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      Former Ohio Speaker Householder Faces Sentencing in Bribery Scheme

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      Larry L. Householder, former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, awaits sentencing on Thursday after being convicted of participating in a racketeering conspiracy that resulted in a bailout for two struggling nuclear power plants.It is, federal prosecutors say, perhaps the biggest public corruption scandal in Ohio’s history, a three-year conspiracy in which one of Ohio’s biggest corporations funneled some $60 million to one of the state’s most powerful politicians in exchange for a $1.3 billion bailout.And those investigators say they are only coming to the end of Act I.On Thursday, the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry L. Householder, will be sentenced in federal court in Cincinnati for violating racketeering and bribery laws.The outlines of the charges have been known since his arrest, with four other men, three years ago: FirstEnergy Corporation, a Fortune 500 electric utility based in Akron, funneled the $60 million though various nonprofit entities. In return, Mr. Householder rammed a law through the state legislature that gave the company the bailout for two troubled nuclear power plants. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of up to 20 years.But, as described early this year in a 26-day trial, the alliance between the utility and Mr. Householder, 64, was far more than a bribery scandal. Among other things, prosecutors and experts say, it was an almost cinematic example of how the dark money that pervades both state and federal politics slithers unseen from donor to beneficiary.It is also a cautionary tale about how state legislatures — second-rung political bodies that are often run by part-time politicians, but increasingly dealing with issues of national importance — are at least as prone to manipulation by special interests as their Washington counterparts.David DeVillers, who oversaw the federal investigation as the U.S. attorney in Cincinnati until early 2021, said in an interview that the gusher of dark money was crucial to the plot and an issue well beyond Ohio.“Any time you have a supermajority, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, and industries that are based on passing laws like marijuana or sports gambling or energy, it’s a formula for corruption,” he said.In a memorandum on sentencing last week, Mr. Householder’s lawyer, Steven L. Bradley, said that his client had not admitted wrongdoing, and that Mr. Householder genuinely believed that the legislation enacting the bailout “was an important piece of legislation, which is why he advocated and voted for it.” The blare of publicity and the ignominy of conviction, Mr. Bradley wrote, had left Mr. Householder “a broken man.” In an email, Mr. Bradley said he plans to “vigorously pursue an appeal with the hope of winning a new trial.”Mr. Householder, a onetime insurance agent from an impoverished rural county in southeast Ohio, had been House speaker from 2001 to 2004. He left his legislative seat because of term limits and faced a federal corruption investigation after leaving the post then, but was not charged.After returning to the legislature in 2016, Mr. Householder secretly spent millions in 2018 to support Republican candidates for 21 seats in the State House — more than a fifth of the 99 seats — who would back his insurgent campaign to again become House speaker. He spent more millions on a media campaign to push the nuclear bailout law to passage, and then tens of millions on a scorched-earth crusade to undermine a ballot initiative that threatened to undo it.By the time he was arrested in July 2020, Mr. Householder was soliciting secret contributions from others seeking legislative favors — and plotting to change the State Constitution’s term limits clause to extend his tenure by 16 years.At each step, a web of political action committees and dummy nonprofit organizations called 501(c)(4)s, after their place in the federal tax code, ensured that money fueling the schemes could not be traced to Mr. Householder or FirstEnergy.“The scope of the conspiracy was unprecedented,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. “So was the damage it left in its wake, both in terms of its potential financial harm to Ohioans and its erosion of public trust.”In a wiretap disclosed during the trial, a lobbyist charged in the affair, Neil Clark, boasted to undercover F.B.I. agents about his handiwork.“I spent close to $20 million in the last eight weeks, $20 million,” he said. “FirstEnergy got $1.3 billion in subsidies, free payments.”He later added: “So what do they care about putting in $20 million a year for this thing?”FirstEnergy sought a bailout for two nuclear power plants, including this one in North Perry, Ohio.Amy Sancetta/Associated PressFirstEnergy had sought state subsidies for two nuclear power plants on the shore of Lake Erie for years when Mr. Householder returned to the State House in 2016. The company claimed that renewable energy and cheaper fuels had made both plants unprofitable.Mr. Householder left little doubt that he wanted his old job as speaker back. After his 2016 election, FirstEnergy’s chief executive at the time, Chuck Jones, invited him to fly on the company’s private jet to attend the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.Over several days of socializing at high-end restaurants, prosecutors said, they discussed a deal: Mr. Householder needed money to regain the speaker’s post when its occupant left office in 2018. The company needed a legislative solution to its nuclear power woes.What began with a handshake became a multimillion-dollar political operation, with the money laundered through nonprofit groups allowed by the tax code to conceal donors’ names.“They can give as much or more to the (c)(4) and nobody would ever know,” the lobbyist, Mr. Clark, told Mr. Householder in another wiretapped conversation. “So you don’t have to be afraid.”Chuck Jones in 2015, when he was FirstEnergy’s president and chief executive.Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal, via Associated PressNeil Clark, a lobbyist, was also charged in the affair.Jonathan Quilter/The Columbus Dispatch, via USA Today NetworkWeeks later, Mr. Householder established a 501(c)(4) called Generation Now. Other nonprofits, both new and old, were rolled into the scheme: a PAC called Hardworking Ohioans, two new nonprofits and many more.Rivers of anonymous money — most, but not all, from FirstEnergy — began to flow. In one typical transaction, Generation Now shunted $1 million of FirstEnergy donations to the newly formed Coalition for Growth and Opportunity, whose only reported officer was a Kentucky lawyer who oversaw other nonprofits. The Coalition for Growth and Opportunity donated $1 million to its separate PAC, which spent it on media campaigns supporting Republicans friendly to Mr. Householder and opposing unfriendly ones.And so it went: At least $3 million spent in 2018 to elect Republicans backing Mr. Householder’s speaker ambitions. Nearly $17 million more in 2019 on a successful media campaign supporting House Bill 6, the legislation bailing out FirstEnergy nuclear plants.Clean energy advocates and the natural gas industry opposed the $1.3 billion measure, which propped up two unrelated coal-fired plants and solar energy projects besides the $1 billion nuclear subsidy. And when they began collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to overturn the bailout, FirstEnergy devoted another $38 million to quash that effort.The money paid for a private detective and bullies to disrupt signature gatherers, as well as a saturation advertising campaign claiming that China was “quietly invading our energy grid” with the help of opponents of the bailout.Backers considered it money well spent. When House Bill 6 became law in July 2019, Mr. Jones, the FirstEnergy chairman, sent a picture of Mount Rushmore to Samuel C. Randazzo, then the chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission. Supplanting the mountain’s four presidents were faces of the two men and executives at FirstEnergy and another utility.Below that, prosecutors said, was an all-capital-letters caption that extolled their political clout with a common sexual vulgarity.Meanwhile, Mr. Householder’s Generation Now nonprofit was already plowing new ground. In a wiretapped conversation in 2018, Mr. Householder said he was “expecting big things in (c)(4) money from payday lenders,” an industry that has lobbied federal and state officials against regulating high-interest loans to the poor.For some, the cost of exposure has been heavy.FirstEnergy fired its top executives. Later, it paid $234 million in fines to federal agencies and surrendered another $115 million in ill-gotten gains after admitting to large-scale fraud.Mr. Clark, the lobbyist, died by suicide in 2021 after publishing a book that alleged a lifetime of dirty deals in state politics.Federal prosecutors say their inquiry is continuing, although they have not said where it might lead.F.B.I. agents removing items from the home of Samuel C. Randazzo, then the Ohio Public Utilities Commission chairman, in 2020.Adam Cairns/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated PressIn what was, in effect, a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, FirstEnergy confessed that it had given Mr. Randazzo $4.3 million “to further FirstEnergy Corp.’s interests” on nuclear and other issues in 2019, weeks before Gov. Mike DeWine named him to head the state Public Utilities Commission.Mr. Randazzo, who denies wrongdoing, has not been charged.Court filings and related lawsuits have referred to Governor DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who have said they were unaware of the illegal payments. Both supported House Bill 6, and Mr. DeWine benefited from hundreds of thousand of dollars in get-out-the-vote support from FirstEnergy during his 2018 election campaign. The company also donated $75,000 to his daughter’s failed bid for a local elective office.FirstEnergy, meanwhile, faces investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and shareholder lawsuits.And in the five states where it owns electric utilities, utility commissions are likely to require tens of millions of dollars in refunds to customers, in part involving scandal-related spending.On Wednesday, the company said in a statement that it “has accepted responsibility for its actions related to House Bill 6 and has taken significant steps to put past issues behind us.”“Today we are a different, stronger company with a sound strategy and focused on a bright future,” it added.Mr. DeVillers, the former U.S. attorney, said that nonprofits like those central to the FirstEnergy scandal have been largely ignored by law enforcement. Enforcement of restrictions in the federal tax code on 501(c)(4) groups has been lax.Dave Anderson, the communications director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that follows the energy industry, said that might now change.“This is a case that really illustrates how they can be used for criminal malfeasance,” he said, referring to nonprofits. Now, he said, lawyers who told clients that 501(c)(4) groups are safe conduits for secret cash may be “holding their breath and thinking, ‘Maybe the convictions will be thrown out.’” More

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      Ron DeSantis Helicopter Photo Spurs Questions About Campaign Ethics

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      It’s not the first time that the Florida governor has faced accusations of inappropriately blurring the lines between his official duties and his presidential campaign.It was a photo op intended to turbocharge Republican voters, one showing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posing in front of a helicopter on Sunday at the southern border in Texas.But the display is creating an unwanted spotlight for Mr. DeSantis: The helicopter is funded by Texas taxpayers, raising questions about the political nature of the flight and its cost.Federal law requires presidential candidates to pay the fair-market rate for noncommercial air travel and reimburse providers of flights. In this case, the Texas Department of Public Safety owns the 2008 Eurocopter, according to a Federal Aviation Administration database of aircraft tail numbers.Additionally, ethics rules in Texas bar officials there from using state resources in support of political campaigns.Mr. DeSantis’s office suggested that he was visiting the border in a dual capacity, as both governor and presidential candidate, but his official schedule as governor omitted mention of it. Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis in the governor’s office, referred questions on Wednesday about the helicopter flight to the Texas Department of Public Safety.That agency said Mr. DeSantis was briefed during his visit about joint immigration enforcement activities between Florida and Texas at the border, part of a program known as Operation Lone Star.“The briefing included an aerial tour which was provided by D.P.S. in order to give Gov. DeSantis a clearer understanding of how Florida’s resources are being utilized along our southern border and see the challenges first hand,” Ericka Miller, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said in an email on Wednesday. Mr. DeSantis’s campaign shared the helicopter photo on Twitter on Monday, the same day that he proposed a series of hard-right immigration policies in a campaign speech in Eagle Pass, a small Texas border city.Reflecting the split nature of his duties, Mr. DeSantis on Sunday wore a short-sleeve white shirt that said “Governor Ron DeSantis” on the right and “DeSantis for President” on the left.Mr. DeSantis’s use of the taxpayer-funded helicopter was first reported by The Daily Beast, which also noted that he took a boat tour of the Rio Grande as part of his visit. A Fox News reporter accompanied him by air and by water.That boat is owned by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, The New York Times confirmed. The state agency had already deployed the vessel there through a mutual-aid arrangement, and as part of the Operation Lone Star program.Mr. Redfern, in a statement, challenged that there was anything inappropriate about Mr. DeSantis’s ride on the Florida taxpayer-owned boat.“Participating in a routine patrol with F.W.C. is not outside the purview of the governor’s job as the state’s chief executive,” he said.Myles Martin, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, said in an email on Wednesday that he was not able to comment about specific candidates or their activities. But he pointed out that federal campaign finance rules require candidates to reimburse federal, state or local government entities when using aircraft owned by them to campaign.Political committees must also pay back costs associated with others means of transportation, including boat travel.Mr. DeSantis has previously faced accusations that he is inappropriately blurring the lines between his official duties and his campaign.As Mr. DeSantis prepared to sign Florida’s record-breaking budget earlier this month, lobbyists and state lawmakers said the governor’s staff called them seeking either campaign contributions or political endorsements — outreach that would normally be made by members of Mr. DeSantis’s campaign. The conversations left the lobbyists and lawmakers afraid that Mr. DeSantis would veto their projects from the budget if they did not comply, they said.And when Mr. DeSantis signed the budget, he vetoed several projects sponsored by state Senator Joe Gruters, a Republican who has endorsed former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner. Mr. Gruters accused the governor of retribution, calling him “meanspirited” and saying he had chosen to “punish ordinary Floridians” because of a political disagreement.The governor’s office denied that the vetoes were political. And at a news conference in Tampa last week, Mr. DeSantis said there was nothing wrong with aides in his office supporting his campaign in their “spare time.”But Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic Party, filed state ethics and elections complaints against three top staffers in the governor’s office. “Any reasonable person could infer from the reporting that our governor was holding the state budget hostage in exchange for political endorsements and donations — actions that are both unethical and illegal,” Ms. Fried said in a statement.Earlier this year, Mr. DeSantis also signed a bill shielding his travel records from public disclosure, preventing an accounting of the taxpayer funds being used to cover security and other costs during his campaign trips. More

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      Hunter Biden Isn’t Hiding. Even Some Democrats Are Uncomfortable.

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      Hunter Biden’s public appearances came across as a message of defiance by the president, who is determined to show that he stands by his son.During last week’s state dinner at the White House, Hunter Biden seemed to be everywhere. Upbeat and gregarious, he worked the pavilion with grins and gusto, shaking hands and hugging other guests.One guest who surely did not want to chitchat with him, though, was Merrick B. Garland, the attorney general whose Justice Department just two days earlier reached a plea agreement in which the president’s son will likely avoid prison time.The presence of the younger Biden at such a high-profile event so soon after the plea deal proved to be the buzz of the evening. It was all the more attention-grabbing given the risk of an accidental encounter with the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, who would rather cut off a thumb than be caught looking chummy with the target of an investigation that he had guaranteed would be conducted by the book.It did not go unnoticed either when, just days later, there was Hunter Biden getting on and off Marine One with the president heading to and from Camp David for the weekend.In the nation’s capital, where such things are rarely accidental and always noticed, the oh-so-public appearances came across as an in-your-face message of defiance by a president determined to show that he stands by his son in the face of relentlessly toxic attacks. Yet some Democrats, including current and former Biden administration officials, privately saw it as an unnecessary poke-the-bear gesture.“He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was willing to sustain the appearance issues to send a message to his son that he loves him,” said Norman Eisen, who was the ethics czar in President Barack Obama’s White House when Mr. Biden was vice president.Had he been advising Mr. Biden, Mr. Eisen said, he would have warned him about “the flak they were going to take” but added that it would be a matter of optics, rather than rules. “That’s probably more of a question for an etiquette czar than an ethics czar,” he said. “Certainly, there’s no violation of any ethics rule as long as they didn’t talk about the case.”The White House said Mr. Biden was simply being a father.“In all administrations, regardless of party, it’s common for presidential family members to attend state dinners and to accompany presidents to Camp David,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday. “The president and first lady love and support their son.”The visuals at the White House in the week since Hunter Biden’s plea deal was announced highlight the thorny situation for a president with a 53-year-old son traumatized by family tragedy and a devastating history of addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine. While Democrats scorn the conspiratorial fixation of the hard right on Hunter’s troubles, some of the president’s allies privately complain that, however understandably, he has a blind eye when it comes to his son. They lament that he did not step in more assertively to stop the younger man from trading on the family name in business dealings.It is not a subject that advisers raise with Mr. Biden easily, if at all, and so many of them are left to watch how he handles it and react accordingly. They take solace in the belief that many Americans understand a father’s love for his son, even one who makes mistakes, and in the assumption that it will not significantly hurt Mr. Biden’s bid for re-election next year any more than it did his victory over President Donald J. Trump in 2020. And they recognize that no matter what the family does, Hunter will be a target for the next 16 months.The plea deal last week was fraught for many reasons. It meant that the president’s son was admitting to criminal behavior by failing to file his taxes on time and would be subject to a diversion program on a felony charge of illegal gun possession, but would be spared time behind bars if a judge approves. Republicans immediately denounced it as a “sweetheart deal” by the Biden team.In fact, the decision was announced by a Trump appointee, David C. Weiss, a U.S. attorney who was kept on by the Biden Justice Department so as not to appear to interfere in his inquiry into Hunter Biden. Mr. Garland and Mr. Weiss have both insisted that Mr. Weiss had what he called “ultimate authority” over the case.There is no evidence that the president or the White House has played any role — unlike Mr. Trump, who while in office openly and repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to prosecute his perceived enemies and drop cases against his allies.But congressional Republicans have been promoting two I.R.S. “whistle-blowers” who assert that the Justice Department restrained Mr. Weiss, despite his own denial. Republicans plan to call Mr. Weiss to testify in coming days and are threatening to impeach Mr. Garland.One of the I.R.S. agents produced a message sent by Hunter Biden in 2017 invoking his father, who was then out of office, in pressuring a potential Chinese business partner to agree to a deal. While repeating that the president “was not in business with his son,” the White House has not disputed the authenticity of the message nor commented on the impression that Mr. Biden, as a former vice president, may have been used to secure business.Asked by a reporter on Monday whether he had lied when he previously said he did not discuss Hunter’s business dealings with him, the president said simply, “No.”Hunter Biden has appeared with his father since the start of his presidency, including previous trips to Camp David or the family home in Delaware. Hunter attended the first state dinner of the Biden presidency in December and accompanied his father on a trip to Ireland this spring.So in that sense, it might not have been all that surprising that he showed up last Thursday for the state dinner for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. But it quickly set off Republicans and conservative media.“Hunter and Merrick hanging out at Joe’s place?” Representative Andy Ogles, Republican of Tennessee, wrote on Twitter. “Classic Biden Crime Family.”Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri, said on Fox Business: “We saw a fancy state dinner at the White House, and you have the person who’s accused of these criminal allegations and also the department that has slow-walked these allegations, the leader of that department, seated and dining at the same table. All of this smells bad.”The tuxedo-clad Hunter Biden appeared in high spirits at the dinner, making his way around the pavilion set up on the South Lawn. He put his arm around Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator and former senator from Florida, and gave a friendly shoulder grip to Andy Moffit, the husband of Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary. Contrary to Mr. Smith, Mr. Garland was not at the same table and stayed resolutely on the other side of the pavilion, at least while reporters and photographers were there to watch.While Mr. Garland was invited weeks beforehand, some who know him suspected he must not have known that Hunter Biden would be there and likely would have been upset to be put in such an awkward position. One person familiar with the dinner said those not on the White House staff were not given the guest list in advance. Representatives for the White House and Justice Department would not say whether the president’s staff gave the attorney general a heads up.Still, even Democrats who would have preferred that Mr. Biden had not made such a public display of his son in the immediate aftermath of the plea deal bristle at criticism from Republicans who have shown little interest in nepotism involving Mr. Trump, who put his daughter and son-in-law on the White House staff and whose children have profited off his name for years.David M. Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said the state dinner made clear what Mr. Biden wanted to make clear — that he would not walk away from his son. “That may cause him problems, but it also reinforces a truth about a guy who has suffered great loss in his life and loves his kids,” he said.Richard W. Painter, who was the chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, later ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Democrat and has been critical at times of ethical decisions by the Biden team, said the president is forced to balance his personal and campaign imperatives.“These are the political calls that are made by the president,” said Mr. Painter, who according to media reports has been consulted by Hunter Biden’s lawyers about setting up a legal defense fund. “He wants to protect his political position running for re-election. He also wants to be a good father. That was his decision. You’re going to get heat. But I understand why he made the decision.”Glenn Thrush More

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      Does Justice Alito Hear Himself?

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      For someone who wields unimaginable power and exudes utter confidence in his own moral rectitude, Justice Samuel Alito is an exceptionally touchy guy.Exhibit A: His decision to devote time and energy to a newspaper essay defending himself against charges of ethical and legal violations that had not yet been published, and which he considered invalid in the first place. The essay, in both form and substance, epitomizes the bitterness and superciliousness that he has demonstrated in regular doses throughout his years on the Supreme Court.The nature of the charges, detailed in a deeply reported article published by ProPublica on Tuesday evening, will sound familiar after the recent revelations about the casual attitude of several justices regarding the most basic ethical standards.In 2008, Justice Alito accepted a free flight to a luxury fishing resort in Alaska on a private jet owned by Paul Singer, the hugely wealthy hedge-fund owner and major conservative donor. When one of Mr. Singer’s companies later appeared before the court in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the Argentine government, it won its case, eventually netting $2.4 billion. Justice Alito voted in the majority. He neither recused himself from the case nor reported the free flight, which could have cost him up to $100,000 on the open market, and which appears to be a violation of a federal law requiring the disclosure of such gifts.Most judges, whether by temperament or fidelity, avoid the spotlight. They prefer to follow rules and let their opinions do the talking. That has never been Justice Alito’s way. For most of his 17 years on the court, he has appeared to relish playing the role of bare-knuckled partisan soldier, standing athwart history in loyal service to a vengeful, theocratic right-wing movement that elevates religious liberty for some over basic freedoms for all. Remember when he mouthed “not true,” on live national television, in reaction to President Barack Obama’s criticism of the court’s Citizens United decision during the 2010 State of the Union address? Or when he attacked liberals as threatening religious liberty and free speech? Or when he mocked the critics of his majority opinion last year striking down Roe v. Wade and a woman’s constitutional right to abortion? You’d think you were listening to a pugnacious politician rather than a high-minded jurist — and you would not be entirely wrong.On Tuesday evening, hours before the ProPublica report came out, Justice Alito took to the ramparts again. In a lengthy screed on The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page, he absolved himself of any wrongdoing, flatly rejecting any suggestion that he should have recused himself or reported Mr. Singer’s gift. Recusal is required only when “an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant facts would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties,” he wrote, quoting the court’s recently adopted statement of ethics and principles. “No such person,” he concluded, “would think that my relationship with Mr. Singer meets that standard.”One of the hazards of an unelected lifetime gig is that you have little idea of what regular people actually think. Contrary to Justice Alito’s cosseted worldview, the real reason “no such person” would doubt his impartiality is that no such person exists. The justice never disclosed the existence of the trip, so no one was aware of “all relevant facts” besides himself, Mr. Singer and the other people on the plane.But even if the relationship had been known, can anyone say with a straight face that no “unbiased and reasonable person” would question the justice’s impartiality when he votes for someone who gave him a valuable gift? Isn’t there at least the appearance that something other than the strict application of the rule of law is at work? And appearances count, perhaps nowhere more than at the Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter of many of the most fraught issues of American life.Justice Alito is hardly the first member of the current court to face charges of serious ethical lapses. Nearly all the other justices, conservative and liberal, have accepted free travel and other gifts over the years, although these have rarely involved such a clear connection to cases that have come before the court. Justice Clarence Thomas has been under fire for, among other things, failing to recuse himself from cases involving the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, even though his wife, Ginni, was in regular communication with the Trump White House in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election. More recently, ProPublica has reported on Justice Thomas’s ties to Harlan Crow, another conservative billionaire who has lavished gifts on him and his wife over the years, and who has been connected to at least one business with a case before the court.Justice Thomas has mostly kept his mouth shut, though he did issue a brief statement after the ProPublica article about him. Justice Alito, by choosing to speak up at length and in a forum that he knew would be both friendly and prominent, muscled his opinion into public view. In doing so, he illustrated how flimsy even a Supreme Court justice’s reasoning can be when he attempts to be a judge in his own cause.For instance, Justice Alito defended his decision not to report Mr. Singer’s freebie because it was “personal hospitality,” which he believed, like his colleague Justice Thomas, did not need to be reported. And yet he also claimed he barely knew Mr. Singer. So which is it? “If you were good friends, what were you doing ruling on his case?” one legal-ethics expert said to ProPublica. “And if you weren’t good friends, what were you doing accepting this?”Rather than try to square that circle and admit he’d been caught doing something ethically wrong and arguably illegal, Justice Alito went to laughable lengths to lawyer his way out. As far as he was aware, he wrote, the seat he occupied on his private-jet jaunt to Alaska “would have otherwise been vacant” — by which he presumably means to say the gift was valueless. Remind me to try that one out the next time I walk past an empty first-class seat on a Delta flight. Seriously, though: do these guys listen to themselves?Justice Alito doesn’t like these sorts of questions. In fact, he doesn’t seem to like any criticism of the court. In addition to getting his back up about ethical complaints, he is aggrieved about challenges to the court’s blatantly partisan decisions and its increasing reliance on the secretive “shadow docket” to issue rulings without oral arguments or written opinions.“We are being hammered daily, and I think quite unfairly in a lot of instances. And nobody, practically nobody, is defending us,” he said in an interview in April with The Wall Street Journal.If Justice Alito doesn’t appreciate being called out for taking lavish trips on litigants’ dimes, or for overturning precedent to impose his personal ideology, then he might consider not doing those things in the first place. Instead, he chooses to shoot the messenger.It is this odor of impunity, this mockery of legitimate critique, this disregard for the rights and freedoms of millions of Americans — this “stench” of politicization, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it during oral arguments in the case that eventually overturned Roe v. Wade — that defines today’s Supreme Court. That should concern Chief Justice John Roberts above all, because his name and legacy will be forever attached to this court.And that is why, if the justices are confused as to the reason public trust in the court is in free fall, they need look no further than Justice Alito’s smug, defensive reaction to a very fair criticism. As long as the court refuses to accept significantly stricter ethics rules, either adopted by themselves or imposed by Congress, that trust — and with it the court’s legitimacy — will continue to erode until it’s not worth a seat on a private jet.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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      Morteza Hosseini Provided Ron DeSantis With a Costly Golf Simulator

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      The NewsA top political donor and close ally to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida who has frequently lent him his plane also gave him an expensive golf simulator, as an indefinite loan to the governor’s mansion, Mr. DeSantis’s office acknowledged on Wednesday.The simulator was given by Morteza Hosseini, according to a letter released by the governor’s office. Mr. Hosseini is a giant in Florida’s influential home-building industry who serves as the chairman of the University of Florida board of trustees.The Washington Post and Reuters reported on Wednesday on the golf simulator, which sells for tens of thousands of dollars, and noted that it was structured as a loan to a state agency called the Mansion Commission, which is controlled by Florida’s Department of Management Services.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida campaigning this year in Illinois. He has previously faced scrutiny over gifts.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWhy It Matters: Mr. DeSantis has previously faced scrutiny over donations.Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, is running for the party’s presidential nomination in 2024 and is a chief rival to former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. DeSantis has previously faced scrutiny over potential conflicts in accepting generous in-kind donations from Florida business owners.Some of those donations have avoided being reported under Florida campaign and ethics regulations, slipping through loopholes in state disclosure rules meant to prevent any undue influence.The New York Times reported last month that such loopholes might have allowed Mr. DeSantis to accept private plane donations from Mr. Hosseini and others, sometimes without disclosure, as he traveled the country before he made his candidacy official.Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s press secretary, said on Wednesday that the golf simulator loan was “coordinated by staff and approved by legal counsel.” Mr. Redfern added that previous administrations had accepted donations to the governor’s mansion. A list of the mansion’s acquisitions that was provided by the governor’s office included rugs and a Peloton bike donated to a previous administration.Background: The donor of the golf simulator is a heavyweight in Florida politics.On the campaign trail, Mr. DeSantis, an avid golfer, has been playing up his working-class roots in an effort to connect with voters in early voting states.Yet he has relied on a cadre of rich Florida businesspeople, including Mr. Hosseini, for perks like private planes since he first ran for governor in 2018.Mr. Hosseini, the chairman of ICI Homes, has long been a major player in Florida business and politics. He has donated his plane repeatedly to Mr. DeSantis’s political committee, dating to his early days in office, and has been a frequent presence in the governor’s office, according to two people familiar with the inner workings of the office who requested anonymity to speak freely.He serves as chairman of the University of Florida board of trustees, often regarded as a highly coveted appointment. His appointment predated Mr. DeSantis’s first term in office, but he was reappointed by Mr. DeSantis in 2021.In a statement, Mr. Hosseini said he had provided the golf simulator for use by the DeSantis family, guests and staff and understood it to be permissible under Florida law. He also said the state could keep it for as long as it wanted.In a 2019 letter to Mr. Hosseini released by the governor’s office, James Uthmeier, who was then a lawyer for the governor and is now his chief of staff, said he had personally cleared the loan with the Mansion Commission and verified it as permissible under state ethics codes.What’s Next: Mr. DeSantis will be back on the campaign trail.Mr. DeSantis’s opponents in the presidential nomination contest could seize on such donations and gifts as a contrast with his attempts to relate to working-class voters. This month he has campaign events in South Carolina and New Hampshire. The first debate of the Republican race is scheduled for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee.The front-runner, Mr. Trump, has repeatedly sought to draw attention to Mr. DeSantis’s use of private donor planes. Jason Miller, a Trump aide, reacted to the news reports on Wednesday on Twitter, saying it was “Ron DeSantis’ Florida Swamp in Action!” More

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      The Business of Being Chris Christie

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      Mr. Christie left the governor’s office in New Jersey and set out to, as he put it, “make money.” He successfully traded on his political profile — and on his ties to the man he now wants to defeat.As his second term as governor of New Jersey drew to a close in 2017, Chris Christie was characteristically blunt about his plans.“I want to have fun, and I want to make money,” he told The New York Times in an interview.Mr. Christie wasted no time. On his first day out of office, he saw Bruce Springsteen on Broadway. On his second, he met with executives of DraftKings, a fantasy sports behemoth that stood to benefit enormously from the Christie administration’s support for legalizing sports betting. The company later put the former governor on retainer to advise and influence state officials.Over the past six years, Mr. Christie has repeatedly capitalized, for personal gain, on the connections he made as one of the best-known governors in the country.He started a federal lobbying and consulting firm called Christie 55 Solutions, joined a multimillion-dollar real estate venture with a donor, landed a contract with ABC News, represented an international fugitive and sat on corporate boards, including that of his beloved New York Mets, the tortured baseball franchise run by his friend and megadonor, the billionaire Steve Cohen.And in 2018, the Christies bought a multimillion-dollar shorefront home in Bay Head, one of the more exclusive towns on the Jersey Shore. Their neighbors included, at one point, members of Bon Jovi. The business of being Chris Christie has received only sporadic attention since he left public office. But his latest enterprise — a presidential campaign bent on taking down former President Donald J. Trump, a man he once endorsed and advised — has cast a new light on his success.A close review of corporate and government records as well as interviews with more than 30 people familiar with his lobbying and consulting work shows Mr. Christie has profited from his relationship to the man he now wants to defeat, as well as from the political profile he gained in eight years as New Jersey’s governor.Mr. Christie has made millions from interests wanting to leverage his political ties, including pharmaceutical, medical and sports betting companies, like DraftKings — whose hiring of Mr. Christie has not been previously reported. Some had business with the state when Mr. Christie was governor, and saw him as a reliable advocate for their bottom line, while others were interested in tapping into his close association with Mr. Trump and the Trump administration.Christie 55 Solutions earned roughly $1.3 million in federal lobbying fees from April 2020 to April 2021, according to federal records. The firm also earned more than $800,000 in consulting fees from Pacira Biosciences, a pharmaceutical company with a significant presence in New Jersey. And he has earned around $400,000 a year for his work as a contributor to ABC News, according to a person familiar with the contract. Before he signed with ABC, multiple networks were interested in and were competing for Mr. Christie, another person familiar with the contract said. ABC later suspended its relationship with Mr. Christie before he began his campaign.The total value of Mr. Christie’s financial ventures is difficult to tabulate; much of his work involves corporate consulting, contracts that are not generally made public. Mr. Christie, who announced his bid in early June, has not yet been required to file a personal financial disclosure, a requirement for all federal candidates.Mr. Christie’s campaign declined both to comment on his finances and to disclose his post-governor clients and contracts.Mr. Christie at his campaign announcement. He has made millions from interests wanting to leverage his political ties.John Tully for The New York TimesFormer public officials from both parties regularly turn to political donors and corporate allies to make money. Former President Barack Obama earned $400,000 in a single speech from a Wall Street firm months after leaving office and later signed a production deal with Netflix, whose founder, Reed Hastings, is a major Democratic donor.No modern president comes close to Mr. Trump’s voluminous record of conflicts of interest, allegations of self-dealing and post-presidential deal-making that marked the Trump administration and its afterlife. His entanglements have spawned continued interest on the part of ethics experts, watchdog groups and federal prosecutors, who have issued subpoenas for information about his business dealings in foreign countries during his time in the White House.“The grift from this family is breathtaking,” Mr. Christie said at a recent town hall on CNN.While Mr. Christie’s own business ties don’t match Mr. Trump’s, they may test how far one more norm has been eroded in the Trump era: Registering as a lobbyist — a card-carrying member of the so-called swamp — has long been viewed as tantamount to retiring from electoral politics.Ambitious politicians typically tried to put distance between the “public office and the private interests they’re serving,” said Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group.“But if he’s got all of these other adjacent interests,” Ms. Canter said of Mr. Christie, “how impartial can you be?”‘The George Washington of legalized gaming’Retaining Mr. Christie was a natural move for DraftKings. As governor, he had been a leading force in the push to overturn the federal law that barred sports betting in most states. In 2018, when the Supreme Court decision in the case initially known as Christie vs. National Collegiate Athletic Association allowed states to legalize sports gambling, the industry rushed to push laws in states that would allow them to cash in on a new market.Weeks after the court’s ruling, Mr. Christie was the keynote speaker at a conference a gambling industry group hosted for state legislators in New Orleans, where he criticized sports leagues that had opposed expanding gambling.At the time, Mr. Christie was a consultant for Scientific Games, a lottery company that was part of a consortium that had won big when he privatized the New Jersey state lottery operations in 2013.The company was now seeking Mr. Christie’s advice on expanding into sports betting. Mr. Christie was paid more than $30,000 a month by Scientific Games, according to a person with knowledge of the arrangement who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the contract.DraftKings also put Mr. Christie on a monthly retainer and then sent him to speak to state legislators, although he did not register as a state lobbyist.Soon after Mr. Christie left office, DraftKings put him on retainer to advise and influence state officials.AJ Mast for The New York TimesMr. Christie initially had broad appeal. His blue-state Republicanism made him popular with moderate lawmakers in the Northeast and Midwest, and his ties to then-President Trump gave him credibility with more right-wing legislators.“Having the George Washington of legalized gaming in the U.S. was obviously something we thought would be helpful,” said Jeremy Kudon, who worked for DraftKings and a rival, FanDuel, on joint lobbying efforts at the time and now runs a gambling industry trade association. “And his relationship with Trump we thought would be helpful.”But in late 2020, just as the sports gambling industry focused its lobbying efforts on conservative Southern states, Mr. Christie broke with Mr. Trump over the president’s false claims of a stolen election — and DraftKings stopped deploying him.A spokesman for the company declined to comment.An $800,000 New Jersey connectionMr. Christie has also worked closely with — and for — the pharmaceutical industry, one of the biggest economic drivers in his state.Just months after leaving office, Mr. Christie was tapped by Mr. Trump to lead the President’s Commission on Opioids, giving him a prominent national post on an issue he had made a major focus of his second term as governor.Among the industry executives the commission brought in to testify was David Stack, the chief executive of Pacira Biosciences. Mr. Stack pressed for a change in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement policies, arguing, along with some policy experts, that the programs created incentives for doctors to prescribe opioids instead of non-opioid painkillers and other treatments that are less addictive.The commission included Mr. Stack’s suggestions in its final report and in 2018, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services changed their policies for non-opioid treatments for pain, citing the recommendation from the Christie-led commission.The change benefited just one drug on the market at the time: Exparel, made by Pacira.Donald Trump chose Mr. Christie, a former rival who became a close adviser, to lead a commission on the opioid crisis. Mr. Christie later became a consultant and lobbyist for drug companies. Doug Mills/The New York TimesThat same year in 2018, Pacira paid $481,000 to Christie 55 Solutions for consulting work. In 2019, Pacira put Mr. Christie on its board and paid his firm $320,000, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The reports did not offer any further details, and the company did not respond to questions about the payments.As of June 2022, Mr. Christie owned 3,486 Pacira Biosciences shares worth $207,034.Mr. Christie has said he was not employed by Pacira while serving on the opioids commission.Sara Marino, a spokeswoman for the company, said Mr. Christie “provided Pacira with valuable insight and guidance” as it sought “to provide an opioid alternative to as many patients as appropriate.”Mr. Christie has continued to consult for drug companies. In April, he joined the advisory board for Cytogel Pharma, a company testing a new non-opioid pain reliever in clinical trials.Dean Maglaris, the chief executive of Cytogel, said Mr. Christie had helped connect the young company with industry experts and government officials.“Being from New Jersey, which is the, probably the state with the largest population of pharmaceutical companies, he has put us in contact with people that he knows,” Mr. Maglaris said. Mr. Christie also helped connect the company with “folks in the federal government who have an abiding interest in solving the addiction crisis.”Negotiating with JusticeMr. Christie, a former federal prosecutor, also got involved in a high-profile money-laundering case. Mr. Christie was hired by Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman who had been indicted in 2018 on money laundering and bribery charges and was living as a fugitive. At the time, the U.S. government had seized hundreds of millions of dollars in assets tied to Mr. Low and associates.Mr. Christie never registered in court as an attorney for Mr. Low, but he worked behind the scenes to negotiate a deal with Justice Department lawyers. Mr. Low ultimately forfeited nearly all of the seized assets — with the exception of $15 million in payments to Mr. Christie and two law firms. Mr. Christie represented Jho Low, a Malaysian businessman who was indicted on money-laundering charges, in his negotiations with the Justice Department. Scott Roth/Invision, via Scott Roth/Invision/ApThe payout raised eyebrows among other lawyers involved. They saw it as a hefty sum for the legal work performed, but ultimately the Justice Department agreed to it, because the priority was to make sure Mr. Low did not have access to the money himself, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations.Although Mr. Christie had been using his connections in the Trump administration as a consultant for years, he did not register as a federal lobbyist until June 2020, shortly after the pandemic hit.As Congress passed several bills to help both businesses and health care providers, several major health care networks, all in New Jersey, hired Christie 55 Solutions: Atlantic Health System, RWJBarnabas Health and Hackensack Meridian Health each paid the firm $200,000 for a little less than a year’s work.Christie 55 Solutions, whose small staff included Mr. Christie’s wife, Mary Pat Christie, and Rich Bagger, his former chief of staff, closed its federal lobbying shop in late 2021.Seeing opportunity at homeAs he used his sway in Washington, Mr. Christie kept one foot in New Jersey. Both Mr. and Mrs. Christie joined a real estate venture with a New Jersey developer, Jon Hanson, a longtime political ally and fund-raiser for Mr. Christie’s campaigns.Mr. Christie’s involvement was announced in 2019 as the enterprise, named the Hampshire Christie Qualified Opportunity Fund, set out to find investors for real estate developments taking advantage of federal “opportunity zones,” a Republican-backed tax program intended to benefit low-income neighborhoods. The Trump administration program has been criticized as a windfall for wealthy developers.The Christies are “investor partners” in the fund and Mrs. Christie has helped raise some of the money, Mr. Hanson told The Times.Karl Rickett, a spokesman for the Christie campaign, said the former governor was never involved in the fund as a senior adviser or in any other capacity, and that the venture was entirely a project of Mrs. Christie’s.The fund has raised $80 million of its $250 million goal for three luxury housing and retail projects in Hackensack, N.J., and a New London, Conn., storage facility that will be developed by the firm Mr. Hanson founded, according to Mr. Hanson.When the fund was first publicized, Mrs. Christie promoted her husband’s involvement as an advantage, saying he would use his connections to smooth the path with New Jersey mayors, town councils and zoning boards.“Nobody really knows New Jersey as well as Chris, because he’s been at the helm for the last eight years,” she said to The Wall Street Journal at the time.Mr. Hanson, however, has said that has not happened. Mr. Christie has not been involved at the local level, he said.Kenneth P. Vogel More

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      De Blasio Owes City $475,000 for Bringing Police on Presidential Campaign

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      New York City’s Conflicts of Interest Board said the former mayor must reimburse the city for police officers’ travel, and pay a record fine.Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, must reimburse the city nearly $320,000 and pay a $155,000 fine for bringing his security detail on trips during his failed presidential campaign, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board ordered on Thursday.The hefty fine and repayment — both the highest penalty and the largest amount the board said it has ever issued — may be the most lasting impact to date of Mr. de Blasio’s doomed run for president.The former mayor’s campaign lasted just four months in 2019 and damaged his standing with city residents, who griped that their mayor was making an ill-considered play for national relevance at the expense of addressing problems at home.According to the Conflicts of Interest Board, the city spent $319,794.20 in travel-related costs for members of Mr. de Blasio’s security detail to accompany either him or his wife, Chirlane McCray, on 31 out-of-state trips related to the campaign. The expenses included airfare, car rentals, overnight lodging, meals and other incidentals.Shortly before Mr. de Blasio launched his campaign, the board — an independent body with five members appointed by the mayor, comptroller and public advocate — told Mr. de Blasio that the city could pay for salary and overtime for his security detail. But it advised him that paying for the officers’ travel costs would be a “misuse of city resources,” it said.But Mr. de Blasio did not heed the board’s guidance, it said. His failure to do so was one of several issues addressed in a 47-page report by the city’s Department of Investigation, which found that Mr. de Blasio misused public resources for both political and personal purposes, including having a police van and officers help move his daughter to Gracie Mansion.Jocelyn Strauber, the investigations commissioner, said in a statement that the Conflicts of Interest Board’s order backed her department’s report and showed “that public officials — including the most senior — will be held accountable when they violate the rules.”The board, which still has two members appointed by Mr. de Blasio, ordered the former mayor to repay the expenses borne by the city and fined him $5,000 for each out-of-state trip.Mr. de Blasio’s presidential campaign reported having just $1,422.76 on hand in its last filing with the Federal Election Commission, in December 2020. A political action committee associated with Mr. de Blasio, Fairness PAC, last reported having more than $32,000 in debt and less than $3,000 on hand.Mr. de Blasio, who ran New York City from 2014 through 2021, was plagued by ethics questions during his time in office. He was the subject of a number of investigations into whether his fund-raising methods violated the city’s ethics law, a ban against soliciting contributions from people who had business in front of the city.In April, the Federal Election Commission fined his presidential campaign for accepting improper contributions from two political action committees he and others had set up.Since leaving his post, Mr. de Blasio made a short-lived run for an open House seat that ended after two months on the campaign trail. (His House campaign reported having roughly $156,000 in its coffers at the end of March, but it is not clear whether he could use that money to pay expenses associated with his presidential run.)Mr. de Blasio left politics behind and moved into academia, becoming a visiting teaching fellow at Harvard University and teaching a class at New York University.He has recently become more candid about his time in office. In an uncommonly frank interview with New York Magazine published on Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio opened up about criticisms he received as mayor, including an infamous moment when he dropped a groundhog in 2014. He also expressed some regret about seeking the presidency.“It was a mistake,” he said. “I think my values were the right values, and I think I had something to offer, but it was not right on a variety of levels.”Mr. de Blasio did not respond to a message seeking comment. One of his lawyers, Andrew G. Celli Jr., said in a statement that Mr. de Blasio’s legal team had already filed a lawsuit to appeal the ruling and block the board’s order. He accused the board of breaking “decades of N.Y.P.D. policy and precedent” and violating the Constitution.“In the wake of the January 6th insurrection, the shootings of Congress members Giffords and Scalise, and almost daily threats directed at local leaders around the country, the C.O.I.B.’s action — which seeks to saddle elected officials with security costs that the city has properly borne for decades — is dangerous, beyond the scope of their powers, and illegal,” Mr. Celli said. More

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      House Kills Effort to Censure Adam Schiff, Aided by Some Republicans

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      The NewsThe House turned back a Republican effort on Wednesday to formally censure Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, for his role in investigating and impeaching former President Donald J. Trump.The vote was 225 to 196 to table, or kill, a resolution by Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who has allied herself closely with the former president. Twenty Republicans joined Democrats in voting to sideline it, with another two G.O.P. lawmakers voting “present” to avoid registering a position. In a surprise, five Democrats also voted “present.”The measure would have rebuked Mr. Schiff, who as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee investigated whether Mr. Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election and prosecuted Mr. Trump at his first impeachment trial. It called for an ethics investigation into Mr. Schiff and a $16 million fine if he was found to have lied.Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, investigated whether former President Donald J. Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election and prosecuted Mr. Trump at his first impeachment trial.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWhy It MattersThe censure resolution, coming a day after Mr. Trump was arraigned in a federal court on 37 criminal counts related to his mishandling of classified documents and efforts to obstruct federal investigators, was the latest bid by Republicans to retaliate against Democrats for their treatment of the former president.But while the measure, which accused Mr. Schiff of willfully lying for political gain, was highly partisan, it raised complicated questions about accountability and revenge. Mr. Schiff’s claims that there was “ample evidence” that Mr. Trump colluded with Russia were undermined by the conclusions of the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who wrote in his report that his investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Republicans have wielded that determination to accuse Mr. Schiff of lying.“Ultimately, this is an accountability tool that we can do to each other to ensure that the integrity of the institution is intact,” Ms. Luna said.Still, Mr. Schiff’s statements and allegations were made during an official investigation of Mr. Trump. On Wednesday, Mr. Schiff called the effort to censure him “political payback” and warned that it would set “a dangerous precedent of going after someone who held a corrupt president accountable.”The bipartisan vote to table the measure suggested that at least some Republicans agreed that it was inappropriate.BackgroundMr. Schiff, who is running in a competitive primary for the chance to succeed a fellow California Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has long been vilified by the G.O.P. Earlier this year, Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally removed him from the Intelligence Committee.Ms. Luna, who first filed a resolution to fine and censure Mr. Schiff, rewrote her measure to say that the House Ethics Committee should impose the $16 million penalty if it determined that Mr. Schiff had “lied, made misrepresentations and abused sensitive information.” The move was geared toward allaying concerns about the resolution among Republicans, but it did not appear to have succeeded.“The Constitution says the House may make its own rules but we can’t violate other (later) provisions of the Constitution,” Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, wrote on Twitter, arguing that the resolution violated amendments governing excessive fines and changes to congressional pay.What’s NextMr. Schiff has been using the censure resolution to raise funds for his Senate campaign, beseeching supporters to chip in money to help him cover a fine that has little chance of being levied.It was unclear whether Ms. Luna’s effort was the start of a trend. This month, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, filed a resolution to censure Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, accusing him of improperly sharing records with the Biden administration while running the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and the events leading up to it. More