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      Four Takeaways From Jack Smith’s Brief in the Trump Election Case

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      The special counsel provided new details that help flesh out how Donald Trump sought to remain in power, while setting out his argument for the case to survive the Supreme Court’s immunity decision.The special counsel who has charged former President Donald J. Trump with a criminal conspiracy over his attempt to overturn his loss of the 2020 election has filed a lengthy brief laying out his key evidence along with an argument for why the case should be able to go forward despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in July on presidential immunity.Here are some key takeaways from the 165-page brief, which a judge largely unsealed on Wednesday:The prosecutor revealed new evidence.The brief contained far more detail than the indictment and included many specific allegations that were not previously part of the public record of the events leading up to the attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.None of the new details were game-changing revelations, but they add further texture to the available history. For example, part of the brief focuses on a social media post that Mr. Trump sent on the afternoon of the attack on the Capitol, telling supporters that Vice President Mike Pence had let them all down.Mr. Trump was sitting alone in the dining room off the Oval Office at the time. According to the brief, forensic data shows he was using the Twitter app on his phone and watching Fox News. Fox had just interviewed a man who was frustrated that Mr. Pence was not blocking the certification and then reported that a police officer may have been injured and the protesters had breached the Capitol.Rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesMr. Trump posted to Twitter that Mr. Pence had lacked the “courage” to do what was right. The mob became enraged at the vice president, and the Secret Service took him to a secure location. An aide to Mr. Trump rushed in to alert him to the peril Mr. Pence was in, but Mr. Trump looked at the aide and said only, “So what?” according to the brief.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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      How Trump Could Persecute His Political Adversaries

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      It has become commonplace for Donald Trump to talk about how he will use the Justice Department to punish his enemies should he regain the presidency. He routinely calls for prosecuting his current opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and regularly accuses her and President Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department against him. Though there is […] More

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      Rancher Gets 6 Months in Prison for Scheme to Create Giant Sheep Hybrid

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      Prosecutors said the Montanan illegally used tissue from a sheep from Central Asia and the testicles from a bighorn sheep to make large hybrids that he could sell at premium prices.An 81-year-old Montana rancher was sentenced to six months in federal prison on Monday for running a nearly decade-long scheme in which he used parts from protected wildlife to create a giant hybrid species of wild sheep to sell at premium prices, federal prosecutors said.The man, Arthur Schubarth, of Vaughn, Mont., illegally used tissue from a Marco Polo argali sheep from Central Asia and the testicles of a bighorn sheep native to the Rocky Mountains to make large hybrids of sheep that he could sell at high prices to shooting preserves, particularly in Texas, federal prosecutors said in a news release.Mr. Schubarth pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Montana in March to two felony wildlife crimes: conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act and substantively violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits the trafficking of illegally taken wildlife.The Associated Press reported that Judge Brian Morris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana said that he had weighed Mr. Schubarth’s age and lack of criminal record to fashion a sentence that would discourage others from attempting to “change the genetic makeup of the creatures.”Mr. Schubarth’s sentence includes three years of supervised release, according to court documents. He was also ordered to pay a $20,000 fine to the Lacey Act Reward Fund, a $4,000 payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and a $200 special assessment.Before sentencing, Mr. Schubarth told the judge, “I will have to work the rest of my life to repair everything I’ve done,” The A.P. reported.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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      How Google Defended Itself in the Ad Tech Antitrust Trial

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      The tech giant, which wrapped up its arguments in the federal monopoly trial, simply says it has the best product.Over the past week, Google has called more than a dozen witnesses to defend itself against claims by the Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general that it has a monopoly in advertising software that places ads on web pages, part of a second major federal antitrust trial against the tech giant.Google’s lawyers wrapped up their arguments in the case on Friday, and the government will now offer a rebuttal. Judge Leonie Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is presiding over the nonjury trial, is expected to deliver a ruling by the end of the year, after both sides summarize their cases in writing and deliver closing arguments.The government last week concluded its main arguments in the case, U.S. et al. v. Google, which was filed last year and accuses Google of building a monopoly over the technology that places ads on websites around the internet.The company’s defense has centered on how its actions were justified and how it helped publishers, advertisers and competition. Here are Google’s main arguments.How Google claims its actions were justifiedThe Justice Department and a group of states have accused the tech company of abusing control of its ad technology and violating antitrust law, in part through its 2008 acquisition of the advertising software company DoubleClick. Google has pushed up ad prices and harmed publishers by taking a big cut of each sale, the government argued.But Google’s lawyers countered that the ad tech industry was intensely competitive. They also accused the Justice Department of ignoring rivals like Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon to make its case sound more compelling.Visa, Google, JetBlue: A Guide to a New Era of Antitrust ActionBelow are 15 major cases brought by the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission since late 2020, as President Biden’s top antitrust enforcers have promised to sue monopolies and block big mergers.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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      Trump Golf Course Suspect Is Charged With Attempted Assassination

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      The new federal indictment in Florida comes on top of two gun charges against Ryan W. Routh, an itinerant contractor with an extensive criminal record.The man accused of lurking with a gun near former President Donald J. Trump at one of his Florida golf courses was charged on Tuesday with the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.The indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Miami and filed in Federal District Court in southern Florida. The case was randomly assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who recently dismissed the case related to Mr. Trump’s retention of classified documents after he left office.The new charges against the suspect, Ryan W. Routh, 58, were expected. They come on top of two gun charges against Mr. Routh, an itinerant contractor with an extensive criminal record who exhorted Iran to assassinate Mr. Trump.In addition to the assassination charges, Mr. Routh was charged with possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, along with assaulting or intimidating a Secret Service agent — possibly referring to reports of his pointing the rifle in the direction of the agents before fleeing the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.Earlier on Tuesday, a federal magistrate judge ordered Mr. Routh held until trial, citing his “lengthy criminal history with over a hundred arrests,” a history of weapons violations and his recent travel to Ukraine and Taiwan, which made him a flight risk.Just hours before that, federal prosecutors in North Carolina unsealed charges against Mr. Routh’s son, Oran A. Routh, accusing him of buying and possessing child pornography. An F.B.I. search of his apartment for evidence in his father’s case uncovered “hundreds” of sexual images on his phone involving children as young as 6, according to a court filing.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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      Iran Hackers Sought to Send Stolen Trump Campaign Information to Biden Camp

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      The emails were part of a sweeping effort by Iran to steal and disseminate sensitive internal communications between aides working for former President Donald J. Trump.Iranian hackers seeking to influence the 2024 election sent excerpts from pilfered Trump campaign documents to people associated with President Biden’s re-election campaign this summer, but the recipients did not respond, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.The emails, sent in late June and early July, were part of a sweeping effort by Iran to steal and disseminate sensitive internal communications between aides working for former President Donald J. Trump after it gained access to the email accounts of a longtime political adviser, Roger J. Stone.“Iranian malicious cyberactors” sent unsolicited emails that contained “an excerpt taken from stolen, nonpublic material from former President Trump’s campaign,” officials at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the F.B.I. and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wrote in a joint statement.The intended recipients, who were not identified in the statement, did not appear to have replied. Even as federal officials have suggested that the hackers also targeted the Biden and Harris campaigns, they believe that the emails including the stolen Trump material were sent to be disseminated to his political enemies.“This is further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election to help Kamala Harris and Joe Biden because they know President Trump will restore his tough sanctions and stand against their reign of terror,” said Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.A spokeswoman for the Harris campaign, Morgan Finkelstein, noted that a few people were “targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” though she added that she was not aware that any material had been sent to campaign accounts.“We have cooperated with the appropriate law enforcement authorities since we were made aware that individuals associated with the then-Biden campaign were among the intended victims of this foreign influence operation,” she added.The Justice Department’s national security division has been investigating the Stone attack and could charge some of those responsible as early as this week, according to several officials familiar with the situation.In a speech last week, the senior Justice Department official responsible for investigating overseas election interference and the head of the department’s national security division, Matthew G. Olsen, accused Russia of seeking to undermine Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to bolster Mr. Trump’s re-election chances.He also cited Iran’s recent hacking of the Trump campaign as evidence that some adversaries were also seeking to damage Mr. Trump’s chances of victory.In August, the Justice Department indicted a Pakistani citizen with ties to Iran for plotting assassination attempts against top political figures, including the former president. More

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      Justice Department Files $100 Million Suit in Fatal Baltimore Bridge Collapse

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      The crash of the Dali into the Francis Scott Key Bridge killed six people. The federal government says the owner and the operator were “grossly negligent” and “reckless.”The U.S. Justice Department filed a legal claim on Wednesday against the owner and operator of the container ship that collapsed the Francis Scott Key Bridge last March, killing six workers and paralyzing the Port of Baltimore for weeks.The lawsuit asserts that the companies’ actions leading up to the catastrophe were “outrageous, grossly negligent, willful, wanton, and reckless.”The government is seeking more than $100 million in damages to cover the costs of the sprawling emergency response to the disaster and the federal aid to port employees who were put out of work. “Those costs should be borne by the shipowner and operator, not the American taxpayer,” said Benjamin Mizer, a deputy associate attorney general who is in charge of the Justice Department’s civil division. He added that the department would be seeking punitive damages as well, “to try to keep this type of conduct from ever happening again.” The action on Wednesday did not name an amount for the punitive damages the department was seeking.Filed in federal court in Maryland, the Justice Department’s action lays out in detail what investigators have learned about the ship’s short and catastrophic journey that night, describing a cascade of failures onboard and multiple points when the disaster could have been prevented.Because of poor maintenance or “jury-rigged” fixes to serious problems aboard the ship, known as the Dali, “none of the four means available to help control the Dali — her propeller, rudder, anchor, or bow thruster — worked when they were needed to avert or even mitigate this disaster,” the suit asserts.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