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      The Radical Strategy Behind Trump’s Promise to ‘Go After’ Biden

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      Conservatives with close ties to Donald J. Trump are laying out a “paradigm-shifting” legal rationale to erase the Justice Department’s independence from the president.When Donald J. Trump responded to his latest indictment by promising to appoint a special prosecutor if he’s re-elected to “go after” President Biden and his family, he signaled that a second Trump term would fully jettison the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., on Tuesday night after his arraignment earlier that day in Miami. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”Mr. Trump’s message was that the Justice Department charged him only because he is Mr. Biden’s political opponent, so he would invert that supposed politicization. In reality, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, two Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and the financial dealings of his son, Hunter.But by suggesting the current prosecutors investigating the Bidens were not “real,” Mr. Trump appeared to be promising his supporters that he would appoint an ally who would bring charges against his political enemies regardless of the facts.The naked politics infusing Mr. Trump’s headline-generating threat underscored something significant. In his first term, Mr. Trump gradually ramped up pressure on the Justice Department, eroding its traditional independence from White House political control. He is now unabashedly saying he will throw that effort into overdrive if he returns to power.Mr. Trump’s promise fits into a larger movement on the right to gut the F.B.I., overhaul a Justice Department conservatives claim has been “weaponized” against them and abandon the norm — which many Republicans view as a facade — that the department should operate independently from the president.Two of the most important figures in this effort work at the same Washington-based organization, the Center for Renewing America: Jeffrey B. Clark and Russell T. Vought. During the Trump presidency, Mr. Vought served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Clark, who oversaw the Justice Department’s civil and environmental divisions, was the only senior official at the department who tried to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.Jeffrey B. Clark was the only senior official in the Justice Department who tried to help Mr. Trump overturn the 2020 election.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAlong with Mr. Clark, Russell T. Vought argues that presidents should treat the Justice Department no differently than any other cabinet agency.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesMr. Trump wanted to make Mr. Clark attorney general during his final days in office but stopped after the senior leadership of the Justice Department threatened to resign en masse. Mr. Clark is now a figure in one of the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power.Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought are promoting a legal rationale that would fundamentally change the way presidents interact with the Justice Department. They argue that U.S. presidents should not keep federal law enforcement at arm’s length but instead should treat the Justice Department no differently than any other cabinet agency. They are condemning Mr. Biden and Democrats for what they claim is the politicization of the justice system, but at the same time pushing an intellectual framework that a future Republican president might use to justify directing individual law enforcement investigations.Mr. Clark, who is a favorite of Mr. Trump’s and is likely to be in contention for a senior Justice Department position if Mr. Trump wins re-election in 2024, wrote a constitutional analysis, titled “The U.S. Justice Department is not independent,” that will most likely serve as a blueprint for a second Trump administration.Like other conservatives, Mr. Clark adheres to the so-called unitary executive theory, which holds that the president of the United States has the power to directly control the entire federal bureaucracy and Congress cannot fracture that control by giving some officials independent decision-making authority.There are debates among conservatives about how far to push that doctrine — and whether some agencies should be allowed to operate independently — but Mr. Clark takes a maximalist view. Mr. Trump does, too, though he’s never been caught reading the Federalist Papers.In statements to The New York Times, both Mr. Clark and Mr. Vought leaned into their battle against the Justice Department, with Mr. Clark framing it as a fight over the survival of America itself.Conservatives have been attacking President Biden and the Justice Department, claiming it has been “weaponized.”Doug Mills/The New York Times“Biden and D.O.J. are baying for Trump’s blood so they can put fear into America,” Mr. Clark wrote in his statement. “The Constitution and our Article IV ‘Republican Form of Government’ cannot survive like this.”Mr. Vought wrote in his statement that the Justice Department was “ground zero for the weaponization of the government against the American people.” He added, “Conservatives are waking up to the fact that federal law enforcement is weaponized against them and as a result are embracing paradigm-shifting policies to reverse that trend.”Mr. Trump often exploited gaps between what the rules technically allow and the norms of self-restraint that guided past presidents of both parties. In 2021, House Democrats passed the Protecting Our Democracy Act, a legislative package intended to codify numerous previous norms as law, including requiring the Justice Department to give Congress logs of its contacts with White House officials. But Republicans portrayed the bill as an attack on Mr. Trump and it died in the Senate.The modern era for the Justice Department traces back to the Watergate scandal and the period of government reforms that followed President Richard M. Nixon’s abuses. The norm took root that the president can set broad policies for the Justice Department — directing it to put greater resources and emphasis on particular types of crimes or adopting certain positions before the Supreme Court — but should not get involved in specific criminal case decisions absent extraordinary circumstances, such as if a case has foreign policy implications.Since then, it has become routine at confirmation hearings for attorney general nominees to have senators elicit promises that they will resist any effort by the president to politicize law enforcement by intruding on matters of prosecutorial judgment and discretion.As the Republican Party has morphed in response to Mr. Trump’s influence, his attacks on federal law enforcement — which trace back to the early Russia investigation in 2017, the backlash to his firing of then-F.B.I. director James B. Comey Jr. and the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel — have become enmeshed in the ideology of his supporters.Mr. Trump’s top rival for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, also rejects the norm that the Justice Department should be independent.Gov. Ron DeSantis has likewise argued that the Justice Department should be an extension of the executive branch.Kate Medley for The New York Times“Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the D.O.J. and F.B.I. are — quote — ‘independent,’” Mr. DeSantis said in May on Fox News. “They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States.”Several other Republican candidates acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents — as outlined in the indictment prepared by the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his team — was a serious problem. But even these candidates — including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Vice President Mike Pence — have also accused the Justice Department of being overly politicized and meting out unequal justice.The most powerful conservative think tanks are working on plans that would go far beyond “reforming” the F.B.I., even though its Senate-confirmed directors in the modern era have all been Republicans. They want to rip it up and start again.“The F.B.I. has become a political weapon for the ruling elite rather than an impartial, law-enforcement agency,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, a mainstay of the conservative movement since the Reagan years. He added, “Small-ball reforms that increase accountability within the F.B.I. fail to meet the moment. The F.B.I. must be rebuilt from the ground up — reforming it in its current state is impossible.”Conservative media channels and social media influencers have been hammering the F.B.I. and the Justice Department for months since the F.B.I. search of Mar-a-Lago, following a playbook they honed while defending Mr. Trump during the investigation into whether his campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.Senator Tim Scott is among the other Republican presidential candidates who say the Justice Department is politicized.Travis Dove for The New York TimesOn its most-watched nighttime programs, Fox News has been all-in on attacks against the Justice Department, including the accusation, presented without evidence, that Mr. Biden had directed the prosecution of Mr. Trump. As the former president addressed his supporters on Tuesday night at his Bedminster club, Fox News displayed a split screen — Mr. Trump on the right and Mr. Biden on the left. The chyron on the bottom of the screen read: “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.”As president, Mr. Trump saw his attorney general as simply another one of his personal lawyers. He was infuriated when his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the Russia investigation — and then refused to reverse that decision to shut down the case.After firing Mr. Sessions, Mr. Trump believed he had found someone who would do his bidding in William P. Barr, who had been in the role during George H.W. Bush’s presidency. Mr. Barr had an expansive view of a president’s constitutionally prescribed powers, and shared Mr. Trump’s critical views of the origins of the Russia investigation.Under Mr. Barr, the Justice Department overruled career prosecutors’ recommendations on the length of a sentence for Mr. Trump’s longest-serving political adviser, Roger J. Stone Jr., and sought to shut down a case against Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who had already pleaded guilty. Both cases stemmed from the Russia investigation.But when Mr. Trump wanted to use the Justice Department to stay in power after he lost the election, he grew enraged when Mr. Barr refused to comply. Mr. Barr ultimately resigned in late 2020. More

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      Verificación de la defensa de Trump en el caso de los documentos clasificados

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      El expresidente hizo comparaciones inexactas con otros políticos, tergiversó el proceso de clasificación y lanzó ataques con imprecisiones contra funcionarios.Horas después de declararse no culpable ante un tribunal federal en Miami por los cargos relacionados con su manejo de documentos clasificados, el expresidente Donald Trump defendió su conducta el 13 de junio con una serie de falsedades ya conocidas.En su club de golf en Bedminster, Nueva Jersey, Trump hizo comparaciones engañosas con otros personajes políticos, malinterpretó el proceso de clasificación y lanzó ataques con imprecisiones contra funcionarios.Aquí ofrecemos una verificación de datos de los argumentos de Trump sobre la investigación.Lo que dijo Trump“Amenazarme con 400 años en la cárcel por tener en mi poder mis propios documentos presidenciales, que es lo que prácticamente todos los presidentes han hecho, es una de las teorías legales más ofensivas y agresivas presentadas en la historia ante un tribunal estadounidense”.Falso. La Ley de Registros Presidenciales de 1978, que rige la conservación y retención de registros oficiales de los expresidentes, le da a la Administración Nacional de Archivos y Registros (NARA, por su sigla en inglés) total propiedad y control sobre los registros presidenciales. La legislación, que hace una distinción clara entre registros oficiales y documentos personales, se ha aplicado a todos los presidentes desde Ronald Reagan.La agencia señaló que “asumió la custodia física y legal de los registros presidenciales de las gestiones de Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush y Ronald Reagan cuando esos presidentes abandonaron el cargo”.De manera independiente, después de que Trump en repetidas ocasiones y engañosamente comparó su manejo de registros con el de su predecesor inmediato, la Administración Nacional de Archivos indicó en un comunicado que Barack Obama entregó sus documentos, tanto los clasificados como los que no lo estaban, de conformidad con la ley. La agencia también afirmó no estar al tanto de que se haya perdido alguna caja de registros presidenciales del gobierno de Obama.Lo que dijo Trump“El presidente toma la decisión de separar materiales personales de los registros presidenciales durante su mandato, y bajo su entera discreción”.Falso. La Ley de Registros Presidenciales distingue qué constituye material personal (como diarios o documentos de campañas políticas) y qué se clasifica como registros oficiales. No le da al presidente “discrecionalidad” para determinar qué es un registro personal y qué no lo es. Según la ley, el presidente saliente debe separar los documentos personales de los registros oficiales antes de abandonar el cargo.Agentes del FBI realizaron una búsqueda en el inmueble de Mar-a-Lago de Trump en agosto, más de un año después de que el abogado general de la NARA solicitó que se recuperaran materiales y tras meses de reiteradas consultas de funcionarios de la agencia y el Departamento de Justicia.Lo que dijo Trump“Se suponía que debía negociar con la NARA, que es exactamente lo que estaba haciendo hasta la redada en Mar-a-Lago organizada por agentes armados del FBI”.Falso. La Ley de Registros Presidenciales no establece un proceso de negociación entre el presidente y la NARA. La búsqueda realizada en la residencia de Trump en Florida, autorizada por los tribunales, ocurrió después de que se opuso en repetidas ocasiones a responder a las solicitudes del gobierno para que devolviera el material, incluso después de recibir una citación.Lo que dijo Trump“Biden envió 1850 cajas a la Universidad de Delaware, lo que dificultó la búsqueda, independientemente de quién la realizara. Se niega a entregarlas y se niega a permitir siquiera que alguien las vea, y luego dicen que se comporta con gran amabilidad”.Esta afirmación es engañosa. En 2012, Joe Biden le donó a la Universidad de Delaware 1850 cajas de documentos de la época en que fungió como senador del estado desde 1973 hasta 2009. A diferencia de los documentos presidenciales, que deben entregarse a la NARA al término del mandato del presidente, los documentos de los miembros del Congreso no están cubiertos por la Ley de Registros Presidenciales. Es común que los senadores y representantes les donen esos artículos a universidades, institutos de investigación o instalaciones históricas.La Universidad de Delaware convino en no darle acceso al público a los documentos de la época de Biden como senador hasta dos años después de su retiro de la vida pública. Pero el FBI sí revisó la colección en febrero como parte de una investigación independiente sobre el manejo de Biden de los documentos de gobierno y en colaboración con su equipo legal. The New York Times informó, en su momento, que continuaba el análisis del material y que todo parecía indicar que no contenía documentos clasificados.Lo que dijo Trump“Cuando la descubrieron, Hillary borró y ‘lavó con ácido’. Nadie hace eso, por los costos involucrados, pero es muy concluyente. Treinta y tres mil correos electrónicos en desafío a una citación del Congreso que ya se había emitido. La citación estaba ahí y ella decidió borrar, lavar con ácido y luego aplastar y destruir sus teléfonos celulares con un martillo. Y luego dicen que yo participé en una obstrucción”.Este es un argumento engañoso. Existen varias diferencias clave entre el caso de Trump y el uso por parte de Hillary Clinton de un servidor de correo electrónico privado cuando era secretaria de Estado, que Trump también describió de manera imprecisa.Una diferencia crucial es que varias investigaciones oficiales han concluido que Clinton no manejó indebidamente material clasificado de manera sistemática o deliberada, además de que un informe preparado en 2018 por el inspector general respaldó la decisión del FBI de no presentar cargos contra Clinton.En cambio, a Trump se le acusa de haber manejado indebidamente documentos clasificados y obstruir varias acciones del gobierno con el propósito de recuperarlos, así como de hacer declaraciones falsas ante algunos funcionarios. La acusación formal permitió tener acceso la semana pasada a fotografías de documentos guardados, en algunos casos, de manera veleidosa, como cajas apiladas en una regadera y otras en el escenario de un salón de baile frecuentado por visitantes.Según la investigación del FBI sobre el asunto, los abogados de Clinton le proporcionaron al Departamento de Estado en 2014 alrededor de 30.000 correos electrónicos relacionados con el trabajo y le ordenaron a un empleado que borrara todos los correos electrónicos personales de más de 60 días de antigüedad. En 2015, después de que el Times dio la noticia de que Clinton había usado una cuenta personal de correo electrónico, el comité de la Cámara de Representantes liderado por republicanos que estaba a cargo de la investigación de los ataques de 2012 contra puestos de avanzada estadounidenses en Bengasi, Libia, envió una citación en la que solicitaba todos los correos electrónicos de esa cuenta relacionados con Libia.Ese mismo mes, un empleado de la empresa que administraba el servidor de Clinton se percató de que en realidad no había borrado los correos electrónicos personales como se le pidió en 2014. Entonces procedió a aplicar un programa de software gratuito llamado BleachBit —no ácido real ni ningún otro compuesto químico— para borrar alrededor de 30.000 correos electrónicos personales.El FBI encontró miles de correos electrónicos adicionales relacionados con el trabajo que Clinton no le entregó al Departamento de Estado, pero James Comey, quien era director de la agencia en ese momento, declaró que no había “evidencia de que los correos electrónicos adicionales relacionados con el trabajo se hubieran borrado intencionalmente con el fin de ocultarlos”.Lo más seguro es que Clinton esté en desacuerdo con la aseveración de Trump de que el FBI y el Departamento de Justicia la “protegieron”, pues ha dicho que las acciones de Comey, junto con la interferencia rusa, le costaron las elecciones de 2016.Lo que dijo Trump“Por supuesto que exoneró a Mike Pence. Me da gusto. Mike no hizo nada malo, aunque tenía documentos clasificados en su casa. Pero lo exoneraron. Y el caso de Biden es otra cosa”.Esta afirmación es engañosa. Se encontraron documentos clasificados tanto en la casa del exvicepresidente Mike Pence en Indiana, en enero, como en la antigua oficina de Biden en un centro de investigación en Washington en noviembre y en su residencia de Delaware en enero. El Departamento de Justicia decidió no presentar cargos contra Pence; en cuanto a Biden, la investigación sobre su manejo de materiales está en proceso.Pero las diferencias entre esos casos y el de Trump son significativas, en particular en lo que respecta al volumen de documentos encontrados y la respuesta de Biden y de Pence.En la casa de Pence se encontró aproximadamente una decena de documentos marcados como clasificados. El FBI inspeccionó su casa en febrero, con su consentimiento, y encontró un documento clasificado más. No está claro cuántos documentos clasificados tenía en su posesión Biden, pero sus abogados han dicho que se encontró “un pequeño número” en su antigua oficina y alrededor de media docena en su casa de Delaware.En contraste, Trump tenía “cientos” de documentos clasificados, según la acusación formal del Departamento de Justicia, en la que se indica que algunos de los registros contenían información sobre los programas nucleares del país y “posibles vulnerabilidades de Estados Unidos y sus aliados a ataques militares”. En total, el gobierno ha recuperado más de 300 archivos con marcas de clasificado de su casa y su club privado de Florida.Otra diferencia es que representantes de Pence y Biden han dicho que no se percataron de que habían conservado esos documentos y no tardaron en informar a la NARA cuando lo descubrieron. Además, ambos cooperaron con funcionarios del gobierno para devolver los documentos y, al parecer, cumplieron voluntariamente con la realización de búsquedas en sus propiedades.En contraste, Trump se opuso en repetidas ocasiones, durante meses, a las solicitudes de devolver materiales y, según se lee en la acusación formal, desempeñó un papel activo para ocultarles a los investigadores documentos clasificados. La NARA le informó a Trump en mayo de 2021 que faltaban ciertos documentos presidenciales. Algunos agentes recuperaron 15 cajas de Mar-a-Lago en enero de 2022, pero sospechaban que todavía faltaban registros. Siete meses después, agentes del FBI registraron el inmueble de Florida y recuperaron más documentos.Lo que dijo Trump“A diferencia de mí, que contaba con total autoridad de desclasificación en mi carácter de presidente, Joe Biden, quien era vicepresidente, no tenía facultades para desclasificar y tampoco el derecho de tener en su posesión los documentos. No tenía ese derecho”.Esta afirmación es engañosa. Los vicepresidentes sí cuentan con facultades para desclasificar ciertos materiales, aunque el alcance de esas facultades no se ha cuestionado explícitamente ante los tribunales.Trump ha insistido en otras ocasiones en que contaba con facultades para desclasificar materiales sin necesidad de informarle a nadie. Existen procedimientos formales para levantar el secreto oficial de la información, pero el debate legal sobre si los presidentes deben cumplirlos no se ha resuelto, según el Colegio de Abogados de Estados Unidos y el Servicio de Investigación del Congreso, un organismo sin afiliación partidista. Un tribunal federal de apelaciones decidió en 2020 que “levantar el secreto oficial de materiales, incluso si lo hace el presidente, debe someterse a procedimientos establecidos”. No obstante, la Corte Suprema no ha emitido ningún fallo al respecto.De cualquier forma, cabe señalar que Trump siguió estos procedimientos con respecto a algunos documentos; por ejemplo, emitió un memorando el día previo al final de su mandato con el que desclasificó información relativa a la investigación del FBI sobre las relaciones de su campaña de 2016 con Rusia.Por otra parte, expertos legales han señalado que la clasificación de información sobre armas nucleares o “datos restringidos” se rige conforme a un marco legal totalmente distinto, la Ley de Energía Atómica. Esa ley no le otorga facultades explícitas al presidente para tomar la decisión unilateral de desclasificar secretos nucleares y establece un proceso estricto de desclasificación en el que participan varias agencias. No está claro si los documentos guardados en Mar-a-Lago incluían “datos restringidos”.Chris Cameron More

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      In Legal Peril, Trump Tries to Shift the Spotlight to Biden

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      Donald J. Trump, who is under indictment, is trying to undermine the American justice system by lashing out at his successor.Under indictment and enraged, former President Donald J. Trump — with the help of Republican allies, social media supporters and Fox News — is lashing out at his successor in the hopes of undermining the charges against him.“A corrupt sitting president!” Mr. Trump blared on Tuesday night after being arrested and pleading not guilty in Miami. “The Biden administration has turned us into a banana republic,” one of his longtime advisers wrote in a fund-raising email. “Wannabe dictator,” read a chyron on Fox News, accusing Mr. Biden of having his political rival arrested.The accusations against Mr. Biden are being presented without any evidence that they are true, and Mr. Trump’s claims of an unfair prosecution came even after Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel specifically to insulate the inquiries from political considerations.But that hardly seems to be the point for Mr. Trump and his allies as they make a concerted effort to smear Mr. Biden and erode confidence in the legal system. Just hours after his arraignment, Mr. Trump promised payback if he wins the White House in 2024.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said during remarks at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.On Twitter, the former president’s followers used words like “traitor,” “disgrace,” “corrupt” and “biggest liar” to describe the current president. And while Fox News said on Wednesday that the “wannabe dictator” headline was “taken down immediately” and addressed, the network counts Mr. Trump’s many followers as loyal viewers.The response from Mr. Biden and his advisers has been studious silence.The president has vowed not to give the slightest hint that he is interfering in the criminal case against Mr. Trump, and he has ordered his White House aides and campaign staff members not to comment. That decision has quieted what is usually a robust rapid response team that aims to counter Republican attacks.The president’s press aides responsible for instantly blasting out pro-Biden commentary to reporters have gone dark. Even Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, issued a terse “no comment” on Wednesday.Jill Biden, the first lady, broke the code of silence on Monday, telling donors at a fund-raiser in New York that she was shocked that Republicans were not bothered by Mr. Trump’s indictment. “My heart feels so broken by a lot of the headlines that we see on the news,” she said at the event, according to The Associated Press.The attorney general also weighed in — somewhat — on Wednesday with his first public comments since Mr. Trump was charged. He took the opportunity to defend Jack Smith, the special counsel, as “a veteran career prosecutor.”“He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity and the rule of law,” Mr. Garland said.Still, the no-comment strategy out of the White House is reminiscent of the determined silence by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Russian operatives and Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Mueller said virtually nothing for more than a year as Mr. Trump and his allies attacked his investigation and his motives.Like Mr. Mueller’s approach, Mr. Biden’s refusal to comment is intended to make sure he does not provide ammunition that his adversaries can try to use to undermine his credibility and integrity.But in the end, the sustained assault on Mr. Mueller and his investigation helped Mr. Trump create a false narrative and survive the damning revelations contained in the more than 400-page report bearing the prosecutor’s name.On Wednesday, when a reporter noted that Mr. Trump had accused Mr. Biden of “having him arrested, effectively directing his arrest,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said, “I’m not going to comment.”Eddie Vale, a longtime Democratic strategist, said the White House position made sense, given the need to avoid even the hint that Mr. Biden was meddling in Mr. Trump’s case.But he said members of outside Democratic groups would most likely begin coming to Mr. Biden’s defense if the attacks continued.“This is such a charged and hot subject,” Mr. Vale said. “There’s nothing to be gained by weighing in. But I think as it goes on, you will have folks on the outer circle weighing in.”Strategists for Mr. Trump promise that the attacks will continue.Chris LaCivita, a senior campaign consultant for Mr. Trump, said on Wednesday that it was fair to assign responsibility for the investigation to Mr. Biden because the special counsel was appointed by Mr. Biden’s attorney general.“There’s a thing called in government, the chain of command,” he said.America First Legal, the pro-Trump group founded by Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s immigration agenda, sent out a fund-raising appeal on Wednesday morning, using the indictment as a rallying cry.The theme has been echoed by Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress, who trained their ire on Mr. Biden even as they also railed against the Justice Department, the F.B.I., the “mainstream media” and Democrats generally.Most of them, it seemed, were trying to goad Mr. Biden into a reaction.“I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice,” tweeted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in Congress.Mr. Biden has so far focused on governing.On Tuesday, the president met with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, in the Oval Office. Later, he hosted a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House, an event where it was easy to avoid the subject of Mr. Trump.“To me, making Juneteenth a federal holiday wasn’t just a symbolic gesture,” Mr. Biden told the crowd in brief remarks. “It was a statement of fact for this country to acknowledge the original sin of slavery.”But it is likely to get more difficult to refrain from wading into the Trump situation.On Saturday, the president is scheduled to attend a political rally with union supporters in Philadelphia. It is the kind of event where he would be expected to draw the contrast between himself and his rivals. Mr. Biden may be able to navigate that issue in the short term; Mr. Trump has a long way to go to win the Republican nomination.But if he does become Mr. Biden’s opponent for the presidency again, the strategy of avoidance may eventually have to change.As the first lady told donors at an event in California — referring to Mr. Trump’s four-year term in the White House: “We cannot go back to those dark days. And with your help, we won’t go back.” More

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      Aileen Cannon, Judge in Trump Case Has Scant Criminal Trial Experience

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      Judge Aileen M. Cannon, under scrutiny for past rulings favoring the former president, has presided over only a few criminal cases that went to trial.Aileen M. Cannon, the Federal District Court judge assigned to preside over former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case, has scant experience running criminal trials, calling into question her readiness to handle what is likely to be an extraordinarily complex and high-profile courtroom clash.Judge Cannon, 42, has been on the bench since November 2020, when Mr. Trump gave her a lifetime appointment shortly after he lost re-election. She had not previously served as any kind of judge, and because about 98 percent of federal criminal cases are resolved with plea deals, she has had only a limited opportunity to learn how to preside over a trial.A Bloomberg Law database lists 224 criminal cases that have been assigned to her, and a New York Times review of those cases identified four that went to trial. Each was a relatively routine matter, like a felon who was charged with illegally possessing a gun. In all, the four cases added up to 14 trial days.Judge Cannon’s suitability to handle such a high-stakes and high-profile case has already attracted scrutiny amid widespread perceptions that she demonstrated bias in the former president’s favor last year, when she oversaw a long-shot lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump challenging the F.B.I.’s court-approved search of his Florida home and club, Mar-a-Lago.In that case, she shocked legal experts across the ideological divide by disrupting the investigation — including suggesting that Mr. Trump gets special protections as a former president that any other target of a search warrant would not receive — before a conservative appeals court shut her down, ruling that she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.“She’s both an inexperienced judge and a judge who has previously indicated that she thinks the former president is subject to special rules so who knows what she will do with those issues?” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University criminal law professor and former federal prosecutor.In theory, Judge Cannon could step aside on her own for any reason, or the special counsel, Jack Smith, could ask her to do so under a federal law that says judges are supposed to recuse themselves if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” — and, if she declines, ask an appeals court to order her to recuse.There is no sign that either of them is considering taking that step, however — or what its legal basis would be.The appeals court last year found that she was wrong about jurisdiction law, not that she was biased. And judges have previously heard litigation involving presidents who appointed them — including the Trump search warrant lawsuit, in which, notably, two of the three appeals court judges who reversed her intervention were also Trump appointees.By bringing the charges in Florida, where most of the alleged crimes took place, instead of Washington, where the grand jury that primarily investigated the matter sat, the special counsel, Mr. Smith, avoided a potential fight over whether the case was in the right venue but ran the risk that Judge Cannon could be assigned the case.But the chances appeared low. Under the Southern District of Florida’s practices, a computer in the clerk’s office assigns new cases randomly among judges who sit in the division where the matter arose or a neighboring one — even if the matter relates to a previous case. Nevertheless, Judge Cannon got it.In a previous case, Judge Cannon suggested that Mr. Trump gets special protections as a former president that any other target of a search warrant would not receive.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe chief clerk of the court has said that five active judges were eligible to draw Mr. Trump’s case, and that Judge Cannon’s odds of receiving it were slightly higher than others because half of her cases come from the West Palm Beach division, where Mar-a-Lago is. The clerk has also said normal procedures were followed in making the assignment.Several lawyers who have appeared before Judge Cannon in run-of-the-mill criminal cases described her in interviews as generally competent and straightforward — and also, in notable contrast to her rulings hobbling the Justice Department after the search, someone who does not otherwise have a reputation of being unusually sympathetic to defendants.At the same time, they said, she is demonstrably inexperienced and can bristle when her actions are questioned or unexpected issues arise. The lawyers declined to speak publicly because they did not want to be identified criticizing a judge who has a lifetime appointment and before whom they will likely appear again.Judge Cannon’s four criminal trials identified in the review involved basic charges, including accusations of possession of a gun by a felon, assaulting a prosecutor, smuggling undocumented migrants from the Bahamas, and tax fraud. The four matters generated between two and five days of trial each.The Trump case is likely to raise myriad complexities that would be challenging for any judge — let alone one who will be essentially learning on the job.There are expected to be fights, for example, over how classified information can be used as evidence under the Classified Information Procedures Act, a national security law that Judge Cannon has apparently never dealt with before.Defense lawyers are also likely to ask her to suppress as evidence against Mr. Trump notes and testimony from one of his lawyers. While another federal judge already ruled that a grand jury could get otherwise confidential lawyer communications under the so-called crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege, Judge Cannon will not be bound by that decision in determining what can be used in trial.The judge will likely have to vet claims of prosecutorial misconduct put forward by Mr. Trump and his defense team.“That has already been signaled in a lot of the media statements made by Trump and his lawyers,” Samuel Buell, a Duke University law professor and former federal prosecutor, said of the misconduct claims. “This is very typical, but she is a very inexperienced judge, so even if she weren’t favorable to Trump, she might hear a lot of stuff and think she is hearing stuff that is unusual even though it’s made all the time.”And the judge will decide on challenges to potential jurors when either side claims someone might be biased for or against one of the most famous and polarizing people in the world.Fritz Scheller, a longtime defense lawyer in Florida who has had cases in Judge Cannon’s district but not appeared before her, said in complex and high-profile cases, even the most experienced judges are forced to think on their feet to make swift decisions.In this case, he said, the issue of how to protect the jury from being influenced by the vast media coverage alone “will be a herculean task” for any judge.Alina Habba, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters in Miami on Tuesday. The case has already received vast media coverage that could influence a jury.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn the aftermath of the F.B.I.’s Mar-a-Lago search, Judge Cannon repeatedly sided with the man who had appointed her. She blocked investigators from having access to the classified government documents seized from him and entertained an unprecedented legal theory put forward by his lawyers that White House records could be kept from the Justice Department in a criminal investigation on the basis of executive privilege.Eventually, a conservative appeals court panel — including two other Trump appointees — reversed her, writing in a pair of scathing opinions that she had misread the law and had no jurisdiction to interfere in the investigation. The Supreme Court let those rebukes stand without comment, and she acquiesced, dismissing the lawsuit.It remains to be seen what she will take from the reputational damage she brought upon herself at the start of what is likely to be many decades on the bench. She could continue her pattern from last year, or she could use her second turn in the spotlight to adjudicate the documents case more evenhandedly.While Mr. Trump and his White House lawyers put forward many young conservatives to fill judicial vacancies when he was president, Judge Cannon was unusually young and inexperienced. She was 38 years old and working on appellate matters as an assistant United States attorney in Florida when Mr. Trump nominated her for a lifetime appointment, and little about her legal résumé up to that point was remarkable.Still, the Senate majority leader at the time, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, pushed through her confirmation vote in the lame-duck session after the election. Her nomination received little attention and did not draw particular fire from Democrats; she was confirmed 56 to 21, with 12 Democrats joining 44 Republicans to vote in favor.The daughter of a Cuban exile, she grew up in Miami and graduated from Duke University and the University of Michigan Law School. She was identifiable as ideologically conservative, having joined the Federalist Society in law school and clerked for a conservative appeals court judge.She had been approached by the office of Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and asked to apply to a panel he uses to vet potential judicial candidates, she wrote on her Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire. She also interviewed with a lawyer for Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, before talking to the White House, she wrote.(The Senate’s “blue slip” practice empowers senators to block confirmation proceedings for nominees from their states, so senators wield significant power over who the White House nominates. There are currently three vacant seats on the Federal District Court in South Florida for which President Biden has made no nomination, suggesting that Mr. Rubio and Mr. Scott have not agreed to let him fill those seats with anyone acceptable to a Democratic White House.)Judge Cannon had been approached by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and asked to apply to a panel that vets potential judicial candidates.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesJudge Cannon had graduated from law school in 2008, and her 12 years as a lawyer were the minimum the American Bar Association considers necessary for a judicial nominee. A substantial majority of the bar association’s vetting panel deemed her to be merely “qualified,” though a minority deemed her “highly qualified.”Her criminal trial experience before becoming a judge was limited.In 2004, when she was working as a paralegal at the Justice Department’s civil rights division before going to law school, she had “assisted federal prosecutors in two federal criminal jury trials,” she wrote on the questionnaire.From 2009 to 2012, she was an associate at the law firm Gibson Dunn, where she worked on regulatory proceedings, not criminal matters. (She wrote that she participated in two administrative trials before agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission.)From 2013 to 2020, she was an assistant United States attorney in Florida. While most of that time was spent on appellate work, until 2015 she had worked in the major crimes division on ​“a wide range of federal firearms, narcotics, fraud and immigration offenses” that resulted in the conviction of 41 defendants, she wrote. Most of those cases, however, ended in plea deals: She tried just four of them to a jury verdict, she wrote.She was the lead counsel for two of those cases — both involving a felon charged with possessing a firearm, she wrote, and served as assistant to the main prosecutor in the other two cases, one of which she said involved possession of images of child sexual exploitation.Other parts of Judge Cannon’s questionnaire answers put forward few experiences or accomplishments that clearly distinguished her as seasoned and demonstrably ready for the powers and responsibilities of a lifetime appointment to be a federal judge.It asked, for example, for every published writing she had produced. She listed 20 items. Of those, 17 were pieces she had written in the summer of 2002 as a college intern at The Miami Herald’s Spanish-language sister publication, El Nuevo Herald, with headlines like “Winners in the Library Quest Competition.” The other three were articles published on Gibson Dunn’s website describing cases the firm had handled, each of which had three other co-authors.The questionnaire also asked her to provide all reports, memorandums and policy statements she had written for any organization, all testimony or official statements on public or legal policy she had ever delivered to any public body, and all her speeches, talks, panel discussions, lectures or question-and-answer sessions.“None,” she wrote.Kitty Bennett More

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      Fact Check: Trump’s Misleading Defenses in Classified Documents Case

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      The former president drew misleading comparisons to others, misconstrued the classification process and leveled inaccurate attacks at officials.Hours after pleading not guilty in a federal court in Miami to charges related to his handling of classified documents, former President Donald J. Trump defended his conduct on Tuesday with a string of familiar falsehoods.Appearing at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump drew misleading comparisons to other political figures, misconstrued the classification process and leveled inaccurate attacks at officials.Here’s a fact check of claims Mr. Trump made related to the inquiry.What Mr. Trump Said“Threatening me with 400 years in prison for possessing my own presidential papers, which just about every other president has done, is one of the most outrageous and vicious legal theories ever put forward in an American court of law.”False. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 governs the preservation and retention of official records of former presidents, and gives the National Archives and Records Administration complete ownership and control of presidential records. The law makes a distinction between official records and personal documents, and has applied to every president since Ronald Reagan.The agency has said that “it assumed physical and legal custody of the presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, when those presidents left office.”Separately, after Mr. Trump repeatedly and misleadingly compared his handling of records to that of his immediate predecessor, the National Archives said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law. The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.What Mr. Trump Said“The decision to segregate personal materials from presidential records is made by the president during the president’s term and in the president’s sole discretion.”False. The Presidential Records Act defines what constitutes personal materials — such as diaries or political campaign documents — from official records. It does not give the president “sole discretion” in determining what is and is not a personal record. Under the law, a departing president is required to separate personal documents from official records before leaving office.F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August, more than a year after the general counsel of the National Archives requested the recovery of the materials and after months of repeated inquiries from officials at the agency and at the Justice Department.What Mr. Trump Said“I was supposed to negotiate with NARA, which is exactly what I was doing until Mar-a-Lago was raided by gun-toting F.B.I. agents.”False. The Presidential Records Act does not establish a process of negotiation between the president and the archives. The court-approved search of Mr. Trump’s Florida residence unfolded after he repeatedly resisted the government’s requests that he return the material, even after being subpoenaed.What Mr. Trump Said“Biden sent 1,850 boxes to the University of Delaware, making the search very, very difficult for anybody. And he refuses to give them up and he refuses to let people even look at them, and then they say how he’s behaving so nicely.”This is misleading. Joseph R. Biden Jr. donated 1,850 boxes of documents to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential documents, which must be released to the archives once a president leaves office, documents from members of Congress are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. It is not uncommon for senators and representatives to give such items to colleges, research institutions or historical facilities.The University of Delaware agreed not to give the public access to Mr. Biden’s documents from his time as senator until two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the collection in February as part of a separate special counsel investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of government documents and in cooperation with his legal team. The New York Times reported at the time that the material was still being analyzed but did not appear to contain any classified documents.What Mr. Trump Said“When caught, Hillary then deleted and acid-washed. Nobody does that because of the expense, but it’s pretty conclusive. Thirty-three thousand emails in defiance of a congressional subpoena already launched. The subpoena was there and she decided to delete, acid-wash and then smash and destroy her cellphones with a hammer. And then they say I participated in obstruction.”This is misleading. There are several key differences between Mr. Trump’s case and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state — which Mr. Trump also described inaccurately.Crucially, several official investigations have concluded that Mrs. Clinton did not systematically or deliberately mishandle classified material, and a 2018 inspector general report supported the F.B.I.’s decision not to charge Mrs. Clinton.In contrast, Mr. Trump is accused of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to recover them and making false statements to officials. The indictment unsealed last week featured photographs of documents stored in sometimes haphazard ways, including boxes stacked in a shower and others piled on the stage of a ballroom that guests frequented.According to the F.B.I.’s inquiry into the matter, Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers provided about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department in 2014 and instructed an employee to remove all personal emails older than 60 days. In 2015, after The Times reported Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal email account, a Republican-led House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on American outposts in Benghazi, Libya, sent a subpoena requesting all emails she had in that account related to Libya.That same month, an employee working for the company that managed Mrs. Clinton’s server realized he did not actually delete the personal emails as instructed in 2014. He then used a free software program called BleachBit — not actual acid or chemical compounds — to delete about 30,000 personal emails.The F.B.I. found thousands of additional work-related emails that Mrs. Clinton did not turn over to the State Department, but the director of the bureau at the time, James B. Comey, said it found “no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.”Mrs. Clinton would almost certainly disagree with Mr. Trump’s assertion that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department “protected” her, and has said that Mr. Comey’s actions as well as Russian interference cost her the 2016 election.What Mr. Trump Said“He totally exonerated Mike Pence. I’m happy about that. Mike did nothing wrong, but he happened to have classified documents in his house. But they exonerated him. And Biden is a different story.”This is misleading. Classified documents were found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s home in Indiana in January and President Biden’s former office at a Washington think tank in November and his Delaware residence in January. The Justice Department declined to pursue charges against Mr. Pence, and the investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of materials is continuing.But those cases differ in several significant ways from Mr. Trump’s, particularly in the volume of documents found and in Mr. Pence’s and Mr. Biden’s response.About a dozen documents with classified markings were found at Mr. Pence’s home. The F.B.I. searched his home in February with his agreement and found one additional classified document. It is unclear how many classified documents were found in Mr. Biden’s possession, but his lawyers have said “a small number” were discovered at his former office and about a half-dozen at his Delaware home.In contrast, Mr. Trump stored “hundreds” of classified documents, according to the Justice Department’s indictment, which said some records included information about the country’s nuclear programs as well as “potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack.” In total, the government has retrieved more than 300 files with classified markings from his Florida home and private club.Representatives for Mr. Pence and Mr. Biden have said that they inadvertently kept those documents and quickly alerted the National Archives once they were discovered. Both men also cooperated with government officials in turning over the documents and appeared to have voluntarily complied with searches of their properties.In contrast, Mr. Trump repeatedly defied requests to return materials for months and, according to the indictment, played an active role in concealing classified documents from investigators. The archives alerted Mr. Trump in May 2021 that presidential documents were missing. Officials retrieved 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022 but suspected that other records remained missing. Seven months later, F.B.I. agents searched the Florida property and recovered additional documents.What Mr. Trump Said“Unlike me, who had absolute declassification authority as president, Joe Biden as vice president had no authority to declassify and no right to possess the documents. He had no right.”This is misleading. Vice presidents do have the power to declassify certain material, though the scope of their declassification powers has not been explicitly tested in courts.Mr. Trump has previously insisted that he had the power to declassify material without needing to inform anyone. There are formal procedures for declassifying information, but whether presidents must abide by them is an unsettled legal issue, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service and the American Bar Association. A federal appeals court ruled in 2020 that “declassification, even by the president, must follow established procedures.” But the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the matter.It is worth noting, though, that Mr. Trump followed these procedures for certain documents, like issuing a memorandum on the day before leaving office declassifying information related to the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.Separately, legal experts have noted that the classification of information related to nuclear weapons or “restricted data” is governed by a separate legal framework entirely, the Atomic Energy Act. That law does not explicitly give the president the authority to declassify nuclear secrets unilaterally and establishes a strict process for declassification that involves several agencies. It is unclear whether documents stored at Mar-a-Lago included “restricted data.”Chris Cameron More

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      Donald Trump’s Quest to Break America’s Democracy

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      What if Mitch McConnell, at the close of his scalding speech on the Senate floor blaming Donald Trump for the riot that occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6, had promised to use his every last breath to ensure that Trump was convicted on impeachment charges and could never, ever become president again?What if Melania Trump, after the porn star Stormy Daniels said Trump had unprotected sex with her less than four months after Melania gave birth to their son, had thrown all of Trump’s clothes, golf clubs, MAGA hats and hair spray onto the White House lawn with this note, “Never come back, you despicable creep!”What if the influential evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, after Trump was caught on tape explaining that as a TV star he felt entitled to “grab” women in the most intimate places — or after Trump was found liable by a Manhattan jury of having done pretty much just that to E. Jean Carroll — declared that he would lead a campaign to ensure that anyone but Trump was elected in 2024 because Trump was a moral deviant whom Jeffress would not let babysit his two daughters, let alone the country?Where would statements and actions like those have left Kevin McCarthy, his knuckleheads in the House G.O.P. caucus, and other Republicans who now are defending Trump against the Justice Department indictment? Would they be so eager to proclaim Trump’s innocence? Would they be raging against Tuesday’s hearing in Miami? Would they be claiming, falsely, that President Biden was indicting Trump, when they know full well that the president doesn’t have the power to indict anyone?I doubt it. But I know that all of these questions are rhetorical. None of those people have the character to rise to these ethical challenges and take on Trump and what he has done to break our political system. Trump is like a drug dealer who thrives in a broken neighborhood, getting everyone hooked on his warped values. That is why he is doing everything he can to break our national neighborhood in two fundamental ways.For starters, Trump has consistently tried to denigrate people who have demonstrated character and courage, by labeling them losers and weaklings. This comes easy to Trump because he is a man utterly without character — devoid of any sense of ethics or loyalty to any value system or person other than himself. And for him, politics is a blood sport in which you bludgeon the other guys and gals — whether they are in your party or not — with smears and nicknames and lies until they get out of your way.Trump debuted this strategy early on with John McCain — a veteran, a man who never broke in five-plus years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, a man of real character. Do you remember what Trump said about McCain at a family leadership summit in Ames, Iowa, on July 18, 2015?When McCain ran for president, “I supported him,” Trump told the audience. “He lost. He let us down. But he lost. So I never liked him much after that, because I don’t like losers.” When the audience laughed, the moderator, the pollster Frank Luntz, interjected, “But he’s a war hero!”Trump — who wangled a dubious medical deferment to avoid the Vietnam War draft — then responded: “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” Later that day, Trump retweeted a web post headlined, “Donald Trump: John McCain Is ‘A Loser.’”So part of the way Trump tries to break our system is to redefine the qualities of a leader — at least in the G.O.P. A leader is not someone like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney, people prepared to risk their careers to defend the truth, serve the country and uphold the Constitution. No, a leader is someone like him, someone who is ready to win at any cost — to the country, to the Constitution and to the example we set for our children and our allies.And when that is your definition of leadership, of winning, people of character like McCain, Cheney and Romney are in your way. You need to strip everyone around you of character, and make everything about securing power and money. That is why so many people who entered Trump’s orbit since 2015 have walked away muddied. And that’s why I knew that all the questions I asked earlier were rhetorical.The second way that Trump is trying to break our system was on display on Tuesday in Miami, where he followed his appearance as a federal criminal defendant with a political meet-and-greet at a Cuban restaurant. There, once again, Trump tried to discredit the rules of the game that would restrain him and his limitless appetite for power for power’s sake.How does he do that? First, he gets everyone around him — and, eventually, the vast majority of those in his party — to stop insisting that Trump abide by ethical norms. His family members and party colleagues have grown adept at running away from reporters’ microphones after every Trump outrage.But precisely because key political allies, church leaders and close family members will not call out Trump for his moral and legal transgressions — which would make his 2024 re-election bid unthinkable and hasten his departure from the political scene — we have to rely solely on the courts to defend the rules of the game.And when that happens, it puts tremendous stress on our judicial system and our democracy itself, because the decision to prosecute or not is always a judgment call. And when those judgment calls have to be rendered at times by judges or prosecutors appointed by Democrats — which is how our system works — it gives Trump and his flock the perfect opening to denounce the whole process as a “witch hunt.”And when such behavior happens over and over across a broad front — because Trump won’t stop at red lights anywhere and just keeps daring us to ignore his transgressions or indict him so he can cry bias — we end up eroding the two most important pillars of our democratic system: the belief in the independence of our judiciary that ensures no one is above the law, and the belief in our ability to transfer power peacefully and legitimately.Just consider one scene in Trump’s indictment. It’s after a federal grand jury subpoenaed him in May 2022, to produce all classified material in his possession. Notes written by his own lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, quote Trump as saying: “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t. … What happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them? Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”Better for whom? Only one man. And that’s why I repeat: Trump has not put us here by accident. He actually wants to break our system, because he and people like him only thrive in a broken system.So he keeps pushing and pushing our system to its breaking point — where rules are for suckers, norms are for fools, basic truths are malleable and men and women of high character are banished.This is exactly what would-be dictators try to do: Flood the zone with lies so the people trust only them and the truth is only what they say it is.It is impossible to exaggerate what a dangerous moment this is for our 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, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Trump Documents Case Puts the Justice System on Trial

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      The former president’s efforts to defend against multiple felony counts by discrediting law enforcement pose a grave challenge to democracy.Former President Donald J. Trump has a lot at stake in the federal criminal case lodged against him. He could, in theory, go to prison for years. But if he winds up in the dock in front of a jury, it is no exaggeration to suggest that American justice will be on trial as well.History’s first federal indictment against a former president poses one of the gravest challenges to democracy the country has ever faced. It represents either a validation of the rule-of-law principle that even the most powerful face accountability for their actions or the moment when a vast swath of the public becomes convinced that the system has been irredeemably corrupted by partisanship.Mr. Trump, his allies and even some of his Republican rivals have embarked on a strategy to encourage the latter view, arguing that law enforcement has been hijacked by President Biden and the Democrats to take out his strongest opponent for re-election next year. Few if any of them bothered to wait to read the indictment before backing Mr. Trump’s all-caps assertion that it was merely part of the “GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME.” It is now an article of faith, a default tactic or both.Jack Smith, the special counsel, and his prosecutors knew that defense was coming and have labored to avoid any hint of political motivation with a by-the-book approach, securing the assent of judges and grand jurors along the way. Moreover, their indictment laid out a damning series of facts based on security camera video, text messages and testimony from within Mr. Trump’s own team; even some who have defended him in the past say it will be harder to brush aside the evidence in a courtroom than in the court of public opinion.In the public arena, though, it may be a one-sided fight. Mr. Trump and his allies can scream as loudly as they can that the system is unfair, but prosecutors are bound by rules limiting how much they can say in response. To the extent that Democrats defend prosecutors, it may only buttress the point Mr. Trump is trying to make to the audience he is trying to reach.“I think the verdict on democracy ultimately comes down to Republican leaders and Republican voters,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida who left the party during the Trump presidency. “Their current weaponization narrative is dangerous and destabilizing, but seems to reflect the party’s early consensus. If they don’t pivot soon to due process and faith in the system, I think we could have very dark days ahead. I do worry.”Mr. Trump has attacked the Justice Department and Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, calling him a lunatic.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesPolls suggest that Mr. Trump has made headway in persuading at least his own supporters that any and all allegations against him are just political. After the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, brought state charges against him related to hush money paid to an adult film actress, the former president’s support among Republicans rose, rather than fell.While 60 percent of all adults surveyed by CNN afterward approved of the charges, 76 percent agreed that politics played a role in the prosecution. As for the effect on America’s system, 31 percent said the indictment strengthened democracy, while 31 percent said it weakened it.All of which indicates that the system’s credibility is on the line in a way it has not been before. Many have criticized American justice over the years for systemic racism, excessive punishment, mistreatment of women subjected to assault or other issues, but they did not command the bullhorn of the presidency. When past presidents like Richard M. Nixon or Bill Clinton got in trouble, they defended themselves aggressively, but did not call the whole system into question.“In 1972 to 1974, the Republicans participated as good-faith members of the process,” said Garrett Graff, the author of “Watergate: A New History,” published last year. “They saw their roles as legislators first and Republicans second. They definitely were skeptical” initially of the allegations against Nixon, “but they followed the facts where they led.”Even Nixon’s sharp-tongued vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, was careful about disparaging the justice system broadly. “Agnew, of course, was Nixon’s attack dog, but mainly against the press, not the F.B.I. or the special prosecutor,” Mr. Graff said.Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is holding nothing back as he assails “the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice” and calls Mr. Smith a “deranged lunatic.” Republicans like Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona have called for dismantling the F.B.I. “We have now reached a war phase,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Eye for an eye.” Elon Musk said the authorities were showing “far higher interest in pursuing Trump compared to other people in politics.”Several of Mr. Trump’s competitors for the Republican presidential nomination joined in. Former Vice President Mike Pence compared the indictment to leaders of “third-world nations” who “use a criminal justice system in their country against their predecessors.” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said “the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society.”The former president’s defenders generally do not address the substance of the 37 counts against him, but instead make a case of selective prosecution that resonates powerfully among many Republicans: What about Mr. Biden? What about Hunter Biden? What about Hillary Clinton?They point to the origin of the Russia investigation against Mr. Trump, citing the recent report by the special counsel John H. Durham that harshly criticized the F.B.I. for its handling of the case even though it did not come up with any new blockbuster revelations of politically motivated misconduct nor result in the conviction of any major figure.They point to Republican congressional inquiries that they say hint at wrongdoing by the Bidens even without confirmation. They point to the continuing federal criminal investigation of the president’s son Hunter, suggesting it has been impeded. And they point to the fact that the president himself is also under investigation over retaining classified documents yet not charged.The differences between the cases, however, are stark, making apples-to-apples comparisons complicated. In the documents investigation, for instance, Mr. Biden’s advisers by all accounts so far returned the papers to the authorities promptly after discovering them. Mr. Pence did the same after a voluntary search found that the former vice president had kept classified documents, and he was recently cleared by the Justice Department because there was no evidence of willful violations of the law.Mr. Trump, by contrast, refused to hand over all the documents he had taken from the White House — even after being subpoenaed for them. According to the indictment, he orchestrated an expansive scheme to hide papers and feed lies to authorities seeking them. On two occasions, the indictment charged, Mr. Trump showed secret documents to people without security clearance and indicated that he knew he was not supposed to.As for seeking to weaponize the Justice Department, there was ample evidence that Mr. Trump sought to do just that while in office. He openly and aggressively pushed his attorneys general to prosecute his perceived enemies and drop cases against his friends and allies, making no pretense that he was seeking equal and independent justice. His friends-and-family approach to his pardon power extended clemency to associates and those who had access to him through them.He chipped away at so many norms during his four years in office that it is no wonder that institutions have faced credibility problems. Indeed, he has made clear that he does not respect the boundaries that constrained other presidents. Since leaving office, he has called for “termination” of the Constitution so that he could be returned to power without waiting for another election and vowed that he would devote a second term to “retribution” against his foes while pardoning supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the transfer of power.There is no known evidence, on the other hand, that Mr. Biden has played any role in the investigations against Mr. Trump. Unlike the voluble Mr. Trump, he has made a point of not even publicly commenting on individual prosecutions, saying he respects the autonomy of the Justice Department.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has been sensitive to the matter of perception and sought to insulate the inquiries by appointing Mr. Smith, a career prosecutor who is not registered with either political party, as a special counsel with a guarantee of independence absent manifest wrongdoing on his part.But that was never going to convince Mr. Trump or his most fervent supporters of the fairness of the process. At bottom, the former president and front-runner for his party’s nomination to be the next president is being charged by a prosecutor appointed by an appointee of the man he hopes to beat. It is a recipe for distrust, especially when stoked by a defendant who has mastered the politics of grievance and victimhood.Will that result in lasting damage to democracy? Even some who support charging Mr. Trump fear that it may. Still, some who have studied politically fraught investigations counseled patience. There will be fireworks. Many will doubt the credibility of the system. But in the end, they said, the system will survive just as it has for more than two centuries.“It’s messy and uncomfortable for the generation living through it, but the system is durable enough to win out,” said Ken Gormley, the president of Duquesne University and the author of books on Watergate and the Clinton investigations. “As painful as the next year is likely to be as the criminal justice system grinds forward toward a fair verdict in the Mar-a-Lago documents case — whatever that outcome may be — we are fortunate that our predecessors have spent 234 years shoring up the bulwark.” More

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      Qué significa la acusación contra Donald Trump por los documentos

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      En su momento, el expresidente criticó a Hillary Clinton por su manejo de información sensible. Ahora, el mismo problema amenaza sus posibilidades de retomar la presidencia.Hubo un tiempo, no hace mucho en realidad, en el que Donald Trump afirmó que se preocupaba por la inviolabilidad de la información clasificada. Eso, por supuesto, sucedió cuando su adversaria fue acusada de ponerla en peligro y eso representó un arma política útil para Trump.A lo largo de 2016, fustigó a Hillary Clinton por utilizar un servidor de correo electrónico privado en vez de uno gubernamental seguro. “Voy a hacer cumplir todas las leyes relativas a la protección de información clasificada”, declaró. “Nadie estará por encima de la ley”. El manejo negligente que Clinton hizo de la información sensible, sentenció, “la descalifica para la presidencia”.Siete años después, Trump se enfrenta a cargos penales por poner en peligro la seguridad nacional por haberse llevado documentos clasificados cuando dejó la Casa Blanca y negarse a devolverlos todos, incluso después de que se le exigió hacerlo. A pesar del adagio de “recoge lo que siembras” de la política estadounidense, es bastante sorprendente que el asunto que ayudó a impulsar a Trump a la Casa Blanca sea lo que amenace con arruinar sus posibilidades de regresar a ella.La acusación presentada por un gran jurado federal a petición del fiscal especial Jack Smith cierra el círculo de la historia de Trump. “Enciérrenla”, coreaban las multitudes en los mítines de campaña de Trump, quien alentaba a sus seguidores para que gritaran eso. Ahora, él podría ser el encerrado de ser sentenciado por alguno de los siete cargos, entre ellos conspiración para la obstrucción de justicia y retención intencional de documentos.Esta acusación es la segunda presentada contra el expresidente en los últimos meses, pero en muchos aspectos eclipsa a la primera tanto en gravedad jurídica como en peligro político. La primera acusación, anunciada en marzo por el fiscal del distrito de Manhattan, acusó a Trump de falsificar registros empresariales para encubrir el pago de dinero a una actriz de cine para adultos —la cual había alegado que habían mantenido una relación sexual— a cambio de su silencio. La segunda la presentó un fiscal federal en representación de toda la nación, la primera en la historia de Estados Unidos contra un expresidente, y se refiere a los secretos de la nación.Mientras que los partidarios de Trump han tratado de desestimar la primera como el trabajo de un demócrata electo local sobre cuestiones que, aunque indecorosas, en última instancia parecen relativamente mezquinas y ocurrieron antes de que asumiera la presidencia, las más recientes acusaciones se derivan directamente de su responsabilidad como comandante en jefe de la nación para salvaguardar los datos que podrían ser útiles a los enemigos de Estados Unidos.Es posible que a los votantes republicanos no les importe que su líder le dé dinero a una estrella porno para que guarde silencio, pero ¿también serán indiferentes ante el delito de impedir que las autoridades intenten recuperar material clasificado?Tal vez. Sin duda, Trump así lo espera. La acusación de Manhattan solo pareció aumentar sus índices de popularidad más que perjudicarlo. Es por eso que, de inmediato, afirmó que la acusación más reciente forma parte de la conspiración más extravagante de la historia de Estados Unidos. Pareciera que, según él, la componenda implica a una amplia gama de fiscales locales y federales, grandes jurados, jueces, demandantes, reguladores y testigos que han mentido durante años para tenderle una trampa, mientras que él es el único que dice la verdad, sin importar cuáles sean los cargos.“Nunca creí posible que algo así pudiera ocurrirle a un expresidente de Estados Unidos, que recibió muchos más votos que cualquier presidente en funciones en la historia de nuestro país y que actualmente lidera, por mucho, a todos los candidatos, tanto demócratas como republicanos, en las encuestas de las elecciones presidenciales de 2024”, escribió en sus redes sociales, haciendo múltiples afirmaciones engañosas en una sola frase. “¡SOY UN HOMBRE INOCENTE!”.Hasta ahora, sus seguidores de base han seguido apoyándolo e incluso algunos de los que se postulan en su contra para obtener la candidatura republicana del próximo año han criticado las investigaciones en su contra. Pero recientemente fue declarado responsable de abuso sexual en un juicio civil, su empresa ha sido declarada culpable de 17 cargos de fraude fiscal y otros delitos y todavía enfrenta otras dos posibles acusaciones formales derivadas de su esfuerzo por revertir su derrota electoral de 2020, lo que desencadenó el ataque al Capitolio el 6 de enero de 2021.La pregunta, al menos políticamente, es si la acumulación de todas esas acusaciones terminará influyendo algún día en los votantes republicanos que lo respaldan, en especial si se concreta una tercera y tal vez cuarta acusación formal. Al menos algunos de sus rivales por la candidatura del partido esperan que el factor fatiga termine mermando su apoyo.En cuanto a Clinton, si sintió cierta alegría por la desgracia ajena la noche del jueves no lo expresó. Sin embargo, tanto ella como sus aliados siempre han creído que el hecho de que James Comey, el entonces director del FBI, reabriera la investigación de su correo electrónico unos días antes de la elección de 2016 le costó la victoria que tantas encuestas habían pronosticado.Trump intentará poner esto en contra de sus perseguidores, con el argumento de que el hecho de que haya sido acusado mientras que Clinton no lo fue, es prueba de que está siendo perseguido injustamente.No importa que los hechos de los casos sean distintos, que Trump pareciera haber hecho todo lo posible para frustrar intencionadamente a las autoridades que trataban de recuperar los documentos secretos durante meses mientras que los investigadores concluyeron que Clinton no tuvo intención de violar la ley. Será un argumento político útil para Trump insistir en que es víctima de una doble moral.Por qué, tras lo sucedido en la campaña de 2016, no reconoció el potencial peligro político de manejar mal información clasificada y tuvo más cuidado al respecto es otra cuestión. Pero pasó gran parte de su presidencia haciendo caso omiso de las preocupaciones sobre la seguridad de la información y las normas sobre la conservación de documentos gubernamentales.Divulgó información ultraconfidencial a funcionarios rusos que lo visitaron en el Despacho Oval. Publicó en internet imágenes sensibles de Irán obtenidas por satélite. Siguió utilizando un teléfono móvil inseguro incluso después de que le dijeron que el dispositivo era monitoreado por agencias de inteligencia rusas y chinas. Rompió documentos oficiales y los tiró al suelo una vez que terminó con ellos, a pesar de que las leyes exigen que se guarden y cataloguen, mientras sus ayudantes iban tras él, recogiendo los fragmentos y pegándolos de nuevo con cinta adhesiva.Incluso cuando se enfrentó a las consecuencias de sus actos, nunca se mostró preocupado. Al fin y al cabo, era el presidente y podía hacer lo que quisiera. Incluso durante la investigación sobre los documentos clasificados que se llevó a Mar-a-Lago, se ha defendido afirmando que tenía el poder de desclasificar cualquier cosa que quisiera con solo pensarlo.Pero ya no es presidente. Ahora no solo se enfrentará a los votantes de las elecciones primarias que decidirán si ha sido inhabilitado para la presidencia, sino a un fiscal que asegura que hará cumplir las leyes relativas a la protección de información clasificada.Será fichado como un criminal acusado y, a menos que ocurra algo imprevisto, en última instancia será juzgado por un jurado de sus iguales.Qué diferencia con su situación de hace siete años.Peter Baker es el corresponsal principal de la Casa Blanca y ha cubierto las gestiones de los últimos cinco presidentes para el Times y The Washington Post. También es autor de siete libros, el más reciente de ellos se titula The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021, el cual escribió junto a Susan Glasser. More