Giuliani, Rudolph W

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Prosecutors Investigating Whether Ukrainians Meddled in 2020 Election

      by

      The Brooklyn federal inquiry has examined whether former and current Ukrainian officials tried to interfere in the election, including funneling misleading information through Rudolph W. Giuliani.Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have been investigating whether several Ukrainian officials helped orchestrate a wide-ranging plan to meddle in the 2020 presidential campaign, including using Rudolph W. Giuliani to spread their misleading claims about President Biden and tilt the election in Donald J. Trump’s favor, according to people with knowledge of the matter. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Andrew Giuliani to Run for GOP Nomination for NY Governor

      by

      The son of Rudolph W. Giuliani joins two other candidates in a primary that could demonstrate former President Trump’s continued hold on their party.The field of Republicans vying to challenge Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in next year’s race for governor grew on Tuesday as Andrew Giuliani, the son of the former New York City mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, formally unveiled his candidacy.Mr. Giuliani is the third Republican to see an opportunity for the party to seize the governor’s mansion for the first time in nearly two decades, joining Representative Lee Zeldin of Long Island, a staunch conservative, and Rob Astorino, a former county executive of Westchester County and the party’s 2014 nominee for governor.With Mr. Cuomo engulfed in overlapping investigations into accusations of sexual harassment, his handling of nursing homes and the use of state resources for his pandemic memoir, Republicans in New York appeared eager to take on a newly vulnerable governor hobbling into his run for a fourth term.And the entrance of Mr. Giuliani, a former special assistant to President Donald J. Trump, along with Mr. Zeldin, an ardent backer of the former president, suggested that Republican candidates with ties to Mr. Trump may see a distinct advantage, even in deep blue New York.“We need a leader who is going to light the economic furnace in New York and keep our streets safe again,” said Mr. Giuliani in a telephone interview. “Stop the war on police that has been going on. End bail reform.”Mr. Giuliani, in first announcing his candidacy in The New York Post, likened himself to a heavyweight boxer about to enter the ring for a title bout with Mr. Cuomo. “Giuliani vs. Cuomo. Holy smokes. It’s Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier,” he told the paper.But for many New Yorkers, particularly in the city, the image that jumps to mind — one that the 35-year-old Mr. Giuliani has struggled to live down — is of his 7-year-old self fidgeting about the lectern at City Hall as his father gave his inaugural address as mayor in 1994. The moment was satirized by “Saturday Night Live,” with Mr. Giuliani played by the comedian Chris Farley. (Mr. Giuliani said he loves the skit.)In 2017, Mr. Trump hired Mr. Giuliani, a former professional golfer, to work as a special assistant and associate director of the Office of Public Liaison. Since leaving the White House this year, he has been an on-camera contributor for Newsmax Media, the conservative media company. (He left that position to run for governor.)Mr. Giuliani, who only began raising money in recent days, faces a difficult path in the Republican primary.Mr. Zeldin, an outspoken supporter of Mr. Trump, has already raised $2.5 million in campaign cash since announcing his candidacy last month, according to his campaign, and has worked to position himself to gain Mr. Trump’s endorsement.“It’s clear that Congressman Zeldin has the support, momentum and dogged determination to win and restore New York to glory,” said Ian Prior, a campaign spokesman for Mr. Zeldin.Mr. Trump made it clear to Mr. Giuliani when they saw each other at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s estate in Florida, a few weeks ago that he was leaning toward Mr. Zeldin, according to two people with knowledge of the discussion.Mr. Giuliani, in the conversation, suggested that the former president wait until after the next campaign filing, in mid-July, so that Mr. Giuliani could demonstrate his viability, the people said.Mr. Giuliani did not dispute that account. “All I can say is the president has been a friend for a long time and somebody I have been honored to work for,” he said. “I think he is going to be very impressed.”A confident speaker, Mr. Giuliani made a favorable impression on some Republican Party operatives in meetings before county chairs last month. He is scheduled to travel around the state over the next week, according to his campaign. State party officials had hoped to avoid a primary, but with one now all but assured, they appear to have embraced the energy.“Rudy will forever be known as the man who transformed New York City, and Andrew can be the one to do it statewide,” said Nick Langworthy, the party chairman, in a statement. “New York is broken and in need of the type of overhaul that the Giuliani administration ushered in during the 1990s.”How much currency the Giuliani family name holds for New York voters, particularly upstate, is an open question. Rudolph Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and onetime personal attorney to Mr. Trump, was aggressive in publicly questioning the results of the 2020 election and in the failed effort to overturn the election in court. His work in Ukraine during Mr. Trump’s administration is under federal investigation.And any Republican faces daunting math when trying to run statewide in New York, where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one and the party’s last statewide win was in 2002, when George Pataki was elected governor.Still, some Republicans see Mr. Cuomo’s troubles as a reason to hope.“When you have Andrew, Lee and Rob all running for governor, it shows how excited New Yorkers are to have Andrew Cuomo on the ballot as a Democrat seeking his fourth term,” said Joseph Borelli, a Republican member of the New York City Council from Staten Island. “Good luck, Governor Cuomo!”Maggie Haberman contributed reporting. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani Seeks to Block Review of Evidence From His Phones

      by

      Prosecutors investigating Rudolph W. Giuliani’s work in Ukraine have seized his electronic devices, a move his lawyers are now questioning.Rudolph W. Giuliani on Monday opened a broad attack on the searches that federal investigators conducted of his home, his office and his iCloud account, asking a judge to block any review of the seized records while his lawyers determine whether there was a legitimate basis for the warrants, according a court filing made public on Monday.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers are seeking copies of the confidential government documents that detail the basis for the search warrants, a legal long shot that they hope could open the door for them to argue for the evidence to be suppressed. Typically, prosecutors only disclose such records after someone is indicted and before a trial, but Mr. Giuliani, who is under investigation for potential lobbying violations, has not been accused of wrongdoing.A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on Monday.In a 17-page letter to the judge who authorized the searches, Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers argued that it would have been more appropriate — and less invasive — for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to seek information through a subpoena, which, unlike a warrant, would have given him an opportunity to review the documents and respond.Justice Department policy recommends that prosecutors use subpoenas when seeking information from lawyers, unless there is a concern about destruction of evidence.The defense lawyers wrote that prosecutors “simply chose to treat a distinguished lawyer as if he was the head of a drug cartel or a terrorist, in order to create maximum prejudicial coverage of both Giuliani and his most well-known client — the former president of the United States.”The lawyers also disclosed that the government had claimed in a November 2019 search warrant for Mr. Giuliani’s iCloud account that the search needed to be a secret because of concerns he might destroy records or intimidate witnesses.Though the government routinely cites concern about potential destruction of records when seeking search warrants, Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers attacked the idea that their client, himself a former federal prosecutor and onetime personal lawyer to President Donald J. Trump, would ever destroy evidence.“Such an allegation, on its face, strains credulity,” the lawyers, including Robert J. Costello and Arthur Aidala, wrote. “It is not only false, but extremely damaging to Giuliani’s reputation. It is not supported by any credible facts and is contradicted by Giuliani’s efforts to provide information to the government.”The judge who approved the warrants, J. Paul Oetken of Federal District Court, will ultimately decide whether Mr. Giuliani will have access to the confidential government materials underlying them.Mr. Giuliani’s court filing came in response to the government’s request that Judge Oetken appoint a so-called special master to review cellphones and computers seized in the search of Mr. Giuliani’s home and office in Manhattan on April 28.The special master — usually a retired judge or magistrate — would determine whether the materials contained in the devices are covered by attorney-client privilege and as a result cannot be used as evidence in the case. He or she would filter out privileged communications not only between Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump, but also between Mr. Giuliani and his other clients.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers called the appointment of a special master “premature,” because they are first seeking copies of the search warrant materials.The authorities want to examine the electronic devices for communications that might reveal whether Mr. Giuliani violated lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, The New York Times has reported.While serving as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer before the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Giuliani sought to uncover damaging information on President Biden, then a leading Democratic contender.At issue is whether Mr. Giuliani was at the same time lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials who were assisting him in the search.It is a violation of federal law to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of foreign officials without registering with the Justice Department. Mr. Giuliani never registered as a lobbyist for the Ukrainians. He has maintained that he was working only for Mr. Trump.One day after the search, the U.S. attorney’s office told Judge Oetken in a letter that the F.B.I. had begun to extract materials from the seized devices but had not yet begun reviewing them.In the letter, the prosecutors said the appointment of a special master might be appropriate because of “the unusually sensitive privilege issues” raised by the searches, citing, for example, Mr. Giuliani’s representation of Mr. Trump.Communications between lawyers and their clients are generally shielded from investigators in the United States, and communications between presidents and their aides enjoy a similar protection, known as executive privilege.“Any search may implicate not only the attorney-client privilege but the executive privilege,” the office of Audrey Strauss, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, wrote.In seeking the appointment of a special master to review Mr. Giuliani’s materials, the prosecutors cited their office’s investigation of Michael D. Cohen, another of Mr. Trump’s former lawyers.In that case, federal agents seized documents and electronic devices in an April 2018 search of Mr. Cohen’s office, apartment and hotel room. A judge appointed Barbara S. Jones, a retired judge, to determine whether those materials were off-limits to investigators because of attorney-client privilege.Ms. Jones ultimately concluded that only a fraction of Mr. Cohen’s materials were privileged and that the rest could be provided to the government. That August, Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and other crimes. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Giuliani’s Allies Want Trump to Pay His Legal Bills

      by

      As Rudolph Giuliani faces an escalating federal investigation and defamation suits, his advisers believe he should benefit from a $250 million Trump campaign war chest.As a federal investigation into Rudolph W. Giuliani escalates, his advisers have been pressing aides to former President Donald J. Trump to reach into a $250 million war chest to pay Mr. Giuliani for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.The pressure from Mr. Giuliani’s camp has intensified since F.B.I. agents executed search warrants at Mr. Giuliani’s home and office last week, according to people familiar with the discussions, and comes as Mr. Giuliani has hired new lawyers and is facing his own protracted — and costly — legal battles.Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been examining communications between Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, and Ukrainian officials as he tried to unearth damaging information about President Biden before the election. The prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Giuliani lobbied the Trump administration on behalf of Ukrainian officials who were helping him, a potential violation of federal law.Mr. Giuliani, who has not been charged, has denied any wrongdoing and denounced the searches as “corrupt.” The actions in Ukraine were part of Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial.Separately, Mr. Giuliani is being sued for defamation by two voting machine companies, Dominion and Smartmatic, for his false claims that the companies were involved in a conspiracy to flip votes to Mr. Biden.Mr. Giuliani led the effort to subvert the results of the 2020 race in a series of battleground states, but he was not paid for the work, according to people close to both Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump. His supporters now want the Trump campaign to tap into the $250 million it raised in the weeks after the election to pay Mr. Giuliani and absorb costs he has incurred in the defamation suits.“I want to know what the GOP did with the quarter of $1 billion that they collected for the election legal fight,” Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, wrote on Twitter on Sunday. Mr. Giuliani appointed Mr. Kerik when he was mayor of New York.Using expletives, Mr. Kerik added that “lawyers and law firms that didn’t do” much work were paid handsomely, while those who worked hard “got nothing.”Mr. Kerik has made similar complaints to some of Mr. Trump’s advisers privately, according to people familiar with the conversations, arguing that Mr. Giuliani has incurred legal expenses in his efforts to help Mr. Trump and that Mr. Giuliani’s name was used to raise money during the election fight.In a separate tweet, Mr. Kerik blamed the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel. R.N.C. officials said that the group did not make the same overt fund-raising appeals as the Trump campaign to challenge the election results.A lawyer for Mr. Giuliani, Robert J. Costello, has had conversations with a lawyer for Mr. Trump about whether any of the material that was seized by the F.B.I. should be protected from scrutiny because of attorney-client privilege. Mr. Costello has also raised the question of paying Mr. Giuliani, according to two people briefed on those discussions.Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, declined to comment. Mr. Giuliani could not be reached for comment.Mr. Giuliani had encouraged Mr. Trump to file challenges to the election, and the former president tasked Mr. Giuliani with leading the effort in November. But when Mr. Giuliani’s associate, Maria Ryan, sent an email to Trump campaign officials seeking $20,000 a day for his work, Mr. Trump balked, The New York Times has reported.Mr. Trump later told his advisers he did not want Mr. Giuliani to receive any payment, according to people close to the former president with direct knowledge of the discussions. Before Mr. Trump left the White House in January, he agreed to reimburse Mr. Giuliani for more than $200,000 in expenses but not to pay a fee.Some of Mr. Giuliani’s supporters have blamed Mr. Trump’s aides — and not the former president — for the standoff. However, people close to Mr. Trump said he has stridently refused to pay Mr. Giuliani.Federal investigators seized cellphones and computers from Mr. Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office on April 28. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMr. Giuliani’s advisers were also disappointed that he did not receive a federal pardon from Mr. Trump, despite facing the long-running federal investigation into his Ukrainian dealings, a person close to Mr. Giuliani said. After months of speculation that Mr. Trump might issue Mr. Giuliani a pre-emptive pardon, Mr. Giuliani said on his radio show in January that he did not need a pardon, because “I don’t commit crimes.”The efforts to overturn the election culminated in a rally of Mr. Trump’s supporters near the White House on Jan. 6. After marching to the Capitol, where the Electoral College results were being certified, hundreds of those supporters stormed the building, resulting in deaths and scores of injuries to Capitol Police officers and others. The events led to Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial, and Mr. Trump told Mr. Giuliani in a private meeting that he could not represent him in the proceedings, people briefed on the meeting said.Asked about Mr. Kerik’s tweet during an interview with ABC News, Mr. Giuliani’s son, Andrew, said that his father’s fees should be covered by Trump’s campaign coffers.“I do think he should be indemnified,” the younger Mr. Giuliani said. “I think all those Americans that donated after Nov. 3, they were donating for the legal defense fund. My father ran the legal team at that point. So I think it’s very easy to make a very strong case for the fact that he and all the lawyers that worked on there should be indemnified.”He added, “I would find it highly irregular if the president’s lead counsel did not get indemnified.”A person close to Mr. Giuliani, who was granted anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, made a related argument, saying the Trump campaign should be careful to ensure money in the war chest was spent in connection with the election effort because it was solicited from the public for that purpose.Although there are many differences between the two situations, for some of Mr. Trump’s advisers, the standoff with Mr. Giuliani has raised uncomfortable echoes of a similar dispute with another of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers, Michael D. Cohen.In 2019, Mr. Cohen said the Trump Organization, Mr. Trump’s family business, breached an agreement with him to cover his legal costs. In a lawsuit, Mr. Cohen said the company initially paid some of the bills after the F.B.I. searched his apartment and office in April 2018. But, he said in the lawsuit, company officials stopped the payments when they discovered around June 2018 that he was preparing to cooperate with federal investigators.Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty later that year to charges related to tax evasion, as well as a campaign finance charge related to his 2016 hush-money payment to a pornographic film star who had claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen ended up testifying about Mr. Trump in Congress, and provided assistance to the investigation led by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.After the F.B.I. searched Mr. Cohen’s home and office, he filed a civil action against the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, which Mr. Trump joined to prevent federal officials from gaining access to material that could be protected by attorney-client privilege between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen.Mr. Giuliani’s lawyers are considering filing a similar action in his case, according to one of the people close to the former mayor. One lawyer advising Mr. Giuliani, Alan Dershowitz, told CNN that it would be appropriate for Mr. Trump to join such an effort. Mr. Dershowitz confirmed the comment to The Times.A new court filing made public on Tuesday showed the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan asked a federal judge last week to appoint a special master to conduct a review of potentially privileged materials seized from Mr. Giuliani. The prosecutors, writing to Judge J. Paul Oetken, said the F.B.I. had begun to extract materials from cellphones and computers seized from Mr. Giuliani, but that a review of those materials had not yet begun, the redacted court filing showed.Mr. Giuliani recently added four new lawyers to his team: Arthur L. Aidala, a former Brooklyn prosecutor and former Fox News commentator; Barry Kamins, a retired New York Supreme Court justice and law professor; the retired New York Appellate Division Justice John Leventhal; and Michael T. Jaccarino, a former Brooklyn prosecutor.William K. Rashbaum, Jonah E. Bromwich and Benjamin Weiser contributed reporting. More

    • 100 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Andrew Giuliani Considers a Run for N.Y. Governor

      by

      Mr. Giuliani, 35, has never been elected to public office, and his most prominent government job was as a public liaison assistant and special assistant to the president for the Trump White House.ALBANY, N.Y. — In less than two weeks, at least three potential Republican candidates interested in possibly challenging Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo next year will convene in the state capital to lobby many of the party’s county chairs for their support.All three are known to New York voters: Representative Lee Zeldin of Long Island is one of the state’s staunchest conservative leaders, and was an ardent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump; Rob Astorino was the party’s 2014 nominee for governor.The third is also known, but is far less of a known quantity: Andrew Giuliani.In a brief interview on Wednesday, Mr. Giuliani, 35, confirmed that he was “strongly considering” a run, adding that he planned to make a firm decision “by the end of the month.” State Republican officials confirmed that Mr. Giuliani would be attending the Republican county leaders’ meeting in Albany.Mr. Giuliani would face a steep climb. He has never been elected to public office, and his most prominent government job was as a public liaison assistant and special assistant to the president for the Trump White House.His main selling point would likely be his connection to Mr. Trump and to his father, the former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, whose reputation in New York and beyond has greatly suffered in recent years.The elder Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, was a central player in a failed legal effort by the former president to overturn the 2020 election. He now faces a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which has accused him of carrying out “a viral disinformation campaign” to suggest that Dominion, one of the biggest voting machine manufacturers in the country, plotted to flip votes to President Biden.The Giuliani connection to Trump could prove poisonous in New York, where Mr. Trump’s popularity is in the low 30s, where Republicans haven’t won a statewide election since 2002, and where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than two to one.Still, Mr. Giuliani and other potential Republican candidates have had their hopes buoyed by Mr. Cuomo’s swarm of recent scandals, including multiple accusations of sexual harassment against the governor, as well as a federal investigation into his handling of the state’s nursing homes.The sexual harassment allegations made by current and former employees of Mr. Cuomo, as well as accounts by a series of other women who have described uncomfortable interactions with the governor, have led most of the state’s Democratic leaders to call for Mr. Cuomo’s resignation.The allegations against Mr. Cuomo, 63, are also the subject of a pair of investigations, including one overseen by the state attorney general, Letitia James, and a second authorized by the State Assembly.The combination of the controversies has resulted in double-digit declines in Mr. Cuomo’s approval ratings in several polls, with support for a fourth term seeming particularly precarious.Mr. Giuliani’s possible interest in the state’s highest office was first reported by The Washington Examiner.The prospect of a Giuliani vs. Cuomo matchup would likely tantalize New York and national political observers, considering the current relationship between Rudolph Giuliani and Mr. Trump, who often sparred with Mr. Cuomo last year during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.Adding to the intrigue is the decades-long connections between the elder Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat whose father, Mario M. Cuomo, was governor for 12 years.When Rudolph Giuliani was elected mayor in 1993, the elder Mr. Cuomo was still governor, and he spoke hopefully of Mr. Giuliani’s ability to help him find compromise with Republicans, who ruled the Senate in Albany.A year later, Mr. Giuliani suffered a humiliating defeat after he endorsed Mario Cuomo’s unsuccessful campaign against fellow Republican George Pataki in the 1994 governor’s race.Susan Beachy contributed research. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Putin Authorized Russian Interference in 2020 Election, Report Says

      by

      The assessment was the intelligence community’s most comprehensive look at foreign efforts to interfere in the election.WASHINGTON — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized extensive efforts to hurt the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the election last year, including by mounting covert operations to influence people close to President Donald J. Trump, according to a declassified intelligence report released on Tuesday.The report did not name those people but seemed to refer to the work of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who relentlessly pushed accusations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his family involving Ukraine.“Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions,” the report said.The declassified report represented the most comprehensive intelligence assessment of foreign efforts to influence the 2020 vote. Besides Russia, Iran and other countries also sought to sway the election, the report said. China considered its own efforts but ultimately concluded that they would fail and most likely backfire, intelligence officials concluded.A companion report by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments also rejected false accusations promoted by Mr. Trump’s allies in the weeks after the vote that Venezuela or other countries had defrauded the election.The reports, compiled by career officials, amounted to a repudiation of Mr. Trump, his allies and some of his top administration officials. They reaffirmed the intelligence agencies’ conclusions about Russia’s interference in 2016 on behalf of Mr. Trump and said that the Kremlin favored his re-election. And they categorically dismissed allegations of foreign-fed voter fraud, cast doubt on Republican accusations of Chinese intervention on behalf of Democrats and undermined claims that Mr. Trump and his allies had spread about the Biden family’s work in Ukraine.The report also found that neither Russia nor other countries tried to change ballots themselves. Efforts by Russian hackers to gain access to state and local networks were unrelated to efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential vote.The declassified report did not explain how the intelligence community had reached its conclusions about Russian operations during the 2020 election. But the officials said they had high confidence in their conclusions about Mr. Putin’s involvement, suggesting that the intelligence agencies have developed new ways of gathering information after the extraction of one of their best Kremlin sources in 2017.Foreign efforts to influence United States elections are likely to continue in coming years, American officials said. The public has become more aware of disinformation efforts, and social media companies act faster to take down fake accounts that spread falsehoods. But a large number of Americans remain open to conspiracy theories pushed by Russia and other adversaries, a circumstance that they will exploit, officials warned.“Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement. “These efforts by U.S. adversaries seek to exacerbate divisions and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”While it was declassified by the Biden administration, the report is based on work done during the Trump administration, according to intelligence officials, reflecting the vastly different views that officers had from their political overseers, who were appointed by Mr. Trump.The report rebutted yearslong efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to sow doubts about the intelligence agency’s assessments that Russia not only wanted to sow chaos in the United States but also favored his re-election.“They were disingenuous in downplaying Russia’s influence operations on behalf of the former president,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. “It was a disservice not to level with the public and to try to fudge the intelligence in the way they did.”Some of the report’s details were released in the months leading up to the election, reflecting an effort by the intelligence community to disclose more information about foreign operations during the campaign after its reluctance to do so in 2016 helped misinformation spread.During the 2020 campaign, intelligence officials outlined how Russia was spreading damaging information about Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an attempt to bolster Mr. Trump’s re-election chances. It also outlined efforts by Iran in the final days before the election to aid Mr. Biden by spreading letters falsely purporting to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group.Accusations of election interference have been some of the most politically divisive in recent years. The intelligence report is akin to a declassified assessment in early 2017 that laid out the conclusions about Russia’s efforts in Mr. Trump’s electoral victory, further entrenched the partisan debate over his relationship with Moscow and cemented his enmity toward intelligence and law enforcement officials.With Mr. Trump out of office and the new report’s conclusions largely made public in releases during the campaign, the findings were not expected to prompt as much partisan fury. But elements of the report are likely to be the subject of political fights.Its assessment that China sat on the sidelines is at odds with what some Republican officials have said. In private briefings on Capitol Hill, John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s last director of national intelligence, said Chinese interference was a greater threat in 2020 than Russian operations.The declassified documents released on Tuesday included a dissenting minority view from the national intelligence officer for cyber that suggested that the consensus of the intelligence community was underplaying the threat from China.In a letter in January, Mr. Ratcliffe wrote in support of that minority view and said that the report’s main conclusions about China “fell well short of the mark.” He said the minority conclusion was more than one analyst’s view and argued that some intelligence officials were hesitant to label Chinese actions as influence or interference. Privately, some officials defended the consensus view, saying their reading of the intelligence supported the conclusions that China sought some level of influence but avoided any direct efforts to interfere in the vote.The most detailed material in the assessment was about Russia, which sought to influence how the American public saw the two major candidates “as well as advance Moscow’s longstanding goals of undermining confidence in U.S. election processes.”Moscow used Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s Parliament, to undermine Mr. Biden, the report confirmed. Mr. Derkach released leaked phone calls four times to undermine Mr. Biden and link him to Ukrainian corruption. The report said Mr. Putin “had purview” over the actions of Mr. Derkach, who had ties to Russian intelligence.Citing in one instance a meeting between Mr. Derkach and Mr. Giuliani, intelligence officials warned Mr. Trump in 2019 that Russian intelligence officers were using his personal lawyer as a conduit for misinformation.Mr. Giuliani also provided materials from Ukraine to American investigators to push for federal inquiries into Mr. Biden’s family, a type of operation that the report mentioned as an example of Russia’s covert efforts without providing names or other identifying details.The report also named Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a former colleague of Mr. Trump’s onetime campaign manager Paul Manafort, as a Russian influence agent. Mr. Kilimnik took steps throughout the 2020 election cycle to hurt Mr. Biden and his candidacy, the report said, helping pushed a false narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for interfering in American politics.During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Manafort shared inside information about the presidential race with Mr. Kilimnik and the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs whom he served, according to a bipartisan report last year by the Senate Intelligence Committee.“Kilimnik was back at it again, along with others like Derkach,” Mr. Schiff said. “And they had other conduits for their laundered misinformation, including people like Rudy Giuliani.”Neither Mr. Giuliani nor his representatives returned a request for comment.Collecting intelligence to feed to Mr. Trump’s allies and use against Mr. Biden was a priority for Russian intelligence. Moscow’s military intelligence unit, the G.R.U., conducted a hacking campaign against a Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, in what was most likely an attempt to gather information about Mr. Biden’s family and their work for the company, the report confirmed.In the closing weeks of the campaign, intelligence officials also said that Russian hackers had broken into state and local computer networks. But the new report said those efforts were not aimed at changing votes.Unmentioned in this report was the wide-ranging hacking of federal computer systems using a vulnerability in software made by SolarWinds. The absence of a concerted effort by Russia to change votes suggests that Moscow had refocused its intelligence service on a broader effort to attack the U.S. government.Earlier in 2020, American officials thought Iran was likely to stay on the sidelines of the presidential contest. But Iranian hackers did try a last-minute effort to change the vote in Florida and other states. Iranian hackers sent “threatening, spoofed emails” to Democratic voters that purported to be from the Proud Boys, the report said. The group demanded that the recipients change their party affiliation and vote for Mr. Trump. They also pushed a video that supposedly demonstrated voter fraud.The Iranian effort essentially employed reverse psychology. Officials said Iranian operatives hoped the emails would have the opposite effect of the message’s warning, rallying people to vote for Mr. Biden by thinking Mr. Trump’s supporters were playing dirty campaign tricks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, authorized the campaign, the report said. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Representative Eric Swalwell Sues Trump Over Capitol Riot

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeThe Lost HoursThe Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFormer Impeachment Manager Sues Trump Over Capitol RiotThe suit by Representative Eric Swalwell accuses Donald J. Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 attack and conspiring to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s victory.“The horrific events of Jan. 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ unlawful actions,” according to the suit, filed by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMarch 5, 2021, 5:35 p.m. ETA House Democrat who unsuccessfully prosecuted Donald J. Trump at his impeachment trial sued him in federal court on Friday for acts of terrorism and incitement to riot, trying to use the justice system to punish the former president for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.The suit brought by Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California, accuses Mr. Trump and key allies of whipping up the deadly attack and conspiring with rioters to try to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s election victory.Echoing the case laid out in the Senate, which acquitted him, it meticulously traces a monthslong campaign by Mr. Trump to undermine confidence in the 2020 election and then overturn its results, using his own words and those of his followers who ransacked the building to narrate it.“The horrific events of Jan. 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the defendants’ unlawful actions,” Mr. Swalwell asserts in the civil suit, filed in Federal District Court in Washington. “As such, the defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”Though not a criminal case, the suit charges Mr. Trump and his allies with several counts including conspiracy to violate civil rights, negligence, incitement to riot, disorderly conduct, terrorism and inflicting serious emotional distress. If found liable, Mr. Trump could be subject to compensatory and punitive damages; if the case proceeds, it might also lead to an open-ended discovery process that could turn up information about his conduct and communications that eluded impeachment prosecutors.In addition to the former president, the suit names as defendants his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, who led the effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s election defeat when Congress met on Jan. 6 to formalize the results.All three men joined Mr. Trump in promoting and speaking at a rally in Washington that day, which Mr. Swalwell says lit the match for the violence that followed with incendiary and baseless lies about election fraud.Read the Suit: Swalwell v. TrumpThe suit from Representative Eric Swalwell accuses Mr. Trump and several allies of inciting the attack and conspiring with rioters to try to prevent Congress from formalizing President Biden’s victory.Read DocumentA majority of the Senate, including seven Republicans, voted to find Mr. Trump “guilty” based on the same factual record last month, but the vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to convict him. Several Republicans who voted to acquit him, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, concluded that Mr. Trump was culpable for the assault but argued the courts, not the Senate, were the proper venue for those seeking to hold him accountable.Phil Andonian, a lawyer representing Mr. Swalwell, said that the lawsuit was an answer to that call.That Mr. Trump “seems to be made of Teflon cuts in favor of finding a way to pierce that because he hasn’t really been held fully accountable for what was one of the darkest moments in American history,” he said in an interview.The lawsuit adds to Mr. Trump’s mounting legal woes as he transitions into life after the presidency and contemplates a political comeback. Another Democratic lawmaker, Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, already filed suit on similar grounds in recent weeks with the N.A.A.C.P.Prosecutors in New York have active inquiries into his financial dealings, and in Georgia, prosecutors are investigating his attempts to pressure election officials to reverse his loss.In a statement, Jason Miller, an adviser to Mr. Trump, blasted Mr. Swalwell as a “a lowlife with no credibility” but did not comment on the merits of the case.Mr. Brooks rejected the claims, saying he would wear Mr. Swalwell’s “scurrilous and malicious lawsuit like a badge of courage.” He said he made “no apology” for his actions around the riot, when he urged rallygoers outside the White House to start “taking down names and kicking ass.”Both men resurfaced Republican attacks on Mr. Swalwell questioning his character based on his former association with a woman accused of being a Chinese spy. Mr. Swalwell broke off contact with the woman after he was briefed by American intelligence officials, and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.Mr. Giuliani, who urged the same crowd to undertake “trial by combat,” and a lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. did not respond to requests for comment.Both Mr. Thompson’s suit and Mr. Swalwell’s rely on civil rights law tracing to the 19th-century Ku Klux Klan Act, but their aims appear to differ. The earlier suit targets Mr. Trump’s association with right-wing extremist groups, naming several groups as defendants and explicitly detailing racialized hate it claims figured in the attack. Mr. Swalwell focuses more narrowly on punishing Mr. Trump and his inner circle for the alleged scheme.“He lied to his followers again and again claiming the election was stolen from them, filed a mountain of frivolous lawsuits — nearly all of which failed, tried to intimidate election officials, and finally called upon his supporters to descend on Washington D.C. to ‘stop the steal,’” Mr. Swalwell said in a statement.In the suit, Mr. Swalwell describes how he, the vice president and members of the House and Senate were put at direct risk and suffered “severe emotional distress” as armed marauders briefly overtook the Capitol in Mr. Trump’s name.“The plaintiff prepared himself for possible hand-to-hand combat as he took off his jacket and tie and searched for makeshift instruments of self-defense,” it says.During the Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers flatly denied that he was responsible for the assault and made broad assertions that he was protected by the First Amendment when he urged supporters gathered on Jan. 6 to “fight like hell” to “stop the steal” he said was underway at the Capitol.The nine House managers argued that free speech rights had no place in a court of impeachment, but they may prove a more durable defense in a court of law. Though the suit targets them in their personal capacities, Mr. Trump may also try to dismiss the case by arguing that the statements he made around the rally were official, legally protected acts.Lyrissa Lidsky, the dean of the University of Missouri School of Law, said that the suit relied on a novel application of civil rights law originally meant to target racialized terrorism in the Reconstruction-era South. But she predicted the case would ultimately boil down to the same fundamental questions that animated Mr. Trump’s trial in the Senate: whether his words on Jan. 6 and leading up to it constituted incitement or were protected by the First Amendment.“By filing the suit, Swalwell is trying to relitigate in the court of public opinion the case he lost in the impeachment trial,” Ms. Lidsky said. A change of venue can sometimes produce different outcomes, she added, but Mr. Swalwell faces an uphill climb.“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” she said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Congressional Committee Presses Cable Providers on Election Fraud Claims

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCongressional Committee Presses Cable Providers on Election Fraud ClaimsBefore a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee asked cable companies what they did to combat “the spread of misinformation.”President Trump’s supporters approach the Capitol on Jan. 6.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesFeb. 22, 2021, 9:14 a.m. ETThree months ago, federal lawmakers grilled Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief, about the misinformation that had appeared on their platforms. Now, a congressional committee has scheduled a hearing to focus on the role of companies that provide cable television service in the spread of falsehoods concerning the 2020 election.In advance of the Wednesday hearing, called “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media,” members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent a letter on Monday to Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox and Altice, asking about their role in “the spread of dangerous misinformation.”The committee members also sent the letter to Roku, Amazon, Apple, Google and Hulu, digital companies that distribute cable programming.The scrutiny of cable providers took on new urgency after supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, who repeatedly promoted the debunked claim that the election was rigged, stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.“To our knowledge, the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets to American viewers have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets,” two Democratic representatives from California, Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, wrote in the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times.None of the companies to which the letter was sent immediately replied to requests for comment.Newsmax, a right-wing cable channel carried by AT&T, CenturyLink, Charter, Comcast, Dish and Verizon, had a surge in ratings in November because of programs that embraced the former president’s claims of voter fraud. One America News Network, a right-wing outlet carried by AT&T, CenturyLink and Verizon, also promoted the false theory.Fox News, the most-watched cable news network, which is available from all major carriers, was one of five defendants in a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed this month by the election technology company Smartmatic. In the suit, the company accused Fox News, its parent company Fox Corporation, three Fox anchors and two frequent Fox guests of promoting false claims about the election and Smartmatic’s role in it. (Fox has denied the claims and filed a motion to dismiss the suit.)Congress can raise the issue of whether cable providers bear responsibility for the programs they deliver to millions of Americans, but it may have no way to force them to drop networks that have spread misinformation. And unlike broadcast stations, cable channels do not have licenses that are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission.The lawmakers’ letter asks the companies, “What steps did you take prior to, on, and following the November 3, 2020 elections and the January 6, 2021 attacks to monitor, respond to, and reduce the spread of disinformation, including encouragement or incitement of violence by channels your company disseminates to millions of Americans?”“Are you planning to continue carrying Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax on your platform both now and beyond the renewal date?” the letter continues. “If so, why?”Blair Levin, who served as the F.C.C.’s chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, said a hearing could be a first step toward meaningful action. “You have to establish a factual record that on both the election and Covid, tens of millions of Americans believe things that are just factually not true, and then try to figure out: ‘What are the appropriate roles for the government in changing that dynamic?’” Mr. Levin said.Harold Feld, the senior vice president at Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group focused on telecommunications and digital rights, suggested that legislators might not have easy options to exert influence over Fox, Newsmax or OAN.“You have a lot of people who are very angry about it, you have a lot of people who want to show that they’re very angry about it, but you don’t have a lot of good ideas yet about what you ought to be doing about it,” he said.For now, defamation lawsuits filed by private companies have taken the lead in the fight against disinformation promoted on some cable channels.Last month, Dominion Voting Systems, another election technology company that has figured prominently in conspiracy theories about the 2020 vote, sued two of Mr. Trump’s legal representatives, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, in separate lawsuits, each seeking more than $1 billion in damages. Both appeared as guests on Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax and OAN in the weeks after the election.On Monday, Dominion sued Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, alleging that he defamed Dominion with baseless claims of election fraud involving its voting machines.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More