House.He knows that for an electorate raised on TV and social media, the picture is what lasts. It’s what is remembered (and what is memed). What makes the myth. Or unmakes it. Words come and go, but imagery is a language everyone can understand. And this latest image is clear proof of a situation that is not within the former president’s control. It cannot be airbrushed or filtered or otherwise altered.Now that it exists, however, how it will be interpreted and used is still a question.Mug shots have, through history, been weaponized in different ways. They have been used to suggest guilt and shame, and to knock down the famous, as with O.J. Simpson, whose flat stare and five o’clock shadow ended up on the cover of Time — albeit in an image darkened unnecessarily by the magazine.But mug shots have also become symbols of pride: of those who stand against abuse of power and legal wrongs, as with the mug shots of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis, or even Jane Fonda, whose 1970 mug shot after she had been arrested on false charges of drug smuggling, fist raised against the Vietnam War, became a call to action for a generation of activist women.Mr. Trump and his advisers understand this all too well. Indeed, his team had most likely been planning and thinking about how Mr. Trump should look in his mug shot, what expression he should use, since the photo became a possibility.There was little chance, for example, that he would be caught smiling, like John Edwards, the former senator whose mug shot was taken in 2011 when he was indicted on a charge of violating campaign finance laws.The Trump team had, after all, already created its own joke “mug shot” with a fake height chart, an ersatz name placard and the slogan “Not Guilty” below it all after his first indictment, splashing it on T-shirts and coffee cups in his campaign store, the better to make a mockery of the whole idea. Though it is also true that his expressions in both the fake and the real photos are similarly pugnacious. He and his team have been laying the groundwork for this particular contingency for awhile. More

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      Fotos policiales de los acusados de conspirar con Trump: ¿por qué sonríen?

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      La imagen que se toma al fichar a los acusados de un delito suele reflejar seriedad, incredulidad o sorpresa. Eso no ha sucedido con algunos de los acusados con el expresidente en Georgia.[Última hora: Donald Trump fue fichado en Georgia y las autoridades difundieron su foto policial. Puedes leer más aquí, en inglés].La típica foto policial suele ser un asunto sombrío: con mala iluminación y gesto taciturno. Es un retrato permanente de la vergüenza, la letra escarlata del sistema legal.Y, casi por definición, va sin sonrisa.Pero entre las fotografías que han surgido de la oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton en Atlanta, donde Donald Trump y otras 18 personas han sido acusadas de conspirar para revertir las elecciones de 2020, hay varias que son peculiarmente alegres.Jenna Ellis, exabogada de Trump, luce una amplia sonrisa, al igual que David Shafer, expresidente del Partido Republicano de Georgia. Scott Hall, operador político de Trump, no logra reprimir una sonrisita burlona. Sidney Powell, acusada de esparcir teorías de la conspiración desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, deja ver un brillo en los ojos.Sidney Powell, acusada de difundir teorías conspirativas desacreditadas sobre las elecciones, es retratada con un gesto que oscila entre una sonrisa y un ceño fruncido.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Fulton vía Associated Press¿Y qué expresan sin lugar a dudas sus expresiones faciales? Desafío.El semblante que han puesto para la cámara del sistema de justicia penal, y para el lente de la historia, recuerda los otros papeles de reparto que desempeñan en lo que parece ser una extraordinaria producción del teatro político: uno que concuerda con la afirmación muy repetida por Trump de que la fiscalía es una farsa y una burla.En la fotografía de Ellis, tomada el miércoles —tan alegre que podría ser una foto de perfil, a no ser por el logotipo de la oficina del sheriff detrás de su hombro— parece a punto de estallar en risas por el lugar donde se encuentra.La política moderna en tiempos de redes sociales, como casi todo, es una batalla por crear, controlar y definir imágenes. Y la foto policial, inventada en Bélgica en la década de 1840 como una forma útil de identificación, es un nuevo frente en ese combate.La mayoría de los otros acusados fichados hasta el momento de delitos de conspiración para revertir los resultados de las elecciones de 2020 dejaban ver su serio dilema. Tal vez ninguno más que Rudolph Giuliani, quien apretó los labios, miró con frialdad al frente y frunció el ceño luego de comparecer ante las autoridades el miércoles en Atlanta.Ellis intentó adueñarse de un proceso que suele verse como humillante o intimidante; ella ha presentado su acusación como una persecución política injusta que debe superarse con fe y optimismo.Publicó su fotografía policial en internet con una cita de los Salmos: “¡Alégrense, ustedes los justos; regocíjense en el Señor!”.Cuando se le pidieron comentarios, Ellis comparó su situación con la de un antiguo cliente, un ministro que desafió una orden de cerrar su iglesia en la pandemia.“Quienes se burlan de mí, de mi excliente y mi Dios, quieren ver que me quiebro y no tendrán esa satisfacción”, dijo. “Sonreí porque estoy decidida a enfrentar este proceso con valentía y actuando según la fe. No pueden robarse mi alegría”.Powell y los abogados que representan a Shafer y Hall no respondieron de inmediato a pedidos de comentario.Haber sido retratado en las instalaciones del condado de Fulton podría ser incluso un símbolo de estatus entre los seguidores de Trump más incondicionales: Amy Kremer, quien ayudo a organizar el mitin previo al motín del 6 de enero de 2021 en el Capitolio, publicó una foto manipulada en la que aparece, sin sonreír, frente al logotipo del sheriff del condado de Fulton. No se le ha acusado en Georgia.Se supone que el retrato policial sea un ecualizador, que tanto los poderosos como los desposeídos sean blanco del mismo lente objetivo. Y muchos enemigos de Trump han criticado al Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. por no tomar la foto de la ficha policial (como harían con otros acusados) cuando el expresidente fue fichado por cargos federales en Miami y Washington.Esta vez será distinto.Por regla general, los políticos suelen asumir su fichaje en la comisaría como eventos políticos que al final tendrán un peso en el resultado legal.Cuando a Tom DeLay, líder de la cámara baja, se le acusó de lavado de dinero y conspiración en 2005, se atavió con traje, ajustó su corbata y sonrió de oreja a oreja. Fue una forma astuta de privar a sus oponentes de una imagen que fácilmente podrían usar en anuncios para atacarlo. (Se retiró del Congreso pero su posterior condena fue anulada en apelación).John Edwards, quien fue senador por Carolina del Norte y candidato demócrata a la vicepresidencia en 2004, sonrió con calidez ante la cámara como si estuviera frente a un simpatizante cuando lo ficharon al imputársele delitos de violación de leyes de financiación de campaña en 2011. Como Ellis, quería transmitir su inocencia y la injusticia de los cargos. (Fue absuelto de uno de los cargos y el gobierno retiró los restantes).Servicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesServicio de Alguaciles de EE. UU. vía Getty ImagesA los políticos les obsesiona proyectar mensajes, es un rasgo dominante de su especie. Tom DeLay, John Edwards y Rick Perry acudieron a que los ficharan como a un evento político que a final de cuentas podría influenciar el veredicto legal.Oficina del sheriff del condado de Travis vía Getty ImagesY en 2014, Rick Perry, entonces gobernador republicano de Texas, ofreció una sonrisa taimada cuando lo ficharon por delitos relacionados con presionar al fiscal de distrito demócrata del condado de Travis para que renunciara. Calificó los cargos de “farsa”, publicó fotos suyas en una heladería poco después y dos años más tarde fue absuelto de todos los cargos.En la mayoría de los casos, sonreír en la foto policial es una muestra de rebeldía.Eso ha sido particularmente cierto si se habla de los delincuentes famosos que, en general, han sido casi tan cuidadosos de su imagen como las estrellas de cine o los políticos. Al Capone sonrió en varios retratos policiales así como en su foto de identificación en Alcatraz. Y en la única foto que se le tomó al narcotraficante Pablo Escobar para una ficha policial, luego de que lo arrestaron por narcotráfico en Colombia, parecía casi jubiloso.Donaldson Collection — Michael Ochs Archives, via Getty ImagesPor lo general, los criminales famosos, como Al Capone y Pablo Escobar, han estado muy atentos a su imagen, como las estrellas de cine o los políticos.Archivio GBB vía AlamyTenía un buen motivo. Los cargos fueron retirados rápidamente.Glenn Thrush cubre el departamento de Justicia. Se unió al Times desde 2017, luego de haber trabajado para Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald y City Limits. Más de Glenn ThrushMaggie Haberman es corresponsal política sénior y autora de Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. Formó parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. Más de Maggie Haberman More

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

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

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      Giuliani Plans to Surrender Wednesday in Georgia Election Case

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      Mr. Giuliani served as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and advanced false claims that the election was stolen.Rudolph W. Giuliani plans to turn himself in on Wednesday at the Atlanta jail where defendants are being booked in the racketeering case against former President Donald J. Trump and his allies, Mr. Giuliani’s local lawyer said Wednesday morning.Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump face the most charges among the 19 defendants in the sprawling case. A former mayor of New York, Mr. Giuliani served as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer in the aftermath of the 2020 election and played a leading role in advancing false claims that the election had been stolen from Mr. Trump.Bernard Kerik, who served as New York City’s police commissioner during Mr. Giuliani’s tenure as mayor, planned to accompany him to the jail in Atlanta, two people with knowledge of Mr. Giuliani’s plans said. Mr. Kerik is not a defendant in the case.The former mayor’s bond has not yet been set. His lawyers plan to meet on Wednesday with the office of Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who is leading the investigation.The bond for Mr. Trump, who plans to turn himself in on Thursday, has been set at $200,000.“Based on the bonds that have been set, we would expect it to not be any higher than the president’s, but we’re going to negotiate that with the district attorney’s office,” said Brian Tevis, an Atlanta lawyer representing Mr. Giuliani.The case against Mr. Giuliani is a striking chapter in the recent annals of criminal justice. A former federal prosecutor who made a name for himself with racketeering cases, he now faces a racketeering charge himself.“This is a ridiculous application of the racketeering statute,” he said last week after the indictment was issued.Several of the defendants in the case have already made the trip to the Fulton County jail to be fingerprinted and have mug shots taken. They include Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman, the two architects of the plan to use fake electors to keep Mr. Trump in power after he lost the election to President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.David Shafer, a former head of the Republican Party in Georgia, has also turned himself in, as has Scott Hall, a pro-Trump Atlanta bail bondsman who was involved in a data breach at a rural Georgia elections office.In a social media post on Wednesday, Mr. Trump — who is running for office again, leads the Republican presidential primary field and is skipping his party’s first debate on Wednesday night — sounded a defiant note on social media about his upcoming visit to the Atlanta jail, saying he would “proudly be arrested” Thursday afternoon.Mr. Giuliani has struggled financially with mounting legal expenses, many of them related to his efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office for another term after the 2020 defeat. After repeated entreaties from people close to Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump plans to host a $100,000-per-person fund-raiser next month at his club in Bedminster, N.J., to aid the former mayor, according to a copy of the invitation.Three of the 19 defendants have begun trying to have the case removed to federal court: Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official; Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s former White House chief of staff; and Mr. Shafer.Mr. Clark and Mr. Meadows have also filed court papers seeking to block their arrest.Some defendants were granted bond this week after their lawyers met with prosecutors in Atlanta. Mr. Trump’s bond agreement includes stipulations that he not intimidate witnesses or co-defendants, whether in social media posts or otherwise.Shane Goldmacher More

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      Trump Condemns Hunter Biden’s Foreign Business. He’s Quiet on His Own.

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      Donald J. Trump has berated Joseph R. Biden Jr. for his son’s overseas deal making, despite plenty of overseas deal making by the Trump family.After his fourth indictment, bringing his total count of felony charges to 91, former President Donald J. Trump last week posted a video online accusing President Biden and his family of being criminals.“The Biden crime family,” he claimed, had received millions of dollars from foreign countries. “I believe we have a compromised president,” Mr. Trump said, adding: “He’s a Manchurian candidate. That’s why Crooked Joe is letting other countries walk all over the United States.”For Mr. Trump, outrage is a selective commodity when it comes to presidential families taking millions of dollars from foreign countries. During his four years in the White House and in the more than two and a half years since, Mr. Trump and his relatives have been on the receiving end of money from around the globe in sums far greater than anything Hunter Biden, the president’s son, reportedly collected.Unlike other modern presidents, Mr. Trump never gave up control of his sprawling business with its interests in multiple countries, nor did he forswear foreign business even as president. He shattered norms in his money making and unabashed boosting of his family’s company. The luxury hotel he opened down the street from the White House, for example, became the favored destination for lobbyists, dealmakers and foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, which paid handsomely for accommodations, galas and more.Mr. Trump also permitted his family to take positions in government that blurred the lines when it came to their private interests. Unlike Hunter Biden, Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner both served on the White House staff, where they could shape policies of concern to overseas businesses.Mr. Kushner was heavily involved in setting the administration’s approach to the Middle East and made multiple contacts in the region. After turning in his White House badge, Mr. Kushner started a private equity firm with $2 billion in funds from Saudi Arabia and hundreds of millions more from other Arab countries that stood to benefit from U.S. policies and have an interest in a possible second Trump administration.“The Trump family foreign commercial entanglements were far more numerous, involving dozens of foreign business conflicts,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who led unsuccessful court challenges to the former president’s practice of taking foreign money while in office.The entanglements “implicated those like Jared and Ivanka who were actually working in government, whereas Hunter never did,” Mr. Eisen added. “Indeed, Trump himself openly benefited, whereas there’s not a shred of evidence that Biden the elder ever did.”Hunter Biden’s business dealings have raised concerns because testimony and reports have indicated that he traded on his family name to generate lucrative deals. A former business partner has told congressional investigators that the younger Biden parlayed “the illusion of access to his father” to win over potential partners.Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law, started a private equity firm with $2 billion in funds from Saudi Arabia.Tamir Kalifa for The New York TimesNo hard evidence has emerged that Mr. Biden, while vice president, personally participated in or profited from the business deals or used his office to benefit his son’s partners.But Mr. Biden’s statements distancing himself from his son’s activities have been undercut by testimony indicating that Hunter put his father on speakerphone with international business associates; the future president talked about casual things like the weather, not business, according to testimony, but it seemed intended to impress Hunter’s associates.All of which would typically generate scrutiny in Washington, where relatives of presidents have long taken advantage of their positions to make money. Access and celebrity are coins of the realm in the nation’s capital, and a relative who frequents Camp David, enjoys a good seat at a state dinner or rides Air Force One can get phone calls returned. This tradition has turned off many Americans, and even Democrats privately voice discomfort at Hunter Biden’s activities.“If he traded on his father’s influence, he should be held accountable for that,” Representative Jim Himes, Democrat of Connecticut, said on MSNBC recently. “And I’m emphasizing this because you never, ever heard a Republican say the same thing about Donald Trump or his family.”Republicans investigating the Bidens say they made more than $20 million from foreign sources in China, Ukraine and elsewhere, but a Washington Post analysis of congressional memos indicated that most of the money went to business associates, with $7 million going to the Bidens themselves, mainly Hunter.“What both Hunter and Jared have in common is that they are the well-educated sons of prominent people, and that their familial ties certainly helped them in business,” said Don Fox, a former general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. “That is where the similarities end.”“Hunter never held public office, and a fair amount of his work involving Ukraine occurred when his father was out of office,” Mr. Fox continued. The amount of money that Mr. Kushner could earn from the funds invested by the Saudis, he added, “dwarfs what anyone ever paid Hunter.”The analogy to Hunter Biden rankles Mr. Kushner, who had a long track record in business before joining government and takes pride in negotiating the Abraham Accords, the diplomatic agreements normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab neighbors.People close to him argue that the investments from the Saudis and other Arabs were based on trust that he could make money for them, not out of gratitude for policies he promoted. And they noted that the Biden administration has not reversed those policies but instead sought to build on the Abraham Accords.“There is no factual comparison between Hunter and Jared,” a representative for Mr. Kushner said in a statement. “Jared was a successful businessman before entering politics, achieved historic peace and trade agreements, and like many before him, he re-entered business after serving for free in the White House, where he fully complied with the Office of Government Ethics rules.”Chad Mizelle, the chief legal officer for Affinity Partners, Mr. Kushner’s firm, said in a statement: “Partisan politics aside, no one has ever pointed to a specific legal or ethical guideline that Jared or Affinity has violated.”One of the few Republicans to criticize the Trump family’s blending of government service and foreign business has been Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor running against the former president for next year’s Republican nomination. “The Trump family have been involved in grifting for quite some time,” he said on CNN in June.Mr. Christie, who as a U.S. attorney prosecuted Mr. Kushner’s father, singled out the business dealings of the former president’s son-in-law.“Jared Kushner, six months after he leaves the White House, gets $2 billion from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund,” he said. “What was Jared Kushner doing in the Middle East? We had Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo as secretaries of state. We didn’t need Jared Kushner. He was put there to make those relationships, and then he cashed in on those relationships when he left the office.”While in the White House, Mr. Kushner bolstered ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia, convincing his father-in-law to make the kingdom his first foreign destination as president, helping broker billions of dollars in arms sales and forging a close relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.Mr. Kushner defended Prince Mohammed after Saudi operatives murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Post and United States resident. The C.I.A. concluded that Prince Mohammed ordered the 2018 killing. In 2021, Prince Mohammed’s sovereign wealth fund approved the $2 billion investment in Mr. Kushner’s new firm despite objections from the fund’s own advisers.Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the House Oversight Committee that is investigating the Bidens, acknowledged concerns with Mr. Kushner’s Saudi deal.“I think that what Kushner did crossed the line of ethics,” Mr. Comer said when asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this month. “What Christie said, it happened after he left office. Still no excuse, Jake. But it happened after he left office. And Jared Kushner actually has a legitimate business. This money from the Bidens happened while Joe Biden was vice president, while he was flying to those countries.”Mr. Trump has attacked President Biden for his son Hunter Biden’s overseas deal making.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn fact, as Mr. Comer’s committee reports indicate, some of Hunter Biden’s overseas money came while his father was vice president, but a significant share came afterward.Spokesmen for Mr. Comer and Mr. Trump did not respond to requests for comment.Mr. Trump has never been allergic to foreign money. Even as a candidate in 2016, he secretly pursued a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow until after he had effectively secured the Republican nomination. One of his lawyers reached out to the Kremlin for support for the project, the same Kremlin that Mr. Trump would interact with a few months later as president.To address concerns about foreign financial interests, Mr. Trump promised not to pursue new business overseas while in office, but he did not give up his many existing moneymaking ventures in other countries and his company, formally run by his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, continued to expand operations abroad.During Mr. Trump’s four years in the White House, the Trump Organization received 66 foreign trademarks, according to a report by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, with most of them coming from China but others from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Peru, the Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and the European Union.Foreign entities were good customers for Mr. Trump. While in office, 145 foreign officials from 75 governments visited Trump properties and foreign governments or affiliated groups hosted 13 events at his hotels and resorts, according to the ethics group report.While Mr. Trump in last week’s video described Mr. Biden as a puppet of the Chinese, falsely claiming that “China has paid him a fortune,” his own family has had significant financial ties to Beijing. Beyond the trademarks, Forbes calculated that a Trump business during his presidency collected at least $5.4 million in rent from the state-controlled Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.Mr. Kushner’s family negotiated with Chinese and Qatari entities to rescue its debt-saddled Manhattan tower at 666 Fifth Avenue, eventually brokering a $1.1 billion lease deal with an American company whose investors included Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. (By that time, Mr. Kushner had sold his share of the tower to a family trust of which he was not a beneficiary, and people involved in the deal said the Qataris did not know about the deal before it was made.)Ivanka Trump, for her part, initially kept her own clothing and accessories line while serving on the White House staff and received approval for 16 trademarks from China in 2018 before later deciding to shut down the business.Despite lawsuits by Mr. Eisen and others alleging violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, none of the Trump family’s overseas deal making was ever determined to be illegal by any authority. Nor has any of Hunter Biden’s.But in Mr. Trump’s telling, one is enough to compromise a president and the other is not something to talk about. More

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      Let’s Plant Wildflowers in the National Mall

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      More from our inbox:Indicted LawyersSununu’s ‘Wishful Thinking’End the Ukraine WarDeSantis and the IviesPain Patients Deserve Answers Evan CohenTo the Editor:Re “Fill the National Mall With Wildflowers,” by Alexander Nazaryan (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 11):What a timely and terrific idea Mr. Nazaryan proposes. Let’s replace the clipped, monotonous lawns of our National Mall with gardens of wildflowers, he writes. Create meadows! Variety and color! These fields would provide habitat for the bees, butterflies and other essential insects that are losing their homes to development and chemically maintained landscaping.And, incidentally, these 18 acres of gardens and meadows will pull tons of carbon from the atmosphere and bury it in the soil.What an opportunity to show visitors our national heritage of wildflowers. And what a chance to show young tourists how plants create a livable atmosphere for us.We can model our future on the National Mall. If millions of suburban gardeners and thousands of farmers follow suit in restoring lawns and fields to meadows of wildflowers and multi-crop fields, free of chemicals, we could be on our way to regenerate the earth and save ourselves a place in the future!Deborah Lake FortsonBrookline, Mass.The writer is a member of Brookline Pollinator Pathways.To the Editor:Alexander Nazaryan’s piece on wildflower lawns is wonderful to consider. A few photoshopped pictures of the National Mall full of wildflowers would have made it perfect.I am delighted with my wildflower lawn in Longmont, Colo., on a small residential lot. In 2022, my water bill was reduced by 25,000 gallons after I stopped watering my lawn, even though I maintained extensive flower and vegetable gardens. Mother Nature also helped kill the lawn by withholding any significant rain and snow for the first six months of 2022.This all followed a severe drought in late 2021, which contributed to a massive grassland fire in Boulder County that burned over 1,000 homes in December. I’d had enough of my lawn.Now I enjoy more colors, heights of vegetation and varied shades of green in our yard than I have ever had. The ground always seems damp, even with bright sun and low humidity, which is typical for our local climate. Birds and bees are all over it.We owe it to the planet for working its magic. Our monotonous and high maintenance green carpet was a poor substitute.David BishtonLongmont, Colo.To the Editor:I’m an ecologist in Washington, D.C., and I love low-water landscaping and wilding lawns — but the National Mall is land used for large events like concerts, Fourth of July fireworks, rallies, marches, protests, gatherings, sun bathing, soccer games, chasing kids around, kite festivals and more. And it’s used by hundreds of thousands of people for some of these events.It cannot be full of wildflowers and, no, wildflowers are not easy to maintain in this sort of scenario.There is a section by the Tidal Basin south of the Washington Monument where flowers are planted that the author may enjoy, though it’s a small lot. Wildflowers on the Mall, though, would remove space for us to play. And we do play!Yes, its maintenance is expensive — but the National Mall is not an ecological disaster. It’s an event space.K. SpainWashingtonIndicted LawyersClockwise from top left, attorneys, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark and Sidney Powell.Photographs by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press, Eduardo Munoz/Reuters, Michael A. McCoy/Getty Images and Jonathan Ernst/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Why Are So Many of Trump’s Alleged Co-Conspirators Lawyers?,” by Deborah Pearlstein (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 15):Reading Ms. Pearlstein’s excellent essay, I was reminded of Anne Applebaum’s observation in her book “Twilight of Democracy”: “Authoritarians need the people who will promote the riot or launch the coup. But they also need the people who can use sophisticated legal language, people who can argue that breaking the constitution or twisting the law is the right thing to do.”Stronger ethics rules and laws, bolstered by the prosecutions and bar expulsions we are witnessing, will help, but ultimately, the problem is more fundamental.What Ms. Pearlstein refers to as a root cause — increased polarization of the legal profession — may be better described as a lack of commitment to democratic principles and, in some cases, a simple lack of character.Michael CurryAustin, TexasTo the Editor:Deborah Pearlstein’s guest essay on the politicization of the legal profession is spot on and reflects the larger problem with the legal profession today: an erosion of ethics.An old joke claims that “legal ethics” is an oxymoron; it is not a joke today. I believe that this is the reason a decreasing number of lawyers are members of the American Bar Association; the ethics code of the A.B.A., and associated state bar associations, is not compatible with their practice of law.Thomas CoxRichmond, Va.Sununu’s ‘Wishful Thinking’Eric Thayer for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “If Republicans Narrow the Field, We Will Beat Trump,” by Gov. Christopher T. Sununu (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Aug. 21):Yes, narrowing the field would help Republicans beat Donald Trump for the nomination, but Mr. Sununu is engaging in wishful thinking when he says that at this week’s debate, the other leading candidates should “break free of Mr. Trump’s drama, step out of his shadow.”That’s not possible for these debate participants, every one of whom will have signed a pledge to support the nominee — even if it’s Mr. Trump and even if he’s a convicted felon by November 2024.Moreover, even candidates like Chris Christie and Mike Pence, who now criticize Mr. Trump’s actions regarding the last presidential election, supported him all through the prior four years of his disastrous presidency.Mr. Sununu says the Republican Party needs to refocus “on a nominee dedicated to saving America.” In fact, it’s the Republican Party that needs saving from its current crop of leaders and candidates.Jeff BurgerRidgewood, N.J.End the Ukraine War Shuran Huang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“Peace Activists Decide Ukraine Is an Exception” (front page, Aug. 15) correctly reports on how many progressive voices have been quiet on the war. But religious leaders, up to and including Pope Francis, as well as several faith groups like my own (Quakers), have been actively pressing to end the war and support the arduous work of peacemaking.Earlier this year, Pope Francis met with President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Vatican and called for a cease-fire and negotiations. Hundreds of religious leaders have now signed a letter in support of his call and are advocating an end to the war once and for all.You don’t have to be a pope or a pacifist to recognize the perils inherent in continued military escalation — for Ukrainians, Russians and the world. President Biden and Congress must invest much more in seeking a diplomatic path out of the conflict rather than relying on endless military aid. Peacemaking won’t be easy. It never is.But war is not the answer.Bridget MoixWashingtonThe writer is the general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation.DeSantis and the IviesHaiyun Jiang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Elites He Now Targets Gave DeSantis a Leg Up” (front page, Aug. 22):Ron DeSantis was so embittered by his exposure to elite liberalism at Yale that when he graduated, he went to Harvard Law School. You cannot make that up!Stephen T. SchreiberPrinceton, N.J.Pain Patients Deserve AnswersTo the Editor:Re “They Live in Constant Pain, but Their Doctors Won’t Help Them,” by Vishakha Darbha, Lucy King and Adam Westbrook (Opinion Video, Aug. 17):I’ve seen too many patients suffering from chronic pain who’ve been told it is in their heads or that nothing can be done. Believing that it’s acceptable to live with pain is unacceptable. If someone has pain, something is wrong. Ongoing pain after a previous trauma or surgical procedure may signal that a nerve is injured, which is an overlooked cause of chronic pain because it is hard to detect through imaging.Neuropathic pain, sometimes called the “invisible illness,” is the most common type of chronic pain, affecting one in 10 people. Yet many health care providers and patients don’t understand nerve injuries, how common they are, and the correlation to ongoing pain. It’s not unusual for people to see more than 20 providers before seeing a surgeon who specializes in nerves. This is not OK.People deserve to know that nerve injuries can often be surgically repaired. It’s time they get the answers and care they deserve.Adam B. StrohlPhiladelphiaThe writer is a surgeon at the Philadelphia Hand to Shoulder Center. More