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      Matt Gaetz, a Bomb-Thrower for the Justice Department

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      President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be attorney general has set a new bar for in-your-face nominations.In selecting Representative Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general, President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen an undisguised attack dog to preside over the Department of Justice.Mr. Gaetz, 42, a Florida Republican and an unswerving loyalist to Mr. Trump, has a history that under conventional circumstances would make his confirmation prospects appear insurmountable.He was investigated by the Justice Department on suspicion of child sex trafficking. This year, after the government case was shuttered, the House Committee on Ethics opened its own inquiry into the matter, which effectively ended on Wednesday night after Mr. Gaetz resigned from his seat. Mr. Gaetz has also been accused of showing photos of nude women to colleagues on the House floor and of seeking a pardon from the previous Trump White House. He has denied each of these allegations.Mr. Gaetz is also an avowed enemy of virtually every top Republican not named Trump. He led the charge last year to oust one Republican leader, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and this year openly celebrated the resignations of two others — Senator Mitch McConnell, who announced he would be retiring as minority leader, and Ronna McDaniel, who stepped down as chairwoman of the Republican Party National Committee.“We’ve now 86’d: McCarthy, McDaniel, McConnell,” Mr. Gaetz exulted on the social media platform X in March.“I am not some ‘Lord of the Flies’ nihilist,” Mr. Gaetz insisted to The New York Times in January 2023, just after he had relinquished his five-day blockade of Mr. McCarthy’s eventually successful quest to be speaker. But nine months later, Mr. Gaetz helped pushed Mr. McCarthy out of the job for good.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs and the Limits of the ‘Family Man’ Defense

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      On Monday, Sean Combs was arrested in Manhattan on racketeering and sex trafficking charges. If he’s convicted of the racketeering charge, it could potentially land him a life sentence. His legal team defended him that day with references to his role as a father. “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children and working to uplift the Black community,” they said in a statement. “He is an imperfect person, but he is not a criminal.”Combs has pleaded not guilty to these charges. Last year, after being accused of sexual assault in four separate lawsuits, Combs defended himself in part by invoking his family: “Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family and for the truth.”The latest charges are vile, describing years of sexual and physical abuse, enabled by Combs’s vast fortune and the pull of his celebrity. The government outlines the way Combs and his staff allegedly used their power to “intimidate, threaten and lure female victims into Combs’s orbit, often under the pretense of a romantic relationship. Combs then used force, threats of force and coercion to cause victims to engage in extended sex acts with male commercial sex workers.”Combs was denied bail on Tuesday. His lawyers tried to appeal the decision with a letter to the judge. In this missive, Combs’s lawyers paint “victim 1” as simply a jilted, lonely lover. “That one person was an adult woman who lived alone, who never lived with Sean Combs. She had her own friends, she had her own life, as adults tend to do. Mr. Combs and this person were very much in love for a long time,” the letter states. “This one person often expressed anger and jealousy because Mr. Combs had another girlfriend, as will be testified to by many witnesses and as the written communications show.”Despite the fact that the world has seen video evidence of Combs assaulting his ex-girlfriend, his lawyers seem to believe that pitting Combs, a “loving family man,” against an “adult woman who lived alone” would be an effective defense.They’re trying it because, to some extent, we still assign a positive moral value to getting married and having children. It’s why Republicans keep using Kamala Harris’s lack of biological children to attack her character. Combs’s lawyers are also likely playing on built in prejudices against Black women in particular, who have always had a harder time being seen as respectable, aspirational or worthy of protection in the public eye.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sean Combs Arrested in Manhattan After Grand Jury Indictment

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      The music mogul has been under mounting scrutiny since a 2023 lawsuit by his former girlfriend, Cassie, accused him of sex trafficking and years of abuse.Sean Combs, the music mogul whose career has been upended by sexual assault lawsuits and a federal investigation, was arrested at a Manhattan hotel on Monday evening after a grand jury indicted him.The indictment is sealed and the charges were not announced but Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said he believed he was being charged with racketeering and sex trafficking.A statement from Mr. Combs’s legal team said they were disappointed with the decision to prosecute him and noted that he had been cooperative with the investigation and had “voluntarily relocated to New York last week in anticipation of these charges.”“Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is a music icon, self-made entrepreneur, loving family man, and proven philanthropist who has spent the last 30 years building an empire, adoring his children, and working to uplift the Black community,” the statement said. “He is an imperfect person but he is not a criminal.”Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement posted on social media late Monday that “we expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning and will have more to say at that time.”Mr. Agnifilo said Mr. Combs had been arrested by officers with Homeland Security Investigations at about 8:30 p.m. at the hotel where he was staying, the Park Hyatt New York on 57th Street. It is expected he will be held overnight and then arraigned on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Backpage Founder Gets Five Years in Case That Shut Down Website

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      Michael Lacey, 76, co-founded the website that became known for its ads for prostitution. He was convicted on a money laundering charge in a case that included accusations of sex trafficking.A founder of the shuttered classified advertising website Backpage was sentenced on Wednesday to five years in federal prison in connection with a sweeping case that led to the closing of the website and accusations against its executives that they promoted sex trafficking, prosecutors said.Michael Lacey, 76, of Arizona, was convicted on a single count of international concealment money laundering in November after being charged in a 100-count indictment in 2018 with several other defendants who, prosecutors said, conspired to promote prostitution ads and launder earnings of more than $500 million made from the scheme between 2010 and 2018. The case was tried in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona.In addition to the five-year prison sentence, Mr. Lacey was ordered Wednesday to pay a $3 million fine, prosecutors said.The jury that convicted Mr. Lacey last year was deadlocked on 84 other charges against him, including several charges that he helped advertise prostitution on Backpage. The deadlock led U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa to declare a mistrial on those counts. It was the second mistrial in the case. Mr. Lacey would later be acquitted of several of the counts, but could still face 30 of them, according to The Associated Press.Two other executives, Scott Spear and John “Jed” Brunst, were convicted alongside Mr. Lacey on both money laundering and prostitution facilitation counts.They were acquitted on some of those charges in April, but each received 10-year sentences Wednesday, according to a spokesman for the Justice Department, Joshua Stueve.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Look at Washington State’s ‘Strippers’ Bill of Rights’

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      Signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee, the legislation provides wide-ranging protections for adult dancers.Washington State recently enacted a law that includes wide-ranging workplace protections for adult dancers, who have long fought for such measures across the country.The law, known as the Strippers’ Bill of Rights, was signed by Gov. Jay Inslee on March 25. It includes anti-discrimination provisions and mandatory club employee training.Supporters of the law say that it includes incentives for establishments to comply, as it carves a path for them to obtain liquor licenses. The state traditionally has prohibited venues that allow sexual performances to sell alcohol.“It is crucial that we confront the stigma surrounding adult entertainment and recognize the humanity of those involved in the industry,” State Senator Rebecca Saldaña of Seattle, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said in a statement.“Strippers are workers,” she said, “and they should be given the same rights and protections as any other labor force.”Madison Zack-Wu, the campaign manager for Strippers Are Workers, a dancer-led organization that supported the bill, said in an interview that “the most important part of this policy is that it was created by dancers, for ourselves in our own working conditions.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Why Is Sean Combs the Subject of a Homeland Security Investigation?

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      The department has a division that often directs inquiries into sex trafficking allegations, like those cited in recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs.The raids of Sean Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area this week raised a barrage of questions about the nature of the inquiry, which a federal official said was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.The government has said little about the basis for the search warrants, but the raids came after five civil lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs in recent months that accused him of violating sex trafficking laws. In four of the suits women accused him of rape, and in one a man accused him of unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Combs, a hip-hop impresario known as Puff Daddy and Diddy who has been a high-profile figure in the music industry since the 1990s, has vehemently denied all of the allegations, calling them “sickening.” Officials have not publicly named him as a target of any prosecution.As the civil suits against Mr. Combs illustrate, the term human or sex trafficking has a broader meaning in the law than perhaps the more popularly understood image of organized crime and forced prostitution rings.“Traditionally you think of trafficking as a pimp who has a stable of victims and then is trafficking them in the traditional sense of the word, for money,” said Jim Cole, a former supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations who oversaw human trafficking cases, “but there are lots of forms of trafficking.”The breadth of trafficking investigations has grown with the recent uptick in sexual abuse claims and the use of the internet by traffickers. Homeland Security Investigations often leads such criminal investigations, although the department is most commonly associated with immigration and transnational issues.In the current inquiry, federal investigators in New York have been interviewing potential witnesses about sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Combs for several months, according to a person familiar with the interviews. Some of the questions involved the solicitation and transportation of prostitutes, as well as any payments or promises associated with sex acts, the person said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About the Accusations Against Andrew Tate

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      The antagonistic online influencer is facing charges in two separate cases.Andrew Tate, an online influencer known for his displays of wealth and his misogynistic views, is facing criminal accusations over sexual misconduct in two separate cases.Mr. Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, have since 2022 been battling charges from Romanian prosecutors that include human trafficking.They were detained this week on a separate arrest warrant issued by the British authorities, a spokesman for the brothers said, this one accusing them of acts of sexual aggression.Here’s what to know about the situation.Who is Andrew Tate?Mr. Tate, who is both British and American, is a former kickboxer who has gained a large online following by marketing a brand of antagonistic masculinity tied to lavish displays of wealth. That brand has included sexist views that have demeaned women and argued that men are victims of feminism.Online and in interviews, Mr. Tate has said that women hold some responsibility if they are raped and that they “belong” to men in marriage, while men should be providers and protect them.Mr. Tate sells access to an online “academy” and a “War Room,” where his fans discuss get-rich-quick schemes. Educators in Britain have warned that his messaging is reaching young boys who are wrestling with their own ideas of masculinity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hochul and Zeldin Will Face Off in the Fall

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      Gov. Kathy Hochul cruised to victory in the Democratic race but could face a tough fight in November.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’re following two stories — the results in the New York primaries for governor, and Ghislaine Maxwell’s 20-year prison sentence for serving as Jeffrey Epstein’s enabler.Hiram Durán for The New York TimesGov. Kathy Hochul cruised to victory in the Democratic primary. The race was called by The Associated Press 25 minutes after the polls closed, cementing Hochul’s place as the state’s top Democrat after less than a year in the state’s top job.She withstood challenges from Democratic opponents on her left and her right — Representative Thomas Suozzi, who made crime and public safety his main issues, and Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, who said she had not addressed problems like soaring housing prices.As my colleague Nicholas Fandos writes, Hochul’s victory set the stage for a potentially bruising fall campaign against Representative Lee Zeldin, a conservative congressional ally of former President Donald Trump who defeated three other Republicans in their primary. With warning lights flashing for Democrats nationally, Zeldin and his supporters hope they can build on discontent about inflation and crime and win a statewide race in New York for the first time in 20 years.The Democratic contest for lieutenant governor also went Hochul’s way: Her handpicked running mate, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, survived a challenge from Ana María Archila, a progressive activist who was aligned with Williams and had been endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Diana Reyna, Suozzi’s running made, was on track to finish in third place.For Hochul, who took office less than a year ago after the resignation of Andrew Cuomo amid a sexual harassment scandal, victory in the primary was a crucial step toward winning a full term in November. She has plenty of money at her disposal, having amassed roughly $34 million in donations as of late last week.She spent the final days of the campaign presenting herself as a protector of liberal values in the wake of landmark Supreme Court rulings on abortion rights and gun regulations. Hochul, the state’s first female governor, stood, symbolically, under a glass ceiling at a victory party in Manhattan. “To the women of New York,” she declared, “this one’s for you.”“We cannot and will not let right-wing extremists set us backwards on all the decades of progress we’ve made right here,” she added, “whether it’s a Trump cheerleader running for the governor of the state of New York or Trump-appointed justices on the Supreme Court.”Zeldin defeated Andrew Giuliani, who had captured far-right support based on his connections to former President Trump, his former boss, and his lineage as the son of former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Zeldin also beat Rob Astorino, the party’s nominee for governor in 2014, and Harry Wilson, a corporate turnaround specialist who spent more than more than $10 million of his own money on the race.WeatherExpect a sunny day with a high near the mid-80s. In the evening, it will be mostly clear with temperatures around the high 60s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Monday (Independence Day).The latest New York newsJacquelyn Martin/Associated PressPoliticsRoe v. Wade fallout: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for an investigation into whether two Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade should be impeached for “lying under oath” at their confirmation hearings.Gun laws: New York lawmakers will consider creating weapon-free zones and making handgun bans the default condition in businesses, and New Jersey might require those who carry to be insured.More local newsSchool budget cuts: New York City public school funding is tied to student enrollment, and students have been leaving city schools in droves for years. Now, the city is saying schools must make cuts.R. Kelly trial: The former R&B singer R. Kelly will be sentenced in Brooklyn federal court on Wednesday for commanding a vast scheme to recruit women, as well as underage girls and boys, for sex.Rudolph Giuliani: Mayor Eric Adams said the Staten Island district attorney should investigate former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani for falsely reporting a crime after video footage undermined Giuliani’s allegations that he had been physically assaulted by a supermarket worker.Arts & CultureGlobal jazz: Jazz at Lincoln Center’s 35th season will present 22 programs from late September through next June, and feature performers from five continents.The Met’s chief executive steps down: Daniel Weiss will step down in June 2023 as president and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Food crawl? Try swimming: A dedicated band of swimmers (and eaters) explores New York restaurants by water, with lunch as the reward.Maxwell sentenced to 20 yearsGhislaine Maxwell, right, and the financier Jeffrey Epstein.U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York/AFP, via Getty ImagesGhislaine Maxwell is the well-traveled former socialite who once hobnobbed with presidents, princes, moguls and magnates — and who was convicted last year of sex trafficking for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to exploit and abuse underage girls. On Tuesday, saying that “the damage done to these young girls was incalculable,” Judge Alison Nathan sentenced Maxwell to 20 years in prison.Nathan also imposed a $750,000 fine, noting that Epstein had left Maxwell a $10 million bequest, money one of Maxwell’s lawyers said she has not received. The disgraced financier was awaiting his own trial on sex trafficking charges when he hanged himself in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019, leaving his culpability unresolved forever.Bobbi Sternheim, one of Maxwell’s lawyers, said Maxwell would appeal, adding that Maxwell had been “vilified” and “pilloried” and “tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.” She suggested that jurors had treated Maxwell as a stand-in for Epstein, who Sternheim said had escaped accountability: “Clever and cunning to the end, Jeffery Epstein left Ghislaine Maxwell holding the whole bag.”The sentencing served as a bookend to a lurid case that spotlighted a world where the halo of glamour concealed the routine infliction of intimate, life-changing cruelty. The case against Maxwell showed how she and Epstein used wealth and status to exploit women and girls as young as 14 years old. Prosecutors said she recruited them for him.The judge said Maxwell was “not being punished in place of Epstein or as a proxy for Epstein,” calling what Maxwell did “heinous and predatory.”Maxwell’s British-accented voice was heard for the first time since her arrest nearly two years ago. Standing at the lectern in blue prison scrubs, her ankles shackled, she acknowledged “the pain and the anguish” of the women who had addressed the court at the sentencing hearing.But she stopped short of apologizing or taking responsibility for the crimes for which she was convicted.Understand the Ghislaine Maxwell CaseCard 1 of 5An Epstein confidant. More