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      The Fake Electors Scheme, Explained

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      The plan to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election by creating slates of electors pledged to Donald Trump in states he had lost was expansive, long-running and often confusing.The brazen plan to create false slates of electors pledged to former President Donald J. Trump in seven swing states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. was arguably the longest-running and most expansive of the multiple efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.It was also one of the most confusing, involving a sprawling cast of pro-Trump lawyers, state Republican officials and White House aides in an effort that began before some states had even finished counting their ballots. It culminated in the campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the false slates to subvert congressional certification of the outcome on Jan. 6, 2021 — and in the violent attack on the Capitol that unfolded as he refused to do so.The scheme had a vague historical precedent and was rooted, at least in theory, in a post-Reconstruction Era law designed to address how to handle disputed elections. But it was deemed illegal by Mr. Trump’s own White House Counsel’s Office. Even some of the lawyers who helped come up with the idea referred to it as fake and acknowledged that it was of dubious legality, according to a cache of email messages brought to light by The New York Times.The fake electors tactic caught the attention of state law enforcement officials around the beginning of this year, and soon became a focus of the inquiry being conducted by the House select committee investigating the events of Jan. 6.The plan has also figured prominently in an investigation that an Atlanta-area prosecutor is conducting into Mr. Trump’s alleged election meddling. And it is at the heart of the Justice Department’s own wide-ranging Jan. 6 inquiry.Here is a look at the plan: where it came from; how it was meant to work; the various inquiries it has now become a part of; and the ways in which it could serve to implicate Mr. Trump in criminal activity.Vice President Richard M. Nixon campaigned in Hilo, Hawaii, during the presidential race of 1960. A dispute over the outcome there was cited by Trump allies in developing slates of so-called alternate electors after the 2020 race.Associated PressHawaii, 1960, Provided the Template In one of the first legal memos laying out the details of the fake elector scheme, a pro-Trump lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro justified the plan by pointing to an odd episode in American history: a quarrel that took place in Hawaii during the 1960 presidential race between Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.The results of the vote count in Hawaii remained in dispute — by about 100 ballots — even as a crucial deadline for the Electoral College to meet and cast its votes drew near. A recount was underway but it did not appear as though it would be completed by the time the Electoral College was expected to convene, on Dec. 19, 1960.(The winner of the popular vote in nearly all of the states is allocated all of that state’s electors, which are apportioned based on population. Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions; they allocate their electors based on the winners in congressional districts. To win the presidency, a candidate has to win a majority of the 538 total electoral votes.)Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Correos inéditos detallan el plan de Trump para seguir en el poder

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      Un intercambio de correos electrónicos entre algunos asesores externos y asistentes de la campaña de Trump ofrecen una nueva perspectiva de sus esfuerzos para anular las elecciones en las semanas previas al 6 de enero.Unos correos electrónicos que no habían sido divulgados ofrecen una mirada de los esfuerzos cada vez más desesperados, y a menudo descuidados, de los asesores del expresidente de Estados Unidos Donald Trump para revertir su derrota electoral en las semanas que antecedieron al ataque del 6 de enero, incluidos algunos mensajes que reconocían que algunos elementos cruciales de su plan eran de dudosa legalidad, al punto de que se les llegó a calificar como “falsos”.Decenas de correos electrónicos entre personas vinculadas a la campaña de Trump, asesores externos y aliados cercanos del expresidente muestran una atención especial en reunir listas de personas que, en su nombre, afirmarían —sin fundamento— ser electores en estados clave que Trump había perdido en el Colegio Electoral.En los correos electrónicos revisados por The New York Times y autentificados por personas que trabajaban con la campaña de Trump en ese momento, un abogado que participó en las conversaciones usó en repetidas ocasiones la palabra “falsos” para referirse a los supuestos electores, que pretendían proveer una justificación al vicepresidente Mike Pence y a los aliados de Trump en el Congreso para entorpecer el proceso de certificación del resultado electoral. Y los abogados que trabajaron en la propuesta dejaron claro que sabían que era posible que los electores pro-Trump que estaban presentando no resistirían el escrutinio legal.“Simplemente estaríamos enviando votos electorales ‘falsos’ a Pence para que ‘alguien’ en el Congreso pueda presentar una objeción cuando se empiecen contar los votos, y argumentar que los votos ‘falsos’ deben ser contados”, escribió Jack Wilenchik, un abogado con sede en Phoenix que ayudó a organizar a los votantes a favor de Trump en Arizona, en un correo que le envió a Boris Epshteyn, asesor estratégico de la campaña de Trump, el 8 de diciembre de 2020.En un correo electrónico de seguimiento, Wilenchik escribió que “votos ‘alternativos’ probablemente es un mejor término que votos ‘falsos’”, agregando un emoji de cara sonriente.Los correos brindan detalles inéditos sobre cómo un ala de la campaña de Trump trabajó con abogados y asesores externos para organizar un plan electoral y buscar una variedad de otras opciones, a menudo sin pensar en su practicidad. Un correo electrónico revela que muchos de los principales asesores de Trump fueron informados de los problemas que tenían para nombrar a los votantes de Trump en Michigan —un estado que había perdido—, porque las normas pandémicas habían forzado el cierre del edificio del Capitolio estatal, donde los supuestos electores se habrían reunido.Las comunicaciones muestran que los participantes en las discusiones informaron detalles de sus actividades a Rudolph Giuliani, el abogado personal de Trump y, en al menos un caso, a Mark Meadows, el jefe de gabinete de la Casa Blanca. Casi al mismo tiempo, según el comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero, Meadows envió un correo a otro asesor de campaña en el que advertía: “Solo necesitamos a alguien que coordine a los votantes de los estados”.Muchos de los correos electrónicos están dirigidos a Epshteyn, quien coordinaba a las personas dentro y fuera de la campaña de Trump y la Casa Blanca y sigue siendo un colaborador cercano de Trump.Epshteyn, según muestran los correos, era un contacto usual para John Eastman, el abogado que diseñó el plan adoptado por Trump para entorpecer la certificación del resultado del Colegio Electoral en el Congreso el 6 de enero de 2021.Epshteyn no solo le presentó y envió a Giuliani la propuesta detallada para el 6 de enero que Eastman preparó, sino que también se encargó de cómo pagarle a Eastman e hizo los arreglos necesarios para que asistiera a la Casa Blanca el 4 de enero de 2021, según los correos electrónicos.Ese fue el día de la reunión en el Despacho Oval en la que Trump y Eastman presionaron sin éxito a Pence para que adoptara el plan, un intercambio del que fueron testigos los dos principales asesores de Pence, Marc Short y Greg Jacob, quienes testificaron la semana pasada frente al jurado federal que investiga el asalto al Capitolio, y las decisiones que provocaron ese incidente.Los correos destacan la actuación de Mike Roman, director de operaciones del día de las elecciones para la campaña de Trump, quien se encargó de buena parte del trabajo preliminar para encontrar las formas de desafiar las derrotas de Trump en los estados clave.Epshteyn y Roman estuvieron en coordinación con otras personas que tuvieron un rol en asesorar a Trump, según muestran los correos electrónicos. Entre esas personas estaban los abogados Jenna Ellis y Bruce Marks; Gary Michael Brown, quien fue subdirector de operaciones del día de las elecciones para la campaña de Trump, y Christina Bobb, quien en ese momento trabajaba para One America News Network y ahora trabaja con el comité de acción política de Trump.Al parecer, los correos electrónicos no se compartieron con los abogados de la Oficina del Abogado de la Casa Blanca, quienes informaron que el plan de “electores falsos” no era sólido legalmente, ni con otros abogados en la campaña.Algunos de los involucrados también expresaron en los correos electrónicos su anuencia para mantener algunas de sus actividades fuera del ojo público.Por ejemplo, después de que Trump recibió a los legisladores del estado de Pensilvania en la Casa Blanca a finales de noviembre para discutir la restitución del resultado de las elecciones, Epshteyn celebró cuando la noticia del encuentro no fue filtrada con rapidez. “La reunión en la CB no se ha hecho pública, lo cual es impactante y grandioso”, le escribió a Ellis.Jenna Ellis, a la izquierda, Rudolph Giuliani y Boris Epshteyn, a la derecha, participaron en el esfuerzo coordinado para anular el resultado de las elecciones de 2020.Jonathan Ernst/ReutersEl 8 de diciembre de 2020, Wilenchik escribió que Kelli Ward, una de las republicanas de Arizona que participaron en el plan de los electores falsos, recomendó tratar de “mantenerlo en secreto hasta que el Congreso cuente los votos el 6 de enero (para que podamos intentar ‘sorprender’ a los demócratas y a los medios con eso), y me inclino a estar de acuerdo con ella”.Epshteyn, Wilenchik, Roman, Eastman, Bobb y James Troupis, otro abogado involucrado en el plan, se negaron a comentar o no respondieron a los correos electrónicos o llamadas para solicitar sus comentarios.Marks, en un correo electrónico, cuestionó que hubiera algo inapropiado o indebido en su trabajo.“No creo que haya nada ‘falso’ o ilegal en las listas alternas de delegados, y particularmente en Pensilvania”, dijo. “Había un historial de listas electorales alternativas en Hawái en 1960. Nada sobre esto era secreto: se proporcionaron a los Archivos Nacionales, según entiendo que fue el procedimiento, y luego le correspondía al Congreso decidir qué hacer”.Marks agregó: “No estuve involucrado con el consejo del profesor Eastman con respecto al papel del vicepresidente, del cual me enteré después del hecho y no respaldo”.El comité de la Cámara de Representantes que investiga el ataque del 6 de enero al Capitolio ha recopilado pruebas de que Trump tenía conocimiento del plan sobre los electores. Ronna McDaniel, la presidenta del Comité Nacional Republicano (CNR), dijo en una declaración que Trump la había llamado y puso a Eastman al teléfono “para hablar de la importancia de que el CNR ayude a la campaña para reunir a estos electores contingentes”.El panel también escuchó el testimonio de Jacob, quien fue abogado de Pence en la Casa Blanca, quien indicó que Eastman reconoció en la reunión del Despacho Oval del 4 de enero —donde Trump estaba presente— que su plan de que Pence obstaculizara la certificación electoral violaba la Ley de Conteo Electoral.En ocasiones, los correos electrónicos muestran poca precisión en las conversaciones entre los abogados. Marks se refirió en repetidas ocasiones a Cleta Mitchell, otra abogada que ayudaba a Trump, como “Clita” y “Clavita”, lo que ocasionó que Epshteyn replicara: “Es Cleta, no Clavita”.En otra ocasión, Epshteyn le escribió a Marks: “¿Cuando dices Nevada quieres decir Arizona???”.Para principios de diciembre, Epshteyn parecía estar ayudando a coordinar los esfuerzos, al deliberar repetidamente con Marks y otros. Wilenchik le dijo a sus colegas abogados que había estado discutiendo una idea propuesta por otro abogado que trabajaba con la campaña, Kenneth Chesebro, un aliado de Eastman, para enviar listas de electores leales a Trump.“Su idea básicamente es que todos nosotros (Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pensilvania), hagamos que nuestros electores envíen sus votos (aunque los votos no son legales bajo la ley federal, porque no están firmados por el gobernador), de modo que los integrantes del Congreso se peleen sobre si deben contarse el 6 de enero”, escribió Wilenchik en un correo electrónico enviado a Epshteyn y a otras personas, el 8 de diciembre de 2020.“Medio loco/creativo, me encantaría conversarlo”, continuó Wilenchick. “Lo que le comentó fue que supongo que no hace daño, (al menos legalmente), es decir, solo estaríamos enviando votos electorales ‘falsos’ a Pence para que ‘alguien’ en el Congreso pueda presentar una objeción cuando empiecen a contarse los votos y empiecen a defender que los votos ‘falsos’ deben contarse”.Seguidores del presidente Donald Trump protestaron en Phoenix dos días después del día de las elecciones. Arizona fue uno de los estados escogidos para el esquema de falsos electores.Adriana Zehbrauskas para The New York TimesAl organizar el esquema de falsos electores, los abogados nombraron a una “persona de enlace” en siete estados para organizar a los electores dispuestos a firmar documentos falsos. En Pensilvania, ese enlace era Douglas V. Mastriano, quien ahora es el nominado republicano a la gubernatura y fue partidario de las mentiras de Trump sobre el robo de las elecciones.Pero incluso Mastriano exigía garantías para seguir el plan que otros republicanos le decían era “ilegal”, según un correo electrónico enviado por Bobb que también apuntaba a Giuliani, exalcalde de la Ciudad de Nueva York, el 12 de diciembre.“Mastriano necesita una llamada del alcalde. Hay que hacerlo. Hablarle de la legalidad de lo que están haciendo”, escribió. Y añadió: “Los electores quieren que los tranquilicen de que el proceso es * legal * y esencial para la estrategía general”.Los correos mostraban que, al principio, el grupo esperaba que las legislaturas estatales republicanas o los gobernadores se unieran a sus planes para darles un sello de legitimidad. Pero para diciembre, estaba claro que ninguna autoridad iba a aceptar participar, así que los abogados de Trump se propusieron presionar a Pence, quien debía presidir una sesión conjunta del Congreso el 6 de enero.El 7 de diciembre, Troupis, que trabajaba para la campaña de Trump en Wisconsin, le escribió a Epshteyn que no había “necesidad de que los legisladores actuaran”. Invocó el análisis jurídico de Chesebro de que la clave para las esperanzas de Trump no era bloquear la certificación estatal de los electores el 14 de diciembre, sino crear un motivo para que Pence bloqueara o dilatara la certificación del Congreso de los resultados del Colegio Electoral el 6 de enero.“La segunda lista solo se presenta al mediodía del lunes y vota y luego transmite los resultados”, escribió Troupis sobre la organización de las listas de electores republicanos para que emitieran votos por Trump el 14 de diciembre. “Le corresponde a Pence abrirlos el 6 de enero. Nuestra estrategia, que pensamos se puede replicar en los 6 estados en disputa, es que los electores se reúnan y voten de modo que una decisión interina de una corte certifique a Trump como ganador pueda ejecutarse por la corte y ordenar al gobernador que emita lo necesario para nombrar a los electores. La clave sería que los seis estados lo hagan de modo que la elección siga en duda hasta enero”.Los documentos también mostraron que el equipo legal se había apoyado en información muy desacreditada para los reclamos de fraude electoral. El 17 de diciembre, Epshteyn escribió a Giuliani que un documento de fraude electoral creado por el asesor de Trump en materia de comercio, Peter Navarro — que ha sido desacreditado por informes periodísticos, funcionarios estatales y tribunales— “parece ser el resumen más completo de fraude de votantes de esta temporada electoral”.Los abogados estaban conscientes de que sus esfuerzos jurídicos eran motivo de sorna El 23 de diciembre, Marks escribió: “A ustedes los están matando en los medios por su estrategia de litigio, incluso en Fox y entre los conservadores”.Pero no se amilanaron.Para la víspera de Navidad, Eastman parecía querer aprovechar el poder de los millones de seguidores de Trump.Esa noche, a las 8:04 p. m. Eastman le envió a Epshteyn un correo electrónico que había recibido en el que una mujer le rogaba pedirle a Trump que “le dijera a sus 74 millones de seguidores lo que quiere que hagan para ayudar”. Y añadió: “Tenemos que ser una sola voz, con precisión láser, EXPRESÁNDOSE CON LA FUERZA DE 74 MILLONES”.Un video de John Eastman, a la izquierda, acogiéndose a la Quinta Enmienda durante una declaración ante el comité de la Cámara el 6 de enero.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEn su correo electrónico a Epshteyn, Eastman escribió, “Pensé en reenviarte esto. La fuerza de 74 millones. Averigüemos un modo específico de desplegarlos. ¿Estruendo vibrante? ¿Una legislatura a la vez? Los demás podrían darse cuenta”.Días antes, Trump les había dicho a sus seguidores que fueran a Washington el 6 de enero para una “protesta” que prometía sería “salvaje”.El 27 de diciembre, Epshteyn escribió que a Trump le “gustaba” el enfoque agresivo que proponían los abogados y que Eastman sería el “rostro de la estrategia de medios” junto con Giuliani.“Necesitamos una voz allá”, escribió Epshteyn sobre Eastman, diciendo que a él “ya lo había dado a conocer/apoyado POTUS”.En ese momento, solo faltaban días para el 6 de enero.Maggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y formó parte de un equipo que ganó un Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores de Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. @maggieNYTLuke Broadwater cubre el Congreso de Estados Unidos. Fue el reportero principal de una serie de artículos de investigación en The Baltimore Sun que ganó un premio Pulitzer y un premio George Polk en 2020. @lukebroadwater More

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      Justice Dept. Asking Witnesses About Trump in Its Jan. 6 Investigation

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      Federal prosecutors sought information about the former president’s role in the efforts to overturn the election as the inquiry accelerates.Federal prosecutors have directly asked witnesses in recent days about former President Donald J. Trump’s involvement in efforts to reverse his election loss, a person familiar with the testimony said on Tuesday, suggesting that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation has moved into a more aggressive and politically fraught phase.Mr. Trump’s personal role in elements of the push to overturn his loss in 2020 to Joseph R. Biden Jr. has long been established, both through his public actions and statements and evidence gathered by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.But the Justice Department has been largely silent about how and even whether it would weigh pursuing potential charges against Mr. Trump, and reluctant even to concede that his role was discussed in senior leadership meetings at the department.Asking questions about Mr. Trump in connection with the electors plot or the attack on the Capitol does not mean the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into him, a decision that would have immense political and legal ramifications.The department’s investigation into a central element of the push to keep Mr. Trump in office — the plan to name slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in battleground states won by Mr. Biden — now appears to be accelerating as prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington ask witnesses about Mr. Trump and members of his inner circle, including the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, the person familiar with the testimony said.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Emails Reveal Details of Trump Fake Electors Plan

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      Previously undisclosed communications among Trump campaign aides and outside advisers provide new insight into their efforts to overturn the election in the weeks leading to Jan. 6.Previously undisclosed emails provide an inside look at the increasingly desperate and often slapdash efforts by advisers to President Donald J. Trump to reverse his election defeat in the weeks before the Jan. 6 attack, including acknowledgments that a key element of their plan was of dubious legality and lived up to its billing as “fake.”The dozens of emails among people connected to the Trump campaign, outside advisers and close associates of Mr. Trump show a particular focus on assembling lists of people who would claim — with no basis — to be Electoral College electors on his behalf in battleground states that he had lost.In emails reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who had worked with the Trump campaign at the time, one lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called electors, who were intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome. And lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny.“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a Dec. 8, 2020, email to Boris Epshteyn, a strategic adviser for the Trump campaign.In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that “‘alternative’ votes is probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes,” adding a smiley face emoji.The emails provide new details of how a wing of the Trump campaign worked with outside lawyers and advisers to organize the elector plan and pursue a range of other options, often with little thought to their practicality. One email showed that many of Mr. Trump’s top advisers were informed of problems naming Trump electors in Michigan — a state he had lost — because pandemic rules had closed the state Capitol building where the so-called electors had to gather.The emails show that participants in the discussions reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, and in at least one case to Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. Around the same time, according to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, Mr. Meadows emailed another campaign adviser saying, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states.”Many of the emails went to Mr. Epshteyn, who was acting as a coordinator for people inside and outside the Trump campaign and the White House and remains a close aide to Mr. Trump.Mr. Epshteyn, the emails show, was a regular point of contact for John Eastman, the lawyer whose plan for derailing congressional certification of the Electoral College result on Jan. 6, 2021, was embraced by Mr. Trump.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Marc Short Testifies to Grand Jury in Jan. 6 Investigation

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      Marc Short, who was chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, and Greg Jacob, a lawyer for Mr. Pence, were subpoenaed in the Justice Department’s expanding criminal inquiry.Two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence testified last week to a federal grand jury in Washington investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the highest-ranking officials of the Trump administration so far known to have cooperated with the Justice Department’s widening inquiry into the events leading up to the assault.The appearances before the grand jury of the men — Marc Short, who was Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, and Greg Jacob, who was his counsel — were the latest indication that the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the events surrounding and preceding the riot is intensifying after weeks of growing questions about the urgency the department has put on examining former President Donald J. Trump’s potential criminal liability.The testimony of the two Pence aides marked the first time it has become publicly known that figures with firsthand knowledge of what took place inside the White House in the tumultuous days before the attack have cooperated with federal prosecutors.Both Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob played important roles in describing to a House select committee conducting a parallel investigation of the Capitol attack how Mr. Trump, working with allies like the lawyer John Eastman, mounted a campaign to pressure Mr. Pence into disrupting the normal counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, as part of an effort to keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Short’s testimony was confirmed by two people familiar with it, as was Mr. Jacob’s.The Justice Department has at times appeared to be lagging behind the House select committee, which has spoken to more than 1,000 witnesses, including some from inside the Trump White House. Much of that testimony has been highlighted at a series of public hearings over the past two months.It remains unclear precisely what Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob told the grand jury or what questions prosecutors may have asked them. But both previously gave recorded and transcribed interviews to the House committee, and Mr. Jacob served as a live witness at one of the panel’s public hearings that focused on the effort to strong-arm Mr. Pence.Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob were present in the Oval Office for a meeting on Jan. 4, 2021, at which Mr. Trump had Mr. Eastman try to persuade Mr. Pence that he could delay or block congressional certification of Mr. Trump’s Electoral College defeat.Mr. Eastman’s plan relied on Mr. Pence being willing to accept, as he presided over a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, that there were disputes over the validity of electors whose votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. had already been certified by the states — a baseless assertion that had been promoted by a number of Trump allies in the previous weeks as a last-ditch way to help keep Mr. Trump in office.Mr. Pence ultimately rejected Mr. Trump’s pressure on him to go along. But the so-called fake electors proposal has been one of the primary lines of inquiry to have become public in the Justice Department’s sprawling investigation.Mr. Short also provided the House committee with testimony that highlighted the sense of threat that built from Mr. Trump’s efforts to derail the congressional proceedings on Jan. 6.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      Sharp Contrasts With Other Jan. 6 Inquiries Increase Pressure on Garland

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      The continued revelations from the House select committee and the rapid pace of the Georgia investigation have left the Justice Department on the defensive.In the last week, local prosecutors in Atlanta barreled ahead with their criminal investigation into the effort by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, targeting fake electors, issuing a subpoena to a member of Congress and winning a court battle forcing Rudolph W. Giuliani to testify to a grand jury.In Washington, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack unfurled its latest batch of damning disclosures about Mr. Trump at a prime-time hearing, and directly suggested that Mr. Trump needs to be prosecuted before he destroys the country’s democracy.But at the Justice Department, where the gears of justice always seem to move the slowest, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland was forced to rely on generalities about the American legal system, saying “no person is above the law in this country” as he fended off increasing questions about why there has been so little public action to hold Mr. Trump and his allies accountable.“There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, what’s it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories aren’t, and there will continue to be that speculation,” Mr. Garland said at a briefing with reporters on Wednesday as he appeared to grow slightly irritated. “That’s because a central tenet of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public.”The contrast between the public urgency and aggressiveness of the investigations being carried out by the Georgia prosecutors and the congressional committee on the one hand and the quiet, and apparently plodding and methodical approach being taken by the Justice Department on the other is so striking that it has become an issue for Mr. Garland — and is only growing more pronounced by the week.The House committee has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, with more still coming in, and has selectively picked evidence from what it has learned to set out a seamless narrative implicating Mr. Trump. The Georgia prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, appears to be assembling a wide-ranging case that some experts say could lead to conspiracy or racketeering charges.Exactly what is going on inside the Justice Department remains largely obscured, beyond what it prioritized in the months after the attack: its prosecution of hundreds of the rioters who stormed the Capitol and its sedition cases against the extremist groups who were present.But through subpoenas and search warrants, the department has made clear that it is pursuing at least two related lines of inquiry that could lead to Mr. Trump.One centers on the so-called fake electors. In that line of inquiry, prosecutors have issued subpoenas to some people who had signed up to be on the list of those purporting to be electors that pro-Trump forces wanted to use to help block certification of the Electoral College results by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021.Investigation of the fake electors scheme has fallen under Thomas Windom, a prosecutor brought in by the Justice Department last year to help bolster its efforts. Mr. Windom’s team has also issued subpoenas to a wide range of characters connected to the Jan. 6 attacks, seeking information about lawyers who worked closely with Mr. Trump, including Mr. Giuliani and John Eastman, the little-known conservative lawyer who tried to help Mr. Trump find a way to block congressional certification of the election results.Thomas Windom is a prosecutor brought in by the Justice Department last year to investigate the so-called fake electors scheme.Julio Cortez/Associated PressEarlier rounds of subpoenas from Mr. Windom sought information about members of the executive and legislative branches who had been involved in the “planning or execution of any rally or any attempt to obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the 2020 election.The other line of Justice Department inquiry centers on the effort by a Trump-era Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, to pressure Georgia officials not to certify the state’s election results by sending a letter falsely suggesting that the department had found evidence of election fraud there.Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Making a case against Trump. More

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      There’s Hot and Then There’s Hot as … Politics

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. Damn, it’s hot.Gail Collins: Ah Bret, we agree once again. How inspiring it is to realize that even in these troubled times, Americans of all political stripes can gather to complain about the weather.Bret: Just give this conversation another five seconds ….Gail: And, of course, vent about Senator Joe Manchin, who keeps putting his coal-loving foot on any serious attempt to deal with climate change.Am I moving out of our area of agreement?Bret: Maybe a tad. I’m grateful to Manchin for fighting for American energy. We’ll all be complaining about climate change a whole lot more when diminished power generation and supply shocks leave us with rolling blackouts and long stretches without air-conditioning.On the other hand, I mentioned in a previous conversation that I’m going to Greenland later this summer. Wasn’t kidding! An oceanographer I know pretty much wants to shove my face into a melting glacier in hopes of some kind of Damascene conversion.Gail: Great! Then we can join hands and lobby for tax incentives that will encourage Americans to buy electric cars and encourage power companies to trade coal for wind and solar energy, right?Bret: Wind and solar power alone will never meet demand. We should build a lot more nuclear power, which is what France is doing, again, and also extract more gas and oil in the U.S. and Canada. However, if Joe Biden also wants to help me pay for that Tesla I don’t actually need, I probably won’t say no.Speaking of the president, I’m wishing him a speedy recovery. Is Covid something we can at last stop being freaked out about?Gail: Clearly Biden’s in a particular risk group because of his age, but 79-year-olds who are surrounded by high-quality medical staff may not be the most endangered part of the population.Bret: Just hope the vice president’s office didn’t recommend the doctor.Gail: One of the biggest problems is still the folks who refused to get vaccinated. And who are still being encouraged by a number of Republican candidates for high office.Bret: OK, confession: I’m having a harder and harder time keeping faith with vaccines that seem to be less and less effective against the new variants. How many boosters are we all supposed to get each year?Gail: Oh Bret, Bret …Bret: Never mind my Kamala joke, now I’m in real trouble. What were you saying about Republicans?Gail: I was thinking about anti-vaxxers — or at least semi-anti-vaxxers — like Dan Cox, who is now the Republican nominee for Maryland governor, thanks to the endorsement of Donald Trump and about $1.16 million in TV ads paid for by the Democratic Governors Association, who think he’ll be easy to beat.Bret: Such a shame that a state Republican Party that had one of the few remaining Republican heroes in the person of the incumbent governor, Larry Hogan, should nominate a stinker like Cox, who called Mike Pence a “traitor” for not trying to overturn the election on Jan. 6. His Democratic opponent, Wes Moore, is one of the most outstanding people I’ve ever met and could be presidential material a few years down the road.I hope Cox loses by the widest margin in history. Of course I also said that of Trump in 2016.Gail: Ditto. But I just hate the Democrats’ developing strategy of giving a big boost to terrible Republican candidates in order to raise their own side’s chances. It is just the kind of thing that can come back to haunt you in an era when voters have shown they’re not always freaked out by contenders who have the minor disadvantage of being crazy.Bret: Totally agree. We should be working to revive the center. Two suggestions I have for deep-pocketed political donors: Don’t give a dime to an incumbent who has never worked on at least one meaningful bipartisan bill. And ask any political newcomer to identify one issue on which he or she breaks with party orthodoxy. If they don’t have a good answer, don’t write a check.For instance: bail reform. My jaw hit the floor when the guy who tried to stab Representative Lee Zeldin at a campaign event in New York last week walked free after a few hours, even if he was then rearrested under a federal statute.Gail: We semi-disagree about bail reform. I don’t think you decide who should be able to walk on the basis of the amount of money their families can put up. Anybody who’s charged with a dangerous crime should stay locked up, and the rest should go home and be ready for their day in court. More

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      in Elections

      We Can’t Afford Not to Prosecute Trump

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      We all learn from failure.Our mistakes become the bridge to our successes, teaching us what works and what doesn’t, so that the next time we muster the will to try, we’ll succeed.But nefarious actors can also learn from failure. And that, unfortunately, is where we find ourselves with Donald Trump. His entire foray into politics has been one of testing the fences for weaknesses. Every time a fence has failed, he has been encouraged. He has become a better political predator.With the conclusion of this series of hearings about the Jan. 6 insurrection, it has become ever clearer to me that Trump should be charged with multiple crimes. But I’m not a prosecutor. I’m not part of the Department of Justice. That agency will make the final decision on federal charges.The questions before the Justice Department are not only whether there is convincing evidence that Trump committed the crimes he is accused of but also whether the country could sustain the stain of a criminal prosecution of a former president.I would turn the latter question around completely: Can the country afford not to prosecute Trump? I believe the answer is no.He has learned from his failures and is now more dangerous than ever.He has learned that the political system is incapable of holding him accountable. He can try to extort a foreign nation for political gain and not be removed from office. He can attempt a coup and not be removed from office.He has learned that many of his supporters have almost complete contempt for women. It doesn’t matter how many women accuse you of sexual misconduct; your base, including some of your female supporters, will brush it away. You can even be caught on tape boasting about sexually assaulting women, and your followers will discount it.He has learned that the presidency is the greatest grift of his life. For decades, he has sold gilded glamour to suckers — hawking hotels and golf courses, steaks and vodka — but with the presidency, he needed to sell them only lies that affirmed their white nationalism and justified their white fragility, and they would happily give him millions of dollars. Why erect a building when you could simply erect a myth? Trump will never willingly walk away from this.Now with the investigation into his involvement in the insurrection and his attempts to steal the election, he is learning once again from his failures. He is learning that his loyalty tests have to be even more severe. He is learning that his attempts to grab power must come at the beginning of his presidency, not the end. He is learning that it is possible to break the political system.Not only does Trump apparently want to run again for president; The New York Times reported that he might announce as soon as this month, partly to shield himself “from a stream of damaging revelations emerging from investigations into his attempts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election.”Trump isn’t articulating any fully fleshed-out policy objectives he hopes to accomplish for the country, but that should come as no surprise. His desire to regain power has nothing to do with the well-being of the country. His quest is brazenly self-interested. He wants to retake the presidency because its power is a shield against accountability and a mechanism through which to funnel money.Should his re-election bid prove successful, Trump’s second term will likely be far worse than the first.He would tighten his grip on all those near him. Mike Pence was a loyalist but in the end wouldn’t fully kowtow to him. The same can be said of Bill Barr. Trump will not again make the mistake of surrounding himself with people who would question his authority.Some of the people who demonstrated more loyalty to the country than they did to Trump during these investigations were lower-level staff members. For the former president, they, too, present an obstacle. But he might have a fix for that as well.Axios reported on Friday that “Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected, purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his ‘America First’ ideology.”According to Axios, this strategy appears to revolve around his reimposing an executive order that would reassign tens of thousands of federal employees with “some influence over policy” to Schedule F, which would strip them of their employee protections so that Trump could fire them without recourse to appeal.Perhaps most dangerous, though, is that Trump will have learned that while presidents aren’t too big to fail, they are too big to jail. If a president can operate with impunity, the presidency invites corruption, and it defies the ideals of this democracy.A Trump free of prosecution is a Trump free to rampage.Some could argue that prosecuting a former president would forever alter presidential politics. But I would counter that not prosecuting him threatens the collapse of the entire political ecosystem and therefore the country.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More