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      Analysis: Durham Report Failed to Deliver After Years of Political Hype

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      A dysfunctional investigation led by a Trump-era special counsel illustrates a dilemma about prosecutorial independence and accountability in politically sensitive matters.The limping conclusion to John H. Durham’s four-year investigation of the Russia inquiry underscores a recurring dilemma in American government: how to shield sensitive law enforcement investigations from politics without creating prosecutors who can run amok, never to be held to account.At a time when special counsels are proliferating — there have been four since 2017, two of whom are still at work — the much-hyped investigation by Mr. Durham, a special counsel, into the Russia inquiry ended with a whimper that stood in contrast to the countless hours of political furor that spun off from it.Mr. Durham delivered a report that scolded the F.B.I. but failed to live up to the expectations of supporters of Donald J. Trump that he would uncover a politically motivated “deep state” conspiracy. He charged no high-level F.B.I. or intelligence official with a crime and acknowledged in a footnote that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign did nothing prosecutable, either.Predictably, the report’s actual content — it contained no major new revelations, and it accused the F.B.I. of “confirmation bias” rather than making a more explosive conclusion of political bias — made scant difference in parts of the political arena. Mr. Trump and many of his loyalists issued statements treating it as vindication of their claims that the Russia inquiry involved far more extravagant wrongdoing.“The Durham Report spells out in great detail the Democrat Hoax that was perpetrated upon me and the American people,” Mr. Trump insisted on social media. “This is 2020 Presidential Election Fraud, just like ‘stuffing’ the ballot boxes, only more so. This totally illegal act had a huge impact on the Election.”Mr. Trump’s comparison was unintentionally striking. Just as his and his supporters’ wild and invented claims of election fraud floundered in court (Fox News also agreed to pay a $787.5 million settlement for amplifying lies about Dominion Voting Systems), the political noise surrounding Mr. Durham’s efforts ultimately ran up against reality.In that sense, it was less that Mr. Durham failed to deliver and more that Attorney General William P. Barr set him up to fail the moment he assigned Mr. Durham to find evidence proving Mr. Trump’s claims about the Russia investigation.There were real-world flaws with the Russia investigation, especially how the F.B.I. botched applications to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser. But the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, found those problems, leaving Mr. Durham with depleted hunting grounds.Indeed, credit for Mr. Durham’s only courtroom success, a guilty plea by an F.B.I. lawyer who doctored an email during preparations for a wiretap renewal, belongs to Mr. Horowitz, who uncovered the misconduct.At the same time, Mr. Horowitz kneecapped Mr. Durham’s investigation by finding no evidence that F.B.I. actions were politically motivated. He also concluded that the basis of the Russia inquiry — an Australian diplomat’s tip related to the release of Democratic emails hacked by Russia — was sufficient to open a full investigation.Before Mr. Horowitz released his December 2019 report, Mr. Durham lobbied him to drop that finding, arguing the F.B.I. should have instead opened a preliminary inquiry. When Mr. Horowitz declined, Mr. Durham issued an extraordinary statement saying he disagreed based on “evidence collected to date” in his inquiry.But even as Mr. Durham’s report questioned whether the F.B.I. should have opened it as a lower-level investigation, he stopped short of stating that opening a full one violated any rule.Mr. Durham also used court filings in those cases to insinuate that the Clinton campaign framed former President Donald J. Trump for collusion.Sophie Park for The New York TimesA remaining rationale for the Durham investigation was that Mr. Horowitz lacked jurisdiction to scrutinize spy agencies. But by the spring of 2020, according to officials familiar with the inquiry, Mr. Durham’s effort to find intelligence abuses in the origins of the Russia investigation had come up empty.Instead of wrapping up, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham shifted to a different rationale, hunting for a basis to blame the Clinton campaign for suspicions surrounding myriad links Trump campaign associates had to Russia.By keeping the investigation going, Mr. Barr initially appeased Mr. Trump, who, as Mr. Barr recounted in his memoir, was angry about the lack of charges as the 2020 election neared.But Mr. Barr’s public statements about Mr. Durham’s investigation also helped foster perceptions that he had found something big. In April 2020, for example, he suggested in a Fox News interview that officials could be prosecuted and said: “The evidence shows that we are not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There is something far more troubling here.”Mr. Trump and some of his allies in the news media went further, stoking expectations among his supporters that Mr. Durham would imprison high-level officials. Those include the former directors of the F.B.I. and C.I.A., James B. Comey and John O. Brennan, and Democratic leaders like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr.In fact, Mr. Durham only ever developed charges against two outsiders involved in efforts to scrutinize links between Mr. Trump and Russia, accusing them both of making false statements to the F.B.I. and treating the bureau as a victim, not a perpetrator.While in office, Mr. Barr worked closely with Mr. Durham, regularly meeting with him, sharing Scotch and accompanying him to Europe. When it became clear that Mr. Durham had found no one to charge before the election, Mr. Barr pushed him to draft a potential interim report, prompting Mr. Durham’s No. 2, Nora R. Dannehy, to resign in protest over ethics, The New York Times has reported.Against that backdrop, the first phase of Mr. Durham’s investigation — when he was a U.S. attorney appointed by Mr. Trump, not a special counsel — illustrates why there is a recurring public policy interest in shielding prosecutors pursuing politically sensitive matters from political appointees.But the second phase — after Mr. Barr made him a special counsel, entrenching him to remain under the Biden administration with some independence from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — illustrates how prosecutorial independence itself risks a different kind of dysfunction.The regulations empowered Mr. Garland to block Mr. Durham from an action, but only if it was “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established departmental practices that it should not be pursued” and required him to tell Congress. Mr. Garland gave Mr. Durham free rein, avoiding Republican accusations of a cover-up.Mr. Durham continued for another two and a half years, spending millions of dollars to bring the two demonstrably weak cases involving accusations of false statements; in each instance, a jury of 12 unanimously rejected the charges. One of Mr. Durham’s handpicked prosecutors resigned from his team in protest of the first of those indictments, The Times has reported.But Mr. Durham’s use of his law enforcement powers did achieve something else. He used court filings to insinuate a theory he never found evidence to charge: that the Clinton campaign conspired to frame Mr. Trump for collusion. Those filings provided endless fodder for conservative news media.Even after Mr. Durham’s cases collapsed, some Trump supporters held out hope that his final report would deliver a bombshell. But it largely consisted of recycled material, interlaced with conclusions like Mr. Durham’s accusation that the F.B.I. had displayed a “lack of analytical rigor.”Attorney General William P. Barr bestowed Mr. Durham with special counsel status.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Durham’s own analytical rigor was subject to scrutiny. At one point he wrote that he had found “no evidence” that the F.B.I. ever considered whether Clinton campaign efforts to tie Mr. Trump to Russia might affect its investigation.Yet the same page cited messages by a top F.B.I. official, Peter Strzok, cautioning colleagues about the Steele dossier, a compendium of claims about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia that, it later became clear, were Clinton campaign-funded opposition research. He wrote that it “should be viewed as intended to influence as well as to inform” and whoever commissioned it was “presumed to be connected to the campaign in some way.”As Mr. Horowitz uncovered and criticized, the F.B.I. later cited the Steele dossier in wiretap applications, despite learning a reason to doubt its credibility. But Trump supporters often go further, falsely claiming that the F.B.I. opened the entire Russia investigation based on the dossier.Mr. Durham’s report appeared to nod to that false claim, saying that “information received from politically affiliated persons and entities” in part had “triggered” the inquiry. Yet elsewhere, his report acknowledged that the officials who opened the investigation in July 2016 had not yet seen the dossier, and it was prompted by the Australian diplomat’s tip. He also conceded that there was “no question the F.B.I. had an affirmative obligation to closely examine” that lead.Tom Fitton, a Trump ally and the leader of the conservative group Judicial Watch, expressed disappointment in the Durham investigation in a statement this week, while insisting that there had been a “conspiracy by Obama, Biden, Clinton and their Deep State allies.”“Durham let down the American people with few and failed prosecutions,” Mr. Fitton declared. “Never in American history has so much government corruption faced so little accountability.”But Aitan Goelman, a lawyer for Mr. Strzok, said that while the special counsel accused the F.B.I. of “confirmation bias,” it was Mr. Durham who spent four years trying to find support for a preformed belief about the Russia investigation.“In fact, it is Mr. Durham’s investigation that was politically motivated, a direct consequence of former President Trump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice, an effort that unanimous juries in each of Mr. Durham’s trials soundly rejected,” he said.Adam Goldman More

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      Possible Cyberattack Disrupts The Philadelphia Inquirer

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      The Inquirer, citing “anomalous activity” on its computer systems, said it was unable to print its regular Sunday edition and told staff members not to work in the newsroom at least through Tuesday.A possible cyberattack on The Philadelphia Inquirer disrupted the newspaper’s print operation over the weekend and prompted it to close its newsroom through at least Tuesday, when its staff will be covering an expensive and fiercely contested mayoral primary.Elizabeth H. Hughes, the publisher and chief executive of The Inquirer, said that the newspaper discovered “anomalous activity on select computer systems” on Thursday and “immediately took those systems offline.”But The Inquirer was unable to print its regular Sunday edition, the newspaper reported. Instead, print subscribers received a Sunday “early edition,” which went to press on Friday night. The newspaper also reported on Sunday that its ability to post and update stories on its website, Inquirer.com, was “sometimes slower than normal.”The Monday print editions of The Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, which The Inquirer also publishes, were distributed as scheduled, Evan Benn, a company spokesman, said.But employees will not be permitted to work in the newsroom at least through Tuesday because access to The Inquirer’s internet servers has been disrupted, Ms. Hughes said in an email to the staff on Sunday evening that was shared with The New York Times.Ms. Hughes said that the company was looking for a co-working space for Tuesday, when The Inquirer will be covering a closely contested Democratic primary that is all but certain to determine the next mayor of Philadelphia — the largest city in Pennsylvania, a presidential swing state.“I truly don’t think it will impact it at all, short of us not being able to be together in the formal newsroom,” said Diane Mastrull, an editor who is president of The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, the union that represents reporters, photographers and other staff members at The Inquirer. “Covid has certainly taught us to do our jobs remotely.”She said on Monday that the newspaper’s content management system, which staff members use to write and edit stories, was “operating with continued workarounds.”“I would not use the word ‘normal,’” Ms. Mastrull said.Ms. Hughes said that The Inquirer had notified the F.B.I. and had “implemented alternative processes to enable publication of print editions.”The newspaper was also working with Kroll, a corporate investigation firm, to restore its systems and to investigate the episode, Ms. Hughes said.The Inquirer, in its news story on the “apparent cyberattack,” said it was the most significant disruption to the publication of the newspaper since January 1996, when a major blizzard dropped more than 30 inches of snow on Philadelphia.The newspaper reported that Ms. Hughes, citing a continuing investigation, had declined to answer detailed questions about the episode, including who was behind it, whether The Inquirer or its employees appeared to have been specifically targeted, or whether any sensitive employee or subscriber information might have been compromised.In an email on Monday, Mr. Benn, the company spokesman, said: “As our investigation is ongoing, we are unable to provide additional information at this time. Should we discover that any personal data was affected, we will notify and support” anyone who might have been affected.Special Agent E. Edward Conway of the F.B.I. field office in Philadelphia said that while the agency was aware of the issue, it was the bureau’s practice not to comment on specific cyber incidents. “However, when the F.B.I. learns about potential cyberattacks, it’s customary that we offer our assistance in these matters,” Mr. Conway said in an email.Ms. Mastrull, who was working as an editor over the weekend, said that staff members had noticed on Saturday that they could not log on to the content management system.They were given a workaround, she said, but the process created “very, very difficult working conditions” as the staff covered the last weekend of campaign events before the primary, Taylor Swift concerts at Lincoln Financial Field and Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers.Employees were “a little concerned that there weren’t enough protections against this, and very frustrated that the company’s communication was lacking specifics,” Ms. Mastrull said.In 2018, The Los Angeles Times said that a cyberattack had disrupted its printing operations and those at newspapers in San Diego and Florida. Unnamed sources cited by The Los Angeles Times suggested that the newspaper might have been hit by ransomware — a pernicious attack that scrambles computer programs and files before demanding that the victim pay a ransom to unscramble them.The Guardian reported that it was hit by a ransomware attack in December in which the personal data of staff members in Britain was compromised. The Guardian reported that the attack forced it to close its offices for several months.In an email to the staff of The Inquirer on Sunday night, Ms. Mastrull summarized the day’s news and paid tribute to the staff members who covered it, “despite a publishing system rendered virtually inoperable.”“Now all we have to do is find some co-working space so we can cover a really important election Tuesday,” she wrote. “Can’t keep us down!” More

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      Trump Cannot Be Unseen

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      Gail Collins: Hey Bret, good to be conversing again. Heck of a lot going on. Before we get to the border or the budget, though, let me admit I’m shallow and start with the Trump town hall on CNN.Bret Stephens: Not shallow, Gail. But you are depressing me.Gail: Trump lost your Republican vote a long time ago, but if you were still on the fence, was there anything on display that evening that would have had an impact?Bret: I’m not exactly a reliable gauge of how today’s Republicans think: In November, I wrote a column called “Donald Trump Is Finally Finished,” which I may have to spend the rest of my life living down.That said, I would guess that if you’re the sort of voter who liked 80-proof Trump, you’re gonna love 120-proof Trump. And that’s what he was in that CNN town hall: more mendacious, more shameless, more unapologetic, more aggressive, nastier. But also undeniably vigorous, particularly when compared with Joe Biden. My guess is the town hall will consolidate his lead as the Republican front-runner.Your take? Should CNN have given him the platform?Gail: Don’t see any reason CNN shouldn’t have done the interview. Except that it reduces pressure on Trump to show up for any Republican primary debates. Which he naturally wants to avoid, given his ineptitude when it comes to actual policy questions.Bret: I’m of two minds. The media has a responsibility to cover the Republican front-runner, and I thought Kaitlan Collins, the CNN moderator, handled the responsibility about as well as anyone could have. Yet nonstop media attention is the oxygen on which Trump thrives. The more attention we give him — which is what we are doing right now — the stronger he gets.Gail: About the impact: Yeah, if you liked Trump before, you wouldn’t be deterred by his willingness to let the nation default, or his being “inclined” to pardon a lot of the Jan. 6 rioters.Really would like to hear an everybody-in primary debate, though. Without Trump, I guess the only suspense would be whether Ron DeSantis is capable of being … not terrible.Bret: Well, as much as I dislike DeSantis for his views on abortion and Ukraine and free speech, I also have to ask whether I’d prefer him to Trump as the Republican nominee. And there the answer is a resounding yes, much as I’d much prefer a peptic ulcer to stomach cancer.Gail: I’m still not inclined to pick DeSantis over — pretty much anybody. Yeah, Trump is worse when it comes to personal morality, and DeSantis probably wouldn’t be as divisive in the sense of not being exciting enough to really rile up the base.But his position on social issues like abortion is scary: He truly believes in imposing his extremist convictions on the country.Bret: True, but Trump believes in imposing his despotic convictions on the country.I also think it’s imperative that Democrats — and I don’t mean Robert Kennedy Jr. — start thinking about challenging Biden in the primary. That Washington Post-ABC poll showing Biden with a 36 percent approval rating and running 6 points behind Trump should scare the bejeezus out of Democrats — and that’s before we wind up in a recession or a full-scale banking crisis or a shooting war with China (or all three).Gail: Real-life fact is that no Democrat with the standing to potentially win a primary would challenge a sitting president. Especially one like Biden whose performance is … not bad. He’s had some real achievements, particularly in the super-important battle against global warming. Overall yes, he’s unexciting, and these days incapable of forcing the House Republicans to do anything really constructive. But his standards and character are high.Bret: As you know, I will vote for him over Trump or DeSantis. But Democrats overstate his achievements and underestimate his unpopularity at their own — actually, our own — peril.Gail: We both were wishing he’d announce he wasn’t running and open the door for other promising candidates to jump in. But since it’s not gonna happen … it’s not gonna happen.Bret: Probably right. Next subject: Your thoughts about the budget negotiations?Gail: I have faith that there’s not going to be a crushing default — that in a total crisis the Fed will figure out something. But when it comes to the bottom line I’m on the side of Joe Biden. (Surprise!) You do not use the country’s credit standing to stage a stupid battle about cutting funds for the poor.Bret: Well, by the same token, you do not use the country’s credit standing to insist that no spending cuts should even be countenanced and that able-bodied single adults should not have to find work as a condition of obtaining government benefits.Gail: The Republicans are attacking the status quo, not some new program the Democrats are trying to push through. And I’ve always been wary of the must-work stuff because all the paperwork, even in our technological era, makes it so easy for people to get cut off for no reason except bureaucratic confusion.Bret: The conservative in me hates subsidizing indolence, especially when jobs are abundant. Welfare should go to those who truly need it, not people who just can’t be bothered to work.Gail: Also, I think this must-work discussion has to begin with quality child care for every low-income family that needs it. Very bottom bottom line is that kids come first.About the budget — I guess Congress could just decide there just shouldn’t be a debt ceiling. After all, we went more than 125 years without one. Is that something you think they should rally around?Bret: The debt ceiling reminds me a bit of the Doomsday machine in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.” In theory, it’s supposed to encourage restraint and responsibility. In practice, it’s likely to destroy the world. I’d be interested to see the administration test the theory that the 14th Amendment, which says that the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned,” makes the debt ceiling unconstitutional, although I doubt they could win that case in court.The other crisis, Gail, is happening at the southern border. Looking back, anything the administration might have done to avert it?Gail: Not gonna be silly enough to claim the Biden folks have been completely on top of the whole situation.Bret: Our awesome veep ….Gail: But it looks like we’ll finally be getting a lot of new federal workers to deal with the people who show up at the border.And the Biden administration is working on it. The Trump administration was totally useless on the problem.Bret: Not useless but definitely cruel. But what voters will remember is that under Trump, we didn’t have this scale of a crisis.Gail: Not sure the scale is really going to be that overwhelming as the year moves on. And I still have to note that I hate, really hate, your idea of finishing that wall.Bret: A wall won’t stop all illegal immigration. But it can help deter the most dangerous and reckless border crossings, which have left thousands of migrants dead. It should be part of an overall immigration compromise that includes automatic citizenship for Dreamers and more permissive rules for legal immigration through normal consular channels in the migrants’ home countries. Right now we have the worst of both worlds: a totally chaotic border that makes a bipartisan legislative compromise a political nonstarter.Gail: Bret, these people have a lot of reasons for coming — including seeking asylum from government oppression. But most of them are coming for jobs, and as you’ve always pointed out, our economy really needs the workers. In New York, we’ve gotten a ton of newcomers. They’re having a terrible time, particularly with housing, but employers, especially in the service industries, are desperate for their help. We just need to work out a system to make it possible.Bret: Sadly, as our news-side colleague Hannah Dreier chronicled last month, many recent border crossers are children working in conditions worthy of Dickens or Dreiser. Seeing mothers with young children strapped to their backs while hawking candies at traffic stops was something I was accustomed to in my hometown of Mexico City. It’s jarring to encounter them at road intersections and on subway platforms in New York City. If Biden doesn’t get a handle on this, it could cost him the election and lead to an ugly public backlash that will make Trump’s immigration policy seem tame.Speaking of subways, Gail, your thoughts on the killing of Jordan Neely?Gail: We’re talking about a former Michael Jackson impersonator who used to entertain subway passengers, but had deteriorated into a homeless man who was mentally ill and sometimes scary.Bret: Very scary. He was a person who had previously been arrested more than 30 times. He had punched an elderly woman in the face. He had exposed himself and peed inside of a subway car. He had walked out on a residential treatment program. There was a warrant for his arrest at the time of his death — but cops probably wouldn’t have found out about it because a group sued to stop the police from detaining people solely to check for arrest warrants. He was the sort of guy who makes the subway frightening for a lot of passengers, particularly women. People ought to know these facts before rushing to judgment.Gail: Neely was acting out and frightening people on the day he died. Daniel Penny, the former Marine who tackled him, was trying to stop an unnerving incident from happening. But he used chokehold force in a way that killed Neely.I can’t absolve Penny. But the big problem here is that the low-or-no-income mentally ill need more services than they’re getting in New York or pretty much anywhere.Bret: Obviously, I don’t support vigilantism. But that’s what you get when police are hampered from maintaining public order. The answer is to give the police the authorities and resources they need to deal with someone like Neely before a tragedy occurs.Gail, this is too grim a note on which to end — and we haven’t even touched on George Santos’s indictment.Gail: Now there’s a high note!Bret: Before we go, I want to put in a word for Sam Roberts’s obituary for Mike Pride, a former editor of The Concord Monitor, who died last month in Florida at 76, and whom we both knew through his stewardship of the Pulitzer Prizes. Mike showed that you can often make the greatest difference as a newsman by writing about issues that are near to people’s everyday lives. He reminded us that local journalism matters. And that it’s at least one thing that deserves to be made great again.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 Week in Business: Trump on TV

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      Giulio BonaseraWhat’s Up? (May 7-13)CNN’s TrumpcastUntil last week, former President Donald J. Trump had not appeared on CNN since 2016. But at a town hall hosted by the network on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump, the Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential campaign, resumed the lies and name-calling that marked his presidency. Answering questions from the anchor Kaitlan Collins, he repeated misinformation about the 2020 election, called the writer E. Jean Carroll, who won a suit accusing him of sexual abuse and defamation, a “wack job” and derided Ms. Collins as a “nasty person.” When Ms. Collins tried to correct Mr. Trump’s lies, he often talked over her. The largely sympathetic audience cheered him on throughout the evening. Critics of CNN’s forum said it was reckless to give Mr. Trump such a large platform for his message, especially because it proved difficult to fact check his statements in real time. The chairman of CNN, Chris Licht, defended the broadcast on Thursday, saying it underscored that covering Mr. Trump would “continue to be messy and tricky.”Inflation Is SlowingA closely watched report on Wednesday showed that inflation in the United States had reached a noteworthy milestone: April was the 10th straight month that the pace of price increases slowed. The Consumer Price Index climbed 4.9 percent from a year earlier, surpassing analysts’ expectations — in a good way. Economists in a Bloomberg survey had forecast a 5 percent climb. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and fuel costs, also fell slightly. The report comes on the heels of the Federal Reserve’s 10th consecutive increase to its benchmark rate. The latest inflation data, along with other signs of a slowdown in the economy, could make the May increase the last one for now. Elon Musk’s AnnouncementElon Musk long ago asked users on Twitter if he should step down as chief executive of the platform. “I will abide by the results of this poll,” he said. The results came in: Almost 58 percent of the 17.5 million people who voted agreed that Mr. Musk should leave his post. But it was still somewhat surprising when Mr. Musk announced on Friday that he had chosen his replacement: He said his successor would be Linda Yaccarino, the chair of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. Mr. Musk said Ms. Yaccarino, who recently interviewed him onstage at an advertising event in Miami, would focus on business operations while he would continue to work on product design and technology.Giulio BonaseraWhat’s Next? (May 14-20)Senate Hearings on the Banking CrisisTwo groups that have sought to blame each other for the recent bank failures will appear at a pair of Senate hearings this week — the heads of those banks and the federal regulators who oversee them. On Tuesday, Greg Becker, the former chief executive of Silicon Valley Bank, who stepped down from his post after the bank’s collapse in March, will testify before the Senate Banking Committee. Two former top executives from Signature Bank, which failed two days later, will also testify. They are expected to meet a harsh reception from lawmakers. In a letter summoning Mr. Becker to appear, the chairman of the committee wrote, “You must answer for the bank’s downfall.” Regulators can expect a grilling, too, at a separate hearing on Thursday. When regulators appeared before the committee last month, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle faulted shortcomings in oversight for the banking crisis. Regulators also pointed the finger at the banks’ mismanagement.More Turmoil at FoxDominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against Fox News, which was settled for $787.5 million in April, may have been only the opening salvo in a long fight to hold the network accountable for airing misinformation about the 2020 presidential election. Last week, Nina Jankowicz, a prominent specialist in Russian disinformation and online harassment, filed a new defamation suit accusing Fox of spreading lies about her that led to serious threats to her safety and harm to her career. That’s not Fox’s only legal trouble. It still faces a defamation suit from another election technology company, Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7 billion in damages. Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson, the network’s star host who was recently ousted and is still under contract, has said he is starting his own show on Twitter, a sign that negotiations to reach an amicable separation with the network have broken down.Report Cards for Big Box StoresWalmart and Target, two of the country’s largest retailers, will release their quarterly earnings reports this week, providing a glimpse at how inflation — which is falling but persistent — is affecting consumers. For the three months that ended in January, Walmart reported that its revenue was 7.3 percent higher than a year earlier and said December was its best month for sales at its U.S. stores in its history. But the company warned of dimmer prospects for the rest of the fiscal year, suggesting that consumers’ ability to absorb higher prices could be approaching its limit. Other retailers struck similar downbeat notes, suggesting that they expected conditions to worsen in the coming months.What Else?Goldman Sachs said on Monday that it would pay $215 million to settle a gender bias suit accusing the bank of hindering women’s career advancement and paying them less than their male colleagues. Disney, in its quarterly earnings report last week, said that it had narrowed its streaming losses but that revenue from its old-line TV channels had fallen sharply. And Peloton said it was recalling more than two million exercise bikes because of reports of a faulty part. More

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      We’re Asking the Wrong Questions About the Trump Town Hall

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      As a former executive of Fox News, I never expected to write this: CNN performed a valuable journalistic service this week by hosting a spirited town hall with Donald Trump.Like it or not, Mr. Trump is one of the two people who are most likely to win the presidency next year. He should be questioned by journalists at every opportunity, whether those be news conferences, live interviews, taped interviews, debates and, yes, town halls. Far too often, presidential candidates stick to scripted events, safe audiences and saturation advertising; days, even weeks, go by with a candidate — or a sitting president — not facing a single tough question.We’ve heard a lot of naysayers deriding the recent town hall or even the idea of mainstream media interviews with Mr. Trump as “platforming” a monster. Monster or not, Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination (he is about 30 points ahead of his nearest rival) and a central figure in some of the most high-profile political and legal debates in this country. Are we better off as a society if, after shunting Mr. Trump into his own MAGA bubble, we wake up in November 2024 and find that he has been elected president?With the first Republican primary debate scheduled for August, we need to confront this and some other uncomfortable questions now. Is American democracy so fragile that we cannot metabolize the outlandish views of a presidential candidate? If a candidate is the subject of serious investigations, shouldn’t the news media ask him about that? Are our ideas of journalism so degraded that providing airtime to a candidate is tantamount to an endorsement?When a reporter holds a politician’s feet to the fire by asking him tough questions, that does not mean she or the network endorses the politician’s answers. We need to reflect on why televising a town hall with a leading candidate, no matter how abhorrent he is to a portion of the country, could inspire not just outrage at his performance but also fundamental questions about a television network’s decision to host the candidate. The Constitution does not bar Mr. Trump from running and our democracy does not bar him from running — yet CNN should not ask him tough questions?Since the 1960 debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, television networks have played a role in our country’s politics. Television is second only to the internet in its ability to concentrate the country’s attention. The United States is a mature democracy. We must trust voters to assess candidates and the media to provide more, not less, information.Some Democrats think that Mr. Trump’s performance at the town hall will hurt him among swing voters, making it less likely that he will win in 2024. That may be so: Many swing voters have spent less time thinking about Mr. Trump these last two years because they don’t obsess about politics like partisans do. So it was a journalistic service to interrogate Mr. Trump’s brand of politics in a forum that allowed voters to assess the former president.I have spent a lot of time thinking about what motivates Americans to vote, and I wonder if there’s more driving the hyperventilating about the town hall than just providing a platform to a monster. Could Democrats be worried that Mr. Trump’s brio and showmanship might strike a chord with some voters? Could Mr. Trump’s performance remind some independents that while they may not be overtly pro-Trump, they are more than a little anti-anti-Trump?Having spent part of my career helping prepare news anchors to question presidential candidates in debates and town halls, I tip my hat to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Under enormous pressure, Ms. Collins kept her composure and, crucially, never made it about herself. Furthermore, she elicited responses from the candidate that made news on topics from abortion to Ukraine.Mindful of Ms. Collins’s strong performance, critics have instead focused their ire on the town hall format, lamenting that it allowed Republican audience members to cheer on Mr. Trump’s insults and falsehoods. But not all the people in the room were pro-Trump — just the noisy ones. Besides, news organizations have been using town hall formats for years, rightfully reasoning that it’s important for candidates to hear from likely primary voters.Should we ban all town halls because the audience might side with the candidate? Should we ban live interviews because it’s too difficult to fact-check a candidate in real time? Or should we just ban Donald Trump altogether and get it over with, as many of his critics would prefer?We should do none of these things. That would be a journalistic disservice to a pluralistic society and electorate that is entrusted with listening, assessing and judging our leaders. Town halls like this one help Americans to think for themselves. It wasn’t so long ago that journalists were able to report hard truths and conduct tough interviews without worrying about upsetting some segment of their viewers. CNN deserves a lot of credit for attempting to return to a baseline that I always considered Journalism 101, but which now feels downright old-fashioned.Bill Sammon is the former managing editor of the Washington bureau of Fox News.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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      Chris Licht of CNN Defends Decision to Host Trump Town Hall

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      “People woke up, and they know what the stakes are in this election in a way that they didn’t the day before,” Chris Licht said in a morning call at the network.The chairman of CNN, Chris Licht, issued a robust defense on Thursday of his decision to broadcast a live town hall with former President Donald J. Trump, an unruly and at times bewildering event that has prompted criticism inside and outside of the network.On a network-wide editorial call, Mr. Licht congratulated the moderator, Kaitlan Collins, on “a masterful performance” before acknowledging the public backlash. “We all know covering Donald Trump is messy and tricky, and it will continue to be messy and tricky, but it’s our job,” Mr. Licht said, according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times.“I absolutely, unequivocally believe America was served very well by what we did last night,” Mr. Licht added. “People woke up, and they know what the stakes are in this election in a way that they didn’t the day before. And if someone was going to ask tough questions and have that messy conversation, it damn well should be on CNN.”The town hall, which aired in prime-time on Wednesday, featured Mr. Trump deploying a fusillade of falsehoods, sometimes too quickly for the moderator to intercept. It was a preview of what American journalism can expect from a 2024 campaign with the former president, who despite his ubiquity in political life has rarely appeared on mainstream TV outside of Fox News since leaving office.If the 2016 campaign showed that many Americans could not agree on common facts, the Babel-like nature of Wednesday’s New Hampshire town hall suggested that voters now occupied wholly different universes. Mr. Trump repeated a web of conspiracies about a stolen election and the “beautiful day” of the Capitol riot, language that was likely to befuddle half the viewing audience and resonate as gospel with the rest.“The election was not rigged, Mr. President,” Ms. Collins said at one point. “You cannot keep saying that all night long.” (He kept saying it.)The live audience, a group of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters, often cheered him on, even when he derided Ms. Collins as a “nasty person.”“While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story,” Mr. Licht said on Thursday, “because the people in that audience represent a large swath of America. And the mistake the media made in the past is ignoring that those people exist. Just like you cannot ignore that President Trump exists.”Critics said it was reckless for the network to provide a live forum to Mr. Trump, given his track record of spreading disinformation. Even the network’s own commentators appeared taken aback by what had transpired on its airwaves. “We don’t have enough time to fact check every lie he told,” Jake Tapper told viewers on Wednesday night.The town hall was watched by 3.3 million people, according to Nielsen, a significant increase from CNN’s typical audience on an average weeknight at 8 p.m. That was slightly more than the average viewership for Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program, which was seen by an average of 3.2 million people in the first three months of the year.Mr. Licht, who took over CNN last year after the network was acquired by Warner Bros. Discovery, has had a rocky tenure, and some journalists there have bristled at his public comments that the network had veered too far into an anti-Trump stance when Mr. Trump was in the White House. Mr. Licht has said CNN must appeal to more centrists and conservative voters, a strategy that has support from his corporate superiors.There were signs on Thursday that frustration inside CNN about the town hall was bubbling up. The network’s own media newsletter, “Reliable Sources,” published a tough assessment after the event, noting, “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.”The newsletter cited several critical posts on social media about the forum, including some people who faulted the network for choosing a town hall-style format where voters were free to cheer Mr. Trump and jeer Ms. Collins, the moderator.CNN said it selected the audience members in the same manner as it had for past candidate forums. A network team traveled to New Hampshire and coordinated with community groups, faith-based organizations, local Republican officials and the student government at Saint Anselm College, which hosted the event.CNN said the aim was to fill the auditorium with citizens representing a range of conservative views, but the network declined to identify specific groups that were consulted, saying it did not want activists trying to game the system at future events.In keeping with past network practice, the Trump campaign was provided invitations for about 20 guests to attend the town hall, although these guests were not allowed to ask questions of the candidate. Officials at Saint Anselm College were allowed to invite about 70 people. The total audience was 300 to 350 people.In the days leading up to the town hall, Ms. Collins prepared with the team in New Hampshire extensively, according to a person familiar with the matter, going over potential falsehoods Mr. Trump might utter onstage. Mr. Licht gave feedback, and Mr. Trump was played in mock debates by Mark Preston, CNN’s vice president of political and special events programming,Mr. Licht’s decision to select Ms. Collins for the high-profile assignment underscored her rising prominence as an on-air anchor at CNN. The network is finalizing a multiyear contract with Ms. Collins that will make her the anchor of CNN’s currently vacant 9 p.m. hour, according to three people with knowledge of talks. That hour is a crucial time slot for advertisers, and Ms. Collins’s recent tryout in that time-slot last month drew favorable ratings.Puck earlier reported that Ms. Collins was nearing a deal with CNN.Ms. Collins’s deal, combined with Don Lemon’s recent ouster from CNN, means that the network will have to retool its morning show. The network is looking for new co-hosts to pair with Poppy Harlow, Ms. Collins’s co-anchor on “CNN This Morning.”Some CNN critics had asserted that the network cut away early from the Trump event, which ended around 9:10 p.m. In fact, the event was always intended to last an hour or so, with a panel of analysts ready in a studio to take over coverage at the start of the 9 p.m. hour. More

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      A ‘Rude and Inaccurate’ Trump at the CNN Town Hall

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      More from our inbox:George Santos and Republican Profiles in Cowardice‘Anxious Nation’: A 14-Year-Old Cast Member Speaks OutInformal ConnectionsReporters at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., watched the live CNN town hall in a separate room at the event on Wednesday.Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Repeats False Election Claims at CNN Event” (news article, May 11):Thank you for your thorough and factual reporting on Wednesday’s CNN town hall with former President Donald Trump. You summarized each of the mischaracterizations, exaggerations and untruths spoken by Mr. Trump in your Fact Check and related articles.Unfortunately, it’s likely that many right-leaning voters drawn to watch the town hall will not be inclined to read them. Likewise, the studio audience for the show, evidently chosen to represent Trump supporters, won’t realize or doesn’t care about the damage his rude and inaccurate statements do to the body politic of our country.CNN made a grievous mistake following through with its plan to air the program after the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case was announced on Tuesday.Mr. Trump benefited greatly from the undiscriminating and constant coverage of his untruths in the 2016 election. It’s time for responsible print and television journalists to pull the plug and refuse to provide a platform for Mr. Trump’s lies and vulgarity.Jim LinsellTraverse City, Mich.To the Editor:I think it was appropriate for CNN to invite Donald Trump to appear at its town hall. The former president, after all, is the leading candidate for the presidential nomination of one of our two major political parties.I don’t subscribe to the philosophy held by some of the louder voices in the media that “I may disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death my right to prevent you from saying it.”If there was a problem with Wednesday night’s broadcast it was the format. Specifically, making the host, Kaitlan Collins, function as both the facilitator of the event’s question-and-answer framework and the fact checker for Mr. Trump’s responses. Being effective in one of those roles is challenging enough; doing both is impossible.John E. StaffordRye, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “The MAGA King, Back in Prime Time” (Opinion, May 10):Michelle Cottle, in her defense of CNN’s decision to air a town hall with Donald Trump, doesn’t mention an important point.The problem is not just that the network is giving a platform to a man who tried to overthrow our democratic process. CNN is also giving him more airtime than his challengers, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.From the moment Donald Trump descended the escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015, the cable networks gave him unprecedented free coverage — cementing his status as a serious candidate in a way no other presidential hopeful had ever been treated.The election is more than a year away, and already Mr. Trump is manipulating the media, pitting Fox against CNN and grabbing an hour’s worth of prime time.To Ms. Cottle’s most important question: No, we have learned nothing.Betty J. CotterShannock, R.I.George Santos and Republican Profiles in CowardiceRepresentative George Santos, leaving federal court in Central Islip, N.Y., after his arraignment on Wednesday.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Santos Is Indicted as Inquiry Claims 3 Finance Schemes” (front page, May 11):It was satisfying to read of George Santos being charged, especially after enduring months of his smug defiance. Mr. Santos doesn’t represent New York’s Third District; he represents the worst type of person — one who lies to get ahead, one who preys upon the less fortunate, one who cheats the system.That such a fraud should help decide the laws of our nation is appalling. Mr. Santos doesn’t serve his constituents; he serves himself. And in his refusal to admit to his alleged fraud, he serves as the epitome of political cowardice.Not surprisingly, House Republican leaders have shown their own political cowardice in winking at Mr. Santos’s bad behavior, even as he’s taken to task for it, in an effort to maintain their tight majority.I applaud House Republicans who have called for Mr. Santos’s resignation and encourage more to follow suit. In “Profiles in Courage,” John F. Kennedy wrote, “Not all Senators would agree — but few would deny that the desire to be re-elected exercises a strong brake on independent courage.”Would that more members of Congress could depress the accelerator.Gary J. WhiteheadNorwood, N.J.To the Editor:Re “Santos Pushed Campaign Money Abuse Past the Usual Line,” by David Firestone (Opinion, May 11):Mr. Firestone writes that George Santos’s alleged scheme to funnel money to himself through a 501(c)(4) organization was “spectacularly dumb.” In fact, it was brilliant and would have succeeded if he hadn’t made the mistake of actually getting elected to Congress.Frauds are discovered because the victim eventually figures out what is going on. In the case of misappropriated election contributions, contributors virtually never check whether the contributions actually went to the campaign, and indeed they didn’t here. If he had not been elected, The New York Times would have never checked his assertions, contributors would not have complained and prosecutors would have never investigated.If Mr. Santos had lost, as he may have intended, he could have walked away with the money.James FogelBronxThe writer is a former chief of the Frauds Bureau of the Manhattan district attorney’s office and a former judge of the New York City Criminal Court.‘Anxious Nation’: A 14-Year-Old Cast Member Speaks OutKameron Johnson as seen in the documentary “Anxious Nation.”Anxious Nation/Area 23a/Lasega FilmsTo the Editor:Re “Anxious Nation” (movie review, May 5):I’m a 14-year-old cast member of “Anxious Nation.” This film is much more than talking to “a handful of struggling teenagers and some of their parents.” Over four years, we made a brave decision to share our struggles with mental health to help others who are struggling too.I found your use of the word “tantrums” especially upsetting. The raw videos you see are real panic attacks. Not “tantrums.” Panic attacks that kids as young as 3 are having.I know this. That is me. Parents don’t realize or understand it.The courage displayed throughout the film is extraordinary and deserves to be acknowledged. It’ll give families a tool to learn from. It’ll give kids my age someone to relate to, and that’s so dear to my heart. I didn’t have that growing up.You are entitled to your opinion of “Anxious Nation,” but to steer away families who really need this film feels wrong and irresponsible.Families need this. My generation is in a crisis.Seveann MortonCardiff, Calif.Informal ConnectionsThe Brookdale Park dog owners have become real friends beyond the park, going to dinner, movies and comedy shows together.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “They Know Your Face, Maybe Not Your Name” (The New Old Age, Science Times, April 25):I worked for a company I loved for 13 years, and the last year I was there, I stopped every morning at a Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to the office. On my final day of work, I went there as usual and told them of the occasion.As the Dunkin’ staff all wished me well, I was on the verge of tears (and simultaneously laughing about crying) as I carried the coffee to my car. It made me truly appreciate the importance of those informal connections we encounter as part of our daily lives.Amy S. RichOrange, Conn. 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