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      Trump Trial Setting Could Provide Conservative Jury Pool

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      If Judge Aileen Cannon sticks to her initial decision to hold the trial in Fort Pierce, Fla., the jury would be drawn largely from counties that Donald Trump won handily in his previous campaigns.When Judge Aileen M. Cannon assumed control of the case stemming from former President Donald J. Trump’s indictment for putting national security secrets at risk, she set the stage for the trial to be held with a regional jury pool made up mostly of counties that Mr. Trump won handily in his two previous campaigns.She signaled that the trial would take place in the federal courthouse where she normally sits, in Fort Pierce, at the northern end of the Southern District of Florida. The region that feeds potential jurors to that courthouse is made up of one swing county and four others that are ruby red in their political leanings and that Mr. Trump won by substantial margins in both 2016 and 2020.She left open the possibility that the trial could be moved — and political leanings are not necessarily indicative of how a jury will decide — but the fact that the trial is expected to draw jurors who live in places that tilt Republican has caught the attention of Mr. Trump’s allies and veterans of Florida courts.“For years, it’s been a very conservative venue for plaintiffs’ lawyers,” said John Morgan, a trial lawyer who founded a large personal injury firm. Describing the various counties that feed into Fort Pierce, he said, “It is solid, solid Trump country.”In Okeechobee County, a rural county where just over 16,000 people voted in the 2020 election, Mr. Trump won 71.5 percent of the vote, according to the county’s election tally. In Highlands County, a rural area where more than 52,000 people voted in that election, Mr. Trump won with 66.8 percent of the vote.In Martin County, where more than 98,000 people voted, Mr. Trump got 61.8 percent of the vote. In Indian River County, which contains Vero Beach and where more than 97,000 votes were cast, Mr. Trump got 60.2 percent of the vote.Only St. Lucie County, where about 172,000 votes were cast, is a swing district. Mr. Trump eked out a victory there over President Biden in 2020 with 50.4 percent of the ballots cast, the data shows, and also won the county narrowly in 2016.Dave Aronberg, an outgoing Florida state attorney in Palm Beach County, said he could recall few major or politically sensitive cases in the Fort Pierce courthouse. He agreed that the Fort Pierce counties provide a “much more conservative jury pool,” although he suggested that a number of prospective jurors could be drawn from St. Lucie, which is more politically diverse.Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, disclosed in an order on Tuesday that the trial and all the hearings connected to it would likely be held in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles north of Miami along the east coast of Florida.She left open the possibility of eventually moving the trial, noting in her order that “modifications” could “be made as necessary as this matter proceeds.”The trial of a former president who is also the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination is likely to involve substantial security issues as well as logistical challenges given the crush of interest in the case.When Mr. Trump was arraigned this month, the proceeding took place at the large federal courthouse complex in Miami, likely because the duty magistrate assigned to the initial hearing was based there. But now that Judge Cannon will handle the remainder of the case, it became her prerogative to move it to Fort Pierce, one of four other cities in the Southern District of Florida to have a federal courthouse. (Courthouses in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach sit in counties that Mr. Biden won in 2020.)The Fort Pierce courthouse, which sits on a busy state highway a few blocks from the water, is Judge Cannon’s home base. She is the sole district judge working from the building.First the Justice Department and then the special counsel, Jack Smith, investigated Mr. Trump’s mishandling of classified documents for months in front of a grand jury in Washington. Had the case been prosecuted there, the former president and his allies would have almost certainly raised concerns about the fairness of the jury pool in the city.Many rioters charged in connection with the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, sought to move their trials from Washington by claiming that local residents were largely liberals. But not one of the numerous attempts to move the trials elsewhere was approved by a judge. And Mr. Trump’s advisers are well aware that Florida, which Mr. Trump carried twice, is a more beneficial place for this particular defendant.Mr. Aronberg suggested that Judge Cannon’s order allowing flexibility could be a signal of a change down the road.“I’m not convinced this case is going to go in Fort Pierce,” he said, predicting a potential move to West Palm Beach, which would put it in the county where Mr. Trump lives and where the classified documents in question were stored after he left office. More

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      Qué pasa si un candidato a la presidencia de EE. UU. es condenado

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      Las leyes estadounidenses y la Constitución brindan respuestas claras solo para algunas dudas que surgen. Otras podrían lanzar al país a territorio desconocido.Desde que Eugene Debs hizo campaña desde una celda de prisión hace más de un siglo, en Estados Unidos no se había visto lo que podría ocurrir ahora: un candidato importante condenado por un delito grave que contiende a la presidencia. Y nunca antes ese candidato había sido alguien con posibilidades reales de ganar.El expresidente Donald Trump no enfrenta restricciones de campaña. Aunque ha sido acusado de decenas de delitos graves en dos casos, uno federal y uno en Nueva York, aún falta mucho para que haya veredictos. Y existen muchas incertidumbres, entre ellas si los procedimientos van a obstaculizar la campaña de Trump a nivel práctico o si comenzarán a perjudicarlo en las encuestas de una manera que no lo han hecho hasta ahora.Pero si es condenado por alguno de los delitos graves, las cosas se complican y la Constitución y la legislación estadounidense solo tienen respuestas claras para algunas pocas de las cuestiones que surgirían.Otras llevarían al país por un territorio totalmente desconocido y las decisiones más importantes quedarían en manos de jueces federales.Esto es lo que sabemos y lo que no.¿Trump puede contender a la presidencia si es condenado?Esta es la pregunta más sencilla de todas. La respuesta es sí.La Constitución establece muy pocos requisitos de elegibilidad para los presidentes. Deben tener al menos 35 años, ser ciudadanos naturales “de nacimiento” y haber vivido en Estados Unidos al menos 14 años.No hay limitaciones basadas en la reputación o los antecedentes penales (aunque algunos estados prohíben a los delincuentes contender a cargos estatales y locales, estas leyes no se aplican a los cargos federales).¿Su campaña se vería limitada?Para decirlo de forma obvia, sería logísticamente difícil hacer campaña para la presidencia desde la cárcel. Ningún candidato de un partido mayoritario lo ha hecho nunca. Debs se presentó por el Partido Socialista en 1920 y recibió alrededor del 3 por ciento de los votos.Pero el equipo de campaña de Trump podría encargarse de la recaudación de fondos y otras actividades de la campaña en su ausencia y es muy poco probable que Trump pudiera ser inhabilitado para aparecer en las boletas electorales.El Partido Republicano y el Partido Demócrata tienen espacios garantizados en las boletas de las elecciones generales en todos los estados y los partidos indican a las autoridades electorales qué nombre poner en su lugar. Los estados podrían, en teoría, tratar de mantener a Trump fuera de las papeletas aprobando leyes que exijan no tener antecedentes penales, pero esto sería sobre un terreno jurídicamente inestable.“Dejamos que los estados decidan la hora, el sitio y la forma” de las elecciones, dijo Jessica Levinson, profesora de la Escuela de Derecho Loyola especializada en derecho electoral, “pero creo que la mejor lectura de nuestra Constitución es que no se permite que el estado añada nuevos requisitos sustantivos”.Si bien esa perspectiva no es universal entre los juristas, sí ganó en un tribunal en 2019, cuando California intentó exigir que los candidatos difundieran sus declaraciones de impuestos a fin de aparecer en las papeletas de las primeras. Un juez federal de distrito bloqueó el fallo, al indicar que lo más probable es que fuera inconstitucional. La Corte Suprema de California también la bloqueó de manera unánime como violación de la constitución estatal, y el caso nunca llegó a la Corte Suprema de EE. UU.¿Podría votar?Probablemente no.Trump está empadronado para votar en Florida y, en caso de ser condenado por un delito grave, sería privado del derecho al voto allí.La mayoría de los delincuentes en Florida recuperan su derecho a votar al terminar de cumplir su condena, incluida la libertad condicional, y el pago de todas las multas y cuotas. Pero es muy poco probable que Trump, en caso de ser condenado, tenga tiempo de cumplir su condena antes del día de las elecciones.Como Trump también tiene residencia en Nueva York, podría cambiar su registro de votante a ese estado para aprovechar que es más permisivo: en Nueva York, los delincuentes pueden votar cuando se encuentran en libertad condicional. Pero, en Florida y en casi todos los demás estados, siguen privados del derecho de voto mientras están en prisión.Así que si Trump fuera enviado a prisión, se encontrará en la extraordinaria situación de ser considerado apto para ser votado, pero no apto para votar.¿Qué sucede si resulta electo desde prisión?Nadie sabe.“Estamos muy lejos de cualquier cosa que haya ocurrido”, dijo Erwin Chemerinsky, experto en derecho constitucional de la Universidad de California en Berkeley. “Son solo conjeturas”.Desde el punto de vista jurídico, Trump seguiría siendo elegible para ser presidente incluso si fuera a prisión. La Constitución no dice nada en contra. “No creo que los constituyentes pensaran en ningún momento que íbamos a estar en esta situación”, dijo Levinson.En la práctica, la elección de un presidente preso crearía una crisis jurídica que casi con toda seguridad tendrían que resolver los tribunales.En teoría, Trump podría ser despojado de su autoridad en virtud de la Vigésima Quinta Enmienda, que establece un proceso para transferir la autoridad al vicepresidente si el presidente es “incapaz de cumplir con los poderes y deberes de su cargo”. Pero eso requeriría que el vicepresidente y una mayoría del Gabinete declararan a Trump incapaz de cumplir con sus obligaciones, una perspectiva remota dado que se trataría de leales designados por el propio Trump.Lo más probable es que Trump pudiera presentar una demanda para ser liberado con el argumento de que su encarcelamiento le impide cumplir sus obligaciones constitucionales como presidente. Un caso así podría centrarse en la separación de poderes y los abogados de Trump argumentarían que mantener en prisión a un presidente debidamente elegido equivaldría a una infracción del poder judicial en perjuicio de las operaciones del poder ejecutivo.También podría intentar indultarse a sí mismo, o conmutar su sentencia, dejando su condena en vigor pero poniendo fin a su encarcelamiento. Cualquiera de las dos acciones constituiría una afirmación extraordinaria del poder presidencial, y la Corte Suprema sería el árbitro final en cuanto a la constitucionalidad de un “autoperdón”.O, antes de dejar el cargo, el presidente Joe Biden podría indultar a Trump con base en que “el pueblo se ha manifestado y necesito perdonarlo para que pueda gobernar”, dijo Chemerinsky.¿Y qué pasa si resulta electo y una de las causas penales sigue en proceso?De nuevo, nadie sabe. Pero un resultado probable sería que un fiscal general nombrado por Trump retirara los cargos y diera por terminado el caso.El Departamento de Justicia no acusa a presidentes en funciones, conforme a una política esbozada en un memorando de 1973, durante la era de Richard Nixon. Nunca había sido necesario desarrollar una política sobre qué hacer con un presidente entrante que ya ha sido acusado. Pero el razonamiento para no acusar a los presidentes en funciones —algo que interferiría con la capacidad de fungir como tal— aplica del mismo modo en este escenario hipotético.“Las razones por las que no querríamos acusar a un presidente en funciones son las razones por las que no querríamos procesar a un presidente en funciones”, ha dicho Chemerinsky, que ha estado en desacuerdo con el razonamiento del departamento. “Mi conjetura es que, si el proceso continuara y Trump resultara electo, el Departamento de Justicia— que sería el Departamento de Justicia de Trump— diría: ‘Nos apegamos al memorando de 1973’”.Esto, como muchas otras cosas aquí planteadas, sería algo sin precedente legal, y es imposible saber qué haría la Corte Suprema si se le presentara la cuestión.En su fallo del caso Clinton contra Jones en 1997, el tribunal permitió que procediera una demanda contra el presidente Bill Clinton. Pero se trataba de un caso civil, no penal, y lo había presentado un ciudadano privado, no el mismo gobierno.Charlie Savage More

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      Christie Lashes Trump in New Hampshire, to Republicans Open to It

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      Missing from Chris Christie’s campaign stop: Republicans who are leaning toward Donald J. Trump but open to an alternative.Chris Christie brought his Talking Truth to Donald Trump performance back to New Hampshire on Wednesday evening, aiming a fresh quiver of poison darts at the former president. His talk pleased a small Trump-skeptical crowd, but raised the big question about Mr. Christie’s candidacy: Where are all the other Republican voters?For the most part, Mr. Christie was preaching to the choir. Submitting to more than 90 minutes of questions in a town hall format, he heard from an audience member who identified as a member of an extinct species, a “Rockefeller Republican”; from another who said he used to work for a Republican senator but hasn’t voted Republican since 2016; and from a woman who introduced herself by saying, “I’m a Democrat, and you intrigue me.”At times the linoleum-floored room in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Derry, with its circle of white folding chairs, took on the feeling of a therapy session for Republicans homeless in their party. “What in your opinion,” asked one man, “happened to the Republican Party? We know that Trump lied about the election, but why did so many of our fellow citizens believe that?”Since announcing his campaign two weeks ago, Mr. Christie has had a modest lift in early public polls of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, nudging into third place, though still far behind Mr. Trump, the front-runner. At the same time, Mr. Christie, who has positioned himself as Mr. Trump’s most direct critic, tops the list of 2024 candidates that Republicans say they will never consider.Mr. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who was an early and eager Trump endorser in 2016 and stuck with him in 2020, presented himself on Wednesday as the lone truth-teller in the G.O.P. field — criticizing Mr. Trump as unfit for office, while mocking other primary rivals as too cowed to even challenge the former president’s lies about the 2020 election.“You want to beat the incumbent?” Mr. Christie said, meaning Mr. Trump. “Then you have to beat the incumbent.”Ticking off a list of others in the race — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Asa Hutchinson among them — Mr. Christie said: “They can’t win if they’re not going to make the case against him.”He told voters to demand of every candidate, “Why are you defending the big lie that the election was stolen?”Referring to a Fox News interview with Mr. Trump this week, Mr. Christie said, in so many words, that it presented an emperor devoid of clothing. He said “the most disturbing thing” was Mr. Trump’s answer to why he didn’t return classified documents after receiving a subpoena in a case that led to his federal indictment.“His answer was I was too busy to go through all the boxes to comply with the grand jury subpoena,” said Mr. Christie, a former federal prosecutor. “I can guarantee that interview will be Exhibit 1 in the trial on the classified documents, because he essentially admitted to willful obstruction of justice.”Mr. Trump “just sat there and told his lawyer to lie,” Mr. Christie continued. “This is not the résumé of somebody you need behind the desk in the Oval Office again, and our party can do better.”There were about 50 people present, and about the same number of unfilled seats. A livestream of the town hall event never seemed to have more than about 125 viewers. A press contingent of about a dozen people spoke to the outsize interest in Mr. Christie’s campaign from the news media and pundits, because of the phenomenon of a mainstream candidate’s taking on a former president of his own party so bluntly.Missing from the room, however, was the core of the Republican Party: voters leaning toward Mr. Trump who have propelled his rise in recent months, but who are still open to an alternative. Nearly all the voters present seemed to have turned their backs on Mr. Trump — a narrow slice of the primary electorate.Mr. Christie took the fact in stride.“I’ve been in this race for two weeks — two weeks — and I went from zero in New Hampshire to 9 percent, four points behind Ron DeSantis,” he said, citing a survey last week for NH Journal, a Republican-leaning news site. The poll also found that Mr. Christie topped the “no way” list for the state’s Republican electorate.On the way out, Kerry MacDonald, a real estate title agent from Litchfield, acknowledged, “I will say openly that I was a Trump supporter” in 2020. “I realize that campaign is in absolute chaos.”“I just don’t think he’s capable of unifying the party,” he said of the former president. “Governor Christie, on the other hand, he’s very well-spoken, he’s a direct candidate. I like the fact he’s worked both sides of the aisle as a governor. I’m feeling very strongly as I walk out tonight.” More

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      Few of Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Defend Justice Dept. Independence

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      The evolution of the Republican Party under the influence of former President Donald J. Trump calls into question a post-Watergate norm.Donald J. Trump has promised that if he wins back the presidency he will appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family.But he’s not the only Republican running for president who appears to be abandoning a long-established norm in Washington — presidents keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and prosecutions.Mr. Trump, who leads the G.O.P. field by around 30 percentage points in public national polls, wields such powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in such Justice Department decisions.After Mr. Trump’s vow to direct the Justice Department to appoint a “real” prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, The New York Times asked each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should respect when it comes to White House interference with federal law enforcement decisions.Their responses reveal a party that has turned so hard against federal law enforcement that it is no longer widely considered good politics to clearly answer in the negative a question that was once uncontroversial: Do you believe presidents should get involved in the investigations and prosecutions of individuals?Mr. Trump’s closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has flatly said he does not believe the Justice Department is independent from the White House as a matter of law, while leaving it ambiguous where he stands on the issue of presidents getting involved in investigation decisions.Mr. DeSantis’s spokesman, Bryan Griffin, wrote in an email that comments the governor made on a recent policy call “should be instructive to your reporting.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said the president can lawfully exert more direct control over the Justice Department and F.B.I. than has traditionally been the case.Jason Henry for The New York TimesIn the comments, Mr. DeSantis says that “the fundamental insight” he gleans from the Constitution is that the Justice Department and F.B.I. are not “independent” from the White House and that the president can lawfully exert more direct control over them than traditionally has been the case.“I think presidents have bought into this canard that they’re independent, and that’s one of the reasons why they’ve accumulated so much power over the years,” Mr. DeSantis said. “We will use the lawful authority that we have.”But the context of Mr. DeSantis’s remarks was mostly about a president firing political appointees and bureaucrats at the Justice Department and the F.B.I., not about a president ordering them to target specific people with investigations and prosecutions. Mr. Griffin did not respond when asked in a follow-up on this point.Mr. Trump has portrayed his legal troubles as stemming from politicization, although there is no evidence Mr. Biden directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Mr. Trump. Under Mr. Garland, Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and on Tuesday secured a guilty plea from Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on tax charges.Especially since Watergate, there has been an institutional tradition of Justice Department independence from White House control. The idea is that while a president can set broad policies — directing the Justice Department to put greater resources and emphasis on particular types of crimes, for example — he or she should not get involved in specific criminal case decisions except in rare cases affecting foreign policy.This is particularly seen as true for cases involving a president’s personal or political interests, such as an investigation into himself or his political opponents.But even in his first term, Mr. Trump increasingly pressed against that notion.William P. Barr, left, Mr. Trump’s attorney general, refused Mr. Trump’s baseless demand that he say the 2020 election had been corrupt.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn the spring of 2018, Mr. Trump told his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, that he wanted to order the Justice Department to investigate his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, and James B. Comey Jr., the former head of the F.B.I. Mr. McGahn rebuffed him, saying the president had no authority to order an investigation, according to two people familiar with the conversation.Later in 2018, Mr. Trump publicly demanded that the Justice Department open an investigation into officials involved in the Russia investigation. The following year, Attorney General William P. Barr indeed assigned a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, John Durham, to investigate the investigators — styling it as an administrative review because there was no factual predicate to open a formal criminal investigation.Mr. Trump also said in 2018 and 2019 that John F. Kerry, the Obama-era secretary of state, should be prosecuted for illegally interfering with American diplomacy by seeking to preserve a nuclear accord with Iran. Geoffrey S. Berman, a former U.S. attorney in Manhattan whom Mr. Trump fired in 2020, later wrote in his memoir that the Trump Justice Department pressured him to find a way to charge Mr. Kerry, but he closed the investigation after about a year without bringing any charges.And as the 2020 election neared, Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham to file charges against high-level former officials even though the prosecutor had not found a factual basis to justify any. In his own memoir, Mr. Barr wrote that the Durham investigation’s “failure to deliver scalps in time for the election” eroded their relationship even before Mr. Barr refused Mr. Trump’s baseless demand that he say the 2020 election had been corrupt.Where Mr. Trump’s first-term efforts were scattered and haphazard, key allies — including Jeffrey B. Clark, a former Justice Department official who helped Mr. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election — have been developing a blueprint to make the department in any second Trump term more systematically subject to direct White House control.Against that backdrop, Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the long-shot G.O.P. challengers, has pledged to pardon Mr. Trump if Mr. Ramaswamy wins the presidency. He said that as a constitutional matter, he thinks a president does have the power to direct prosecutors to open or close specific criminal investigations. But he added that “the president must exercise this judgment with prudence in a manner that respects the rule of law in the country.”Vivek Ramaswamy said he would respect the post-Watergate norm regarding Justice Department independence.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAsked if he would pledge, regardless of his views on what the law may technically allow presidents to do, to obey the post-Watergate norm, Mr. Ramaswamy replied: “As a general norm, yes.”Two Republican candidates who are both former U.S. attorneys unequivocally stated that presidents should not direct the investigations or prosecutions of individuals. Tellingly, both are chasing votes from anti-Trump moderate Republicans.Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor who was a U.S. attorney in the George W. Bush administration, said he knew “just how important it is to keep prosecutors independent and let them do their jobs.”“No president should be meddling in Department of Justice investigations or cases in any way,” Mr. Christie added. “The best way to keep that from happening is with a strong attorney general who can lead without fear or favor.”And Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor and congressman who served as a U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration, said that “preserving an independent and politically impartial Department of Justice in terms of specific investigations is essential for the rule of law and paramount in rebuilding trust with the American people.”A spokesman for former Vice President Mike Pence, Devin O’Malley, was terse. He said a president could remove senior law enforcement officials and expressed some support for Justice Department independence. But he declined to add further comment when pressed.“Mike Pence believes that the president of the United States has the ability to hire and fire the attorney general, the F.B.I. director, and other D.O.J. officials — and has, in fact, pledged to do so if elected — but also believes the D.O.J. has a certain level of independence with regard to prosecutorial matters,” Mr. O’Malley said.Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, through a spokesman, expressed some support for Justice Department independence.John Tully for The New York TimesMost other candidates running against Mr. Trump landed in what they apparently deemed to be a politically safer space of blending general comments about how justice should be administered impartially with vague accusations that the Biden-era Justice Department had targeted Republicans for political reasons.Many did not specifically point to a basis for those accusations. Among a broad swath of conservatives, it is taken as a given that the F.B.I. and Justice Department must be politically motivated against them on a variety of fronts, including the scrutiny over the 2016 Trump campaign’s links to Russia, the prosecution of people who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the Trump documents case.Matt Gorman, a senior communications adviser for Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, declined to say whether or not Mr. Scott believed presidents should interfere in specific investigations. He pointed only to Mr. Scott’s comments on the most recent “Fox News Sunday” appearance.In those remarks, Mr. Scott said: “We have to clean out the political appointments in the Department of Justice to restore confidence and integrity in the D.O.J. Today, we want to know that in our justice system, Lady Justice wears a blindfold and that all Americans will be treated fairly by Lady Justice. But today, this D.O.J. continues to hunt Republicans while they protect Democrats.”Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, also provided an ambiguous answer through her spokeswoman, Chaney Denton. She pointed to two specific conservative grievances with law enforcement: Seven years ago, Hillary Clinton was not charged over using a private email server while secretary of state, and the Trump-era special counsel, Mr. Durham, wrote a report this year criticizing the Russia inquiry.“The Department of Justice should be impartial, but unfortunately it is not today,” Ms. Denton said. “The Durham Report, the non-prosecution of Hillary Clinton, and other actions make it clear that a partisan double standard is being applied. The answer is not to have both parties weaponize the Justice Department; it’s to have neither side do it.”“The Department of Justice should be impartial,” a spokeswoman for Nikki Haley said, without getting into specifics.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWhen specifically pressed, Ms. Denton declined to say whether Ms. Haley believes presidents should get involved in prosecutions or investigations of individuals.One recent entrant to the race, Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, disavowed the post-Watergate norm, putting forward a premise that law enforcement officials are currently politically biased and so his White House interference would be to correct that purported state of affairs.“I certainly would not promise that I would allow a biased department operate independently,” he said in part of a statement. “I believe it is the president’s responsibility to insist that justice is delivered fairly without bias or political influence.”A spokesman for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Lance Trover, was even more vague.“Gov. Burgum believes that citizens’ faith in our institutions is the foundation of a free and just society and will not allow them to be a political enforcement extension of the party in power as we have seen in failed countries,” he said. “If Americans have distrust in the Justice Department when he takes office, he will do what it takes to restore the American people’s faith in the Department of Justice and other bedrocks of our democracy.” More

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      Judge in Trump Documents Case Sets Tentative Trial Date as Soon as August

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      The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, set an aggressive schedule for moving the case forward, though the proceedings are likely to be delayed by pretrial clashes.The federal judge presiding over the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump in the classified documents case set an aggressive schedule on Tuesday, ordering a trial to begin as soon as Aug. 14.While the timeline set by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, is likely to be delayed by extensive pretrial litigation — including over how to handle classified material — its brisk pace suggests that she is seeking to avoid any criticism for dragging her feet or for slow-walking the proceeding. In each of four other criminal trials she has overseen that were identified in a New York Times review, she has initially set a relatively quick trial date and later pushed it back.The early moves by Judge Cannon, a relatively inexperienced jurist who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, are being particularly closely watched. She disrupted the documents investigation last year with several rulings favorable to the former president before a conservative appeals court overturned her, saying that she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene. Brandon L. Van Grack, a former federal prosecutor who has worked on complex criminal matters involving national security, said the trial date was “unlikely to hold” considering that the process of turning over classified evidence to the defense in discovery had not yet begun. Still, he said, Judge Cannon appeared to be showing that she intended to do what she could to push the case to trial quickly.“It signals that the court is at least trying to do everything it can to move the case along and that it’s important that the case proceed quickly,” Mr. Van Grack said. “Even though it’s unlikely to hold, it’s at least a positive signal — positive in the sense that all parties and the public should want this case to proceed as quickly as possible.”But it is not clear that the defense wants the case to proceed quickly. Mr. Trump’s strategy in legal matters has long been to delay them, and the federal case against him is unlikely to be an exception. If a trial drags past the 2024 election and Mr. Trump wins the race, he could, in theory, try to pardon himself — or he could direct his attorney general to drop the charges and wipe out the case.In public remarks after the indictment against Mr. Trump and one of his aides, Walt Nauta, was filed two weeks ago in Federal District Court in Miami, the special counsel, Jack Smith, who oversaw the investigation, said he wanted a speedy trial.The schedule that Judge Cannon set forth in her order on Tuesday clearly does that, requesting that all pretrial motions be filed by July 24.She also ruled that the trial — and all the hearings in the case — will be held at her home courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., a small town in the northern portion of the Southern District of Florida. Mr. Trump’s arraignment was held in the federal courthouse in Miami.Pretrial proceedings in the case are highly unlikely to be done by August. Legal experts have identified a series of complicated matters that Judge Cannon, the defense and the prosecution will have to work through before the matter is ready to go in front of a jury.For one thing, following Judge Cannon’s orders, Mr. Trump’s lawyers started the process of obtaining the security clearances needed to deal with the significant classified evidence issues in the case only last week. The background check process to obtain the clearances can take months.Mr. Trump’s legal team is also still in flux. Mr. Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., is still interviewing Florida-based lawyers to assist him with the case. He expects to have someone in place when Mr. Nauta is arraigned next week.Beyond the array of legal tactics that Mr. Trump’s lawyers may use to attack the validity of the charges against him, the parties in the case will also have to engage in significant closed-door litigation over how to handle the classified evidence at the heart of the government’s prosecution. Mr. Trump has been accused of illegally holding on to 31 individual national defense documents, many of which were marked as top secret.Much of the secret litigation will take place under the aegis of the Classified Information Procedures Act. If the government does not agree with any of Judge Cannon’s rulings involving the act, it can pause pretrial proceedings and appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. (The defense would have to wait until after any conviction to appeal an evidentiary issue under the act.)Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to file a battery of pretrial motions, including one claiming that he is being selectively prosecuted while other public officials investigated for mishandling classified material — chief among them, Hillary Clinton — did not face charges.The former president’s legal team may also file motions accusing prosecutors of various types of misconduct or seeking to suppress audio notes by one of his lawyers, which the government obtained before the indictment and was filed by piercing the traditional protections of attorney-client privilege.Depending on how seriously Judge Cannon considers the claims made in those filings, she could order additional briefs, attestations and hearings, further slowing down the process.The preliminary court calendar underscores how Mr. Trump’s decision to press ahead with his political campaign, now a key part of his defense, could affect the broader presidential primary race. The first Republican debate is scheduled for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. Mr. Trump has not said whether he is attending and has signaled he might skip the first two debates.The second debate is scheduled for September, and there is expected to be one each month through the end of the year. Depending on the court calendar, Mr. Trump’s political plans could again coincide with court dates.What’s more, this is not Mr. Trump’s only court proceeding. His trial in a Manhattan state court, on charges stemming from hush money payments to a porn actress during the 2016 presidential campaign, is set to begin in March. A second defamation trial, brought by a New York writer who claimed Mr. Trump raped her decades ago, is set to begin in January.The former president is also facing the prospect of at least one more indictment. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., may bring charges in connection with his efforts to stay in office. Mr. Smith, the special counsel, is also still investigating issues related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. More

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      Donald Trump Says ‘Secret’ Document He Described on Tape Referred to News Clippings

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      “There was no document,” the former president said on Fox News as he gave some of his most expansive remarks on the case that led to his federal indictment.Former President Donald J. Trump claimed to a Fox News anchor in an interview on Monday that he did not have a classified document with him in a meeting with a book publisher even though he referred during that meeting to “secret” information in his possession.The July 2021 meeting — at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J. — was recorded by at least two people in attendance, and a transcript describes the former president pointing to a pile of papers and then saying of Gen. Mark A. Milley, whom he had been criticizing: “Look. This was him. They presented me this — this is off the record, but — they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.”On the recording, according to two people familiar with its contents, Mr. Trump can be heard flipping through papers as he talks to a publisher and writer working on a book by his final White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Mr. Trump and the people in the meeting do not explicitly say what document the former president is holding.According to the transcript, Mr. Trump describes the document, which he claims shows General Milley’s desire to attack Iran, as “secret” and “like, highly confidential.” He also declares that “as president, I could have declassified it,” adding, “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”But in the interview on Monday, with the Fox News anchor Bret Baier, Mr. Trump denied that he had been referring to an actual document and claimed to have simply been referring to news clippings and magazine pieces.“There was no document,” Mr. Trump insisted. “That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. I didn’t have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”Apparently playing down the information from the recording, he added, “I don’t think that I’ve ever seen a document from Milley.”The audio recording is a key piece of evidence in an indictment charging Mr. Trump with illegally holding on to 31 sensitive government documents, some of which were highly classified and included information about U.S. nuclear and military capabilities. The indictment was filed this month by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, in Federal District Court in Miami. The indictment also accused Mr. Trump of conspiring with one of his aides, Walt Nauta, to evade a grand jury subpoena issued last May for all classified material in his possession.General Mark A. Milley testifying during a budget hearing in Congress this year. Pete Marovich for The New York TimesA description of a typewritten document by General Milley appears in Mr. Meadows’s book, unattributed and stated as fact.Criminal defendants usually avoid speaking publicly about details of any charges in their case, for fear of their remarks being used against them. The interview was broadcast on the same day that a federal magistrate judge in Mr. Trump’s case issued a protective order instructing him not to reveal any evidence that had been turned over to his legal team as part of the discovery process.While the interview did not seem to violate that order, his remarks represented some of his most expansive comments about the nearly two years that federal officials spent trying to retrieve material from his presidency that belongs to the government. The comments were also the latest in a string of shifting stories that he and his allies have offered since it became public that officials at the National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 boxes of material from Mr. Trump in January 2022.Earlier in the interview with Mr. Baier, Mr. Trump appeared to concede that even after the Justice Department issued a subpoena last year for all classified documents in his possession, he delayed complying with it in order to separate any personal records that might have been among them.“Before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out,” Mr. Trump said. “These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things.”Mr. Trump also acknowledged that he did not immediately comply with an earlier request to return government records to the archives, telling Mr. Baier that he gave the archives “some” and maintaining, “I was very busy, as you’ve sort of seen.”A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In February 2022, after the public learned that Mr. Trump had returned classified material to the archives, the former president directed aides to issue a statement saying he had returned everything to the government. The final statement the Trump team released did not make this claim.But the draft version of that statement became a focus of prosecutors who were entering evidence and hearing testimony before a grand jury in Florida, according to two people familiar with the matter.Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024, and his allies have offered evolving explanations for his possession of classified material and repeated refusals to return it. He has insisted the documents all belonged to him as personal records. He has also claimed that he declassified everything he removed before it left the White House, through a so-called standing order that material was declassified when it left the Oval Office to go to the White House residence. Former senior White House officials said no such order existed.And last month, Mr. Trump’s lawyers wrote a letter to Congress saying that his staff “quickly packed everything into boxes and shipped them to Florida,” leaving the impression that Mr. Trump himself did not go through the material and was unaware of what was in the boxes when they were packed.The indictment contradicted that claim, with prosecutors saying that Mr. Trump was “personally involved in this process” and “caused his boxes, containing hundreds of classified documents, to be transported from the White House to the Mar-a-Lago club.”In his interview with Mr. Baier, the former president indicated that he did sort through some boxes after they were sent from Washington to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida.At one point, Mr. Baier asked Mr. Trump why he did not simply hand the material over.“I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out,” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t want to hand that over to NARA yet.” More

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      How Should Gig Workers Be Classified?

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      More from our inbox:A Trump Scenario: Losing in Court, but Winning the PresidencySupporting World Heritage SitesYoung Voices for Climate ActionSome drivers for services like Uber and Lyft said they have seen wages decline, while others say they have risen.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Hustle Till It Hurts: Gig Work’s Luster Dims” (Sunday Business, May 28):The questions and concerns raised by freelance and gig work are important ones, but we need to stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.As a lawyer who has spent her career analyzing work force policy, hearing from women, single mothers and people with disabilities who feel left out of traditional work models, we need to address what’s missing from the conversation: the bigger policy picture.In America, the social safety net is tied to employment status, and worker classification laws are complicated and nuanced. Because of this, workers who want flexibility to choose when, where and how often to work have to choose between sovereignty and certainty.I urge policymakers to consider legislation that addresses these barriers by decoupling benefits from employment status, developing a thoughtful alternative model as other countries have done, and partnering with business leaders and educators to expand resources for workers to understand their classification status.Only then can we tap into the talents of a vast, diverse work force and build a more inclusive, innovative and sustainable economy.Regan ParkerPortland, Ore.The writer is the general counsel and chief public affairs officer for ShiftKey, a digital platform that connects independent licensed professionals with health care facilities.To the Editor:Your article rightly states that there is not a clear consensus on how some gig workers, such as ride-share drivers and freelance writers, should be classified under current employment laws. But when it comes to the highly regulated health care industry, there’s no room for debate: Nurses and nursing assistants should be classified as employees.The recent rise in digital health care staffing platforms gives nurses more flexibility, allowing them to work shifts as they please rather than full time at a facility. However, some of these staffing platforms improperly claim that because their nurses work gig-style schedules, they can be classified as independent contractors.These companies save themselves money but put the nurses and facilities where they work at risk. Nurses don’t control when they start and end their shifts. They are supervised and perform their responsibilities according to strict guidelines.When properly enforced, the Fair Labor Standards Act enables nurses to enjoy gig-style schedules without losing the employee-related benefits they deserve.Tony BraswellTampa, Fla.The writer is the president and founder of Gale Healthcare Solutions.A Trump Scenario: Losing in Court, but Winning the PresidencyDonald Trump at a campaign event.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Former President Donald Trump’s indictment might very well culminate in his being convicted on felony espionage charges while running for and possibly winning the presidency. Inexplicably, the Constitution does not preclude this.The surreal, disheartening and illogical nature of such an outcome is underscored by current employment prohibitions in the U.S. for convicted felons. Those with felony convictions cannot work in the banking, real estate, health care and insurance industries. Additionally, professions that require a license, including those involving lawyers, teachers and psychologists, preclude felonious applicants. Beyond this, several states have their own employment restrictions for individuals with felony backgrounds.In light of this, the idea that Mr. Trump could conceivably occupy the Oval Office for four more years, despite his being a felon, should this be the case, is proof that the framers of the Constitution were not prescient enough to anticipate how sordid our nation’s politics would become.Mark GodesChelsea, Mass.To the Editor:In my view, Democrats would do well to turn off the indictment news and focus on defeating Donald Trump. Jack Smith’s clear indictment offers, to those willing to read it, compelling evidence of the flood of corruption that surged through the White House during the Trump presidency and will hopefully persuade some more moderate Republicans to abandon him. But winning a conviction without defeating him at the ballot box leaves us in the same dark hole or worse off than before.Few who still support Mr. Trump after learning about the details of the indictment will change their decision based upon Mr. Smith’s success in the courtroom. The specter of Mr. Trump losing in court and winning the election would do enduring damage to the nation.Mr. Trump must be defeated the hard way, at the ballot box.Larry LobertGrosse Pointe Park, Mich.Supporting World Heritage SitesYosemite National Park in California is one of UNESCO’s many World Heritage sites.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “After a Six-Year Hiatus, the U.S. Will Rejoin UNESCO in July, Agency Says” (news article, June 13):Thank you for your reporting that the United States plans to rejoin UNESCO. And for highlighting the importance of World Heritage sites, designated by UNESCO. Many Americans — and citizens of other nations — have visited and been inspired by World Heritage sites in the United States, including the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and many other places.However, the United States last paid its World Heritage Committee dues in 2011. Congress and the Biden administration should pay our current year dues (estimated at less than $600,000) and past unpaid dues.The United States has continued to participate in the World Heritage program, including recent designations of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, including the Guggenheim Museum, and pending nominations of Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Ohio and the Historic Moravian Church Settlements in Bethlehem, Pa. Advocates are also working to nominate U.S. Civil Rights Movement Sites and the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.Full U.S. engagement with World Heritage requires paying our share of the program’s costs. It would also permit the United States, a catalyst for the creation of the World Heritage program, to reassert our global leadership in heritage preservation, including such challenges as the reconstruction of World Heritage sites in Ukraine.Thomas CassidyArlington, Va.The writer is a trustee of World Heritage USA.Young Voices for Climate Action Amber Bracken for The New York TimesTo the Editor:The devastating Canadian wildfires make it imperative that we include everyone in climate advocacy, particularly young voices. These wildfires are stark reminders of the escalating climate crisis and the urgent need for change.Young voices are essential in demanding systemic transformations, as this is just one chapter in an existential fight that will persist for the rest of our lives.My climate advocacy is a matter of self-defense. I grew up in Portland, Ore., a place struggling with climate change. I have witnessed wildfires approaching my city and threatening my home, river ecosystems collapsing and their species being put at risk of extinction. The battle we face is not limited to a single fire season or year; it is a fight for our collective survival.Young people will bear the brunt of these disasters. Our future is at stake. Our voices must be heard. We did not ask for the fight against climate change, yet it is a battle we have shouldered since birth. We are ready to contribute our collective power to improve our future.Samantha BlockFalls Church, Va.The writer is a student at Bryn Mawr College. More

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      As Trump Battles Charges, Biden Focuses on the Business of Governing

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      The past week appears to provide a blueprint for the way the White House wants to handle the politically touchy subject of former President Donald J. Trump’s legal troubles.Talk of federal indictments, classified documents and anything related to the president’s predecessor are out. Bridge repair, “junk fees” and prescription drug prices are in.As President Biden ramps up his re-election campaign, his team is focused not on the various investigations into former President Donald J. Trump but rather on spotlighting the ways, however mundane, his administration can assist Americans in their daily lives.Such was the case when Mr. Biden visited Philadelphia, where a fiery crash last weekend caused part of a highway used by the area’s commuters to collapse, and reviewed the recycled glass product that he said was needed to ensure the highway’s speedy repair. Mr. Biden then had one of his more public-facing campaign rallies to celebrate the endorsements of more than a dozen unions.“I’m proud to be the most pro-union president in American history,” Mr. Biden told a crowd of people inside the Philadelphia convention center. “But what I’m really proud about is being re-elected the most pro-union president in American history.”The Pennsylvania visit capped a week that in many ways will serve as a blueprint for the way the White House will proceed as the nation focuses on the various criminal investigations of the former president. While Republican candidates bicker over the case of Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden hopes to showcase his governing. While his opponents attack — or promise to pardon — Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden would rather discuss infrastructure and cracking down on undisclosed fees.“He doesn’t need to muscle into news stories or make a big splash,” said Matt Bennett, executive vice president for public affairs at Third Way, a centrist Democratic advocacy group. “He needs to underscore what voters like about him and chip away at any doubts about him by doing what he did this week — showing that he’s making progress on things they feel in their daily lives.”That’s easier said than done. Polls show many Americans are not satisfied with Mr. Biden and his domestic agenda. Just 33 percent of American adults say they approve of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, and just 24 percent say national economic conditions are good, according to a poll conducted in May by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Overall, 40 percent said they approved of the job Mr. Biden was doing.White House officials involved with Mr. Biden’s campaign are betting they can turn the tide not just by hosting traditional rallies, which have been largely absent thus far in his campaign, but also by organizing events showcasing the president’s legislative accomplishments, such as his $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package and his separate health, climate and tax law. They are also ramping up hiring of staff members for the Biden campaign and eyeing the opening of a campaign headquarters in Delaware this summer, according to a White House official.But it may take time for Americans to feel the effect of those policies, making Mr. Biden’s ability to sell his accomplishments even more important.“I think you’ll see a combination of events like this, supplementing the majority of his work, which will be the more presidential, official-duty side of it,” said Representative Brendan F. Boyle, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who was at the rally. “It is important we’re communicating our story back home, especially in the biggest battleground state in the nation.”Before the Pennsylvania event, Mr. Biden met with the secretary general of NATO to continue to rally the West against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which some in the White House view as Mr. Biden’s primary achievement. He then celebrated the Juneteenth holiday with a reception at the White House before holding a round table to detail efforts to crack down on the additional fees commonly levied by travel and entertainment companies. His advisers also planned meetings with environmental activists as well as business and union leaders to emphasize that he had the support of two factions that in the past have been at odds.And he tried his best to ignore Mr. Trump. The White House is hoping to stay silent on the multiple cases involving the former president to avoid accusations of meddling in Justice Department affairs. But officials within the White House also believe that the best approach is to focus on the daily issues of Americans, in contrast with Republican opponents who are fielding questions about Mr. Trump’s precarious legal situation.Quentin James, a co-founder of the Collective PAC, an organization dedicated to electing Black officials, said the success of that plan would largely hinge on whether Mr. Biden could effectively translate sprawling legislation into digestible solutions.“The challenge isn’t so much cutting through the Trump noise; it’s, will words like investments and federal funding actually hit the pockets and pocketbooks of working families,” Mr. James said. “Will these investments mean anything tangible in people’s take-home pay before the election?” More