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      Trump Steers Campaign Donations Into PAC That Covers His Legal Fees

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      A previously unnoticed change in Donald Trump’s online fund-raising appeals allows him to divert a sizable chunk of his 2024 contributions to a group that has spent millions to cover his legal fees.Facing multiple intensifying investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has quietly begun diverting more of the money he is raising away from his 2024 presidential campaign and into a political action committee that he has used to pay his personal legal fees.The change, which went unannounced except in the fine print of his online disclosures, raises fresh questions about how Mr. Trump is paying for his mounting legal bills — which could run into millions of dollars — as he prepares for at least two criminal trials, and whether his PAC, Save America, is facing a financial crunch.When Mr. Trump kicked off his 2024 campaign in November, for every dollar raised online, 99 cents went to his campaign, and a penny went to Save America.But internet archival records show that sometime in February or March, he adjusted that split. Now his campaign’s share has been reduced to 90 percent of donations, and 10 percent goes to Save America.The effect of that change is potentially substantial: Based on fund-raising figures announced by his campaign, the fine-print maneuver may already have diverted at least $1.5 million to Save America.And the existence of the group has allowed Mr. Trump to have his small donors pay for his legal expenses, rather than paying for them himself.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, did not answer detailed questions about why the Trump operation has changed how the funds he is raising are being split. Save America technically owns the list of email addresses and phone numbers of his supporters — one of the former president’s most valuable assets — and the campaign is effectively paying the PAC for access to that list, he explained.“Because the campaign wants to ensure every dollar donated to President Trump is spent in the most cost-effective manner, a fair-market analysis was conducted to determine email list rentals would be more efficient by amending the fund-raising split between the two entities,” Mr. Cheung said in a written statement.Mr. Trump gave the keynote speech at the state Republican convention in Georgia this month. Onstage, he mentioned the indictments against him, which have become intertwined with his fund-raising efforts.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesThe different rules governing what political action committees and candidate campaign committees can pay for are both dizzying and somewhat in dispute. But generally, a PAC cannot spend money directly on the candidate’s campaign, and a campaign committee cannot directly pay for things that benefit the candidate personally.For more than a year, before Mr. Trump was a 2024 candidate, Save America has been paying for bills related to various investigations into the former president and his allies. In February 2022, the PAC announced that it had $122 million in its coffers.By the beginning of 2023, the PAC’s cash on hand was down to $18 million, filings show. The rest had been spent on staff salaries, on the costs of Mr. Trump’s political activities last year — including some spending on other candidates and groups — and in other ways. That included the $60 million that was transferred to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that is supporting Mr. Trump. And more than $16 million went to pay legal bills.Mr. Trump’s rivals are not similarly splitting their online proceeds with an affiliated PAC. The websites of former Vice President Mike Pence, former Ambassador Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina direct all the proceeds to their campaign committees. The same goes for Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy.Mr. Trump at a campaign event in Manchester, N.H., in April. On his campaign website, supporters can buy an “I Stand With Trump” T-shirt and other merchandise alluding to his costly legal troubles.Sophie Park for The New York Times“I think in this particular situation, specifically because of the use of the leadership PAC to pay legal expenses and potentially other expenses that would be illegal personal use of campaign money, there’s an unusual incentive for the leadership PAC to take in more than it normally would,” said Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director of Campaign Legal Center.In the run-up to Mr. Trump’s latest campaign, his legal bills exploded in size. Save America spent $1.9 million in what it identified as legal expenses in the first half of 2022. That figure ballooned to nearly $14.6 million in the second half of last year, federal records show.In late 2022, a Trump adviser said that about $20 million had been set aside by Save America PAC to cover legal expenses.Since then, Mr. Trump has been indicted twice, once by a Manhattan grand jury on charges stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star, and once by a federal grand jury in Florida on charges including violations of the Espionage Act arising from Mr. Trump’s possession of classified material and government records long after he left office.A prominent attorney, Todd Blanche, left his white-collar law firm in April to join the former president’s legal team and is now representing him in both cases, and Mr. Trump recently met with about a half-dozen lawyers in Florida.Mr. Trump’s legal troubles are deeply intertwined with his political campaign and fund-raising efforts. His campaign store is selling an “I Stand With Trump” T-shirt showing the date of his indictment in Manhattan (“03.30.2023”) for $36; it recently added a second shirt with his Florida indictment date (“06.08.2023”) for $38. Half the featured items on the store’s landing page show a fake mug shot and the words “not guilty.”And Mr. Trump’s usual legal strategy — delay, delay, delay — could prove costly as overlapping teams of white-collar lawyers defend him in the federal case and the Manhattan criminal case, as well as in the investigation in Georgia, where Mr. Trump could face yet another indictment this summer for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election. He is also facing an intensifying investigation by the special counsel Jack Smith into his efforts to cling to power after losing the election.It remains unclear whether Mr. Trump will try to use his campaign funds to pay for lawyers, should he run into difficulties with the political action committee — and whether such a move would run afoul of spending rules.“He can use the campaign to pay for legal bills that arise out of candidate or officeholder activity — and of course, some of the current legal matters fall into that category, and some do not, and some are in a gray area,” Mr. Noti said. “It really depends on what matter we’re talking about.”Jason Torchinsky, a Republican election lawyer, said he believed Mr. Trump was barred from using Save America donations to pay his personal legal expenses now that he’s a candidate, arguing that doing so would be “an excessive contribution” under Federal Election Commission precedent. And he said Mr. Trump could not use campaign money at all, because it would qualify as personal use.There have been signs that Mr. Trump’s campaign has been carefully monitoring its expenses.He has mainly attended events organized by other groups, as opposed to staging his own large-scale political rallies, which were the lifeblood of his two past runs for president and are one of his favorite parts of campaigning. Those rallies are expensive, costing at least $150,000 and usually more than $400,000.Mr. Trump has held only one full-scale rally in the seven months he has been running, with a second scheduled on July 1 in South Carolina, his first in an early-nominating state. (A rally in Iowa on May 13 was canceled after a tornado warning, though the weather cleared and Mr. DeSantis pointedly held an impromptu event nearby.)People familiar with the Trump campaign’s plans have said that the dearth of rallies was as much about husbanding resources as it was about getting Mr. Trump to engage with voters in a more traditional way. The people also suggested that more large-scale events might come in the fall, as the primary race heats up.But the fund-raising surges that Mr. Trump experienced after his first indictment at the end of March and again in June are expected to obscure a broader fund-raising slowdown. His campaign announced that he had raised $12 million in the first week after his first indictment and $7 million in the week after his second one. He will next disclose the state of his PAC and campaign’s finances in federal filings in July.Mr. Trump is unusually dependent on online fund-raising. He has held only one major campaign fund-raiser that was billed as such by his team: the event at Bedminster on the evening of his indictment. It raised $2 million. More

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      Qué pasa si un candidato a la presidencia de EE. UU. es condenado

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      Las leyes estadounidenses y la Constitución brindan respuestas claras solo para algunas dudas que surgen. Otras podrían lanzar al país a territorio desconocido.Desde que Eugene Debs hizo campaña desde una celda de prisión hace más de un siglo, en Estados Unidos no se había visto lo que podría ocurrir ahora: un candidato importante condenado por un delito grave que contiende a la presidencia. Y nunca antes ese candidato había sido alguien con posibilidades reales de ganar.El expresidente Donald Trump no enfrenta restricciones de campaña. Aunque ha sido acusado de decenas de delitos graves en dos casos, uno federal y uno en Nueva York, aún falta mucho para que haya veredictos. Y existen muchas incertidumbres, entre ellas si los procedimientos van a obstaculizar la campaña de Trump a nivel práctico o si comenzarán a perjudicarlo en las encuestas de una manera que no lo han hecho hasta ahora.Pero si es condenado por alguno de los delitos graves, las cosas se complican y la Constitución y la legislación estadounidense solo tienen respuestas claras para algunas pocas de las cuestiones que surgirían.Otras llevarían al país por un territorio totalmente desconocido y las decisiones más importantes quedarían en manos de jueces federales.Esto es lo que sabemos y lo que no.¿Trump puede contender a la presidencia si es condenado?Esta es la pregunta más sencilla de todas. La respuesta es sí.La Constitución establece muy pocos requisitos de elegibilidad para los presidentes. Deben tener al menos 35 años, ser ciudadanos naturales “de nacimiento” y haber vivido en Estados Unidos al menos 14 años.No hay limitaciones basadas en la reputación o los antecedentes penales (aunque algunos estados prohíben a los delincuentes contender a cargos estatales y locales, estas leyes no se aplican a los cargos federales).¿Su campaña se vería limitada?Para decirlo de forma obvia, sería logísticamente difícil hacer campaña para la presidencia desde la cárcel. Ningún candidato de un partido mayoritario lo ha hecho nunca. Debs se presentó por el Partido Socialista en 1920 y recibió alrededor del 3 por ciento de los votos.Pero el equipo de campaña de Trump podría encargarse de la recaudación de fondos y otras actividades de la campaña en su ausencia y es muy poco probable que Trump pudiera ser inhabilitado para aparecer en las boletas electorales.El Partido Republicano y el Partido Demócrata tienen espacios garantizados en las boletas de las elecciones generales en todos los estados y los partidos indican a las autoridades electorales qué nombre poner en su lugar. Los estados podrían, en teoría, tratar de mantener a Trump fuera de las papeletas aprobando leyes que exijan no tener antecedentes penales, pero esto sería sobre un terreno jurídicamente inestable.“Dejamos que los estados decidan la hora, el sitio y la forma” de las elecciones, dijo Jessica Levinson, profesora de la Escuela de Derecho Loyola especializada en derecho electoral, “pero creo que la mejor lectura de nuestra Constitución es que no se permite que el estado añada nuevos requisitos sustantivos”.Si bien esa perspectiva no es universal entre los juristas, sí ganó en un tribunal en 2019, cuando California intentó exigir que los candidatos difundieran sus declaraciones de impuestos a fin de aparecer en las papeletas de las primeras. Un juez federal de distrito bloqueó el fallo, al indicar que lo más probable es que fuera inconstitucional. La Corte Suprema de California también la bloqueó de manera unánime como violación de la constitución estatal, y el caso nunca llegó a la Corte Suprema de EE. UU.¿Podría votar?Probablemente no.Trump está empadronado para votar en Florida y, en caso de ser condenado por un delito grave, sería privado del derecho al voto allí.La mayoría de los delincuentes en Florida recuperan su derecho a votar al terminar de cumplir su condena, incluida la libertad condicional, y el pago de todas las multas y cuotas. Pero es muy poco probable que Trump, en caso de ser condenado, tenga tiempo de cumplir su condena antes del día de las elecciones.Como Trump también tiene residencia en Nueva York, podría cambiar su registro de votante a ese estado para aprovechar que es más permisivo: en Nueva York, los delincuentes pueden votar cuando se encuentran en libertad condicional. Pero, en Florida y en casi todos los demás estados, siguen privados del derecho de voto mientras están en prisión.Así que si Trump fuera enviado a prisión, se encontrará en la extraordinaria situación de ser considerado apto para ser votado, pero no apto para votar.¿Qué sucede si resulta electo desde prisión?Nadie sabe.“Estamos muy lejos de cualquier cosa que haya ocurrido”, dijo Erwin Chemerinsky, experto en derecho constitucional de la Universidad de California en Berkeley. “Son solo conjeturas”.Desde el punto de vista jurídico, Trump seguiría siendo elegible para ser presidente incluso si fuera a prisión. La Constitución no dice nada en contra. “No creo que los constituyentes pensaran en ningún momento que íbamos a estar en esta situación”, dijo Levinson.En la práctica, la elección de un presidente preso crearía una crisis jurídica que casi con toda seguridad tendrían que resolver los tribunales.En teoría, Trump podría ser despojado de su autoridad en virtud de la Vigésima Quinta Enmienda, que establece un proceso para transferir la autoridad al vicepresidente si el presidente es “incapaz de cumplir con los poderes y deberes de su cargo”. Pero eso requeriría que el vicepresidente y una mayoría del Gabinete declararan a Trump incapaz de cumplir con sus obligaciones, una perspectiva remota dado que se trataría de leales designados por el propio Trump.Lo más probable es que Trump pudiera presentar una demanda para ser liberado con el argumento de que su encarcelamiento le impide cumplir sus obligaciones constitucionales como presidente. Un caso así podría centrarse en la separación de poderes y los abogados de Trump argumentarían que mantener en prisión a un presidente debidamente elegido equivaldría a una infracción del poder judicial en perjuicio de las operaciones del poder ejecutivo.También podría intentar indultarse a sí mismo, o conmutar su sentencia, dejando su condena en vigor pero poniendo fin a su encarcelamiento. Cualquiera de las dos acciones constituiría una afirmación extraordinaria del poder presidencial, y la Corte Suprema sería el árbitro final en cuanto a la constitucionalidad de un “autoperdón”.O, antes de dejar el cargo, el presidente Joe Biden podría indultar a Trump con base en que “el pueblo se ha manifestado y necesito perdonarlo para que pueda gobernar”, dijo Chemerinsky.¿Y qué pasa si resulta electo y una de las causas penales sigue en proceso?De nuevo, nadie sabe. Pero un resultado probable sería que un fiscal general nombrado por Trump retirara los cargos y diera por terminado el caso.El Departamento de Justicia no acusa a presidentes en funciones, conforme a una política esbozada en un memorando de 1973, durante la era de Richard Nixon. Nunca había sido necesario desarrollar una política sobre qué hacer con un presidente entrante que ya ha sido acusado. Pero el razonamiento para no acusar a los presidentes en funciones —algo que interferiría con la capacidad de fungir como tal— aplica del mismo modo en este escenario hipotético.“Las razones por las que no querríamos acusar a un presidente en funciones son las razones por las que no querríamos procesar a un presidente en funciones”, ha dicho Chemerinsky, que ha estado en desacuerdo con el razonamiento del departamento. “Mi conjetura es que, si el proceso continuara y Trump resultara electo, el Departamento de Justicia— que sería el Departamento de Justicia de Trump— diría: ‘Nos apegamos al memorando de 1973’”.Esto, como muchas otras cosas aquí planteadas, sería algo sin precedente legal, y es imposible saber qué haría la Corte Suprema si se le presentara la cuestión.En su fallo del caso Clinton contra Jones en 1997, el tribunal permitió que procediera una demanda contra el presidente Bill Clinton. Pero se trataba de un caso civil, no penal, y lo había presentado un ciudadano privado, no el mismo gobierno.Charlie Savage More

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      What Happens if a Presidential Candidate Is Convicted?

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      The Constitution and American law have clear answers for only some of the questions that would arise. Others would bring the country into truly uncharted territory.Not since Eugene V. Debs campaigned from a prison cell more than a century ago has the United States experienced what might now happen: a prominent candidate with a felony conviction running for president. And never before has that candidate been someone with a real chance of winning.Former President Donald J. Trump faces no campaign restrictions. Though he has been charged with dozens of felonies across two cases, one federal and one in New York, verdicts are a long way off. And there are many uncertainties, including whether the proceedings will hinder Mr. Trump’s campaign in practical ways or begin to hurt him in the polls in a way they have not so far.But if he is convicted on any of the felony counts, things get more complicated — and the Constitution and American law have clear answers for only some of the questions that would arise.Others would bring the country into truly uncharted territory, with huge decisions resting in the hands of federal judges.Here is what we know, and what we don’t know.Can Trump run if he is convicted?This is the simplest question of the bunch. The answer is yes.The Constitution sets very few eligibility requirements for presidents. They must be at least 35 years old, be “natural born” citizens and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.There are no limitations based on character or criminal record. (While some states prohibit felons from running for state and local office, these laws do not apply to federal offices.) Would his campaign be restricted?To offer an obvious understatement, it would be logistically difficult to run for president from prison. No major-party candidate has ever done it. Mr. Debs ran for the Socialist Party in 1920 and received about 3 percent of the vote.But Mr. Trump’s campaign staff could handle fund-raising and other campaign activities in his absence, and it is very unlikely that Mr. Trump could be disqualified from appearing on ballots.The Republican and Democratic Parties have guaranteed spots on general-election ballots in every state, and the parties tell election officials whose name to put in their spot. States could, in theory, try to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot by passing legislation requiring a clean criminal record, but this would be on legally shaky ground.“We let states set the time, place and manner” of elections, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School who specializes in election law, “but I think the best reading of our Constitution is you don’t let the state add new substantive requirements.”While that view is not universal among legal experts, it won in court in 2019, when California tried to require candidates to release their tax returns in order to appear on primary ballots. A federal district judge blocked the rule, saying it was most likely unconstitutional. The California Supreme Court also unanimously blocked it as a violation of the state constitution, and the case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court.Could he vote?Probably not.Mr. Trump is registered to vote in Florida, and he would be disenfranchised there if convicted of a felony.Most felons in Florida regain voting rights after completing their full sentence, including parole or probation, and paying all fines and fees. But it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump, if convicted, would have time to complete his sentence before Election Day.Since Mr. Trump also has a residence in New York, he could switch his voter registration there to take advantage of its more permissive approach: Felons in New York can vote while on parole or probation. But, as in Florida and almost every other state, they are still disenfranchised while in prison.So if Mr. Trump is imprisoned, he will be in the extraordinary position of being deemed fit to be voted for, but unfit to vote.What happens if he is elected from prison?No one knows.“We’re so far removed from anything that’s ever happened,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s just guessing.”Legally, Mr. Trump would remain eligible to be president even if he were imprisoned. The Constitution says nothing to the contrary. “I don’t think that the framers ever thought we were going to be in this situation,” Professor Levinson said.In practice, the election of an incarcerated president would create a legal crisis that would almost certainly need to be resolved by the courts.In theory, Mr. Trump could be stripped of his authority under the 25th Amendment, which provides a process to transfer authority to the vice president if the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” But that would require the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare Mr. Trump unable to fulfill his duties, a remote prospect given that these would be loyalists appointed by Mr. Trump himself.More likely, Mr. Trump could sue to be released on the basis that his imprisonment was preventing him from fulfilling his constitutional obligations as president. Such a case would probably focus on the separation of powers, with Mr. Trump’s lawyers arguing that keeping a duly elected president in prison would be an infringement by the judicial branch on the operations of the executive branch.He could also try to pardon himself — or to commute his sentence, leaving his conviction in place but ending his imprisonment. Either action would be an extraordinary assertion of presidential power, and the Supreme Court would be the final arbiter of whether a “self pardon” was constitutional.Or President Biden, on his way out the door, could pardon Mr. Trump on the basis that “the people have spoken and I need to pardon him so he can govern,” Professor Chemerinsky said.What if he’s elected with a case still in progress?Again, no one knows. But a likely outcome would be that a Trump-appointed attorney general would withdraw the charges and end the case.The Justice Department does not indict sitting presidents, a policy outlined in a 1973 memo, during the Nixon era. It has never had reason to develop a policy on what to do with an incoming president who has already been indicted. But the rationale for not indicting sitting presidents — that it would interfere with their ability to perform their duties — applies just as well in this hypothetical scenario.“The reasons why we wouldn’t want to indict a sitting president are the reasons we wouldn’t want to prosecute a sitting president,” said Professor Chemerinsky, who has disagreed with the department’s reasoning. “My guess is, if the Trump prosecution were still ongoing in some way and Trump were elected, the Justice Department — which would be the Trump Justice Department — would say, ‘We’re following the 1973 memo.’”Like so much else here, this would be legally untested, and it is impossible to say what the Supreme Court would do if the question reached it.In its Clinton v. Jones ruling in 1997, the court allowed a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton to proceed. But that case was civil, not criminal, and it was filed by a private citizen, not by the government itself.Charlie Savage More

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      Every Trump Indictment Tells a Story

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      Let’s assume, because it seems like a reasonable assumption, that we have not reached the end of the indictments that will be handed down against Donald Trump. Let’s assume that either the case in Georgia, where he is being investigated for election tampering, or the special counsel’s continuing investigation in Washington, will yield a prosecution related to his conduct between the November 2020 election and the riot on Jan. 6.In that case, Trump’s various indictments would double as a road map to his presidency and his era — each fitting with a different interpretation of the Trump phenomenon, and only together giving the fullest picture of his times.The first indictment, New York’s case against Trump for campaign finance violations related to his alleged affair with the adult thespian Stormy Daniels, fits neatly into the narrative of the Trump era that’s often called “anti-anti-Trump.” This interpretation concedes, to some degree at least, Trump’s sleaziness and folly, but then it invariably insists that his enemies in the American establishment are actually more dangerous — because they’re “protecting democracy” by trampling its norms, embracing conspiracy theories and conducting pointless witch hunts.It’s hard to imagine a better illustration of the anti-anti-Trumpist case than an ideological prosecutor in a Democratic city indicting a former president on a charge considered dubious even by many liberal legal experts. “Norms,” indeed: The Stormy Daniels case looks like Resistance theater, partisan lawfare, exactly the kind of overreach that Trump’s defenders insist defines the entirety of anti-Trumpism.The new federal indictment, for which Trump was arraigned in Miami on Tuesday, moves us into different terrain. This time the case seems legitimate, and even if charges brought under the Espionage Act have a fairly checkered history, on its face the indictment makes a strong case that Trump asked for this, that he invited the prosecution, that he had plenty of opportunities to stay within the law and chose to obstruct, evade and dissemble instead.But at the same time one would need a heart of stone not to find the whole class‌ified-documents affair a little bit comedic: blackly comic, to be sure, in the vein of the Coen Brothers, but for all its serious aspects still essentially absurd. The boxes piled high in the gaudy Mar-a-Lago bathroom is an indelible image for anyone who interprets the Trump era as a vainglorious clown show, with its pileup of scandals driven by narcissism and incompetence, and its serious-minded interpreters worrying about the Authoritarian Menace or the Crisis of Democracy when the evidence before their eyes was usually much shallower and stupider, not the 1930s come again but a reality television mind-set run amok.In the end, though, the reality-television reading was insufficient, because Trump groped his way into genuinely sinister territory — seeking what would have been a constitutional crisis if his postelection wishes had been granted and inspiring mob violence when he didn’t get his way.That aspect of his presidency still awaits its juridical illumination. But we may well get it, and if there is a prosecution related to his postelection conduct, it will complete a presidential triptych — with the persecuted Trump, the farcical Trump and the sinister Trump each making an appearance in our courts.As a matter of electoral politics, Trump’s resilience as a primary candidate depends upon Republican voters interpreting the entire triptych in the light of its first installment — such that his enemies’ overreach is the only thing that his admirers and supporters see, and both his more absurd behaviors and his most destructive acts are assumed to be exaggerated or invented, just so much liberal hype and NeverTrump hysteria.This perspective is false, but it is well entrenched among Republicans and has the advantage of simplicity. Meanwhile, Trump’s rivals for the nomination are stuck playing “on the one hand, on the other hand” games — constantly insisting that Trump has been unfairly treated, because Republican voters believe as much and clearly want to hear it stated, while trying to gently nurture the idea that he brings some of this mistreatment on himself and a different Republican might be just as effective without the constant grist for enemies and prosecutors.In a general election environment, though, we have strong evidence from the recent midterms that many swing voters reverse the Republican interpretation of the triptych, and read the whole of Trumpism in light of its darkest manifestation. Both the liberal overreach they might have opposed and the Trumpian shenanigans they might have tolerated are subsumed by a desire to avoid a repeat of Jan. 6, a revulsion against G.O.P. candidates who seem intent on replaying Trump’s destabilizing behavior.It’s possible to imagine that the multiplication of indictments, the constant action in the courts, eventually helps Republican voters who don’t share this interpretation to recognize how many of their fellow Americans do hold it, making Trump seem too unelectable at last.But Trump has always thrived by persuading a critical mass of Republicans to live inside his reality, not anybody else’s. And inside that gaudy mansion, the walls have room for just one outsize, garish portrait: “The Martyrdom of Donald Trump.”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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      Arraigned, Again: Trump’s Federal Court Hearing in Miami

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      Michael Simon Johnson, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Diana Nguyen, Mary Wilson and Rachel Quester and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicDonald Trump was arraigned in Miami yesterday on 37 criminal counts covering seven different violations of federal law, including the handling of classified documents.Three New York Times journalists covered the proceedings: Glenn Thrush was inside the courtroom, Luke Broadwater reported from outside the courthouse, and Maggie Haberman was at Mr. Trump’s home in Bedminster, N.J.On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.Glenn Thrush, who covers the Department of Justice for The New York Times.Maggie Haberman, a political correspondent for The New York Times.Donald Trump boarding a plane in Miami after making his court appearance. “I did everything right and they indicted me,” he said in a speech after his arraignment.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBackground readingMr. Trump, now twice indicted since leaving the White House, surrendered to federal authorities in Miami and pleaded not guilty, striking a defiant tone afterward.On the calendar for Mr. Trump, the Republicans’ 2024 front-runner: rallies and primaries mixed with court dates.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater More

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      Trump Investigations: Where Other Notable Inquiries Stand

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      Former President Donald J. Trump faces a host of investigations around the country, at both the state and federal levels, into matters related to his business and political careers.Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts filed by prosecutors in Manhattan related to his role in what they described as a hush-money scheme to cover up a potential sex scandal in order to clear his path to the presidency in 2016. A Georgia prosecutor is in the final stages of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse the election results in that state.And Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the documents case, is also examining Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his defeat at the polls in 2020 and his role in the events that led to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Here is where notable inquiries involving the former president stand.Manhattan Criminal CaseThe Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, brought the case over Mr. Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, who was poised during the campaign to go public with her story of a sexual encounter with him.Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time, paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet. Once he was sworn in as president, Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen.While paying hush money is not inherently criminal, Mr. Bragg accused Mr. Trump of falsifying records related to the payments and the reimbursement of Mr. Cohen, who is expected to serve as the prosecution’s star witness.In court papers, prosecutors also cited the account of another woman, Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model. Ms. McDougal had tried to sell her story of an affair with Mr. Trump during the campaign and reached a $150,000 agreement with The National Enquirer.Rather than publish her account, the tabloid suppressed it in cooperation with Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, prosecutors say. (Mr. Trump has denied having affairs with either Ms. Daniels or Ms. McDougal.)The case is scheduled to go to trial in March.Georgia Criminal InquiryProsecutors in Georgia recently indicated that they would announce indictments this summer in their investigation of Mr. Trump and some of his allies over their efforts to interfere with the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.Mr. Trump and his associates had numerous interactions with Georgia officials after the election, including a call in which he urged the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes” — the number he would have needed to overcome President Biden’s lead there.Legal experts say that Mr. Trump and others appear to be at “substantial risk” of prosecution for violating a number Georgia statutes, including the state’s racketeering law.A special grand jury was impaneled in May of last year in Fulton County, and it heard testimony from 75 witnesses behind closed doors over a series of months. The jurors produced a final report, but the most important elements of it — including recommendations on who should be indicted and on what charges — remain under seal.But the forewoman, Emily Kohrs, has said that indictments were recommended against more than a dozen people, and she strongly hinted in an interview with The New York Times in February that Mr. Trump was included among those names. “You’re not going to be shocked,” she said. “It’s not rocket science.”Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, will ultimately decide what charges to seek and then bring them before a regular grand jury. She recently indicated that she would do so during the first three weeks of August.Jan. 6 InquiriesA House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol spent a year and a half examining the role that Mr. Trump and his allies played in his efforts to hold on to power after his electoral defeat in November 2020.In December, the committee issued an 845-page report detailing the events that led to the attack on the Capitol that concluded that Mr. Trump and some of his associates had devised “a multipart plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”The panel also accused Mr. Trump of inciting insurrection and conspiracy to defraud the United States, among other federal crimes, and referred him and some of his allies to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.The referrals were largely symbolic, but they sent a powerful signal that a bipartisan committee of Congress believed the former president had committed crimes.Mr. Smith’s office has been conducting its own investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the election, building on months of work by other federal prosecutors in Washington who have also filed charges against nearly 1,000 people who took part in the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The special counsel’s office has focused its attention on a wide array of schemes that Mr. Trump and his allies used to try to stave off defeat, among them a plan to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were won by Mr. Biden. Prosecutors under Mr. Smith have also sought information about Mr. Trump’s main fund-raising operation after the election.The special counsel’s office has recently won important legal battles in its inquiry as judges in Washington have issued rulings forcing top Trump administration officials like former Vice President Mike Pence and the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to testify in front of a grand jury.It is unclear what charges, if any, might come from the federal investigation. But prosecutors continue to pursue a variety of angles. They recently subpoenaed staff members from the Trump White House who might have been involved in firing the cybersecurity official whose agency judged the 2020 election “the most secure in American history,” according to two people briefed on the matter.New York State Civil InquiryIn a September lawsuit, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, accused Mr. Trump of lying to lenders and insurers by fraudulently overvaluing his assets by billions of dollars.Ms. James is seeking to bar the Trumps, including Mr. Trump’s older sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, and his older daughter, Ivanka, from running a business in New York.She has already successfully requested that a judge appoint an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s use of its annual financial statements.Because Ms. James’s investigation is civil, she cannot file criminal charges. She could opt to pursue settlement negotiations in hopes of obtaining a swifter financial payout. But if she were to prevail at trial, a judge could impose steep financial penalties on Mr. Trump and restrict his business operations in New York.Ms. James’s investigators questioned Mr. Trump under oath in April, and a trial is scheduled for October.Reporting was contributed by More

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      Is Trump’s Nomination Now Inevitable?

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      Luke Vander Ploeg, Michael Simon Johnson, Clare Toeniskoetter, Carlos Prieto and Rachel Quester, Lisa Tobin and Marion Lozano and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicVoters in the 2022 midterms seemed to send a clear message — a rejection of Trumpism and extremism. And yet it appears increasingly likely that he will win the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Astead W. Herndon, a national political correspondent for The Times and the host of the politics podcast The Run-Up, explains what shifted in Republican politics so that Mr. Trump’s nomination could start to seem almost inevitable.On today’s episodeAstead W. Herndon, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.Former President Donald J. Trump appears becoming increasingly likely to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesBackground readingTo some Republicans and Democrats, the charges brought against Mr. Trump in New York appeared flimsy and less consequential than many had hoped. To others, the case had the potential to reverberate politically.In a phone call with top donors, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida privately argued that Mr. Trump couldn’t win in the general election. Mr. DeSantis is expected to officially enter the presidential race next week.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Astead W. Herndon More

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      Five Takeaways From Trump’s Unruly CNN Town Hall

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      Donald Trump is still Donald Trump.His 70 minutes onstage in New Hampshire served as a vivid reminder that the former president has only one speed, and that his second act mirrors his first. He is, as ever, a celebrity performance artist and, even out of office, remains the center of gravity in American politics.CNN’s decision to give him an unfiltered prime-time platform was a callback to the 2016 campaign, even as the moderator, Kaitlan Collins, persistently interjected to try to cut him off or correct him.Mr. Trump was so focused on discussing and defending himself that he barely touched on President Biden’s record — which people close to Mr. Trump want him to focus on. But he was disciplined when it came to his chief expected primary rival.Here are five takeaways.Trump won’t let go of his lies about 2020 or Jan. 6If viewers were expecting Mr. Trump to have moved on from his falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he demonstrated once again, right out of the gate, that he very much hasn’t.The first questions asked by Ms. Collins were about Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in 2020, and his false claims of fraud.“I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens,” Mr. Trump said, calling the election he lost “rigged.”Mr. Trump later said he was “inclined” to pardon “many” of the rioters arrested on Jan. 6, 2021, after the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob during certification of President Biden’s Electoral College win. His avoidance of an unequivocal promise pleased people close to him.He also came armed with a list of his own Twitter posts and statements from that day — an idea that was his, a person familiar with the planning said. He lied about his inaction that day as Ms. Collins pressed him about what he was doing during the hours of violence. And he said he did not owe Vice President Mike Pence, whose life was threatened by the mob, an apology.As time has worn on, Mr. Trump has increasingly wrapped his arms around what took place at the Capitol and incorporated it into his campaign. Wednesday night was no exception.“A beautiful day,” he said of Jan. 6.It was a reminder that embracing the deadly violence of that day — at least for Republicans — is no longer seen as disqualifying. Privately, Mr. Trump’s team said they were happy with how he handled the extensive time spent on the postelection period during the town hall.The G.O.P. audience stacked the deck, but revealed where the base isThe audience’s regular interruptions on behalf of Mr. Trump were like a laugh track on a sitcom. It built momentum for him in the room — and onscreen for the television audience — and stifled Ms. Collins as she repeatedly tried to interrupt him with facts and correctives.No matter how vulgar, profane or politically incorrect Mr. Trump was, the Republican crowd in New Hampshire audibly ate up the shtick of the decades-long showman.He would pardon a “large portion” of Jan. 6 rioters. Applause.He mocked the detailed accusations of rape from E. Jean Carroll as made up “hanky-panky in a dressing room.” Laughter. No matter that a New York jury held him liable for sexual abuse and defamation this week, awarding Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages.Calling Ms. Carroll a “wack job.” Applause and laughs.Flip-flopping on using the debt ceiling for leverage, because “I’m not president.” More laughs.The cheers revealed the current psyche of the Republican base, which is eager for confrontation: with the press, with Democrats, with anyone standing in the way of Republicans taking power.It made for tough sledding for Ms. Collins, who was like an athlete playing an away game on hostile turf: She had to battle the crowd and the candidate simultaneously.“You’re a nasty person,” Mr. Trump said to her at one point, echoing the line he used against Hillary Clinton in 2016.The town-hall format felt like a set piece for Mr. Trump that he leveraged to cast himself as both the putative Republican incumbent — “Mister president,” he was repeatedly addressed as — and the outsider, recreating conditions from his two previous campaigns.Republicans cheered, but so did Democrats looking to the general electionPresident Biden’s team had changed the televisions on Air Force One from CNN to MSNBC as he returned from New York on Wednesday evening. But that didn’t mean his political team was not eagerly watching the town hall unfold, and cheering along with the Republican audience.Mr. Trump defended Jan. 6 as a “beautiful day.” He hailed the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “great victory.” He wouldn’t say if he hoped Ukraine would win the war against Russia. He talked again about how the rich and famous get their way. “Women let you,” he said. And he refused to rule out reimposing one of the most incendiary and divisive policies of his term in office: purposefully separating families at the border.Mr. Trump’s answers played well in the hall but could all find their way into Democratic messaging in the next 18 months.Late Wednesday, the Biden campaign was already figuring out what segments could be turned quickly into digital ads, seeing Mr. Trump staking out positions that would turn off the kind of swing voters that Mr. Biden won in 2020.Shortly after the event ended, Mr. Biden issued a tweet. “Do you want four more years of that?” it read. It was a request for donations. It was also a reminder how much of the Biden 2024 campaign is likely to be about Mr. Trump.Trump aggressively dodged taking a stance on a federal abortion banMr. Trump is perhaps the single Republican most responsible for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. He appointed three of the court’s justices who powered the majority opinion. But he has privately blamed abortion politics for Republican underperformance in the 2022 midterms and has treaded carefully in the early months of his 2024 run.Before the town hall, his team spent considerable time honing his answer to a question they knew he would be asked: Would he support a federal ban, and at how many weeks?His repeated dodges and euphemisms were hard to miss on Wednesday.“Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life,” he began.That was about as specific as he would get. He said he was “honored to have done what I did” — a line Democrats had quickly flagged as potential fodder for future ads — and that it was a “great victory.”Mr. Trump’s Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis, recently signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida, getting to Mr. Trump’s right on an issue that could resonate with evangelical voters. Mr. Trump did not even mention Mr. DeSantis until more than an hour into the event, and only after prodding from a voter. “I think he ought to relax and take it easy and think about the future,” Mr. Trump urged.In refusing to say if he would sign a federal ban, Mr. Trump tried to cast Democrats as radical and pledged that he supported exemptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. “What I’ll do is negotiate so people are happy,” he said.“I just want to give you one more chance,” Ms. Collins pressed.He dodged one final time. “Make a deal that’s going to be good,” he said.He deepened his legal jeopardy with comments on investigationsThe most heated exchange that Mr. Trump had with Ms. Collins was over the special counsel investigation into his possession of hundreds of presidential records, including more than 300 individual classified documents, at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, after he left office.And it was the area in which he walked himself into the biggest problems.“I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” said Mr. Trump, who has maintained, despite contradictions from his own former officials, that he had a standing order automatically declassifying documents that left the Oval Office and went to the president’s residence.“I had every right to do it, I didn’t make a secret of it. You know, the boxes were stationed outside the White House, people were taking pictures of it,” Mr. Trump said, intimating that people were somehow aware that presidential material and classified documents were in them (they were not).In what will be of great interest to the special counsel, Jack Smith, Mr. Trump would not definitively rule out whether he showed classified material to people, something investigators have queried witnesses about, in particular in connection with a map with sensitive intelligence.“Not really,” he hedged, adding, “I would have the right to.” At another point he declared, “I have the right to do whatever I want with them.”He also defended himself for a call he had with Georgia’s secretary of state in which he said he was trying to “find” enough votes to win. “I didn’t ask him to find anything,” Mr. Trump said.There are few issues that worry the Trump team and the former president as much as the documents investigation, and Mr. Trump wore that on his face and in his words on the stage in New Hampshire. More