Federal Criminal Case Against Trump (Documents Case)

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      I Won’t Let Donald Trump Invade My Brain

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      I try to be a reasonable person. I try to be someone who looks out on the world with trusting eyes. Over the decades, I’ve built up certain expectations about how the world works and how people behave. I rely on those expectations as I do my job, analyzing events and anticipating what will happen next.And yet I’ve found that Donald Trump has confounded me at every turn. I’ve found that I’m not cynical enough to correctly anticipate what he is capable of.I have consistently underestimated his depravity. I was shocked at how thuggishly Trump behaved in that first debate with Joe Biden in 2020. As the Jan. 6 committee hearings progressed, I was stunned to find out just how aggressively Trump had worked to overthrow the election. And then, just last week, in reading his federal indictment, I was once again taken aback to learn how flagrantly he had breached national security.And yet I can’t quite feel ashamed of my perpetual naïveté toward Donald Trump. I don’t want to be the kind of person who can easily enter the head of an amoral narcissist.I’d rather not let him infect my brain. I’d rather not let that guy alter my views of the world. If occasional naïveté is the price for mental independence from Trump, I’m willing to pay it.I’ve been thinking about all this while bracing for the 17 months of campaigning that apparently lie ahead, with Trump probably once again the central focus of the nation’s consciousness. I’m thinking about how we will once again be forced to defend our inner sanctums as he seeks, on a minute-by-minute basis, to take up residence in our brains.I cling to a worldview that is easy to ridicule. I hold the belief that most people, while flawed, seek to be good. I hold the belief that our institutions, while fraying, are basically legitimate and deserve our respect. I hold the belief that character matters, and that good people ultimately prosper and unethical people are ultimately undone.I don’t think this worldview is born of childish innocence. It comes out of my direct experience with life, and after thousands of interviews, covering real-life politicians like Barack Obama, John McCain and Mitt Romney.Donald Trump, by his mere presence, is an assault on this worldview. Trump is a tyrant. As Aristotle observed all those many years ago, tyranny is all about arbitrariness. When a tyrant has power, there is no rule of law, there is no governing order. There is only the whim of the tyrant. There is only his inordinate desire to have more than his fair share of everything.Under political tyranny external laws become arbitrary. Even when Trump doesn’t wield state power, when he is merely campaigning, Trump wields cultural power. Under cultural tyranny internal values become arbitrary too — based on his whims and lusts of the moment.The categories we use to evaluate the world lose their meaning — cruelty and kindness, integrity and corruption, honesty and dishonesty, generosity and selfishness. High-minded values begin to seem credulous and absurd, irrelevant to the situation at hand. Trump’s mere presence spreads his counter-gospel: People are basically selfish; raw power runs the world. All that matters is winning and losing. Under his influence, subtly and insidiously, people develop more nihilistic mind-sets.Trump has already corroded the Republican Party in just this way. Let me focus on one value that Trump has already dissolved: the idea that there should be some connection between the beliefs you have in your head and the words that come out of your mouth. If you say something you don’t believe, you should at least have a twinge of guilt about your hypocrisy.I used to at least hear Republicans express guilt privately when they publicly supported a guy they held in contempt. That guilt seems to have gone away. Even the contempt has gone away. Many Republicans have switched off the moral faculty, having apparently concluded that personal morality doesn’t matter.Trump’s corrosive influence spreads far beyond his party. Any stable social order depends on a sense of legitimacy. This is the belief and faith that the people who have been given authority have a right to govern. They wield power for the common good.Trump assaults this value too. Prosecutors are not serving the rule of law, he insists, but are Joe Biden’s political pawns. Civil servants are nothing but “deep state” operatives to take Trump down. This cynical attitude has become pervasive in our society. Proper skepticism toward our institutions has turned into endemic distrust, a jaundiced cynicism that says: I’m onto the game; it’s corruption all the way down.Over the coming months, we face not merely a political contest, but a battle between those of us who believe in ideals, even though it can make us seem naïve at times, and those who argue that life is a remorseless struggle for selfish gain. Their victory would be a step toward cultural barbarism.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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      The Radical Strategy Behind Trump’s Promise to ‘Go After’ Biden

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      Conservatives with close ties to Donald J. Trump are laying out a “paradigm-shifting” legal rationale to erase the Justice Department’s independence from the president.When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if he’s re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would fully jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.The naked politics infusing Mr. Trump’s headline-generating threat underscored something significant. In his first term, Mr. Trump gradually ramped up pressure on the Justice Department, eroding its traditional independence from White House political control. He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power.Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.Two of the most important figures in this effort work at the same Washington-based organization, the Center for Renewing America: Jeffrey B. Clark and Russell T. Vought. During the Trump presidency, Mr. Vought served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Clark, who oversaw the Justice Department’s civil and environmental divisions, was the only senior official at the department who tried to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.Jeffrey B. Clark was the only senior official in the Justice Department who tried to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAlong with Mr. Clark, Russell T. Vought argues that presidents should treat the Justice Department no differently than any other cabinet agency.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesMr. Trump wanted to make Mr. Clark attorney general during his final days in office but stopped after the senior leadership of the Justice Department threatened to resign en masse. Mr. Clark is now a figure in one of the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power.Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought are promoting a legal rationale that would fundamentally change the way presidents interact with the Justice Department. They argue that U.S. presidents should not keep federal law enforcement at arm’s length but instead should treat the Justice Department no differently than any other cabinet agency. They are condemning Mr. Biden and Democrats for what they claim is the politicization of the justice system, but at the same time pushing an intellectual framework that a future Republican president might use to justify directing individual law enforcement investigations.Mr. Clark, who is a favorite of Mr. Trump’s and is likely to be in contention for a senior Justice Department position if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2024, wrote a constitutional analysis, titled “The U.S. Justice Department is not independent,” that will most likely serve as a blueprint for a second Trump administration.Like other conservatives, Mr. Clark adheres to the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the president of the United States has the power to directly control the entire federal bureaucracy and Congress cannot fracture that control by giving some officials independent decision-making authority.There are debates among conservatives about how far to push that doctrine — and whether some agencies should be allowed to operate independently — but Mr. Clark takes a maximalist view. Mr. Trump does, too, though he’s never been caught reading the Federalist Papers.In statements to The New York Times, both Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought leaned into their battle against the Justice Department, with Mr. Clark framing it as a fight over the survival of America itself.Conservatives have been attacking President Biden and the Justice Department, claiming it has been “weaponized.”Doug Mills/The New York Times“Biden and D.O.J. are baying for Trump’s blood so they can put fear into America,” Mr. Clark wrote in his statement. “The Constitution and our Article IV ‘Republican Form of Government’ cannot survive like this.”Mr. Vought wrote in his statement that the Justice Department was “ground zero for the weaponization of the government against the American people.” He added, “Conservatives are waking up to the fact that federal law enforcement is weaponized against them and as a result are embracing paradigm-shifting policies to reverse that trend.”Mr. Trump often exploited gaps between what the rules technically allow and the norms of self-restraint that guided past presidents of both parties. In 2021, House Democrats passed the Protecting Our Democracy Act, a legislative package intended to codify numerous previous norms as law, including requiring the Justice Department to give Congress logs of its contacts with White House officials. But Republicans portrayed the bill as an attack on Mr. Trump and it died in the Senate.The modern era for the Justice Department traces back to the Watergate scandal and the period of government reforms that followed President Richard M. Nixon’s abuses. The norm took root that the president can set broad policies for the Justice Department — directing it to put greater resources and emphasis on particular types of crimes or adopting certain positions before the Supreme Court — but should not get involved in specific criminal case decisions absent extraordinary circumstances, such as if a case has foreign policy implications.Since then, it has become routine at confirmation hearings for attorney general nominees to have senators elicit promises that they will resist any effort by the president to politicize law enforcement by intruding on matters of prosecutorial judgment and discretion.As the Republican Party has morphed in response to Mr. Trump’s influence, his attacks on federal law enforcement — which trace back to the early Russia investigation in 2017, the backlash to his firing of then-F.B.I. director James B. Comey Jr. and the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel — have become enmeshed in the ideology of his supporters.Mr. Trump’s top rival for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, also rejects the norm that the Justice Department should be independent.Gov. Ron DeSantis has likewise argued that the Justice Department should be an extension of the executive branch.Kate Medley for The New York Times“Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the D.O.J. and F.B.I. are — quote — ‘independent,’” Mr. DeSantis said in May on Fox News. “They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States.”Several other Republican candidates acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents — as outlined in the indictment prepared by the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his team — was a serious problem. But even these candidates — including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence — have also accused the Justice Department of being overly politicized and meting out unequal justice.The most powerful conservative think tanks are working on plans that would go far beyond “reforming” the F.B.I., even though its Senate-confirmed directors in the modern era have all been Republicans. They want to rip it up and start again.“The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a mainstay of the conservative movement since the Reagan years. He added, “Small-ball reforms that increase accountability within the F.B.I. fail to meet the moment. The F.B.I. must be rebuilt from the ground up — reforming it in its current state is impossible.”Conservative media channels and social media influencers have been hammering the F.B.I. and the Justice Department for months since the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago, following a playbook they honed while defending Mr. Trump during the investigation into whether his campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.Senator Tim Scott is among the other Republican presidential candidates who say the Justice Department is politicized.Travis Dove for The New York TimesOn its most-watched nighttime programs, Fox News has been all-in on attacks against the Justice Department, including the accusation, presented without evidence, that Mr. Biden had directed the prosecution of Mr. Trump. As the former president addressed his supporters on Tuesday night at his Bedminster club, Fox News displayed a split screen — Mr. Trump on the right and Mr. Biden on the left. The chyron on the bottom of the screen read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”As president, Mr. Trump saw his attorney general as simply another one of his personal lawyers. He was infuriated when his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Russia investigation — and then refused to reverse that decision to shut down the case.After firing Mr. Sessions, Mr. Trump believed he had found someone who would do his bidding in William P. Barr, who had been in the role during George H.W. Bush’s presidency. Mr. Barr had an expansive view of a president’s constitutionally prescribed powers, and shared Mr. Trump’s critical views of the origins of the Russia investigation.Under Mr. Barr, the Justice Department overruled career prosecutors’ recommendations on the length of a sentence for Mr. Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., and sought to shut down a case against Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who had already pleaded guilty. Both cases stemmed from the Russia investigation.But when Mr. Trump wanted to use the Justice Department to stay in power after he lost the election, he grew enraged when Mr. Barr refused to comply. Mr. Barr ultimately resigned in late 2020. More

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      Today’s Top News: How G.O.P. Rivals View Trump’s Indictment, and More

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      The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, as well as exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the audio app here.The Headlines brings you the biggest stories of the day from the Times journalists who are covering them, all in about 10 minutes. Hosted by Annie Correal, the new morning show features three top stories from reporters across the newsroom and around the world, so you always have a sense of what’s happening, even if you only have a few minutes to spare.Former President Donald J. Trump’s Republican competitors are desperate to get media coverage for their campaigns and are dreading what threatens to be an endless indictment news cycle.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesOn Today’s Episode:G.O.P. Rivals See Trump’s Indictment as a Big Problem (for Them), with our political reporter Jonathan SwanAt Least 79 Die as Boat Carrying Migrants Sinks Near Greece, with our correspondent Niki KitsantonisSouthern Baptists Vote to Further Expand Restrictions on Women as Leaders, with our national religion correspondent Elizabeth DiasEli Cohen More

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      Trump visita la Pequeña Habana y recuerda la corrupción en América Latina

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      Los republicanos han comparado cada vez más los casos judiciales del expresidente con la corrupción y la opresión política en la región.Después de su comparecencia del martes, el expresidente Donald Trump visitó la Pequeña Habana, en Miami, en su más reciente intento de presentarse como un hombre perseguido por sus adversarios políticos.Fue un intento nada sutil de buscar la solidaridad de los latinos de Florida y de otros lugares.La visita de Trump al restaurante Versailles, un punto de referencia emblemático de la diáspora cubana, coincidió con la comparación, cada vez más frecuente, que hacen los republicanos de su caso con la corrupción y la opresión política en los países latinoamericanos.Afuera del juzgado federal de Miami donde se hizo la comparecencia, Alina Habba, abogada y vocera de Trump insinuó que él no era diferente de los disidentes políticos de Latinoamérica.“La persecución y enjuiciamiento de un opositor político importante es el tipo de cosas que se ven en dictaduras como Cuba y Venezuela. En esos sitios, es un lugar común que los candidatos rivales sean juzgados, perseguidos y encarcelados”, señaló.El día previo a su comparecencia, Trump afirmó que los latinos del sur de Florida se solidarizaban con él porque están familiarizados con los gobiernos que persiguen a sus adversarios.“En verdad pueden verlo mejor de lo que lo ven las demás personas”, dijo en una entrevista con Americano Media, un medio conservador en idioma español del sur de Florida.Trump ha contado con un apoyo relativamente fuerte entre las comunidades latinas, sobre todo en el sur de Florida. Eduardo A. Gamarra, profesor de Política y Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad Internacional de Florida que también forma parte del Instituto de Estudios Cubanos, comentó que la narrativa urdida por Trump y sus partidarios, aunque falsa, era astuta.“Se ve reforzada por los medios locales, por mucho de lo que la campaña de Trump y otros republicanos están diciendo: que este gobierno, el de Biden, se está comportando como se comportan las repúblicas bananeras, así que eso ha resonado con mucha intensidad aquí. A nivel político, es buena, pero no es veraz”, afirmó el académico.Gamarra, quien nació en Bolivia, destacó que Trump también había intentado obtener el apoyo de los electores latinos al arremeter contra el socialismo y el comunismo. Lamentó la manera en que Trump y sus aliados habían mencionado a Latinoamérica en muchas ocasiones.“Es una narrativa muy poco afortunada. Creo que solo difunde los estereotipos existentes sobre Latinoamérica. Es mucho más complejo que solo la imagen de la república bananera”, dijo.La breve aparición de Trump en el restaurante fue la más reciente de él y de una larga lista de políticos que incluye a los expresidentes Bill Clinton y George W. Bush. En 2016, el restaurante recibió a Trump y a Rudy Giuliani juntos después del primer debate del exmandatario contra Hillary Clinton.Paloma Marcos, quien ha sido ciudadana estadounidense desde hace 15 años y es oriunda de Nicaragua, llegó al Versalles con una gorra de Trump y un letrero que decía “Estoy con Trump”.Comentó que muchos nicaragüenses como ella tenían afinidad por el expresidente, porque está contra el comunismo. También agregó que la gente como ella, así como los cubanos y venezolanos, habían visto que esa forma de gobierno destrozaba a sus países de origen.“Sabe él que siempre lo hemos apoyado acá. Los latinos estamos bien concientizados”, dijo Marcos. “Hemos podido quitarnos el velo, digamos, un despertar”.La reverenda Yoelis Sánchez, pastora en una iglesia local y oriunda de la República Dominicana, dijo que cuando le pidieron que fuera al restaurante Versalles a orar con Trump no dudó en acudir. Varias personas religiosas, entre evangélicas y católicas, oraban con él mientras su hija cantaba.Comentó que había orado “para que Dios le dé fortaleza y le ayude”, comentó. “Y que toda la verdad salga a la luz”. Y añadió que estaban “preocupados por el bienestar de él”.Sánchez, que vive en Doral, una ciudad que forma parte del condado de Miami-Dade y donde Trump tiene un club de golf, no era ciudadana en 2020. No quiso decir si planea votar por él en 2024.“No creo que haya venido porque le interese el voto latino solamente”, dijo. “Sino el voto de todas las personas que estamos de acuerdo en mantener los valores bíblicos”. Y añadió que como él, “los latinos de por sí nos identificamos con lo que es la familia, la vida”.Trump enfrenta acusaciones penales relacionadas con el mal manejo de documentos clasificados y la posterior obstrucción de los intentos de recuperarlos por parte del gobierno. En Estados Unidos no tiene precedentes el enjuiciamiento federal a un expresidente, pero muchos presidentes latinoamericanos han sido juzgados tras dejar el poder.El actual presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pasó más de un año en la cárcel después de salir de la presidencia la primera vez. El año pasado, la expresidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández, fue sentenciada a seis años por corrupción. En Perú, Alejandro Toledo fue extraditado hace poco para enfrentar una acusación de soborno. El exmandatario, Alberto Fujimori, está cumpliendo una condena de 25 años en prisión.Arnoldo Alemán, de Nicaragua, es uno de los pocos expresidentes que fue arrestado en un caso de corrupción a pesar de que su propio partido estaba en el poder.“Es algo que se ve mucho en Latinoamérica, sobre todo en Perú y ahora en El Salvador”, comentó Mario García, un cliente habitual del Versailles a quien le hizo gracia ver a Trump en el restaurante. “Pero en nuestros países, en Latinoamérica, hay justificación porque lo roban todo” los presidentes, explicó García y afirmó que creía que el gobierno estaba persiguiendo a Trump porque no tiene “otra manera de detenerlo”.García señaló que no pensaba que Trump fuera al Versailles en busca de los votos de los latinos. “Los votos de aquí ya los tiene. Es muy bonito rodearse de cariño cuando a uno todo el mundo lo está atacando”.Maggie Haberman More

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      Trump and the Fun Factor

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      How his legal challenges play into his reputation as an entertainer.When Donald Trump was indicted on criminal charges in New York City two months ago, I tried to make sense of the political fallout with my colleague Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst. After poring over traditional markers about fund-raising and poll numbers, Nate mentioned another standard I’ve been thinking about over the past few days: Do Trump’s legal challenges make him more (or less) fun?The question is awkward, as it suggests that the reasons some Americans are drawn to politicians are divorced from the seriousness of their office. But after Trump’s arraignment in federal court in Miami this week, I’m reminded of its importance. Nate wasn’t calling Trump fun as a self-evident fact, but rather identifying a set of voters who are attracted to showmanship and celebrity, are distinct from Trump’s base and follow politics only casually, if at all.These voters matter for Trump’s 2024 campaign. Five percent of Trump’s voters in 2016 were disengaged from politics, a study by Democracy Fund, a pro-democracy group, found, and that is the type of margin that made a difference in such a close contest.What distinguishes this group? Perhaps you have a friend who doesn’t care about politics, but can’t believe Trump said THAT. Or who recognizes the belittling nicknames he bestowed on Republicans in the 2016 primary, like “Little Marco” Rubio and “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz, monikers that have stuck beyond Republican circles.Such awareness is part of the effect of Trump’s celebrity and ability to command attention in ways no other candidate can. When Trump was at his political peak, that quality extended beyond his most ardent supporters to political outsiders who were attracted to his style — or were at least entertained by it.2024 challengeAhead of the 2024 election, though, Trump’s crusade for supporters is failing to live up to his 2016 effort. At both of Trump’s arraignments, the number of people who came to the courthouse to defend him was smaller than expected. I’ve heard from Republican leaders — on Capitol Hill and in early voting states like Iowa — who say they have gotten fewer calls defending Trump than they anticipated. Even his return to CNN, in a widely criticized town hall last month, fell short of the ratings that Trump once delivered for cable networks.Perhaps most important, Trump himself looks miserable. Even as Republican voters have largely rallied behind him, and even as he remains the front-runner to secure the Republican nomination despite his cascading legal problems, he appears to be wrestling with the reality that his freedom is in jeopardy.“Some birthday,” he grumbled in Miami this week, ignoring a clear attempt by supporters to cheer him up on the week he turned 77.According to my colleagues Shane Goldmacher and Maggie Haberman, who have closely followed Trump’s political career, his speech in New Jersey after his arraignment brought down the mood of the party instead of jump-starting it. Trump turned what was meant to be a moment of defiance into a familiar litany of grievances. He invoked the tone of personal victimhood that Republicans have told me cost them votes in the 2022 midterms, when Trump focused on the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.It’s not just that the indictments distract Trump from laying out an affirmative vision for the country. They can also stop him from being the most free version of himself.In a competitive Republican primary where another candidate can gain traction with the electorate (a possibility that remains to be seen), Trump’s inability to summon his freewheeling style is the type of difficult-to-quantify factor that can keep him from securing votes — and leave opportunities for opponents.Trump can, of course, return anytime to the unconstrained approach that won him so much attention in 2016 and since. His Republican primary competitors are already dreading the amount of media coverage they will lose this summer to his indictments, my colleagues Jonathan Swan and Jonathan Weisman reported.Yet these factors are part of the reason that many Democrats feel good about a potential matchup between President Biden and Trump. They argue that the electorate is simply exhausted with the chaos that he brought to national politics and that his legal troubles are a reminder of that aspect of his presidency. What was once fun (for some) no longer is.More Trump newsTrump’s own aides and lawyers could become witnesses against him.Judge Aileen Cannon is presiding over Trump’s case. Her experience as a judge in criminal cases has included just 14 trial days.The trial will test the legal system’s ability to guard national secrets while guaranteeing a fair and open trial, Politico writes.Groups like the Proud Boys have called for retribution, but large protests haven’t materialized outside Trump’s court appearances.Trump tried to undermine the charges by lashing out at Biden.Former Trump advisers are drawing up a plan to minimize the Justice Department’s independence from a future president.THE LATEST NEWSBusinessThe Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged after more than a year of increases. Officials say rates could rise twice more this year.European Union legislators took a major step toward regulating artificial intelligence. They want to put guardrails on risky uses of the technology.Retailers are fleeing downtown San Francisco. Read an interview with the mayor, who said she wants to turn offices into homes.Google is offering a small payment to anyone who clicked a search link between 2006 and 2013 to settle a lawsuit over privacy violations.InternationalThe U.S. has quietly resumed diplomacy with Iran, negotiating to limit Iran’s nuclear program and free imprisoned Americans.Boris Johnson misled British lawmakers over Covid lockdown parties, a damning report concluded. He quit Parliament last week after seeing an early version of the findings.Some Republicans want to cut military aid to Ukraine at a critical moment in the war. Here’s what you need to know about the counteroffensive.Pakistan is in political crisis. The military is cracking down on supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan as elections approach.A prominent journalist in Guatemala was sentenced to prison. Critics say the trial is a sign that the country’s democracy is crumbling.ClimateThe U.S. is paying Russia billions for enriched uranium for nuclear power.Global oil demand is likely to drop sharply over the next five years because of a shift to electric vehicles and other cleaner technologies.Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota residents have been under the polluted, orange skies seen in New York last week.South Korea is converting food waste, a major source of emissions, into fuel and fertilizer. See the process.Other Big StoriesA Baptist pastor appealing a decision to expel her church from the denomination.Christiana Botic for The New York TimesSouthern Baptists voted to restrict women in church leadership, opening hundreds of churches to investigation and expulsions.Francis Suarez, Miami’s mayor, entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination.A morgue manager at Harvard Medical School sold body parts from donated cadavers and let buyers choose which parts they wanted, prosecutors say.Starbucks workers in 21 states were told by their managers not to decorate for Pride Month, a union said.OpinionsNew York has a flooding problem. But proposed flood walls won’t solve it — and will block off beloved waterfront areas, Robert Yaro and Daniel Gutman write.Here are columns by Pamela Paul on estimating time and Charles Blow on Florida’s anti-transgender legislation.MORNING READSEid prayer in Brooklyn.Jonah Markowitz for The New York TimesDawn to dusk: A photographer spent two years immersed in Brooklyn’s fast-growing Bangladeshi community.Discovery: One of Saturn’s moons has all the ingredients for life, scientists found.Coming of age: In Detroit, a debutante ball where young Black women feel like they belong.The fixer: When he accidentally stole a Picasso, he knew who to call: Dad.Adjust your expectations: Lots of couples skip wedding night sex.Lives Lived: The editor Robert Gottlieb shaped novels, nonfiction books and magazine articles by a pantheon of acclaimed writers. He died at 92.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICBeal’s murky future: The Washington Wizards and Bradley Beal will work together to trade him if the team decides to rebuild.Messi’s M.L.S. limbo: Lionel Messi’s announcement last week that he plans to come to Inter Miami caught M.L.S. officials by surprise, a big reason he hasn’t yet finalized his contract.ARTS AND IDEAS The dad influencers Dave Ogleton, left, and Aaron Martin.via @fitdadceo, @stayathomedadDigital fatherhood: Dad influencers are finding big audiences on social media. The trend exploded during the pandemic, when many fathers were suddenly home all the time, and it has grown as men become more comfortable sharing the joys and struggles of parenting — often with dad jokes.“Our goal was mostly to have fun,” said Kevin Laferriere, a comedian who posts about his home life on TikTok. “Then we heard from dads who said heartfelt things like, ‘I’m the only stay-at-home dad I know, and your content helped me feel seen.’”More on cultureCormac McCarthy, who died this week at 89, was part of a generation that expanded what American prose could do, The Times’s A.O. Scott writes.Nine women filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Bill Cosby in Nevada. The state recently eliminated the statute of limitations for civil cases.The executive director of American Ballet Theater resigned without explanation.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Bobbi Lin for The New York TimesServe this pasta salad the day you make it for the brightest flavor.Stay calm during a bumpy flight with these tips.Try these $30 earbuds that tricked Wirecutter’s testers.Protect your eyes with cheap, yet effective sunglasses.Squash spotted lanternflies, an invasive species. They’re back for another summer.GAMESHere are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangram was headwind.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. More

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      Verificación de la defensa de Trump en el caso de los documentos clasificados

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      El expresidente hizo comparaciones inexactas con otros políticos, tergiversó el proceso de clasificación y lanzó ataques con imprecisiones contra funcionarios.Horas después de declararse no culpable ante un tribunal federal en Miami por los cargos relacionados con su manejo de documentos clasificados, el expresidente Donald Trump defendió su conducta el 13 de junio con una serie de falsedades ya conocidas.En su club de golf en Bedminster, Nueva Jersey, Trump hizo comparaciones engañosas con otros personajes políticos, malinterpretó el proceso de clasificación y lanzó ataques con imprecisiones contra funcionarios.Aquí ofrecemos una verificación de datos de los argumentos de Trump sobre la investigación.Lo que dijo Trump“Amenazarme con 400 años en la cárcel por tener en mi poder mis propios documentos presidenciales, que es lo que prácticamente todos los presidentes han hecho, es una de las teorías legales más ofensivas y agresivas presentadas en la historia ante un tribunal estadounidense”.Falso. La Ley de Registros Presidenciales de 1978, que rige la conservación y retención de registros oficiales de los expresidentes, le da a la Administración Nacional de Archivos y Registros (NARA, por su sigla en inglés) total propiedad y control sobre los registros presidenciales. La legislación, que hace una distinción clara entre registros oficiales y documentos personales, se ha aplicado a todos los presidentes desde Ronald Reagan.La agencia señaló que “asumió la custodia física y legal de los registros presidenciales de las gestiones de Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush y Ronald Reagan cuando esos presidentes abandonaron el cargo”.De manera independiente, después de que Trump en repetidas ocasiones y engañosamente comparó su manejo de registros con el de su predecesor inmediato, la Administración Nacional de Archivos indicó en un comunicado que Barack Obama entregó sus documentos, tanto los clasificados como los que no lo estaban, de conformidad con la ley. La agencia también afirmó no estar al tanto de que se haya perdido alguna caja de registros presidenciales del gobierno de Obama.Lo que dijo Trump“El presidente toma la decisión de separar materiales personales de los registros presidenciales durante su mandato, y bajo su entera discreción”.Falso. La Ley de Registros Presidenciales distingue qué constituye material personal (como diarios o documentos de campañas políticas) y qué se clasifica como registros oficiales. No le da al presidente “discrecionalidad” para determinar qué es un registro personal y qué no lo es. Según la ley, el presidente saliente debe separar los documentos personales de los registros oficiales antes de abandonar el cargo.Agentes del FBI realizaron una búsqueda en el inmueble de Mar-a-Lago de Trump en agosto, más de un año después de que el abogado general de la NARA solicitó que se recuperaran materiales y tras meses de reiteradas consultas de funcionarios de la agencia y el Departamento de Justicia.Lo que dijo Trump“Se suponía que debía negociar con la NARA, que es exactamente lo que estaba haciendo hasta la redada en Mar-a-Lago organizada por agentes armados del FBI”.Falso. La Ley de Registros Presidenciales no establece un proceso de negociación entre el presidente y la NARA. La búsqueda realizada en la residencia de Trump en Florida, autorizada por los tribunales, ocurrió después de que se opuso en repetidas ocasiones a responder a las solicitudes del gobierno para que devolviera el material, incluso después de recibir una citación.Lo que dijo Trump“Biden envió 1850 cajas a la Universidad de Delaware, lo que dificultó la búsqueda, independientemente de quién la realizara. Se niega a entregarlas y se niega a permitir siquiera que alguien las vea, y luego dicen que se comporta con gran amabilidad”.Esta afirmación es engañosa. En 2012, Joe Biden le donó a la Universidad de Delaware 1850 cajas de documentos de la época en que fungió como senador del estado desde 1973 hasta 2009. A diferencia de los documentos presidenciales, que deben entregarse a la NARA al término del mandato del presidente, los documentos de los miembros del Congreso no están cubiertos por la Ley de Registros Presidenciales. Es común que los senadores y representantes les donen esos artículos a universidades, institutos de investigación o instalaciones históricas.La Universidad de Delaware convino en no darle acceso al público a los documentos de la época de Biden como senador hasta dos años después de su retiro de la vida pública. Pero el FBI sí revisó la colección en febrero como parte de una investigación independiente sobre el manejo de Biden de los documentos de gobierno y en colaboración con su equipo legal. The New York Times informó, en su momento, que continuaba el análisis del material y que todo parecía indicar que no contenía documentos clasificados.Lo que dijo Trump“Cuando la descubrieron, Hillary borró y ‘lavó con ácido’. Nadie hace eso, por los costos involucrados, pero es muy concluyente. Treinta y tres mil correos electrónicos en desafío a una citación del Congreso que ya se había emitido. La citación estaba ahí y ella decidió borrar, lavar con ácido y luego aplastar y destruir sus teléfonos celulares con un martillo. Y luego dicen que yo participé en una obstrucción”.Este es un argumento engañoso. Existen varias diferencias clave entre el caso de Trump y el uso por parte de Hillary Clinton de un servidor de correo electrónico privado cuando era secretaria de Estado, que Trump también describió de manera imprecisa.Una diferencia crucial es que varias investigaciones oficiales han concluido que Clinton no manejó indebidamente material clasificado de manera sistemática o deliberada, además de que un informe preparado en 2018 por el inspector general respaldó la decisión del FBI de no presentar cargos contra Clinton.En cambio, a Trump se le acusa de haber manejado indebidamente documentos clasificados y obstruir varias acciones del gobierno con el propósito de recuperarlos, así como de hacer declaraciones falsas ante algunos funcionarios. La acusación formal permitió tener acceso la semana pasada a fotografías de documentos guardados, en algunos casos, de manera veleidosa, como cajas apiladas en una regadera y otras en el escenario de un salón de baile frecuentado por visitantes.Según la investigación del FBI sobre el asunto, los abogados de Clinton le proporcionaron al Departamento de Estado en 2014 alrededor de 30.000 correos electrónicos relacionados con el trabajo y le ordenaron a un empleado que borrara todos los correos electrónicos personales de más de 60 días de antigüedad. En 2015, después de que el Times dio la noticia de que Clinton había usado una cuenta personal de correo electrónico, el comité de la Cámara de Representantes liderado por republicanos que estaba a cargo de la investigación de los ataques de 2012 contra puestos de avanzada estadounidenses en Bengasi, Libia, envió una citación en la que solicitaba todos los correos electrónicos de esa cuenta relacionados con Libia.Ese mismo mes, un empleado de la empresa que administraba el servidor de Clinton se percató de que en realidad no había borrado los correos electrónicos personales como se le pidió en 2014. Entonces procedió a aplicar un programa de software gratuito llamado BleachBit —no ácido real ni ningún otro compuesto químico— para borrar alrededor de 30.000 correos electrónicos personales.El FBI encontró miles de correos electrónicos adicionales relacionados con el trabajo que Clinton no le entregó al Departamento de Estado, pero James Comey, quien era director de la agencia en ese momento, declaró que no había “evidencia de que los correos electrónicos adicionales relacionados con el trabajo se hubieran borrado intencionalmente con el fin de ocultarlos”.Lo más seguro es que Clinton esté en desacuerdo con la aseveración de Trump de que el FBI y el Departamento de Justicia la “protegieron”, pues ha dicho que las acciones de Comey, junto con la interferencia rusa, le costaron las elecciones de 2016.Lo que dijo Trump“Por supuesto que exoneró a Mike Pence. Me da gusto. Mike no hizo nada malo, aunque tenía documentos clasificados en su casa. Pero lo exoneraron. Y el caso de Biden es otra cosa”.Esta afirmación es engañosa. Se encontraron documentos clasificados tanto en la casa del exvicepresidente Mike Pence en Indiana, en enero, como en la antigua oficina de Biden en un centro de investigación en Washington en noviembre y en su residencia de Delaware en enero. El Departamento de Justicia decidió no presentar cargos contra Pence; en cuanto a Biden, la investigación sobre su manejo de materiales está en proceso.Pero las diferencias entre esos casos y el de Trump son significativas, en particular en lo que respecta al volumen de documentos encontrados y la respuesta de Biden y de Pence.En la casa de Pence se encontró aproximadamente una decena de documentos marcados como clasificados. El FBI inspeccionó su casa en febrero, con su consentimiento, y encontró un documento clasificado más. No está claro cuántos documentos clasificados tenía en su posesión Biden, pero sus abogados han dicho que se encontró “un pequeño número” en su antigua oficina y alrededor de media docena en su casa de Delaware.En contraste, Trump tenía “cientos” de documentos clasificados, según la acusación formal del Departamento de Justicia, en la que se indica que algunos de los registros contenían información sobre los programas nucleares del país y “posibles vulnerabilidades de Estados Unidos y sus aliados a ataques militares”. En total, el gobierno ha recuperado más de 300 archivos con marcas de clasificado de su casa y su club privado de Florida.Otra diferencia es que representantes de Pence y Biden han dicho que no se percataron de que habían conservado esos documentos y no tardaron en informar a la NARA cuando lo descubrieron. Además, ambos cooperaron con funcionarios del gobierno para devolver los documentos y, al parecer, cumplieron voluntariamente con la realización de búsquedas en sus propiedades.En contraste, Trump se opuso en repetidas ocasiones, durante meses, a las solicitudes de devolver materiales y, según se lee en la acusación formal, desempeñó un papel activo para ocultarles a los investigadores documentos clasificados. La NARA le informó a Trump en mayo de 2021 que faltaban ciertos documentos presidenciales. Algunos agentes recuperaron 15 cajas de Mar-a-Lago en enero de 2022, pero sospechaban que todavía faltaban registros. Siete meses después, agentes del FBI registraron el inmueble de Florida y recuperaron más documentos.Lo que dijo Trump“A diferencia de mí, que contaba con total autoridad de desclasificación en mi carácter de presidente, Joe Biden, quien era vicepresidente, no tenía facultades para desclasificar y tampoco el derecho de tener en su posesión los documentos. No tenía ese derecho”.Esta afirmación es engañosa. Los vicepresidentes sí cuentan con facultades para desclasificar ciertos materiales, aunque el alcance de esas facultades no se ha cuestionado explícitamente ante los tribunales.Trump ha insistido en otras ocasiones en que contaba con facultades para desclasificar materiales sin necesidad de informarle a nadie. Existen procedimientos formales para levantar el secreto oficial de la información, pero el debate legal sobre si los presidentes deben cumplirlos no se ha resuelto, según el Colegio de Abogados de Estados Unidos y el Servicio de Investigación del Congreso, un organismo sin afiliación partidista. Un tribunal federal de apelaciones decidió en 2020 que “levantar el secreto oficial de materiales, incluso si lo hace el presidente, debe someterse a procedimientos establecidos”. No obstante, la Corte Suprema no ha emitido ningún fallo al respecto.De cualquier forma, cabe señalar que Trump siguió estos procedimientos con respecto a algunos documentos; por ejemplo, emitió un memorando el día previo al final de su mandato con el que desclasificó información relativa a la investigación del FBI sobre las relaciones de su campaña de 2016 con Rusia.Por otra parte, expertos legales han señalado que la clasificación de información sobre armas nucleares o “datos restringidos” se rige conforme a un marco legal totalmente distinto, la Ley de Energía Atómica. Esa ley no le otorga facultades explícitas al presidente para tomar la decisión unilateral de desclasificar secretos nucleares y establece un proceso estricto de desclasificación en el que participan varias agencias. No está claro si los documentos guardados en Mar-a-Lago incluían “datos restringidos”.Chris Cameron More

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      A President Governing From Behind Bars?!

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      Watching the torrent of invective and megalomania pouring from Donald Trump on Tuesday after his arraignment for a second time, what struck me was not so much the falsehoods as the desperation.“I am the only one that can save this nation,” Trump declared. He spoke of “the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country” — meaning his own “persecution.” He denounced the special counsel, Jack Smith, as “deranged.”Trump’s delirium didn’t seem to energize either him or the crowd, however, and this classic con man has seemed to shrink under prosecutorial scrutiny. It was difficult to avoid thinking of other leaders I’ve covered over the decades when they were scrambling to avoid prison; under investigation, they deflated before our eyes. Now the net is tightening around Trump.An absurd question keeps nagging at me: Could an inmate in a federal prison get a leave to attend his own presidential inauguration?I wonder about that because Trump seems to be moving simultaneously in two opposing and irreconcilable directions. First, it seems increasingly plausible that he will become the first former president to be convicted of a felony. Second, he also seems increasingly likely to win the Republican nomination for president, with the betting markets also giving him about a 22 percent chance of going on and actually being elected president.Any defendant must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But some smart lawyers believe that for Trump, the “peril is extreme,” as one former federal prosecutor put it. Trump’s own attorney general William Barr said, “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast.”Trump could, of course, catch a break. The evidence from his own lawyer could be declared inadmissible in trial, or maybe the trial judge will allow stalling tactics by the defense, or maybe a die-hard sympathizer on the Florida jury will refuse to convict. But Trump could eventually be indicted in four separate criminal cases, and with so many cases swirling about, the odds increase that he may find himself convicted of at least some felonies.He would be a first offender, and it’s not certain that he would do prison time. Officials so far have been very deferential toward Trump: He hasn’t been handcuffed or subjected to a mug shot.Still, deference may end upon conviction, and defendants in less serious cases have ended up with substantial prison sentences. Just this month, a former Air Force officer was sentenced to three years in prison for keeping classified documents — and he had pleaded guilty and thus presumably received leniency. And during Trump’s presidency, Reality Winner leaked a single document and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.Even if Trump is convicted and imprisoned, he could continue to run for office and even presumably hold the office of president, if he isn’t too busy in the prison factory making license plates. Eugene Debs, the socialist candidate, famously ran for president from federal prison in 1920, receiving almost one million votes.I guess accommodations could be made so that prison officials didn’t listen in on phone conversations between federal inmate No. 62953-804 and Chinese and Russian leaders. Perhaps summits could be held in a larger cell? State banquets in the prison dining hall?One low-level precedent: Joel Caston, while serving a sentence for murder, was elected in 2021 to be an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Washington, D.C. But that’s an unpaid two-year advisory position, a bit different from the presidency.If Trump is both incarcerated and elected president, perhaps his cabinet could invoke the 25th Amendment and declare him unable to serve. But Trump presumably would carefully choose cabinet members who would never do that. Alternatively, maybe if elected, would he try to pardon himself?Is it conceivable that voters would actually choose as president a man who had been convicted of felonies, or was about to be? It seems hard to believe, but I also thought Trump was unelectable in 2016. It’s notable that as the legal cases against Trump have gained ground this year he has also risen in Republican polling.A plausible guess, based in part on the latest polling since the federal indictment, is that prosecutions could help him in the Republican primaries while hurting him in the general election. Looking ahead, news organizations must not drop the ball as they did in 2016, giving Trump a platform without adequately fact-checking him. We should enable democracy, not empower an antidemocratic demagogue.All in all, I think Trump is going down. But my nightmare is that the United States slips into a recession that voters blame on President Biden, that there is a Middle East crisis that raises oil and gas prices and that there is a third-party candidate who draws more votes from Biden than from Trump. Or perhaps Biden has a health crisis and the Democratic nominee is Kamala Harris, who I fear would be a substantially weaker candidate. In short, Trump’s election as president seems unlikely, but not impossible — and the consequences could be catastrophic.A sitting president governing from behind bars? It’s utterly unimaginable — right? The uncertainty speaks to a tragedy for our nation.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. More

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      Trump Campaign Says It Has Raised $6.6 Million Since Indictment

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      The NewsFormer President Donald J. Trump’s campaign said on Wednesday that it had raised $6.6 million in the days after his second indictment — a substantial haul, albeit a lower amount than the numbers it reported after his previous indictment in March.The figure includes $2.1 million raised at a prescheduled fund-raiser at Mr. Trump’s club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday evening, hours after his arraignment in federal court in Miami. There, he faced charges of retaining classified documents from his presidency and obstructing efforts to return them.Details of these self-reported numbers cannot be confirmed until the campaign files federal disclosures next month.Former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign has used news of legal setbacks to pump up its fund-raising.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWhy It Matters: A presidential front-runner turns court cases into campaign cash.The front-runner for the Republican nomination, Mr. Trump has treated his indictments as political fund-raising opportunities, seeking to repeatedly tap his loyal base of small donors.He and his team have highlighted his increased donations after both indictments, and on Tuesday, he paired his appearance in court with a campaign stop, pausing at Miami’s Versailles Restaurant to greet supporters before making his appearance in Bedminster.Background: His previous indictment helped bring in an even bigger rush of donations.Setting aside the $2.1 million raised at the Bedminster event on Tuesday night, the Trump campaign raised $4.5 million since the indictment was announced last week, it said.That bump in fund-raising, while significant, was smaller than the surge of donations that followed his indictment in late March on state charges — the campaign raised $4 million in the 24 hours after those charges, and more than $15 million in the two weeks that followed.These figures also cannot be confirmed until the campaign files federal disclosures next month, which cover the fund-raising period from April to June of this year.What’s Next: The campaigning will continue while more legal troubles loom.Mr. Trump, who has made outrage over his legal troubles central to his 2024 bid, is forging ahead with campaign events. On Monday, he has a planned appearance on Fox News, and he will speak at an event in Michigan the following Sunday.The next hearing in the documents case is scheduled for June 27, when Walt Nauta, Mr. Trump’s personal aide and co-defendant, will enter his plea. Mr. Trump is still completing his legal team for the case.Mr. Trump may still face further charges in Georgia, where he is being investigated for his role in attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought federal charges against Mr. Trump in the documents case, is also investigating the former president’s role in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.Rebecca Davis O’Brien More