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      White House condemns Marjorie Taylor Greene threat to shut down government

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      The White House condemned the “extreme” and “hardcore fringe” of the Republican party after one high-profile, hardcore extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, said she would not vote to fund the government this month without an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden.Without a new spending measure, government funding will run out on 30 September, with federal workers furloughed and agencies shuttered.In a statement on Thursday night, the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: “The last thing the American people deserve is for extreme House members to trigger a government shutdown that hurts our economy, undermines our disaster preparedness, and forces our troops to work without guaranteed pay.”Nodding to the May deal to raise the debt ceiling, Bates said House Republicans “already made a promise to the American public about government funding, and it would be a shame for them to break their word and fail the country because they caved to the hardcore fringe of their party”.Greene is a conspiracy theorist and controversialist who has said she is “on a list” to become running mate to Donald Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee.Speaking in Georgia, she said she wanted funding withheld from Jack Smith, the special counsel who has brought 44 of 91 criminal charges against Trump. She also said she wanted to fire David Weiss, the special counsel appointed under the Trump administration investigating Hunter Biden, the president’s son and the nexus of unproven corruption allegations fueling the march to impeachment.“We have to rein in the FBI,” Greene told constituents. “I will not vote for money to go towards those things.“I will be happy to work with all my colleagues. I will work with the speaker of the House. I will work with everyone. But I will not fund those things.”Other hard-right Republicans have threatened to vote against government funding. Kevin McCarthy, the speaker who has only a five-seat majority, has indicated he will approve an impeachment inquiry when the House comes back this month.“If we shut down, all the government shuts down – investigation and everything else,” McCarthy told Fox News last weekend, calling impeachment a “natural step forward” from current investigations.Trump was impeached twice by House Democrats, first for seeking political dirt in Ukraine, then for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress. Senate Republicans acquitted him both times.As defined by the Brookings Institution, a government shutdown occurs when “Congress fails to enact the 12 annual appropriation bills [and] federal agencies must cease all non-essential functions until Congress acts”.Two shutdowns occurred under Trump, the first in January 2018, the second a year later, both resulting from fights over immigration. The first was brief but the second lasted 35 days, the longest in US history. The Congressional Budget Office said it cost about $5bn.Now, the White House wants a stopgap measure. On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said: “It is clear that a short-term continuing resolution will be needed next month.”The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said: “This is something that Congress can do. They can prevent a government shutdown. They need to prevent a government shutdown.”Also on Thursday, as Florida and other southern states assessed damage caused by Hurricane Idalia, the White House requested an extra $4bn to help pay for relief efforts after a number of climate-related disasters.In early August, Biden asked Congress to approve about $40bn in additional spending, including $24bn to support Ukraine in its war with Russia and other international needs and $12bn for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) disaster relief fund.On Thursday, citing wildfire disasters in Hawaii and Louisiana as well as hurricane-related damage in Florida, an OMB spokesperson said the White House now needed $16bn for disaster relief.“The president has been clear that were going to stand with communities across the nation as they recover from disasters for as long as it takes, and the administration is committed to working with Congress to ensure funding for the [disaster relief fund] is sufficient for recovery needs,” the spokesperson said.In his statement rebuking Greene, Bates, the White House spokesperson, cited the need to fund “high-stakes needs Americans care about deeply – like fighting fentanyl trafficking, protecting our national security, and funding Fema”.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Leading House Republican Steve Scalise announces cancer diagnosis

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      Steve Scalise, the Republican majority leader in the US House of Representatives, said on Tuesday he has cancer.In a statement, the 57-year-old Louisianan said: “After a few days of not feeling like myself this past week, I had some blood work done. The results uncovered some irregularities and after undergoing additional tests, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a very treatable blood cancer.”Scalise said he had begun treatment, which would “continue for … several months”. He said he expected to continue working.“I am incredibly grateful we were able to detect this early,” he said, “and that this cancer is treatable. I am thankful for my excellent medical team, and with the help of God, support of my family, friends, colleagues and constituents, I will tackle this with the same strength and energy as I have tackled past challenges.”Scalise was elected in 2008. Sometimes dogged by reporting linking him to far-right groups, he nonetheless rose in the party hierarchy.In 2017, in Virginia, Scalise was one of four people shot when a gunman who claimed leftwing ideals attacked practice for the congressional baseball game. The gunman was killed by police. The hospital which treated Scalise said a bullet “travelled across his pelvis, fracturing bones, injuring internal organs, and causing severe bleeding”.The next year, returning to work, Scalise said the shooting “was one of the very few moments in my life, from the birth of my kids and marriage … that [I] will always remember. There were days where I [wasn’t] sure I was going to be able to walk back on to the House floor on my own, with my crutches.“Those were some dark days. You could take a bear down with the bullet I was hit with. When I looked at the caliber bullet, I was amazed I was still alive. Frankly, there are a lot of miracles that happened along the way.”Scalise also said he was “a strong supporter of the second amendment before the shooting and frankly, as ardent as ever after the shooting in part because I was saved by people who had guns”.Sticking close to the former president Donald Trump as the billionaire took over the Republican party, Scalise became majority leader, No 2 to the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, after the midterm elections last year. On Tuesday, fellow Republicans wished Scalise well.Elise Stefanik of New York, the No 3 House Republican, said: “There is no stronger fighter than Steve Scalise. Steve is as tough and kind as they come, and he has beaten so many unbeatable odds. The Legend from Louisiana is beloved by his colleagues and America and we know he will fight this next battle with that same resolve.”Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right conspiracy theorist congresswoman from Georgia, said she was praying for Scalise “and his entire family”. More

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      Democrats Want to Flip N.Y. House Seats. But There’s a Primary Problem.

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      To win back a key seat it lost in 2022, the party must first deal with a battle between Mondaire Jones and Liz Whitmer Gereghty, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s sister.Sipping iced coffee at a diner the other day, Liz Whitmer Gereghty looked every bit the dream recruit Democrats need to recapture this coveted suburban House seat north of New York City.She once owned a shop down the street, served on the school board and speaks passionately about abortion rights. She also happens to be the younger sister of one of her party’s brightest stars, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.“My rights are at risk,” said Ms. Gereghty, 50. “Everything feels very urgent, and I have a congressman who is not representing me, so I raised my hand.”Problem is, she was not the only one. Mondaire Jones, a popular former congressman who represented much of the area until January, is also running and believes he is the best candidate to defeat Representative Mike Lawler, the Republican incumbent.It is a pattern repeating itself in swing seats across the country this summer, but nowhere more so than New York, where ambitious Democrats eager to challenge Republicans defending seats that President Biden won are creating primary pileups from Long Island to Syracuse.Contested primaries have long been a reality for both parties. But after Democrats’ underperformance in 2022 made New York a national embarrassment, party officials and strategists have been increasingly worried that Democrat-on-Democrat fights could drain millions of dollars and bruise a crop of eventual nominees, threatening their carefully laid plans to wrest back House control.“My view is we shot ourselves in the foot last cycle, and we seem intent on shooting ourselves in the head this cycle,” said Howard Wolfson, who helps steer tens of millions of dollars in political spending as Michael R. Bloomberg’s adviser.“I can’t for the life of me understand why we can’t figure this out and ensure that we have one strong candidate running in each of these districts,” he added.Paradoxically, the problem could grow only more stark if Democrats win a lawsuit seeking to redraw the state’s district lines. That could ease the party’s path to victory, but also prompt the courts to push the primary date from June to late August, extending the bitter primary season and truncating the general election campaign.There is time for leaders like Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat and a New Yorker, to intervene if they want to. While the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee rarely interferes in open primaries, there is a tradition of less direct maneuvering to boost preferred candidates and edge others out.So far, Mr. Jeffries appears to be doing the opposite — privately encouraging more potential candidates, with mixed success, according to four Democrats familiar with his outreach who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to discuss it. He tried to nudge State Senator Michelle Hinchey into a Hudson Valley contest earlier this year and urged the former Nassau County executive, Laura Curran, to enter a large primary field for another seat as recently as July.Mr. Jeffries has also offered support to Tom Suozzi to enter the race for his old House seat on Long Island, where a crowded field of Democrats is circling Representative George Santos, a first-term Republican who faces federal fraud charges.The leader’s allies argue that the competition will strengthen their nominees, and brush off concerns that Democrats will be short on funds. A Democratic super PAC has already earmarked $45 million for New York races. And the D.C.C.C. is pitching donors — as recently as a party retreat in Torrey Pines, Calif., last weekend, according to an attendee — to give to special “nominee funds,” a kind of escrow account collecting money for primary winners.“Leader Jeffries has no plan to endorse in any Democratic primary in New York,” said Christie Stephenson, his spokeswoman. “He is confident that whoever emerges in these competitive districts will be strongly positioned to defeat the extreme MAGA Republican crowd.”But the mix of ego and ideology buffeting the star-studded race between Mr. Jones and Ms. Gereghty shows the potential risks, particularly in such a high-profile race to reclaim a Hudson Valley seat lost last year by Sean Patrick Maloney, who was the chairman of the Democratic campaign committee at the time.Mr. Jones held the Hudson Valley seat, but opted in 2022 to run for an open seat in New York City, where he lost in a primary.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesMr. Jones, an openly gay Black Democrat, represented a more liberal configuration of the seat in Congress last term. But after a court imposed new district lines in 2022, Mr. Maloney opted to run for Mr. Jones’s seat instead of his traditional one. Rather than run against a party leader, Mr. Jones chose to move 25 miles to Brooklyn to run for an open seat there.He lost and has now moved back north.In a phone interview, Mr. Jones, 36, said he was confident that voters would understand his “impossible situation,” but regretted his decision not to challenge Mr. Maloney, who lost to Mr. Lawler in a seat Mr. Biden won by 10 points.Mr. Jones said the outcome showed that “you can’t just substitute any Democrat for Mondaire Jones in this district.” More than 100 local and national officials and groups — from the Westchester Democratic chairwoman to the congressional Black and progressive caucuses — have backed his comeback attempt, making him the clear front-runner against Ms. Gereghty.But some of the positions Mr. Jones trumpeted to win more liberal electorates in earlier campaigns could prove cumbersome.He is already tacking toward the center and would say little about Ms. Gereghty in the interview. Mr. Jones referred to his own calls to defund the police in 2020 as “emotional, facile comments”; his current campaign features video of Mr. Jones shaking hands with a local police chief while touting votes to increase police funding.Mr. Jones said he wanted to see New York grant judges new authority to set cash bail for defendants they deem dangerous. And he said he would support a state plan to tax cars traveling into central Manhattan only if there was a carveout for the suburban counties he represented.Over breakfast in Katonah, an affluent Westchester suburb, Ms. Gereghty pitched her modest record as an electoral strength in a general election. She cast herself as a member of the get-it-done wing of the Democratic Party, like her sister, and predicted Mr. Lawler would gleefully use Mr. Jones’s words against him, as he did to Mr. Maloney.“If you got tired of the Sean Maloney ads last year, we’ll at least have some more variety if he’s the candidate,” she said.Ms. Gereghty serves on a school board in her district, and was a former shop owner in the area.Joe Buglewicz for The New York TimesMs. Gereghty has no plans to drop out. But she has struggled to amass local support.Her most notable endorsement comes from Emily’s List, the national group dedicated to electing women who back abortion rights. Of the $408,000 she’s raised thus far, almost half came from residents of Michigan.Democrats have caught some breaks in neighboring districts.Republicans have yet to field a top-tier challenger to Representative Pat Ryan, the only Democrat defending a swing seat here. They are also headed toward their own fraught primary if Mr. Santos continues to run.Elsewhere, the candidates are crowding in.Three Democrats, including Sarah Hughes, a former gold medal figure skater, are vying to represent the party against Representative Anthony D’Esposito in a Long Island district Mr. Biden won by 14 points.Three more have already raised at least $300,000 to run in Mr. Santos’s neighboring district. That does not include Mr. Suozzi or Robert Zimmerman, the party’s 2022 nominee, who is eyeing another run.A similar dynamic is playing out in Syracuse, where four Democrats are competing over whether a moderate or progressive should take on Representative Brandon Williams, a Republican who narrowly won a seat that favored Mr. Biden by eight points in 2020.“Primaries can be bloodying, and they cost a lot of money,” said Ms. Curran, who has decided not to run for Mr. D’Esposito’s seat. “It clouds the message and the mission.”Republicans have watched it all with delight.Mr. Lawler spent the month of August meeting constituents and gathering large campaign checks. He said he ran into Mr. Jones along the way and got an earful — about how frustrated the Democrat was to be stuck in a primary.He won’t have a Democratic primary vote, but Mr. Lawler, who will have to defend his own conservative votes unpopular in the district, made clear he has a preference.“Look, I’d be happy to run against either,” he said. “But Mondaire Jones certainly has a very long and detailed record that shows him clearly out of step.” More

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      Appeasing Donald Trump Won’t Work

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      I’m going to begin this column with a rather unusual reading recommendation. If you’ve got an afternoon to kill and want to read 126 pages of heavily footnoted legal argument and historical analysis, I strongly recommend a law review article entitled “The Sweep and Force of Section Three.” It’s a rather dull headline for a highly provocative argument: that Donald Trump is constitutionally disqualified from holding the office of president.In the article, two respected conservative law professors, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, make the case that the text, history and tradition of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — a post-Civil War amendment that prohibited former public officials from holding office again if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort” to those who did — all strongly point to the conclusion that Trump is ineligible for the presidency based on his actions on and related to Jan. 6, 2021. Barring a two-thirds congressional amnesty vote, Trump’s ineligibility, Baude and Paulsen argue, is as absolute as if he were too young to be president or were not a natural-born citizen of the United States.It’s a fascinating and compelling argument that only grows more compelling with each painstakingly researched page. But as I was reading it, a single, depressing thought came to my mind. Baude and Paulsen’s argument may well represent the single most rigorous and definitive explanation of Section 3 ever put to paper, yet it’s difficult to imagine, at this late date, the Supreme Court ultimately either striking Trump from the ballot or permitting state officials to do so.As powerful as Baude and Paulsen’s substantive argument is, the late date means that by the time any challenge to Trump’s eligibility might reach the Supreme Court, voters may have already started voting in the Republican primaries. Millions of votes could have been cast. The Supreme Court is already reluctant to change election procedures on the eve of an election. How eager would it be to remove a candidate from the ballot after he’s perhaps even clinched a primary?While I believe the court should intervene even if the hour is late, it’s worth remembering that it would face this decision only because of the comprehensive failure of congressional Republicans. Let me be specific. There was never any way to remove Trump from American politics through the Democratic Party alone. Ending Trump’s political career required Republican cooperation, and Republicans have shirked their constitutional duties, sometimes through sheer cowardice. They have punted their responsibilities to other branches of government or simply shrunk back in fear of the consequences.In hindsight, for example, Republican inaction after Jan. 6 boggles the mind. Rather than remove Trump from American politics by convicting him in the Senate after his second impeachment, Republicans punted their responsibilities to the American legal system. As Mitch McConnell said when he voted to acquit Trump, “We have a criminal justice system in this country.” Yet not even a successful prosecution and felony conviction — on any of the charges against him, in any of the multiple venues — can disqualify Trump from serving as president. Because of G.O.P. cowardice, our nation is genuinely facing the possibility of a president’s taking the oath of office while also appealing one or more substantial prison sentences.Republicans have also punted to the American voters, suggesting that any outstanding questions of Trump’s fitness be decided at the ballot box. It’s a recommendation with some real appeal. (In his most recent newsletter, my colleague Ross Douthat makes a powerful case that only politics can solve the problem of Donald Trump.) “Give the people what they want” is a core element of democratic politics, and if enough people “want” Trump, then who are American politicians or judges to deprive them? Yet the American founders (and the drafters of the 14th Amendment) also knew the necessity of occasionally checking the popular will, and the Constitution thus contains a host of safeguards designed to protect American democracy from majorities run amok. After all, if voting alone were sufficient to protect America from insurrectionist leaders, there would have been no need to draft or ratify Section 3.Why are Republicans in Congress punting to voters and the legal system? For many of them, the answer lies in raw fear. First, there is the simple political fear of losing a House or Senate seat. In polarized, gerrymandered America, all too many Republican politicians face political risk only from their right, and that “right” appears to be overwhelmingly populated by Trumpists.But there’s another fear as well, that imposing accountability will only escalate American political division, leading to a tit-for-tat of prosecuted or disqualified politicians. This fear is sometimes difficult to take seriously. For example, conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro raised it, arguing that “running for office now carries the legal risk of going to jail — on all sides.” Yet he had himself written an entire book calling for racketeering charges against Barack Obama.That said, the idea that vengeful MAGA Republicans might prosecute Democrats out of spite is credible enough to raise concerns outside the infotainment right. Michael McConnell, a conservative professor I admire a great deal (and one who is no fan of Donald Trump), expressed concern about the Section 3 approach to disqualifying Trump. “I worry that this approach could empower partisans to seek disqualification every time a politician supports or speaks in support of the objectives of a political riot,” he wrote, adding, “Imagine how bad actors will use this theory.”In other words, Trump abused America once, and the fear is that if we hold him accountable, he or his allies will abuse our nation again. I think Professor McConnell’s warnings are correct. Trump and his allies are already advertising their plans for revenge. But if past practice is any guide, Trump and his allies will abuse our nation whether we hold him accountable or not. The abuse is the constant reality of Trump and the movement he leads. Accountability is the variable — dependent on the courage and will of key American leaders — and only accountability has any real hope of stopping the abuse.A fundamental reality of human existence is that vice often leaves virtue with few good options. Evil men can attach catastrophic risks to virtually any course of action, however admirable. But we can and should learn lessons from history. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two of our greatest presidents, both faced insurrectionary movements, and their example should teach us today. When Washington faced an open revolt during the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, he didn’t appease the rebels, instead mobilizing overwhelming force to meet the moment and end the threat.In 1861, Lincoln rejected advice to abandon Fort Sumter in South Carolina in the hope of avoiding direct confrontation with the nascent Confederate Army. Instead, he ordered the Navy to resupply the fort. The Confederates bombarded Sumter and launched the deadliest war in American history, but there was no point at which Lincoln was going to permit rebels to blackmail the United States into extinction.If you think the comparisons to the Whiskey Rebellion or the Civil War are overwrought, just consider the consequences had Trump’s plan succeeded. I have previously described Jan. 6 as “America’s near-death day” for good reason. If Mike Pence had declared Trump the victor — or even if the certification of the election had been delayed — one shudders to consider what would have happened next. We would have faced the possibility of two presidents’ being sworn in at once, with the Supreme Court (and ultimately federal law enforcement, or perhaps even the Army) being tasked with deciding which one was truly legitimate.Thankfully, the American legal system has worked well enough to knock the MAGA movement on its heels. Hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters face criminal justice. The movement’s corrupt lawyers face their own days in court. Trump is indicted in four jurisdictions. Yet all of that work can be undone — and every triumph will turn to defeat — if a disqualified president reclaims power in large part through the fear of his foes.But the story of Washington and Lincoln doesn’t stop with their decisive victories. While 10 members of the Whiskey Rebellion were tried for treason, only two were convicted, and Washington ultimately pardoned them both. On the eve of final victory, Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address contained words of grace that echo through history, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”Victory is not incompatible with mercy, and mercy can be indispensable after victory. But while the threat remains, so must the resolve, even if it means asking the Supreme Court to intervene at the worst possible time. Let me end where I began. Read Baude and Paulsen — and not just for their compelling legal argument. Read and remember what it was like when people of character and conviction inhabited the American political class. They have given us the tools to defend the American experiment. All we need is the will.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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      Republicans Wanted a Special Counsel Investigation of Hunter Biden. Now Many Oppose It.

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      Although some G.O.P. lawmakers see the appointment of David C. Weiss as a vindication of their strategy, others criticize the now-scuttled plea deal he struck with Mr. Biden.Congressional Republicans have for months repeatedly written to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland demanding he appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, the president’s son, over his business dealings.Some even demanded that a specific man be named to lead the inquiry: David C. Weiss, the Trump-appointed Delaware U.S. attorney who has long investigated the case.But on Friday, after Mr. Garland elevated Mr. Weiss to special counsel status, Republicans in Congress reacted publicly not with triumph, but with outrage. “David Weiss can’t be trusted and this is just a new way to whitewash the Biden family’s corruption,” Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.The reaction was a notable political development, one that underscored both how Mr. Weiss, a Republican, has fallen in conservative circles, and how deeply it has become ingrained in the G.O.P. to oppose the Justice Department at every turn.“The reality is this appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of Ways and Means, one of three congressional committees looking into the Biden family’s finances.But in interviews, away from social media and television appearances, the reaction of many Republicans to Mr. Weiss’s appointment was more nuanced. Privately, some in the G.O.P. were chalking up the development as a victory.The party had worked for years to elevate the Hunter Biden case — which Democrats have long dismissed as a partisan obsession of the right — to a scandal equivalent to those dogging former President Donald J. Trump, who has faced two impeachment trials, two special counsel investigations and three indictments totaling 78 felony counts against him. Those indictments include charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States and willfully retaining national defense information after he left office.By contrast, Hunter Biden has thus far been accused of two misdemeanor crimes stemming from his failure to pay taxes on more than $1.5 million in income related to his overseas business deals, and one felony count of illegally possessing a firearm while being a drug user.After leaving his job as a lobbyist while his father was running to become vice president more than a decade ago, Hunter Biden, a Yale-educated lawyer, and partners entered into a series of international business relationships, often with firms seeking influence and access within the United States. Mr. Biden was paid handsomely, even as he descended into drug addiction, and Republicans have accused him and his family of corruption. But they have not produced evidence that any of the overseas money went to President Biden or that the president influenced U.S. policy to benefit his son’s business partners.“This appointment is meant to distract from, and slow down, our investigations,” said Representative Jason Smith, Republican of Missouri and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which is looking into the Biden family’s finances.Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven as they objected to Mr. Weiss, some Republicans said the appointment appeared to be an acknowledgment that the allegations they had made deserved a serious investigation. It promised to keep Hunter Biden’s misdeeds in the news — and in the courts — for longer than Democrats would like as the 2024 presidential election heats up. And it ensured that in the minds of some voters the names Trump and Biden would both be linked to scandal, even if Republicans have not proved any wrongdoing by the current president.In an interview with Newsmax, a top Trump adviser, Jason Miller, appeared to echo both sentiments, and foreshadowed coming attacks.Mr. Miller said the appointment of Mr. Weiss “stinks” and accused the prosecutor of sitting on his hands for years. But, he added, ”I do want to make sure that my Republican brethren” don’t ”lose sight of the big prize here.”He described the appointment of a special counsel as “a direct acknowledgment that Hunter Biden did something wrong,” and he recalled President Biden saying in a 2020 debate with Mr. Trump that he had not done anything wrong.Since Mr. Weiss announced a proposed plea deal in June with Mr. Biden — an agreement that would have allowed him to avoid jail time on tax and gun charges but has since fallen apart — Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the government, accusing the Justice Department of leniency with the president’s son as they conduct their own investigations in an effort to tie his overseas business dealings to the president. House Republicans have also brought forth two I.R.S. agents who worked on Mr. Weiss’s investigation and claimed there had been political interference.One allegation made by the I.R.S. agents was that Mr. Weiss had sought to bring charges against Hunter Biden in Washington and California but had been rebuffed by prosecutors in those jurisdictions who declined to partner with him. The order appointing Mr. Weiss to special counsel authorizes him to bring charges in any jurisdiction.Alyssa DaCunha, a co-chair of the congressional investigations practice at the law firm WilmerHale, said she believed House Republicans’ investigations and their criticisms of the proposed plea deal had “caught the attention” of the Justice Department.“There’s a real need to make sure that whatever charging decisions are made are very, very well supported and the department can really stand behind them,” Ms. DaCunha said. “It seems like this will extend the life of the investigation, and so there are lots of ways in which this is going to complicate the narrative for Democrats moving forward and give the Republicans lots of leverage.”Some House Republicans close to Mr. Trump acknowledged they were pleased with the announcement of the special counsel. For Mr. Trump, in particular, it provided him with the investigation he has long desired to be able to depict the Biden family as corrupt, even as Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes are significantly less severe than the charges Mr. Trump is facing.Mr. Trump’s statement did not suggest that he viewed the appointment of a special counsel as a bad development, merely that it had come late, something his advisers also argued in private.Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and gun charges fell apart in court last month.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesMike Pence, the former vice president who is now running against Mr. Trump, was among the few well-known Republicans to openly praise Mr. Weiss’s appointment.But other Republicans were worried the development could be used to block their investigations. Mr. Weiss had pledged to testify on Capitol Hill this fall, but those Republicans predicted he could now cite the special counsel investigation to refuse to do so.The announcement also gives President Biden and Mr. Garland some political cover against Republican accusations that Mr. Trump is a victim of a two-tier system of justice, placing the investigation outside the normal workings of the Justice Department. It could also undercut Republican arguments that an impeachment inquiry of the president is necessary.“In the near term, it gives Republicans the ability to say it legitimizes what they’ve been looking into and it helps give more momentum to their different oversight activities,” said Michael Ricci, a former top communications official to two Republican House speakers and a current fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. “But in the longer term, the White House will absolutely use this as an argument against any kind of rush into impeachment.”Several Republicans said their respect for Mr. Weiss had declined after he entered into the plea deal with Hunter Biden.Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who had once called for Mr. Weiss to be made special counsel, said he no longer stands by that belief. “Given the underhanded plea deal negotiated by the U.S. attorney from President Biden’s home state, it’s clear Mr. Weiss isn’t the right person for the job,” Mr. Grassley said.Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, had once called for Mr. Weiss to be made special counsel but said the plea deal changed his mind. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut Democrat-aligned groups saw something else in the Republicans’ about-face: disingenuousness.“House Republicans’ opposition to Trump appointee David Weiss’s appointment as special counsel is nothing more than another political stunt,” said Kyle Herrig, the director of the Congressional Integrity Project, an advocacy group that defends President Biden from congressional investigations. “After months of calling for this, their dismay makes clear that they will stop at nothing to weaponize Congress to interfere with an ongoing investigation and harm Joe Biden.” More

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      AOC leads call for federal ethics investigation into Clarence Thomas

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      Five House Democrats led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation of the conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, over his acceptance of undeclared gifts from billionaire rightwing donors.“We write to urge the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into … Clarence Thomas for consistently failing to report significant gifts he received from Harlan Crow and other billionaires for nearly two decades in defiance of his duty under federal law,” the Democrats said.As well as Ocasio-Cortez, a progressive popularly known as AOC, the letter was signed by Jerrold Nadler of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House judiciary committee; Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a professor of constitutional law; Ted Lieu of California; and Hank Johnson of Georgia.This week saw publication of a bombshell ProPublica report which said Thomas had taken 38 undeclared vacations funded by billionaires and accepted gifts including expensive sports tickets.The report followed extensive reporting by ProPublica and other outlets including the New York Times regarding Thomas’s close and financially beneficial relationships with Crow, a real-estate magnate, and other influential businessmen.Thomas, 75, denies wrongdoing, claiming never to have discussed with his benefactors politics or business before the court. He has said he did not declare those benefactors’ gifts, over many years, because he was wrongly advised.Ethics experts say that Thomas broke federal law by failing to declare such largesse.Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal justices but in practice govern themselves.The chief justice, John Roberts, has rebuffed requests for testimony in Congress. Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee have advanced supreme court ethics reform but it will almost certainly fail, in the face of Republican opposition.Calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached and removed have proliferated but are also almost certain to fail. Confirmed in 1991, Thomas is the most senior of six conservatives on a nine-member court tipped dramatically right by three justices installed during the presidency of Donald Trump.In their letter to Garland on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow Democrats noted that Thomas’s wife, Ginni Thomas, is “a far-right activist who often champions conservative causes that come before the court”.They were addressing, they said, “a matter of critical importance to the integrity of our justice system”.Outlining reporting about Thomas, the representatives said his “consistent failure to disclose gifts and benefits from industry magnates and wealthy, politically active executives highlights a blatant disregard for judicial ethics as well as apparent legal violations.“No individual, regardless of their position or stature, should be exempt from legal scrutiny for lawbreaking … as a supreme court justice and high constitutional officer, Justice Thomas should be held to the highest standard, not the lowest and he certainly shouldn’t be allowed to violate federal law.”Refusing to hold Thomas accountable, the Democrats said, “would set a dangerous precedent, undermining public trust in our institutions and raising legitimate questions about the equal application of laws in our nation.“The Department of Justice must undertake a thorough investigation into the reported conduct to ensure that it cannot happen again.” More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Unprecedented, stunning, disgusting’: Clarence Thomas condemned over billionaire gifts

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      Conservative US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has been condemned for maintaining “unprecedented” and “shameless” links to rightwing benefactors, after ProPublica published new details of his acceptance of undeclared gifts including 38 vacations and expensive sports tickets.Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, rendered an especially damning verdict.“Unprecedented. Stunning. Disgusting. The height of hypocrisy to wear the robes of a [supreme court justice] and take undisclosed gifts from billionaires who benefit from your decisions. 38 free vacations. Yachts. Luxury mansions. Skyboxes at events. Resign,” she posted.From the Senate, Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic judiciary committee chair, said: “The latest … revelation of unreported lavish gifts to Justice Clarence Thomas makes it clear: these are not merely ethical lapses. This is a shameless lifestyle underwritten for years by a gaggle of fawning billionaires.”The ProPublica report followed extensive previous reporting, by the non-profit and competitors including the New York Times, of undisclosed gifts to Thomas from a series of mega-rich donors.Supreme court justices are nominally subject to ethics rules for federal judges but in practice govern themselves.Durbin said Thomas and Samuel Alito, another arch-conservative justice who did not declare gifts, had “made it clear they’re oblivious to the embarrassment they’ve visited on the highest court in the land.“Now it’s up to Chief Justice [John] Roberts and the other justices to act on ethics reform to save their own reputations and the court’s integrity. If the court will not act, then Congress must continue to” do so.Roberts has rejected calls to testify, saying Congress cannot regulate his court. Durbin has advanced ethics reform but its chances are virtually nil, with Republicans opposed in the Senate and in control of the House.Thomas denies wrongdoing, claiming never to have discussed with his benefactors politics or business before the court and to have been wrongly advised about disclosure requirements. Nonetheless, condemnation was widespread.Adam Schiff, a House Democrat running for Senate in California, said: “The scope of Justice Thomas’ undisclosed receipt of luxury vacations from billionaires takes your breath away. As does this court’s arrogant disregard of the public. Every other federal court has an enforceable code of ethics – the supreme court needs the same.”Thomas joined the court in 1991, becoming the second Black justice in place of the first, Thurgood Marshall.Sherrilyn Ifill, former director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) legal fund, said Thomas had created “a crisis and we need to start treating it as such. Our profession, the Senate judiciary committee, newspaper editorial boards, and the chief [justice] will need to summon the courage needed to call for what, by now, should be the obvious next step.”Robert Reich, a former US labor secretary now a Berkeley professor and Guardian columnist, pointed to what that “next step” might be, saying Thomas “must resign or be impeached if [the supreme court] is going to retain any credibility”.Only one justice, Samuel Chase, has ever been impeached – in 1804-05. He was acquitted in the Senate. In 1969, the justice Abe Fortas resigned under threat of impeachment, over his acceptance of outside fees.Now, Republican control of the House renders impeachment vastly unlikely. Nor is Thomas likely to resign, particularly as Democrats hold the Senate, able to reduce conservative dominance of the court should a rightwinger vacate the bench.Nonetheless, calls for Thomas to go continued.Ted Lieu, a California congressman, said Thomas “has brought shame upon himself and the United States supreme court … no government official, elected or unelected, could ethically or legally accept gifts of that scale. He should resign immediately”.Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a campaign group, said: “If three times makes a pattern, what does 38 times make? We’ll tell you: the fact that Clarence Thomas has taken 38 luxury trips with billionaires without disclosing them means this kind of ethical lapse is part of his lifestyle. He needs to resign.” More

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      in Elections

      How Jack Smith Structured the Trump Election Indictment to Reduce Risks

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      The special counsel layered varied charges atop the same facts, while sidestepping a free-speech question by not charging incitement.In accusing former President Donald J. Trump of conspiring to subvert American democracy, the special counsel, Jack Smith, charged the same story three different ways. The charges are novel applications of criminal laws to unprecedented circumstances, heightening legal risks, but Mr. Smith’s tactic gives him multiple paths in obtaining and upholding a guilty verdict.“Especially in a case like this, you want to have multiple charges that are applicable or provable with the same evidence, so that if on appeal you lose one, you still have the conviction,” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor.That structure in the indictment is only one of several strategic choices by Mr. Smith — including what facts and potential charges he chose to include or omit — that may foreshadow and shape how an eventual trial of Mr. Trump will play out.The four charges rely on three criminal statutes: a count of conspiring to defraud the government, another of conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and two counts related to corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding. Applying each to Mr. Trump’s actions raises various complexities, according to a range of criminal law experts.At the same time, the indictment hints at how Mr. Smith is trying to sidestep legal pitfalls and potential defenses. He began with an unusual preamble that reads like an opening statement at trial, acknowledging that Mr. Trump had a right to challenge the election results in court and even to lie about them, but drawing a distinction with the defendant’s pursuit of “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”While the indictment is sprawling in laying out a case against Mr. Trump, it brings a selective lens on the multifaceted efforts by the former president and his associates to overturn the 2020 election.“The strength of the indictment is that it is very narrowly written,” said Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., a Harvard Law School professor and former public defender. “The government is not attempting to prove too much, but rather it went for low-hanging fruit.”For one, Mr. Smith said little about the violent events of Jan. 6, leaving out vast amounts of evidence in the report by a House committee that separately investigated the matter. He focused more on a brazen plan to recruit false slates of electors from swing states and a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.That choice dovetails with Mr. Smith’s decision not to charge Mr. Trump with inciting an insurrection or seditious conspiracy — potential charges the House committee recommended. By eschewing them, he avoided having the case focus on the inflammatory but occasionally ambiguous remarks Mr. Trump made to his supporters as they morphed into a mob, avoiding tough First Amendment objections that defense lawyers could raise.For another, while Mr. Smith described six of Mr. Trump’s associates as co-conspirators, none were charged. It remains unclear whether some of them will eventually be indicted if they do not cooperate, or whether he intends to target only Mr. Trump so the case will move faster.Mr. Smith chose to say very little about the violent events of Jan. 6 and instead focused on the scheme to recruit slates of fake electors and the pressure Mr. Trump brought upon Vice President Pence.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesAmong the charges Mr. Smith did bring against Mr. Trump, corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding is the most familiar in how it applies to the aftermath of the 2020 election. Already, hundreds of ordinary Jan. 6 rioters have been charged with it.To date, most judges in Jan. 6 cases, at the district court and appeals court level, have upheld the use of the statute. But a few Trump-appointed judges have favored a more narrow interpretation, like limiting the law to situations in which people destroyed evidence or sought a benefit more concrete than having their preferred candidate win an election.Mr. Trump, of course, would have personally benefited from staying in office, making that charge stronger against him than against the rioters. Still, a possible risk is if the Supreme Court soon takes up one of the rioter cases and then narrows the scope of the law in a way that would affect the case against Mr. Trump.Proving IntentSome commentators have argued in recent days that prosecutors must persuade the jury that Mr. Trump knew his voter fraud claims were false to prove corrupt intent. But that is oversimplified, several experts said.To be sure, experts broadly agree that Mr. Smith will have an easier time winning a conviction if jurors are persuaded that Mr. Trump knew he was lying about everything. To that end, the indictment details how he “was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue” and “deliberately disregarded the truth.”“What you see in Trump — a guy who seems to inhabit his own fictional universe — is something you see in other fraud defendants,” said David Alan Sklansky, a Stanford University law professor. “It’s a common challenge in a fraud case to prove that at some level the defendant knew what he was telling people wasn’t true. The way you prove it is, in part, by showing that lots of people made clear to the defendant that what he was saying was baseless.”Moreover, the indictment emphasizes several episodes in which Mr. Trump had firsthand knowledge that his statements were false. Prosecutors can use those instances of demonstrably knowing lies to urge jurors to infer that Mr. Trump knew he was lying about everything else, too.The indictment, for example, recounts a taped call on Jan. 2 with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which Mr. Trump shared a series of conspiracy theories that he systematically debunked in detail. But on Twitter the next day, Mr. Trump “falsely claimed that the Georgia secretary of state had not addressed” the allegations.And on Jan. 5, Mr. Pence told Mr. Trump that he had no lawful authority to alter or delay the counting of Mr. Biden’s electoral votes, but “hours later” Mr. Trump issued a statement through his campaign saying the opposite: “The vice president and I are in total agreement that the vice president has the power to act.”Vice President Pence appears during House committee hearings investigating Jan. 6. The indictment suggests Mr. Trump knew he was lying about what Mr. Pence had told him on January 5.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn any case, several rioters have already argued that they did not have “corrupt intent” because they sincerely believed the election had been stolen. That has not worked: Judges have said that corrupt intent can be shown by engaging in other unlawful actions like trespassing, assaulting the police and destroying property.“Belief that your actions are serving a greater good does not negate consciousness of wrongdoing,” Judge Royce C. Lamberth wrote last month.Mr. Trump, of course, did not rampage through the Capitol. But the indictment accuses him of committing other crimes — the fraud and voter disenfranchisement conspiracies — based on wrongful conduct. It cites Mr. Trump’s bid to use fake electors in violation of the Electoral Count Act and his solicitation of fraud at the Justice Department and in Georgia, where he pressured Mr. Raffensperger to help him “find” 11,780 votes, enough to overcome Mr. Biden’s margin of victory.“Whether he thinks he won or lost is relevant but not determinative,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former prosecutor who worked on the independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton. “Trump could try to achieve vindicating his beliefs legally. The conspiracy is tied to the illegal means. So he has to say that he thought ‘finding’ 11,000 votes was legal, or that fake electors were legal. That is much harder to say with a straight face.”Proving Mr. Trump’s intent will also be key to the charges of defrauding the government and disenfranchising voters. But it may be easier because those laws do not have the heightened standard of “corrupt” intent as the obstruction statute does.Court rulings interpreting the statute that criminalizes defrauding the United States, for example, have established that evidence of deception or dishonesty is sufficient. In a 1924 Supreme Court ruling, Chief Justice William H. Taft wrote that it covers interference with a government function “by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest.” A 1989 appeals courts ruling said the dishonest actions need not be crimes in and of themselves.This factor may help explain the indictment’s emphasis on the fake electors schemes in one state after another, a repetitive narrative that risks dullness: It would be hard to credibly argue that Mr. Trump and his co-conspirators thought the fake slates they submitted were real, and the indictment accuses them of other forms of trickery as well.The opening of the Michigan Electoral College session at the State Capitol in 2020. The indictment emphasizes Mr. Trump’s involvement in fake electors schemes in several swing states.Pool photo by Carlos Osorio“Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the defendant succeeded in outcome-determinative lawsuits within their state, which the defendant never did,” it said.A Novel ChargeThe inclusion of the charge involving a conspiracy to disenfranchise voters was a surprising development in Mr. Smith’s emerging strategy. Unlike the other charges, it had not been a major part of the public discussion of the investigation — for example, it was not among the charges recommended by the House Jan. 6 committee.Congress enacted the law after the Civil War to provide a tool for federal prosecutors to go after Southern white people, including Ku Klux Klan members, who used terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved Black people from voting. But in the 20th century, the Supreme Court upheld a broadened use of the law to address election-fraud conspiracies. The idea is that any conspiracy to engineer dishonest election results victimizes all voters in an election.“It was a good move to charge that statute, partly because that is really what this case really is about — depriving the people of the right to choose their president,” said Robert S. Litt, a former federal prosecutor and a top intelligence lawyer in the Obama administration.That statute has mostly been used to address misconduct leading up to and during election, like bribing voters or stuffing ballot boxes, rather than misconduct after an election. Still, in 1933, an appeals court upheld its use in a case involving people who reported false totals from a voter tabulation machine.It has never been used before in a conspiracy to use fake slates of Electoral College voters from multiple states to keep legitimate electors from being counted and thereby subvert the results of a presidential election — a situation that itself was unprecedented.Mr. Trump’s lawyers have signaled they will argue that he had a First Amendment right to say whatever he wanted. Indeed, the indictment acknowledged that it was not illegal in and of itself for Mr. Trump to lie.But in portraying Mr. Trump’s falsehoods as “integral to his criminal plans,” Mr. Smith suggested he would frame those public statements as contributing to unlawful actions and as evidence they were undertaken with bad intentions, not as crimes in and of themselves.Mr. Trump at Reagan National Airport Thursday following his court appearance. Mr. Trump’s legal team has signaled they will argue that he had a First Amendment right to say whatever he wanted.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA related defense Mr. Trump may raise is the issue of “advice of counsel.” If a defendant relied in good faith on a lawyer who incorrectly informed him that doing something would be legal, a jury may decide he lacked criminal intent. But there are limits. Among them, the defendant must have told the lawyer all the relevant facts and the theory must be “reasonable.”The indictment discusses how even though White House lawyers told Mr. Trump that Mr. Pence had no lawful authority to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory, an outside lawyer — John Eastman, described in the indictment as Co-Conspirator 2 and who separately faces disbarment proceedings — advised him that Mr. Pence could.Several legal specialists agreed that Mr. Trump has an advice-of-counsel argument to make. But Samuel W. Buell, a Duke University law professor, said Mr. Smith was likely to try to rebut it by pointing to the repeated instances in which Mr. Trump’s White House legal advisers told him that Mr. Eastman was wrong.“You have to have a genuine good-faith belief that the legal advice is legitimate and valid, not just ‘I’m going to keep running through as many lawyers as I can until one tells me something I want to hear, no matter how crazy and implausible it is,’” Mr. Buell said. More