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    Trump Criminal Case Likely to Remain in N.Y. State Court, Judge Says

    The judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, said he was not inclined to move the Manhattan district attorney’s case against the former president to federal court.A judge on Tuesday indicated that he was likely to deny a request from lawyers for Donald J. Trump to move a New York State criminal case against the former president to federal court.The federal judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, said that he would issue a written ruling within two weeks, but was inclined not to transfer the case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office which stems from a hush-money payment before the 2016 presidential election.“There is no reason to believe that an equal measure of justice couldn’t be rendered by the state court,” Judge Hellerstein said, after calling a central argument made by one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers “far-fetched.”After the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, unveiled the 34 felony charges against Mr. Trump in March, lawyers for the former president argued that the proper venue was federal court, in part because the conduct had occurred while Mr. Trump was in office.The payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, was made on Mr. Trump’s behalf by his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, to buy her silence about a tryst she said she had with Mr. Trump. Once Mr. Trump was elected, he reimbursed Mr. Cohen. Mr. Bragg’s prosecutors have accused Mr. Trump of falsifying business records to disguise the purpose of the reimbursements.Mr. Trump’s lawyers would have had to convince Judge Hellerstein, who sits in Manhattan, that the accusations were related in some way to Mr. Trump’s official duties as president.Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, argued that any work that Mr. Cohen did would have been related to Mr. Trump’s presidency: He said that Mr. Trump hired Mr. Cohen — who had been his longtime fixer — as a personal lawyer to ensure that he was fulfilling his constitutional duties.Matthew Colangelo, a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office, argued that Mr. Cohen’s hiring demonstrated the opposite. “These are personal payments to a personal lawyer handling his personal affairs.”Judge Hellerstein appeared to agree, saying that it was “very clear” that the act for which Mr. Trump had been indicted did not relate to the presidency. At one point, in a phrase that echoed Mr. Colangelo, the judge said of Mr. Cohen that “he was hired as a private matter to take care of private matters.”The judge said that his closing remarks from the bench were not binding, but that they would “presage” his ruling. If he rules as he suggested he would, the case would proceed as expected in state court, where a trial has been scheduled for March 25.A preview of how that trial might play out came during the hearing when Mr. Blanche unexpectedly called a witness to testify about Mr. Cohen’s role when he worked as a personal lawyer to Mr. Trump. He was trying to show how that role related to the official duties of the presidency.The witness, Alan Garten, the chief legal officer of the Trump Organization, was then cross-examined by Susan Hoffinger, the head of investigations at the district attorney’s office.Ms. Hoffinger tried to show that the arrangement with Mr. Cohen — without a retainer and with payments whose purpose was recorded without any description of the work involved in Mr. Trump’s ledger — was atypical. Mr. Garten acknowledged that it was irregular, but said that such arrangements did happen “from time to time.” More

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    Arraigned, Again: Trump’s Federal Court Hearing in Miami

    Michael Simon Johnson, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Diana Nguyen, Mary Wilson and Rachel Quester and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicDonald Trump was arraigned in Miami yesterday on 37 criminal counts covering seven different violations of federal law, including the handling of classified documents.Three New York Times journalists covered the proceedings: Glenn Thrush was inside the courtroom, Luke Broadwater reported from outside the courthouse, and Maggie Haberman was at Mr. Trump’s home in Bedminster, N.J.On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Glenn Thrush, who covers the Department of Justice for The New York Times.Maggie Haberman, a political correspondent for The New York Times.Donald Trump boarding a plane in Miami after making his court appearance. “I did everything right and they indicted me,” he said in a speech after his arraignment.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBackground readingMr. Trump, now twice indicted since leaving the White House, surrendered to federal authorities in Miami and pleaded not guilty, striking a defiant tone afterward.On the calendar for Mr. Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 front-runner: rallies and primaries mixed with court dates.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater More

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    The Trump Indictment: A Changed Landscape

    More from our inbox:Our Failure to Support New Parents and BabiesThe indictment followed criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump in a hush-money case brought by local prosecutors in New York.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Is Indicted Over Classified Files” (front page, June 9):The indictment of Donald Trump heralds a new chapter in American history. His trial could come sometime next year during the Republican primary season. He will continue to tell his followers that he has done nothing wrong and that this is all part of a vendetta by the Washington elite.His followers will continue to support him. If he is found guilty in any of his trials, he will appeal. If he is nominated, the appeals process will play out during the election campaign. He could be elected and then have a guilty verdict upheld as he is about to be sworn into office.Mr. Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith serve as the protagonists in the first act of a Shakespearean tragedy. The full effects on America of Mr. Smith’s essential action will not be known until the final act.Sidney WeissmanHighland Park, Ill.To the Editor:Is no one above the law? We are about to find out. The stakes couldn’t be higher if the country hopes to remain a legitimate democracy.Tom McGrawGrand Rapids, Mich.To the Editor:The indictment of Donald Trump on federal criminal charges might improve his odds of receiving the Republican nomination, but it almost certainly means that if nominated, he would lose the general election.It may increase the sympathy and anger of millions of his hard-core supporters. They will give him even more money to run and turn out in even greater numbers in the primaries, but it will not persuade many, if any, supporters of President Biden to vote against him in November 2024.This is not yet a banana republic. The greater number of Americans who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 will continue to believe that this and future indictments are legitimate.Even if Mr. Trump manages to beat all the charges against him, he has been further disgraced by all these legal battles. And the effect of the indictments after the lessons of the Jan. 6 hearings will bring new voters, particularly first-time voters, to Mr. Biden.If he remains healthy, President Biden wins again.Allen SmithSalisbury, Md.To the Editor:Journalists need to get to the meat of the Republicans’ support of Donald Trump’s behavior in the classified documents case and ask them the following questions:Are you saying you do not trust the Florida grand jury, made up of ordinary citizens from a state that twice voted for Mr. Trump? The prosecutor presents the facts, but the grand jurors vote on whether to indict. Do you really think all of them are on an anti-Trump witch hunt?Why are you making judgments about this case when you don’t know the charges or the facts? It sounds as if you are advocating for Mr. Trump to be able to break the law at will with no consequences; do you deny that?Stop allowing Republican politicians to hide behind specious arguments bereft of facts or even common sense. They are spouting anti-democratic nonsense, and the press should be exposing them for what they are.Jean PhillipsFlorence, Ore.To the Editor:In all the discussions, among all the various talking heads, about the various aspects of this new criminal indictment, one significant factor has been overlooked.At no time, during any judicial proceedings, will Donald Trump ever take the witness stand. It will never happen.Stuart AltshulerNew YorkTo the Editor:It is vital that Donald Trump’s trial be scheduled to start no later than four months after his arraignment, so that the trial can be finished well before the Iowa caucuses. This can be done by actions of the judge assigned to the case immediately after the arraignment, setting strict time limits for all pretrial matters.Both parties have experienced attorneys who can promptly complete pretrial matters, including discovery and pretrial motions, within that four-month period so that the trial can end well before the voters have to make their decisions.Robert LernerMilwaukeeThe writer is a retired lawyer who tried many cases in federal courts as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney.To the Editor:Jack Smith, all I can say is thank you. Thank you for believing in our country. Thank you for trying to uphold our democracy. Thank you for your courage.I have tears in my eyes. You have restored my hope. Grateful. Stay well.Dody Osborne CoxGuilford, Conn.Our Failure to Support New Parents and Babies Shuran Huang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Risk to Mothers Lasts a Full Year After Childbirth” (front page, May 28) and “A 3-Month-Old Baby Was Found Dead Near a Bronx Expressway” (nytimes.com, May 29):As a midwife working with pregnant people and new parents, I found these articles — about increasing rates of maternal mortality from hypertension, mental illness and other causes and about parents charged with murder or reckless endangerment — heartbreaking.This represents the total failure of our society to support pregnant people and new parents. After receiving only rudimentary maternity services with limited access to care, new parents are turned out of the medical system without proper follow-up and support. Our health care system has not responded to the increasing challenges of parenting in the modern world, leaving parents and children to face preventable dangers.Patient-centered care in pregnancy and improved postpartum services could prevent the suffering and deaths through early identification of risks and swift intervention. Access to care is far too limited.There has been enough hand-wringing about our horrible statistics. We need immediate investment in maternity services, expanded access to obstetric and midwifery care, mental health services, postpartum care and support for new parents.How many more deaths will it take for us to invest in the well-being and safety of our parents and children?Laura WeilSan FranciscoThe writer is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.To the Editor:Our nation’s failure to properly care for expectant and new mothers and their babies speaks to a larger problem: Our health care system is siloed and focused on delivering urgent services. We treat pregnancy as an event, focused on a safe delivery and a healthy baby and mother, and our systems respond to problems only when they arise.There is a pressing need to address increasing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality — and the many other health issues across the country that are rapidly getting worse — by considering the entirety of factors that make up a person’s health and well-being. We need to spend more time upstream, creating the vital conditions that are key to good health and well-being, like a healthy environment, humane housing, meaningful work and sufficient wealth.If we increase our investments in order to create the conditions people need to thrive, we can build the long-lasting change that is needed to prevent many serious health problems. This is much harder than treating a single person presenting in the emergency room, but it is a much smarter investment for our long-term health and well-being.Alan LieberMorristown, N.J.The writer is chief operating officer and chief health care strategist for the Rippel Foundation, which is working to rethink systems that have an impact on health and well-being. More

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    Trump’s Indictment Puts Us Into Uncharted Waters

    Former President Donald Trump finds himself once again facing indictment, this time in federal court, after an investigation into his handling of classified documents after departing the White House. The prospect of putting Mr. Trump on trial for serious crimes and sending him to prison has many Americans feeling giddy: Finally, justice might be done.Such reactions are understandable, but news of Mr. Trump’s legal jeopardy shouldn’t blind us to the political jeopardy that now confronts the nation.Other countries have tried, convicted and imprisoned former presidents, but the United States never has. We’ve been fortunate in this regard. Legal processes establish and maintain legitimacy by the appearance of impartiality. But when a public figure associated with one political party is prosecuted by officials associated with another, such appearances can become impossible to uphold. This is especially so when the public figure is a populist adept at exposing (and accusing opponents of concealing) base and self-interested motives behind righteous rhetoric about the rule of law.This corrosive dynamic is even more pronounced when the public figure is not only a former official but also a potential future one. Mr. Trump is running for president against President Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the special counsel Jack Smith. That’s a scenario seemingly tailor-made to confirm and vindicate Mr. Trump’s longstanding claim that he’s the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt.We don’t have to speculate about the immediate political consequences. Public-spirited and law-abiding Americans believe the appropriate response of voters to news that their favored candidate faces indictment is to turn on him and run the other way. But the populist politics that are Mr. Trump’s specialty operate according to an inverse logic. Before the end of March, polls of the Republican primary electorate showed him hovering in the mid-40s and leading his nearest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by about 15 points. By the end of May, Mr. Trump was in the mid-50s and leading Mr. DeSantis by roughly 30 points.What happened at the end of March to elevate Mr. Trump’s standing? He was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.Hard as it may be for some of us to believe, Mr. Trump’s indictment by the special counsel on federal charges could well boost him further, placing him in a position of even greater advantage against his rivals for the Republican nomination.That possibility typically prompts one of two responses from Democrats: one narrowly political (not to say cynical), the other more high-minded and focused on the law and public morals.The political response sees Mr. Trump benefiting in the G.O.P. primaries from indictment as a good thing, because the former president appears to be the most beatable alternative for Mr. Biden to face in the fall of 2024, and that will be even truer when Mr. Trump is embroiled in a federal trial on major charges and facing possible prison time. What’s good for Mr. Trump in the primaries, in other words, will be terrible for him in the general election.This may well be true, but not necessarily. Anyone who becomes one of two major party nominees has a shot at winning the White House. That’s especially true in our era of stark partisan polarization and intense negative partisanship. That Mr. Trump would be running against an opponent with persistently low approval ratings who will be 81 years old on Election Day 2024 only makes a Biden-Trump matchup more uncertain.The other response dismisses such concerns entirely. Let justice be done, we are told, though the heavens fall. To weigh political considerations in determining whether someone, even a former and possibly future president, should be prosecuted is to supposedly commit a grievous offense against the rule of law, because no one is above the law and the consequences of holding him or her to account shouldn’t matter.This is a powerful argument and one seemingly vindicated in the case of Mr. Trump, who has now managed to get himself ensnared in legal trouble in multiple jurisdictions dealing with a wide range of possible crimes. At a certain point, the logic of the law applying to everyone equally demands that the process be seen through.But that doesn’t mean we should deny the gravity of the potential consequences. Mr. Trump is not a standard-issue politician who happened to run afoul of corruption statutes. He’s a man who rose once to the presidency and seeks to return to it by mobilizing and enhancing mass suspicion of public institutions and officials. That’s why one of the first things he said after announcing the indictment on Thursday night was to proclaim it was “a DARK DAY for the United States of America.” It’s why die-hard supporters like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio tweeted: “Sad day for America. God Bless President Trump.” It’s likely that tens of millions of our fellow citizens agree with the sentiment.To most Americans, such a reaction to news of Mr. Trump’s indictment seems unimaginable. But it’s clearly something sincerely felt by many. Our country has a history of lionizing outlaws — folk heroes who defy authority, especially when they claim to speak for, channel and champion the grievances and resentments of ordinary people against those in positions of power and influence. From the beginning of his 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump has portrayed himself as just such a man of defiance, eager to serve as a tribune for those who feel left behind, denigrated and humiliated by members of the establishment.That’s why the more concerted opposition Mr. Trump has faced from law enforcement, the mainstream media, Congress and other prominent people in our country and culture, the more popular he has become within his party. Efforts to rein him in — to defeat him politically and legally — have often backfired, vindicating him and his struggle in the eyes of his supporters.There’s no reason at all to suppose the prospect of Mr. Trump’s ending up a convicted criminal would disrupt this dynamic. On the contrary, it’s far more likely to transform him into something resembling a martyr to millions of Americans — and in the process to wrest those devoted supporters free from attachment to the rule of law altogether.How politically radical could the base of the Republican Party become over the 17 months between now and the 2024 presidential election? There’s really no way to know. We are heading into uncharted and turbulent waters.Damon Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter Notes From the Middleground and is a senior fellow in the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center.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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    National Democrats Make Last-Gasp Push to Keep N.Y. District Maps

    Democrats are seeking to reinstate congressional district maps that were declared unconstitutional last week by New York’s highest court.With the balance of the House of Representatives at stake, national Democrats made an 11th-hour appeal to a federal court on Monday to intervene in New York’s heated redistricting dispute, hoping to reinstate House maps thrown out by the state’s highest court last week.In a 17-page complaint, they argued that there simply was not enough time to implement the order from the State Court of Appeals for new district lines and still comply with a longstanding federal court order meant to protect the rights of Americans casting ballots from overseas.The Democrats asked a panel of federal judges to exercise its authority to effectively block the state court from enforcing its decision, and instead require New York to hold this year’s elections in late June, as originally scheduled, on the map adopted by the Democrat-dominated Legislature.“The state has an obligation to timely redistrict,” the complaint said. “Since it has failed to do so, this court must act.”The unusual legal maneuver, funded by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on behalf of five New York voters, amounted to a last-gasp effort by party leaders to save a set of lines that could net their party as many as three new seats in the battle for control of the House.The State Court of Appeals tossed the maps last week, ruling that Democratic state leaders had violated a 2014 amendment to the State Constitution, including a ban on partisan gerrymandering. In a far-reaching decision, the judges ordered a court-appointed special master to draw the new lines instead and set the stage for the primary to be delayed until Aug. 23.While it is not unheard-of for federal courts to temporarily allow elections to proceed on flawed maps for pragmatic reasons, it was far from clear that Democrats’ arguments would prevail here.What to Know About RedistrictingRedistricting, Explained: Here are some answers to your most pressing questions about the process that is reshaping American politics.Understand Gerrymandering: Can you gerrymander your party to power? Try to draw your own districts in this imaginary state.Killing Competition: The number of competitive districts is dropping, as both parties use redistricting to draw themselves into safe seats.Deepening Divides: As political mapmakers create lopsided new district lines, the already polarized parties are being pulled even farther apart.A federal judge could, for example, be persuaded that there was enough time to draft new maps to satisfy the state court this year under the revised primary calendar. Other states frequently hold late-summer primaries and are able to comply with overseas ballot requirements.Republicans said they were confident the state ruling would stand unimpeded.“It’s a Hail Mary and a sign of desperation,” said John Faso, a former congressman who helped bring the Republicans’ initial legal challenge. “An Aug. 23 primary fully complies with the requirements of the federal military voters act.”National Democratic leaders on Monday coupled the lawsuit with a public campaign to openly pressure the state courts to alter the process for drawing the new district lines, in case they do not prevail in court.Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the No. 5 House Democrat, criticized the judge overseeing the case for creating a process that makes it difficult for voters of color in his Brooklyn district to have any say in the final maps at all.The judge, Patrick F. McAllister, has ordered that anyone wishing to offer input to the special master must do so in person at a courthouse in Bath, N.Y., on Friday.Mr. Jeffries noted, in arguments that echoed parts of the lawsuit, that it was a five-hour drive from New York City and virtually inaccessible by public transportation — an arrangement he called “not acceptable.”“The court must immediately schedule additional hearings at locations accessible throughout our state, including in New York City, Albany and Buffalo, before ruling on legislative and congressional districts drawn by an unelected, out-of-town special master,” he wrote to the judge.The initial lawsuit, filed against New York State Democratic leaders, was financed and supervised by Republicans in Albany and Washington, and filed before Justice McAllister, a conservative Republican in Steuben County, N.Y.How U.S. Redistricting WorksCard 1 of 8What is redistricting? More

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    Federal Judge Finds Trump Most Likely Committed Crimes Over 2020 Election

    “The illegality of the plan was obvious,” the judge wrote in a civil case. Separately, the Jan. 6 panel voted to recommend contempt of Congress charges for two former Trump aides.WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump and a lawyer who had advised him on how to overturn the 2020 election most likely had committed felonies, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.The judge’s comments in the civil case of the lawyer, John Eastman, marked a significant breakthrough for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee, which is weighing making a criminal referral to the Justice Department, had used a filing in the case to lay out the crimes it believed Mr. Trump might have committed.Mr. Trump has not been charged with any crime, and the judge’s ruling had no immediate, practical legal effect on him. But it essentially ratified the committee’s argument that Mr. Trump’s efforts to block Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory could well rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy.“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” wrote Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California. “Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the vice president to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election.”The actions taken by Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman, Judge Carter found, amounted to “a coup in search of a legal theory.”The Justice Department has been conducting a wide-ranging investigation of the Capitol assault but has given no public indication that it is considering a criminal case against Mr. Trump. A criminal referral from the House committee could increase pressure on Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to do so.The judge’s ruling came as the committee was barreling ahead with its investigation. This week alone, people familiar with the investigation said, the panel has lined up testimony from four top Trump White House officials, including Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law and adviser, whose interview was scheduled for Thursday.The committee also voted 9-0 on Monday night to recommend criminal contempt of Congress charges against two other allies of Mr. Trump — Peter Navarro, a former White House adviser, and Dan Scavino Jr., a former deputy chief of staff — for their participation in efforts to overturn the 2020 election and their subsequent refusal to comply with the panel’s subpoenas. The matter now moves to the Rules Committee, then the full House. If it passes there, the Justice Department will decide whether to charge the men. A contempt of Congress charge carries a penalty of up to a year in jail.But Judge Carter’s decision was perhaps the investigation’s biggest development to date, suggesting its investigators have built a case strong enough to convince a federal judge of Mr. Trump’s culpability and laying out a road map for a potential criminal referral.Judge Carter’s decision came in an order for Mr. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had written a memo that members of both parties have likened to a blueprint for a coup, to turn over more than 100 emails to the committee.A lawyer for Mr. Eastman said in a statement on Monday that he “respectfully disagrees” with Judge Carter’s findings but would comply with the order to turn over documents.In a statement hailing the judge’s decision, the chairman of the House committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi, and its vice chair, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said the nation must not allow what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, “to be minimized and cannot accept as normal these threats to our democracy.” Mr. Trump made no public statement about the ruling.Many of the documents the committee will now receive relate to a legal strategy proposed by Mr. Eastman to pressure Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electors from several key swing states when Congress convened on Jan. 6, 2021. “The true animating force behind these emails was advancing a political strategy: to persuade Vice President Pence to take unilateral action on Jan. 6,” Judge Carter wrote.One of the documents, according to the ruling, is an email containing the draft of a memo written for another one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, recommending that Mr. Pence “reject electors from contested states.”“This may have been the first time members of President Trump’s team transformed a legal interpretation of the Electoral Count Act into a day-by-day plan of action,” Judge Carter wrote.Mr. Eastman had filed suit against the panel, trying to persuade a judge to block the committee’s subpoena for documents in his possession. As part of the suit, Mr. Eastman sought to shield from release documents he said were covered by attorney-client privilege.In response, the committee argued — under the legal theory known as the crime-fraud exception — that the privilege did not cover information conveyed from a client to a lawyer if it was part of furthering or concealing a crime.The panel said its investigators had accumulated evidence demonstrating that Mr. Trump, Mr. Eastman and other allies could be charged with criminal violations including obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and conspiracy to defraud the American people.Judge Carter, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, agreed, writing that he believed it was “likely” that the men not only had conspired to defraud the United States but “dishonestly conspired to obstruct the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.”“Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history,” he wrote.In deciding that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman had “more likely than not” broken the law — the legal standard for determining whether Mr. Eastman could claim attorney-client privilege — Judge Carter noted that the former president had facilitated two meetings in the days before Jan. 6 that were “explicitly tied to persuading Vice President Pence to disrupt the joint session of Congress.”Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3Judge says Trump likely committed crimes. 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    After Success in Seating Federal Judges, Biden Hits Resistance

    Senate Democrats vow to keep pressing forward with nominees, but they may face obstacles in states represented by Republicans.WASHINGTON — After early success in nominating and confirming federal judges, President Biden and Senate Democrats have begun to encounter stiffer Republican resistance to their efforts to reshape the courts.Tennessee Republicans have raised objections to Mr. Biden’s pick for an influential appeals court there — the administration’s first judicial nominee from a state represented by two Republican senators — and a circuit court candidate is likely to need every Democratic vote to win confirmation in a coming floor showdown.The obstacles threaten to slow or halt a little-noticed winning streak for the Biden administration on Capitol Hill, where the White House has set a rapid pace in filling vacancies on the federal bench, even surpassing the rate of the Trump era, when Republicans were focused almost single-mindedly on confirming judges.In contrast to the administration’s struggle on its legislative agenda, the lower-profile judicial push has been one of the highlights of the first year of the Biden presidency. Democrats say they intend to aggressively press forward to counter the Trump judicial juggernaut of the previous four years, and they may have limited time to do so, given the possibility of losing control of the Senate in next year’s midterm elections.“We are taking this seriously,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the Judiciary Committee chairman, who plans to advance nominees through the end of the year and beyond. “We are going to move everything we can legally move.”Mr. Biden, a former Judiciary Committee chairman with deep expertise on the confirmation process, has sent the Senate 64 judicial nominations, including 16 appeals court picks and 46 district court nominees. That is the most at this point of any recent presidential term dating to Ronald Reagan. Twenty-eight nominees have been confirmed — nine appeals court judges and 19 district court judges.By comparison, Mr. Trump had sent the Senate 57 judicial nominees, 13 of whom were confirmed, by mid-November 2017. At the end of four years, Mr. Trump had won confirmation of three Supreme Court justices, 54 appeals court judges and 174 district court judges.Mr. Biden’s nominees are extraordinarily diverse in both legal background and ethnicity. The White House and liberal interest groups have been promoting public defenders and civil rights lawyers in addition to the more traditional choices of prosecutors and corporate lawyers. According to the White House, 47 of the 64 nominees are women and 41 of them identify as people of color, allowing the administration to record many firsts across the judiciary.“The diversity is really greater than anyone could have hoped for,” said Russ Feingold, a former senator and the head of the American Constitution Society, a progressive group that has been active in recommending nominees to the White House. “People are ecstatic.”The vast majority of the Biden nominees so far have been put forward for appeals and district court seats in states represented by two Democratic senators, in close consultation with those lawmakers, smoothing the way to confirmation. They are replacing mainly judges appointed by Democratic presidents.“He is picking the low-hanging fruit,” said Russell Wheeler, a visiting fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a longtime expert in tracking judicial nominations.According to figures from Mr. Wheeler and the White House, 15 of Mr. Biden’s 16 appeals court nominees were for vacancies in the District of Columbia or in states represented by two Democratic senators. Forty-three of the 46 district court nominees were for seats in states represented by two Democrats or the District of Columbia. Three others were in Ohio, which is represented by a senator from each party, and received the support of the Republican, Senator Rob Portman.But Mr. Biden will need to venture into more challenging territory if he wants to sustain his drive by producing nominees in states represented by Republicans. Most Republicans are likely to be tough sells when it comes to their home turf.After the White House on Nov. 17 nominated Andre B. Mathis, a Memphis lawyer, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Tennessee’s two Republican senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, complained that the administration had not “substantively” consulted with them on the selection. One person familiar with the process said that the two had backed an experienced Black judge with Democratic ties for the opening but that the person was passed over for Mr. Mathis, who is also Black.“We attempted to work in good faith with the White House in identifying qualified candidates for this position, but ultimately the White House simply informed us of its choice,” the senators said in a statement.In nominating Mr. Mathis, the White House noted he would be the first Black man from Tennessee to sit on the Sixth Circuit and the first Black nominee for the court in 24 years. Administration officials said his combination of civil and criminal experience was a plus.“We were grateful to discuss potential candidates from the Sixth Circuit with both Tennessee senators’ offices starting several months ago, and we are enthusiastic about Andre Mathis’s historic nomination,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.In the past, senators’ opposition to a judicial nominee from their state would be enough to derail the confirmation. Under an arcane Judiciary Committee practice, the two senators would either return what is known as a “blue slip” — a piece of paper signifying that they had been consulted about the nomination, in line with the Constitution’s requirement for the president to seek the Senate’s “advice and consent” — or withhold it, effectively blocking the selection.But Republicans ended that tradition during the Trump era and Democrats are unlikely to restore it, freeing the White House to go its own way if it chooses, though administration officials say they intend to confer in good faith with Republican senators.While Republicans can slow the process and try to put up other roadblocks, changes in Senate rules mean that Democrats can advance and confirm judges with a simple majority vote. But doing so requires Democrats, who control the 50-50 Senate through Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking power, to hold together and be willing to devote floor time to a nominee.Democrats summoned Ms. Harris last month to break a tie to allow another nominee, Jennifer Sung, to clear the Judiciary Committee after the panel deadlocked on her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Republicans criticized Ms. Sung over a blistering letter she signed in 2018 opposing the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.The letter from Yale Law School students, alumni and educators called Justice Kavanaugh an “intellectually and morally bankrupt ideologue intent on rolling back our rights and the rights of our clients.” Ms. Sung apologized for the letter during her confirmation hearing in September and conceded it was overheated. Republicans still unanimously opposed her nomination, making her the first Biden nominee to require a floor vote.Republicans have objected to many of the president’s judicial picks, calling them too liberal and insufficiently grounded in the Constitution. But most of the nominees have drawn at least a smattering of Republican support for confirmation — though in the past, judicial candidates often did not require roll call votes at all.Republicans have offered Mr. Biden and Democrats grudging praise for their efforts, comparing it favorably with the sluggish pace of the Democratic-held Senate in confirming judges selected by the Obama administration when Mr. Biden was vice president.“Obviously, we made a priority of it and I think Democrats realize they missed an opportunity during the Obama administration,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a senior Republican member of the Judiciary Committee.One reason for the shift is that Democrats are well aware they may have a limited window.Their control of the Senate is at real risk next year, and a Republican takeover would drastically impede Mr. Biden’s ability to install judges over the final two years of his term. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and now the minority leader, showed how that could work beginning in 2015, when Republicans gained the majority and slow-walked Obama administration nominees, refusing even a hearing for a Supreme Court pick.“They realize they might not be filling any vacancies come January 2023,” Mr. Wheeler said. More

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    Debunking the Pro-Trump Right’s Claims About the Jan. 6 Riot

    A rally scheduled for Saturday in Washington is intended to continue a Republican effort to rewrite the narrative of the assault on the Capitol. The facts undercut their assertions.In the eight months since a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, some Republicans have tried to build a case — belied by the facts — that the vast federal investigation of the riot has been essentially unfair, its targets the victims of political persecution.The people charged in the Jan. 6 attack are “being persecuted so unfairly,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a statement on Thursday.That sentiment is the organizing principle behind the rally scheduled in Washington on Saturday, billed as “Justice for J6.” According to the permit application submitted by the organizers, a group called Look Ahead America, the event is meant to “bring awareness and attention to the unjust and unethical treatment of nonviolent Jan. 6 political prisoners.”The rally is the latest effort in the right’s continuing attempt to rewrite the history of the mob attack on Congress, which prosecutors say led to as many as 1,000 assaults against the police and sought to disrupt certification of President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.Here is what the facts say about assertions from those seeking to promote a false narrative about Jan. 6.The rioters weren’t just tourists who now face excessive criminal charges.One of the first claims that pro-Trump conservatives made about Jan. 6 was that the rioters were little more than tourists and that those arrested were victims of prosecutorial overreach. Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, described the scene at the Capitol that day as “a normal tourist visit,” implying that hundreds of people taken into custody were facing excessive charges.But, in fact, nearly half of the more than 600 people charged have been accused only of misdemeanors like trespassing and disorderly conduct, rather than more serious felonies.At this point, more than 50 of these low-level defendants have pleaded guilty. All of them will serve prison terms of six months or less, or no time at all — fairly modest sentences for the federal penal system. But even when the authorities have agreed to lenient penalties, they have still insisted that no one who broke into the Capitol is innocent.“A riot cannot occur without rioters,” prosecutors wrote in a recent memo proposing no jail time for Valerie Ehrke, a California woman who only spent one minute in the building. “And rioter’s actions — from the most mundane to the most violent — contributed, directly and indirectly, to the violence and destruction of that day.”The government hasn’t widely detained nonviolent protesters.At an event last month hosted by Republican officials in his home state of North Carolina, Representative Madison Cawthorn repeated an oft-heard myth. He complained that hundreds of people taken into custody after Jan. 6 were “political hostages.”The truth is that about 15 percent of those arrested so far in connection with the riot have been denied bail and remain in pretrial custody — much lower than the overall federal pretrial detention rate of 75 percent. Moreover, all of those being detained on charges related to Jan. 6 are facing serious charges like assault or obstruction of Congress; none have been accused of only misdemeanors.Far from jailing everyone, in fact, judges have granted bail to numerous defendants accused of violent attacks on the police or of belonging to extremist groups like the Proud Boys or the Oath Keepers militia.There are a handful of cases in which people have been denied bail without having engaged in physical violence, but those are the exceptions to the rule.This week, a lawyer for Ethan Nordean, a leader of the Proud Boys, complained in court that his client has been in jail for months not because of anything he personally did on Jan. 6, but rather because he is a member of a reviled political organization.Judge Timothy J. Kelly, who was appointed to the federal bench by Mr. Trump, responded that the law alone was guiding Mr. Nordean’s case.“Politics has nothing to do with it,” Judge Kelly said. “Not one whit.”Capitol Police officers preparing riot equipment at the Capitol before the rally on Saturday.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesJan. 6 defendants haven’t been treated more harshly than racial justice protesters.The assertion has become a staple on the right: Trump supporters were charged with violent crimes in the Capitol attack because of their conservative beliefs while many leftist activists had similar charges stemming from the racial justice protests last year in cities like Portland, Ore., reduced or dismissed.This summer, a Jan. 6 defendant named Garret Miller filed court papers making that argument. Mr. Miller, who lives in Dallas, claimed he had been “treated differently by the government than the Portland rioters based upon the politics involved,” his lawyer wrote.In rebutting these claims, the government argued there was no comparison between the protests last year prompted by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the storming of the Capitol. While prosecutors acknowledged that those arrested during weeks of unrest at the Portland federal courthouse had committed “serious offenses,” they insisted that the rioters in Washington were involved in “a singular and chilling event” that threatened not only the Capitol but also “democracy itself.”Trying to explain why many cases in the racial justice protests were eventually dismissed, prosecutors also said they have much better evidence against Capitol rioters like Mr. Miller than they ever had against protesters in Portland. Among the material they collected after Jan. 6 were thousands of hours of video footage from surveillance and body cameras worn by the police, and hundreds of thousands of social media posts.A few months after Mr. Miller filed his claims, The Associated Press published an analysis of more than 300 criminal cases stemming from the protests incited by Mr. Floyd’s murder. The analysis undercut the argument that pro-Trump defendants were treated more harshly than Black Lives Matter protesters, showing that many leftist rioters had received substantial sentences.There’s no evidence that Jan. 6 defendants are being treated worse than others in jail.Perhaps the loudest grievances about Capitol defendants concern the jail conditions of those denied bail.The accusations have been many and wide-ranging. Some defendants have complained of being locked in their cells for 23 hours a day in what amounts to solitary confinement. Others have claimed that they have been denied the right to hold religious services and that their hygiene needs have been restricted.One defendant, charged with assaulting the police, has said that he was zip-tied and then “savagely” beaten by a correctional officer in the District of Columbia jail, according to his lawyer. The assault resulted in a broken nose, a dislocated jaw and the loss of sight in the man’s right eye.Jail, of course, is a terrible place to be, regardless of one’s politics. But at least so far, no one has offered evidence that the authorities have imposed harsh conditions on Jan. 6 defendants because of their political beliefs.A spokeswoman for the District of Columbia jail said the 23-hour lockdown was not imposed solely on the Capitol defendants but was a medical provision used throughout the jail to curb the spread of the coronavirus. It has recently been lifted, she said.The Justice Department is using a novel charge in some cases.Prosecutors have taken a legal risk in the way they have chosen to prosecute scores of Capitol cases. The potential problem concerns the use of a federal obstruction law to charge people with disrupting Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote. Lawyers for some of the defendants are challenging the Justice Department in court over use of the law, but pro-Trump activists have yet to make it a big public issue.Instead of using politically fraught and hard-to-prove charges like sedition or insurrection to describe the attempt to block certification of the election results, the Justice Department used a much more measured — albeit novel — law: obstruction of an official proceeding.The law is not a perfect match for what happened on Jan. 6; indeed, it had never before been used in a situation like the Capitol attack.Passed in 2002 as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a corporate overhaul law, the measure was devised to prohibit things like shredding documents or tampering with witnesses. Several lawyers have filed papers arguing that the law does not apply to the riot at the Capitol. Two federal judges have signaled that they might agree and could decide to toss the charge for more than 200 defendants.The Justice Department’s use of the obstruction law is arguably the most political move prosecutors have made to date. After all, as some defense lawyers have noted, the government did not use the same charge in 2018 when left-wing activists swarmed the Capitol to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. More