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      The Polite Disdain of John Roberts Finds a Target

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      Although the three branches of the American government were designed to be coequal, the structure of the Constitution tells us something about the relative power of each branch, as envisioned by the framers.Article I establishes the legislature. Article II establishes the executive branch. And Article III establishes the federal judiciary. It is true that the branches share powers and responsibilities. But it’s also true that the framers trusted Congress — the representative branch — with far more authority than it did the president or the Supreme Court.Congress makes laws. Congress spends money. Congress approves the president’s cabinet and says whether he can appoint a judge or not. Congress structures the judiciary and Congress sets the size of the Supreme Court and the scope of its business.The upshot of all of this is that when Congress calls, the other branches are supposed to answer — not as a courtesy, but as an affirmation of the rules of the American constitutional order. The modern Congress might be weak, and the presidency, against the expectations of the framers, might be the center of American political life, but it’s still newsworthy when a member of the executive branch says he or she won’t meet with the legislature.Chief Justice John Roberts is in a different branch of government, the judiciary. But he — a constitutional officer confirmed to his seat by the Senate — is still subject to the power of Congress to question and investigate his conduct. When Congress calls, he too should answer.Last week, Congress called the chief justice. In the wake of revelations concerning the friendship between Justice Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow, a billionaire Republican donor, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, invited Roberts to testify at an upcoming hearing on Supreme Court ethics rules.“There has been a steady stream of revelations regarding justices falling short of the ethical standards expected of other federal judges and, indeed, of public servants generally,” Durbin wrote in his letter to the chief justice. “These problems were already apparent back in 2011, and the Court’s decade-long failure to address them has contributed to a crisis of public confidence.”“The time has come for a new public conversation on ways to restore confidence in the Court’s ethical standards,” Durbin went on to say. “I invite you to join it, and I look forward to your response.”This week Roberts answered. He said, in a word, no.“I must respectfully decline your invitation,” Roberts wrote. “Testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by the chief justice of the United States is exceedingly rare as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence.”This deceptively polite reply sounds reasonable for as long as you can manage to forget the fact that it is questions about the ethical conduct of the court and its members that have compromised the independence of the court. Was Thomas influenced by the largess of his billionaire benefactor? Was Justice Samuel Alito influenced by an explicit campaign to curry favor with the conservative justices? Was Justice Neil Gorsuch influenced by the lucrative sale of a Colorado property, in the wake of his confirmation, to the head of a powerful law firm with ample business before the court?It is with real chutzpah, in other words, that Roberts has claimed judicial independence in order to circumvent an investigation into judicial independence.More striking than this evasion is the manner in which Roberts ended his reply. Faced with serious questions about the integrity of the court, he pointed to a nonbinding ethics document that has done almost nothing to prevent these situations from arising in the first place. “In regard to the Court’s approach to ethics matters,” he wrote, “I attached a Statement of Ethics Principles and Practices to which all of the current members of the Supreme Court subscribe.”Roberts did not write an aggressive or confrontational letter. And yet, he is quietly making an aggressive and confrontational claim about his own power and authority and that of the court’s. “Separation of powers,” in Roberts’s view, means the court is outside the system of checks and balances that governs the other branches of government. “Judicial independence,” likewise, means neither he nor any other member of the court has any obligation to speak to Congress about their behavior. The court checks, according to Roberts, but cannot be checked.A number of legal scholars have remarked on the judicial power grab of the past several years, in which courts across the federal judiciary have seized key governing decisions from the legislative and executive branches and disparaged the ability of elected officials to, as Josh Chafetz of Georgetown University Law Center writes, “engage in principled, competent governance.”As one of the architects of this development in American politics, Roberts is essentially using this letter to make plain to Congress the reality of the situation: I will not speak, and you cannot make me. And he’s right, not because Congress doesn’t have the power, but because it doesn’t have the votes. In the absence of a majority of votes, the Senate Judiciary Committee cannot subpoena a justice. In the absence of 218 votes, the House cannot impeach a justice. And in the absence of 67 votes, the Senate cannot remove a justice.There are steps Congress could take to discipline the court — shrinking its budget, reducing the scope of its docket, imposing ethics rules itself, even making it “ride circuit” à la the 19th century — but those require a majority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate because of the filibuster, as well as a consensus among lawmakers (and specifically, Democrats) to follow through if they ever have the chance to do so.It is not especially dramatic, but this exchange with Chief Justice Roberts over the court, its ethics and its responsibility to the public and its representatives has done more than almost anything else in recent memory to illustrate a key reality of American politics in this moment: that our Supreme Court does not exist in the constitutional order as much as it looms over it, a robed tribunal of self-styled philosopher-kings, accountable to no one but themselves.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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      Fox News Remains an Aberration in American Journalism

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      The decision by Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday to settle its defamation suit against Fox News is no doubt a disappointment to the many people who have been viciously demeaned and insulted by the network’s hosts over the years and who now won’t get to see those hosts writhe on the witness stand as they are forced to admit their lies. But the settlement is also a lost opportunity for the profession of journalism.A six-week trial, especially if it ended in a victory for Dominion, could have demonstrated to the public in painstaking detail what an abject aberration Fox has become among American news organizations. In-person testimony would have illustrated what the pre-trial evidence had begun to show: that Fox hosts and executives knew full well that the conspiracy theories they peddled about the outcome of the 2020 election were false, but they broadcast them anyway to hang on to viewers who didn’t want to hear the truth. A loss by Fox, with a staggering damage award, would have demonstrated that its behavior was so exceptional and outrageous that it had to be punished.People inclined to believe that all news organizations deliberately lie to build their audience may not consider Fox’s actions to be the least bit aberrant. But if that were true, there would be a lot more trials like the one that almost happened in this case. In fact, there have been very few media trials in recent years — usually in the single digits each year, according to one study — compared with the thousands of civil trials each year. Most defamation cases are dismissed before they ever get near a trial, in part because the plaintiff could not come close to proving a news organization met the “actual malice” standard set out in the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case of 1964, but also often because the plaintiff couldn’t even convince the judge that the defamatory material was false. News organizations also win dismissals by persuading judges that the material at issue was a legitimate opinion or was a “fair report” of allegations made at a public meeting or trial.Fox couldn’t persuade a judge of any of those defenses. In fact, the judge in this case, Eric Davis, ruled in March that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true” — a decision that was a huge setback for Fox and may have led to its eagerness to settle the case.Most defamation cases that are not dismissed are settled before trial, and the Dominion case essentially fits that pattern even though a jury had already been selected. But the size of the monetary settlement that Fox must pay, $787.5 million, also makes it a huge outlier. The next-largest publicly disclosed settlement of a defamation case against a major news organization was reached in 2017, when ABC News settled a case for at least $177 million. (Alex Jones, who was ordered last year to pay over $1.4 billion to families of victims in the Sandy Hook shooting, is not part of a legitimate news organization.)Still, nothing would have compared with a full-length trial in this case and a victory for Dominion, which many legal experts said was a strong possibility. That kind of defeat for a major news organization almost never happens, and the reason is that unlike their counterparts at Fox, journalists in conventional newsrooms don’t actually plot to deceive their audiences. They might make mistakes, they might be misled by a source or cast a story in a way they later regret, but with very rare exceptions they don’t deliberately lie.The emails and text messages demonstrating Fox’s knowing deceit, which came out in pre-trial discovery, were shocking both in their cynicism and in their deviation from industry norms. Vociferous press critics on the right and the left will scoff at this notion, but the fact is that journalists in functional newsrooms want to tell the truth. And they do so not because they fear getting sued but because that’s why they got into the business. I’ve worked for more than four decades in six American newsrooms, large and small, and the pattern of behavior shown by Fox would have been unthinkable in any of them at any time.That’s why a loss by Fox would not have raised significant press freedom issues, nor would it have increased the threat that journalists would regularly be sued for defamation. Because of the Sullivan case, news organizations are protected from libel judgments if they do not recklessly disregard the truth or engage in actual malice, which almost all newsrooms scrupulously avoid doing. Fox, however, sped right past those red lights, got caught and then spent an enormous amount of money to avoid the stain of a potential guilty verdict and the spectacle of its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, testifying to its dysfunction. (The company again demonstrated its disdain for the truth by issuing a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying the settlement demonstrated its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”) A second chance at clarity is coming with a libel suit against Fox by a different voting-technology company, Smartmatic. Maybe this time the opportunity to perform a public service by conducting a trial will outweigh the temptation of a Fox settlement offer.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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      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’s Indictment Is Karmic Justice, Regardless of the Verdict

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      Finally, here we are: Donald Trump’s first indictment. The 34 felony counts unsealed at his arraignment this week focus on the falsification of business records in the first degree, a low-level felony charge. This indictment may not prove to be the rock-solid legal case one might hope it to be. It neither addresses the gravest allegations leveled at Trump — subverting the vote, attempted coup, rape — nor is it the most potentially persuasive case against him under consideration. Whether the evidence proves strong enough to convict him will be up to legal analysts to parse and ultimately, a jury to decide months from now.But for the moment, let’s appreciate the karmic justice of these particular charges — no matter the outcome. Falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star, brings us full circle to the sleaziness we knew about well before Trump ever set foot in office. In the indictment’s focus on Trump’s financial malfeasance and his flagrant misogyny, the charges recall two pivotal events that took place before his election: his failure to disclose his tax returns and the contemptuous behavior revealed in the “Access Hollywood” tape.Both told us everything we could have expected from a Trump presidency. Both should have stopped Trump from becoming president. And the fact that they didn’t — that roughly half of American voters were willing to overlook Trump’s moral failings in the service of politics — shows why the country is still so intractably polarized. But neither side can claim it didn’t know exactly the kind of person who was elected in the first place.Let’s step back, then, to Trump’s emergence as a presidential candidate in the 2016 election. Anyone who’d been following his antics for decades assumed, wrongly, that nobody would take seriously the prospect of a corrupt businessman, third-tier reality TV showman and object of tabloid ridicule as president.That many Americans nonetheless did take the prospect seriously seemed bound to be undone by those two pre-election events. First, Trump’s refusal to release his tax records was a departure from years of accepted practice. If he had nothing to hide, he would have shared his returns. If he had been telling the truth, he wouldn’t have repeatedly said he intended to share his returns. And if he couldn’t abide by this seemingly innocuous precedent, we knew he would not follow others. And that’s what we got: the blatant graft that marked his term in office, whether it was his rampant financial conflicts of interest, his frequent self-dealings and misuse of the Trump International Hotel and other properties or the taxpayer-funded excesses and shady profit-seeking by members of his extended family.The second event was the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which revealed a man with such disdain for women that he would respect neither their humanity nor their bodily autonomy. To anyone paying attention, Trump’s vocal contempt for women had been on display in New York and on “The Howard Stern Show” for decades. But “Access Hollywood” made it plain to everyone, immediately before the election, exactly what kind of man they were getting: one who would callously separate mothers from their children at the border and deliberately appoint people to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade.Perhaps Trump himself recognized the parallel. As The Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted on the day he pleaded not guilty to the charges, “One of the few times Trump has looked as angry as he just did was when he was at the second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton two days after the infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tape became public in October 2016.”Lying. Cheating, personally and professionally. Financial misdeeds. Sexism. Whatever the eventual outcome of this trial, the moral and political case against Trump now echoes the case against Trump back then.Last Thursday night at the end of a Broadway performance of “Parade,” a musical about the wrongful murder conviction of Leo Frank in Georgia in 1913, the star Ben Platt addressed the audience after the ovations to contrast that woeful history with the rightful indictment of Donald Trump that day. The audience’s resounding cheers in response may have surpassed the considerable applause for the performance itself.Some say the indictment of a former president, however justified, is no cause for celebration. That we should not be happy that a former American president has been charged with a crime. That it sets a dangerous precedent on the road to banana republic-dom.But we should be happy that this president was indicted.Too many years of knowing that Trump’s time in office would deliver on the sleaziness of its promise. Too many years of an endless cycle of revelations and accusations met with impunity have felt like an inconceivable injustice to those of us who continue to believe — against often crushing evidence to the contrary — in the existence of any kind of justice at all. There is, it must be said, a deep satisfaction in knowing that after too many years of suffering through the Trump we got, Trump himself finally has been gotten.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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      Fact-Checking Trump’s Speech After His Arraignment

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

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      Donald Trump también debe responder ante la justicia

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

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      Justices Must Disclose Travel and Gifts Under New Rules

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      The change comes as members of Congress have called for the justices to be held to ethics standards similar to those for the executive and legislative branches.WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices will be required to disclose more of their activities, including some free trips, air travel and other types of gifts, according to rules adopted earlier this month.Under the new rules, justices and other federal judges must report travel by private jet, as well as stays at commercial properties, such as hotels, resorts or hunting lodges.The move comes as members of Congress have called for the justices, who have long faced less stringent reporting requirements, to be held to ethics standards similar to those for the executive and legislative branches.“To the extent this becomes a model for further activity for the Judicial Conference to clean up the Supreme Court mess, I think that’s significant,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat of Rhode Island who sits on the Judiciary Committee’s panel that oversees federal courts.Some advocates pushing for greater transparency on the court cautioned that the rules would be hard to enforce and that it would be nearly impossible to know whether a justice had failed to disclose a trip, flight or other perk.“The problem with any sort of transparency rule within the judiciary is the question of enforcement, the question of accountability,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, an organization critical of the court’s transparency. Without additional requirements, including a quicker turnaround for disclosing travel and gifts and penalties for failures to comply, the new measures are likely to have a limited effect, Mr. Roth said.“The bar is so low that you can get credit for doing the bare minimum,” he said. “Small but significant is where I’m at.”The new rules, which went into effect March 14, were adopted by a financial disclosure committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body for the federal courts.At a meeting in January, the committee discussed whether judges and justices would be required to file disclosures when they are hosted at commercial properties, such as resorts, according to a letter to Mr. Whitehouse from Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, which provides support for the court system.By federal law, justices must file forms each year disclosing financial ties, including gifts. However, the rules for travel that is considered “personal hospitality” were not clearly defined, including for stays at commercial properties or trips in which a third-party pays.It is unclear precisely how oversight and enforcement would work for the justices. A court spokeswoman declined to comment.The most common enforcement mechanism stems from the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, which describes “misconduct” as “knowingly violating requirements for financial disclosure.” If an allegation arose, the chief judge of a circuit could review it and determine whether a punishment is warranted, but the act does not apply to the Supreme Court.Questions around travel by the justices have persisted for years, particularly since the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Justice Scalia died while on a hunting trip at a lodge in West Texas owned by a businessman involved in a case that the court declined to hear in 2015.Justice Scalia, who had been staying at the ranch for free, had taken more than 250 subsidized trips from 2004 to 2014.In 2014 alone, he went on at least 23 privately funded trips, including to Ireland, Switzerland and Hawaii. Justice Scalia had been invited to the ranch by John Poindexter, owner of a Texas manufacturing firm. One of Mr. Poindexter’s companies, the Mic Group, had been the defendant in an age discrimination lawsuit by a former employee who had unsuccessfully sought review by the Supreme Court the year before.But Justice Scalia was hardly alone in accepting privately paid trips. From 2004 to 2014, Justice Stephen G. Breyer took 185 such trips, according to a database by the Center for Responsive Politics.The issue of privately paid travel also emerged in 2011, a year after the landmark campaign finance case Citizens United, which allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections. A liberal advocacy group, Common Cause, argued that Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves from hearing the case because they traveled to a political conference in Palm Springs, Calif., sponsored by the businessman Charles G. Koch, one of the biggest donors to Republicans.Legal experts greeted this month’s move with cautious optimism.“In my world of transparency and judicial ethics, what we had until now was little more than a joke,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor emeritus at the New York University School of Law who specializes in legal ethics. “The rules were very lax and tolerated circumvention, and now we’ve taken a giant step away from that.”However, he said there was still a long way to go toward transparency and accountability, pointing to the lag time between when a gift is received and when it must be reported. Justices have until May 15 of the year after receiving a gift before they must report it.In theory, if a justice “knowingly and willfully” failed to comply with the rules, the attorney general could bring a case. In practice, though, he said, that has never happened. He added that it was also impossible to know how individual justices would respond to the stricter rules.“There’s no enforcement mechanism at the Supreme Court,” he said. “It will be up to each justice.” More

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      Pro-Trump Super PAC Files an Ethics Complaint Against DeSantis

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      The group, the MAGA Inc. super PAC, accused Gov. Ron DeSantis of violating Florida laws by operating a shadow presidential campaign. A DeSantis spokeswoman called it a politically motivated attack.Donald J. Trump spent much of the past year teasing a presidential campaign, telling New York magazine last summer that he had “already made that decision” on whether to run and promising his rally crowds for months that they would be “very happy” about his choice.Now, Mr. Trump’s allies are accusing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida of doing the same — but insisting that he has violated state law.MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump, filed a complaint with Florida officials on Wednesday, alleging that Mr. DeSantis — the former president’s chief potential rival for the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination — is operating a shadow presidential campaign.The super PAC said that Mr. DeSantis should be considered a presidential candidate because he has taken meetings with donors, raised money for a political committee and toured the country to sell books, while allies are reaching out to potential campaign aides.“Governor DeSantis’s failure to declare his candidacy is no mere oversight,” reads the MAGA Inc. complaint to the Florida Commission on Ethics. “It is a coordinated effort specifically designed for him to accept, as unethical gifts, illegal campaign contributions and certain personal benefits.”The pro-Trump super PAC, which sent the complaint via certified mail on Wednesday, is asking the state commission to impose “the most severe penalties” under Florida ethics law, which include, among other things, impeachment, removal from office, public censure and ballot disqualification. NBC News earlier reported on the complaint on Wednesday.A spokeswoman in the governor’s office, Taryn Fenske, said the complaint was part of a “list of frivolous and politically motivated attacks,” adding, “It’s inappropriate to use state ethics complaints for partisan purposes.”While Mr. DeSantis hasn’t formally declared a White House bid, he is checking all the boxes of a potential candidate. He published a book that could double as the outline of a 2024 campaign platform and has been promoting the book on a nationwide tour — including stops in states that are hosting the first three Republican primary contests. He has also laid out foreign policy positions this week on Fox News.The allegations from the pro-Trump group echo a similar complaint filed against Mr. Trump last year in March by a Democratic super PAC. In that complaint, the Democratic group, American Bridge, argued to the Federal Election Commission that Mr. Trump had been behaving like a 2024 presidential candidate while avoiding federal oversight by not filing a statement of candidacy.The group filed a lawsuit in July against the federal commission, seeking to force it to take action against Mr. Trump within 30 days. The lawsuit accused Mr. Trump of trying to disguise his run for the presidency in order to leave voters “in the dark about the contributions and expenditures he has received, which is information they are entitled to.”The F.E.C. did not take action against Mr. Trump. He eventually announced a formal presidential campaign four months later.Mr. Trump’s allies could face a similarly tough road in persuading the state ethics commission to act. Mr. DeSantis has appointed five of the nine members of the commission.Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis were once political allies, but have grown increasingly antagonistic toward each other.Mr. DeSantis, who has branded himself as one of his party’s most ruthless political brawlers, has so far declined to directly confront Mr. Trump. Instead, he has made thinly veiled contrasts with Mr. Trump, telling crowds that his administration in Tallahassee has been free of leaks and chaos — such as the kind that often plagued the Trump White House — and excoriating the leadership of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of Mr. Trump’s key public health advisers during the Covid-19 pandemic.Mr. Trump, on the other hand, has grown increasingly aggressive in his attacks on Mr. DeSantis.At an event in Davenport, Iowa, on Monday, Mr. Trump drew a mix of applause and groans from the crowd as he attacked Mr. DeSantis over attempts to cut ethanol production and said the Florida governor wanted to “decimate” Social Security and Medicare by supporting proposals that would have increased the age to receive benefits.Mr. Trump scheduled his event three days after Mr. DeSantis made his first introduction to Iowa voters in the same Mississippi River town. More