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    Trump’s Allies Want a New Breed of Lawyer if He Returns to Power

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    Close allies of Donald J. Trump are preparing to populate a new administration with a more aggressive breed of right-wing lawyer, dispensing with traditional conservatives who they believe stymied his agenda in his first term.The allies have been drawing up lists of lawyers they view as ideologically and temperamentally suited to serve in a second Trump administration. Their aim is to reduce the chances that politically appointed lawyers would frustrate a more radical White House agenda — as they sometimes did when Mr. Trump was in office, by raising objections to his desires for certain harsher immigration policies or for greater personal control over the Justice Department, among others.Now, as Trump allies grow more confident in an election victory next fall, several outside groups, staffed by former Trump officials who are expected to serve in senior roles if he wins, have begun parallel personnel efforts. At the start of Mr. Trump’s term, his administration relied on the influential Federalist Society, the conservative legal network whose members filled key executive branch legal roles and whose leader helped select his judicial nominations. But in a striking shift, Trump allies are building new recruiting pipelines separate from the Federalist Society.These back-room discussions were described by seven people with knowledge of the planning, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. In addition, The New York Times interviewed former senior lawyers in the Trump administration and other allies who have remained close to the president and are likely to serve in a second term.The interviews reveal a significant break within the conservative movement. Top Trump allies have come to view their party’s legal elites — even leaders with seemingly impeccable conservative credentials — as out of step with their movement.“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell T. Vought, a former senior Trump administration official who runs a think tank with close ties to the former president. He argued that many elite conservative lawyers had proved to be too timid when, in his view, the survival of the nation is at stake.Such comments may surprise those who view the Federalist Society as hard-line conservatives. But the move away from the group reflects the continuing evolution of the Republican Party in the Trump era and an effort among those now in his inner circle to prepare to take control of the government in a way unseen in modern presidential history.Two of the allies leading the push are Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former senior adviser, and John McEntee, another trusted aide whom the then-president had empowered in 2020 to rid his administration of political appointees perceived as disloyal or obstructive.The nonprofit groups they are involved in are barred by law from supporting a candidate, and none of the work they are doing is explicitly tied to Mr. Trump. But Mr. Miller and Mr. McEntee remain close to the former president and are expected to have his ear in any second term.Mr. Trump himself, focused for now on multiple criminal and civil cases against him, appears disengaged from these efforts. But he made clear throughout his term in office that he was infuriated by many of the lawyers who worked for him, ranting about how they were “weak” and “stupid.”By the end of his term, lawyers he appointed early in his administration had angered the White House by raising legal concerns about various policy proposals. But Mr. Trump reserved his deepest rage for the White House and Justice Department legal officials who largely rejected his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, according to people who spoke with him. Casting about for alternative lawyers who would tell him what he wanted to hear, Mr. Trump turned for that effort to a group of outside lawyers, many of whom have since been indicted in Georgia.People close to the former president say they are seeking out a different type of lawyer committed to his “America First” ideology and willing to endure the personal and professional risks of association with Mr. Trump. They want lawyers in federal agencies and in the White House who are willing to use theories that more establishment lawyers would reject to advance his cause. This new mind-set matches Mr. Trump’s declaration that he is waging a “final battle” against demonic “enemies” populating a “deep state” within the government that is bent on destroying America.Several of Mr. Trump’s key allies — including Stephen Miller, his former senior adviser — are drawing up lists of lawyers they plan to hire if the former president returns to the White House in 2025.Cooper Neill for The New York TimesThere were a few lawyers like that in Mr. Trump’s administration, but they were largely outnumbered, outranked and often blocked by more traditional legal conservatives. For those who went to work for Mr. Trump but grew disillusioned, the push to systematically install Trump loyalists who may see the law as malleable across a second Trump administration has been a cause for alarm.John Mitnick was appointed by Mr. Trump as general counsel of the Homeland Security Department in 2018. But he was fired in 2019 as part of a broad purge of the agency’s leaders — whom Mr. Trump had installed — and was replaced by one of Mr. Miller’s allies.Mr. Mitnick predicted that “no qualified attorneys with integrity will have any desire to serve as political appointees” in a second Trump term, and that instead it would be “predominantly staffed by opportunists who will rubber-stamp whatever Trump and his senior White House staff want to do.”In many ways, the Federalist Society has become synonymous with the Republican establishment, and its members’ most common interests — including pushing an originalist interpretation of the Constitution and federal statutes — can be distinct from the whims and grievances of Mr. Trump himself. Its membership dues are low, and politically ambitious Republican lawyers of various stripes routinely join it or attend its events. Many of the more aggressive lawyers the Trump allies are eyeing have their own links to it.But after both the legal policy fights inside the Trump administration and the refusal by the group’s most respected luminaries to join Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the phrase “Federalist Society” became a slur for some on the Trump-aligned right, a shorthand for a kind of lawyerly weakness.Hard-right allies of Mr. Trump increasingly speak of typical Federalist Society members as “squishes” too worried about maintaining their standing in polite society and their employment prospects at big law firms to advance their movement’s most contentious tactics and goals.“Trump and his administration learned the hard way in their first term that the Democrats are playing for keeps,” said Mike Davis, a former congressional aide who helped shepherd judicial nominees during the Trump administration and has become a close ally of the 45th president. “And in the Trump 47 administration, they need much stronger attorneys who do not care about elite opinion who will fight these key cultural battles.”The chilling of the relationship between Mr. Trump and Leonard Leo, a leader of the Federalist Society, embodies a broader rift between Mr. Trump and conservative legal elites.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesA Fraught UnionWhen Mr. Trump wrested the 2016 Republican presidential nomination from the party’s old guard, it was unclear whether social conservatives would turn out in the general election to vote for a thrice-married New Yorker who had cultivated a playboy reputation and once described himself as “very pro-choice.” But Mr. Trump won their support by essentially striking a deal with legal conservatives: He agreed to fill Supreme Court vacancies from a list of prospects compiled by a small number of movement stalwarts.This group helping to shape the judiciary included Leonard A. Leo — arguably the most powerful figure in the conservative legal movement and a leader of the Federalist Society — and Donald F. McGahn II, Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign general counsel and first White House counsel. With a seat already open after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the move worked: Exit polls showed that court-focused voters helped secure Mr. Trump’s narrow victory.Along with the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Mr. Leo and Mr. McGahn — and later Pat A. Cipollone, Mr. Trump’s second White House counsel — created an assembly line for turning Federalist Society-style lawyers into appeals court judges and Supreme Court justices.But the union between Mr. Trump and the conservative legal establishment could be more fraught than it sometimes appeared. As his presidency wore on, Mr. Trump attacked and sidelined many of the lawyers around him. That included Mr. Leo.One episode, described by a person familiar with the incident, illustrates the larger chill.In January 2020, Mr. Leo was having dinner at Mar-a-Lago when Mr. Trump strode up to his table. The president stunned Mr. Leo, publicly berating him and accusing him of recommending the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, who appointed a special counsel to investigate ties between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.Taken aback, Mr. Leo protested that he had actually suggested someone else for the position — Mr. Cipollone. Mr. Trump walked away without apologizing.Nearly a year later, when Mr. Trump was trying to enlist legal assistance for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, he reached out three times to Mr. Leo. But Mr. Leo declined to take or return Mr. Trump’s calls, and has since only dealt with him through others.A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to repeated requests for comment.In a statement, Mr. Leo said, “I have nothing to say regarding his current efforts, but I’m just grateful that President Trump transformed the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in his first term.”Mr. Mitnick’s experience underscores the style of lawyering that Trump allies saw as too cautious. His role as the top lawyer at the Department of Homeland Security put him in the path of increasingly aggressive policy proposals from a top White House adviser to Mr. Trump, Mr. Miller.Mr. Miller, who is not a lawyer, is known for his vehement opposition to immigration. Mr. Mitnick and Mr. Miller are said to have clashed, directly and indirectly, over legal risks raised by regulatory and policy actions emanating from the White House, including separating migrant children from their parents and transporting migrants to so-called sanctuary cities.In 2019, the White House purged the leadership ranks of the Homeland Security Department, firing Mr. Mitnick. Mr. Trump ultimately installed as his replacement Chad Mizelle, who had been out of law school just seven years but was a close Miller ally.Like numerous other positions filled later in Mr. Trump’s term, Mr. Mizelle was appointed as “acting” general counsel, sidestepping a Senate vetting and confirmation process that would most likely have closely scrutinized whether he was qualified for the job.With Mr. Mizelle acting as the department’s top lawyer when the Covid-19 pandemic arose, the Trump administration seamlessly invoked emergency powers to flatly refuse to consider the petition of any asylum seeker arriving at the southern border.Seeking ‘America First’ LawyersMr. Miller has stayed close to Mr. Trump and is expected to play an even more important role in shaping policy if Mr. Trump returns to power.While out of office, Mr. Miller has been running a foundation focused on suing the Biden administration and recruiting a new generation of “America First” lawyers, with some from attorney general and solicitor general offices in Texas and other Republican-controlled states. “America First” Republicans are often opposed to both legal and illegal immigration, protectionist on trade and skeptical of international alliances and military intervention overseas.One first-term Trump lawyer who would most likely serve in a second term is Mark Paoletta, who served as general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget and worked closely with Mr. Vought, the agency’s director. The O.M.B. team saw itself as an island of facilitators within an executive branch they believed was too quick to tell Mr. Trump that his ideas were unachievable or illegal.“The Federalist Society doesn’t know what time it is,” said Russell Vought, a former senior Trump administration official.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTogether, Mr. Vought and Mr. Paoletta came up with the idea of having Mr. Trump declare a national emergency and invoke special powers to spend more taxpayer money on a border wall than Congress was willing to appropriate.Mr. Paoletta also believed that Mr. Trump could have exerted greater personal control over the Justice Department, although Mr. Paoletta said in an interview that he did not advocate using the presidency’s command over federal law enforcement for partisan and personal score-settling. He and other advisers likely to follow Mr. Trump back into power view White House authority to direct the Justice Department as proper under the so-called unitary executive theory. It holds that presidents can directly command the entire federal bureaucracy and that pockets of independent decision-making authority are unconstitutional.“I believe a president doesn’t need to be so hands-off with the D.O.J.,” Mr. Paoletta said, adding: “It’s not an independent agency, and he is the head of the executive branch. A president has every right to direct D.O.J. to look at items that are his policy priorities and other matters of national importance.”Mr. Trump is not known for pondering legal philosophy. But he has found common cause with lawyers who have a sweeping view of presidential power.In his 2024 campaign, Mr. Trump has promised to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after” President Biden and his family — shattering the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence. More than any legal policy statement on his campaign website, retribution may be the closest thing to a governing philosophy for Mr. Trump as he seeks a second term.‘Legal Creativity’Mr. Trump has rarely looked closely at a lawyer’s area of specialty. Instead, he has often looked at whether a particular lawyer can help him gain something he wants. He spent much of his first term railing against the lawyers who worked for him and wondering aloud why none of them could live up to the memory of his notoriously ruthless mentor, Roy Cohn, who represented Mr. Trump in his early business career in New York.When he sought to overturn the 2020 election, Mr. Trump was unsatisfied with his government lawyers, including his second White House counsel, Mr. Cipollone, who largely rejected his efforts to subvert the results. Mr. Trump turned to a different set of outside lawyers.Those lawyers included Rudolph W. Giuliani, John C. Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney K. Powell, all of whom have since been indicted in Georgia in a racketeering case that charged the former president and 18 of his allies with conspiring to overturn his election loss there in 2020. Ms. Powell, Mr. Chesebro and Ms. Ellis have pleaded guilty.Mr. Trump was also infuriated that the justices he had put on the Supreme Court declined to repay his patronage by intervening in the 2020 election. As Mr. Trump criticized the court, Mr. Leo with the Federalist Society is said to have told associates he was disappointed that the former president’s rhetoric made his judicial appointment record look “transactional,” aimed at advancing Mr. Trump’s personal interests rather than a broader philosophical mission.Jeffrey Clark, a former high-ranking Justice Department official, was criminally charged in Georgia in connection with efforts to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in that state.Pool photo by Susan WalshIn the same way, Mr. Trump had a falling-out with his attorney general, William P. Barr, who refused to falsely say that the Justice Department had evidence of widespread voter fraud. After Mr. Barr resigned, his deputy and successor, Jeffrey A. Rosen, also refused to throw the department’s weight behind Mr. Trump’s claims. Mr. Trump then explored the idea of installing Jeffrey Clark — an official who was willing to raise concerns about purported election fraud — as acting attorney general.Mr. Clark has also been indicted in the Georgia case, but remains in favor with Mr. Trump and has met with the former president at his private clubs. Over the summer, at Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Clark attended a fund-raiser for the people who have been imprisoned for rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Clark will most likely be in contention for a senior Justice Department position in any second Trump administration, depending on the outcome of his legal travails. He has written a constitutional analysis, titled “The U.S. Justice Department Is Not Independent,” that amounts to an intellectual blueprint for direct presidential control of federal law enforcement.He declined to comment. On a conservative podcast last year, Mr. Clark said that “extraordinary times call for extraordinary, responsive legal creativity.” More

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      Ginni Thomas Repeats False 2020 Election Claim in Jan. 6 Interview

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      In a closed-door interview with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, Ms. Thomas reiterated her false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump.WASHINGTON — Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas and a conservative activist who pushed to overturn the 2020 election, told the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that she never discussed those efforts with her husband, during a closed-door interview in which she continued to perpetuate the false claim that the election was stolen.Leaving the interview, which took place at an office building near the Capitol and lasted about four hours, Ms. Thomas smiled in response to reporters’ questions, but declined to answer any publicly.She did, however, answer questions behind closed doors, said Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, who added that her testimony could be included in an upcoming hearing.“If there’s something of merit, it will be,” he said.During her interview, Ms. Thomas, who goes by Ginni, repeated her assertion that the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald J. Trump, Mr. Thompson said, a belief she insisted upon in late 2020 as she pressured state legislators and the White House chief of staff to do more to try to invalidate the results.In a statement she read at the beginning of her testimony, Ms. Thomas denied having discussed her postelection activities with her husband.In her statement, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Thomas called it “an ironclad rule” that she and Justice Thomas never speak about cases pending before the Supreme Court. “It is laughable for anyone who knows my husband to think I could influence his jurisprudence — the man is independent and stubborn, with strong character traits of independence and integrity,” she added.The interview ended months of negotiations between the committee and Ms. Thomas over her testimony. The committee’s investigators had grown particularly interested in her communications with John Eastman, the conservative lawyer who was in close contact with Mr. Trump and wrote a memo that Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans have likened to a blueprint for a coup.“At this point, we’re glad she came,” Mr. Thompson said.After Ms. Thomas’s appearance on Thursday, her lawyer Mark Paoletta said she had been “happy to cooperate with the committee to clear up the misconceptions about her activities surrounding the 2020 elections.”“She answered all the committee’s questions,” Mr. Paoletta said in a statement. “As she has said from the outset, Mrs. Thomas had significant concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election. And, as she told the committee, her minimal and mainstream activity focused on ensuring that reports of fraud and irregularities were investigated. Beyond that, she played no role in any events after the 2020 election results. As she wrote in a text to Mark Meadows at the time, she also condemned the violence on Jan. 6, as she abhors violence on any side of the aisle.”A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.Ms. Thomas exchanged text messages with Mr. Meadows, the White House chief of staff, in which she urged him to challenge Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 election, which she called a “heist,” and indicated that she had reached out to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, about Mr. Trump’s efforts to use the courts to keep himself in power. She even suggested the lawyer who should be put in charge of that effort..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Ms. Thomas also pressed lawmakers in several states to fight the results of the election.But it was Ms. Thomas’s interactions with Mr. Eastman, a conservative lawyer who pushed Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay the certification of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021, that have most interested investigators.“She’s a witness,” Mr. Thompson said Thursday. “We didn’t accuse her of anything.”The panel obtained at least one email between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman after a federal judge ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over documents to the panel from the period after the November 2020 election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss fighting the election results.That same judge has said it is “more likely than not” that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman committed two felonies as part of the effort, including conspiracy to defraud the American people.Mr. Paoletta has argued that the communications between Ms. Thomas and Mr. Eastman contain little of value to the panel’s investigation.Ms. Thomas’s cooperation comes as the Jan. 6 committee is entering its final months of work after a summer of high-profile hearings and preparing an extensive report, which is expected to include recommendations for how to confront the threats to democracy highlighted by the riot and Mr. Trump’s drive to overturn the election.The interview came just days after the panel abruptly postponed a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, citing the hurricane bearing down on Florida. The hearing has yet to be rescheduled.Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and a member of the committee, said Ms. Thomas’s interview showed that “people continue to cooperate with the committee and understand the importance of our investigation.”The panel has interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses and has received hundreds of thousands of documents and more than 10,000 submissions to its tip line since June.“There’s a lot more information coming in all the time,” Mr. Raskin said.He said the committee members have viewed thousands of hours’ worth of video images and tape but want to be “disciplined” about how they present them in the next hearing.“There are certain people who are going to denounce whatever we do, no matter what,” he said. “We just want to be able to complete the narrative and then deliver our recommendations about what needs to be done in order to insulate American democracy against coups, insurrection, political violence and electoral sabotage in the future.”Maggie Haberman More

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      La historia detrás del diario de Ashley Biden

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      Proyecto Veritas llamó a la hija del presidente para corroborar que era su diario. Las investigaciones judiciales revelan nuevos datos que muestran cómo fue que esa organización trabajó para divulgar información personal sobre la familia Biden.Un mes antes de las elecciones estadounidenses de 2020, la hija de Joe Biden, Ashley, recibió una llamada de un hombre que dijo que la quería ayudar. Con un tono amistoso, le aseguró que había encontrado un diario que creía que le pertenecía a ella, y quería devolvérselo.Es cierto que Ashley Biden había escrito un diario durante el año anterior mientras se recuperaba de una adicción y lo había guardado, junto con otras pertenencias, en la casa de un amigo en Florida donde había vivido hasta unos pocos meses antes. Si el contenido de ese diario personal se hubiese divulgado, podría haber significado una vergüenza o una distracción para su padre durante un momento crítico de la campaña.Biden acordó con el hombre que llamó que, al día siguiente, enviaría a una persona para que buscara el diario.Pero no estaba tratando con un buen samaritano.Esa persona trabajaba para el Proyecto Veritas, un grupo conservador que se había convertido en uno de los predilectos del presidente Donald Trump, según entrevistas con personas familiarizadas con la secuencia de eventos. Desde la sede del grupo en el condado de Westchester, Nueva York, y acompañado por otros miembros de la organización, el hombre buscaba engañar a Biden para que confirmara la autenticidad del diario, el cual Proyecto Veritas estaba a punto de comprarle a dos intermediarios por 40.000 dólares.El hombre que llamó no se identificó como alguien vinculado al Proyecto Veritas, según relatos de dos personas que conocen los detalles de la conversación. Al final de la llamada, varios integrantes del grupo que estuvieron presentes, que escucharon grabaciones de la llamada o que fueron informados sobre la conversación, creían que Biden había dicho más que suficiente para confirmar que era su diario.Los nuevos detalles sobre el esfuerzo del Proyecto Veritas para confirmar que el diario era de Biden, son elementos de una historia que sigue en proceso y que se enfoca en cómo algunos partidarios de Trump, y una organización conocida por sus operaciones encubiertas, trabajaron para exponer información personal sobre la familia Biden durante la campaña electoral de 2020.A través de entrevistas, y documentos judiciales y de otros tipos, la nueva información le agrega más detalles a lo que se sabe sobre un episodio que ha causado una investigación penal sobre el Proyecto Veritas por parte de fiscales federales, quienes sugirieron tener evidencia de que el grupo fue cómplice en el robo de la propiedad de Ashley Biden y el transporte de bienes hurtados a través de fronteras estatales.Además, al demostrar que el Proyecto Veritas utilizó el engaño en vez de técnicas periodísticas tradicionales cuando contactó a Biden —la persona que hizo la llamada se identificó con un nombre falso—, los nuevos testimonios podrían complicar aún más las afirmaciones que hizo la organización en documentos judiciales de que debería ser tratada como una editorial y recibir las protecciones consagradas en la Primera Enmienda. Con regularidad, el Proyecto Veritas lleva a cabo operaciones encubiertas, emboscadas para entrevistas y operativos de vigilancia, principalmente contra organizaciones y periodistas liberales.Al mismo tiempo, la nueva información sobre el caso sugiere que el esfuerzo por divulgar el diario provino de niveles más profundos del círculo de Trump de lo que se suponía.Un mes antes de que llamaran a Ashley Biden, el diario había sido compartido en un evento de recaudación de fondos de Trump en Florida, en la casa de una donante que ayudó a conseguir el diario y se lo entregó al Proyecto Veritas, y que luego fue nominada por Trump para el Consejo Nacional Consultivo de Cáncer. Entre los asistentes al evento se encontraba Donald Trump Jr., aunque no se sabe si leyó el diario.Los fiscales federales han estado investigando el modo en el que el Proyecto Veritas obtuvo el diario, y en otoño del año pasado realizaron allanamientos en las casas de tres de los agentes del grupo, incluida la de su fundador, James O’Keefe. En diversos documentos judiciales, los fiscales han sugerido que la organización fue cómplice en el robo de algunas pertenencias de Ashley Biden porque los testimonios muestran que el grupo obtuvo esos objetos al tiempo que intentaba confirmar la autenticidad del diario.El Proyecto Veritas —que demandó a The New York Times por difamación en otro caso— ha negado cualquier irregularidad o conocimiento de que alguna pertenencia haya sido robada. Se ha presentado como una organización de medios que está siendo injustamente investigada solo por ejercer periodismo, y ha atacado al Departamento de Justicia y al FBI por la manera en que han manejado el caso.Los fiscales han señalado que ven las circunstancias de otra manera; en un documento judicial en un tribunal casi desestimaron por completo los argumentos de la defensa del grupo que sostiene que actuaron como una organización de noticias. “La Primera Enmienda no brinda protección contra el robo y el transporte interestatal de propiedad robada”, afirmaron.En respuesta a una solicitud de comentarios al Proyecto Veritas, O’Keefe envió un correo electrónico criticando a The New York Times. “Imagínense escribir de forma tan divergente de la realidad y con un uso tan falaz de insinuaciones, que literalmente no exista ninguna expresión que no empeore la situación”, declaró.Los portavoces del FBI y de los fiscales federales que supervisan el caso en el distrito sur de Nueva York se negaron a hacer comentarios, al igual que Roberta Kaplan, abogada de Ashley Biden.Project Veritas se presenta como una organización de medios que está siendo investigada injustamente y ha atacado al Departamento de Justicia y al FBI por su manejo del caso.Stefani Reynolds para The New York TimesEl Times informó con anterioridad que la historia de la participación del Proyecto Veritas en el caso del diario comenzó en los meses previos al día de las elecciones.En julio de 2020, una madre soltera con dos hijos se mudó a la casa en alquiler de un exnovio en Delray Beach, Florida. La mujer, Aimee Harris, simpatizante de Donald Trump, le dijo al exnovio que tenía poco dinero, que no tenía dónde vivir y que estaba en disputa por la custodia de sus hijos. Poco después de mudarse a la casa en alquiler, Harris se enteró de que Ashley Biden —quien era amiga de su exnovio— había vivido en la casa durante ese año.Biden ya había regresado a Filadelfia en junio de 2020, por los días en que su padre había ganado la candidatura presidencial del Partido Demócrata. Guardó un par de bolsos con sus pertenencias en la casa de alquiler junto con su diario, y le dijo a su amigo, quien estaba rentando la casa, que planeaba regresar para llevarse sus cosas en el otoño.En agosto, Harris contactó a Robert Kurlander, un amigo suyo que en la década de 1990 fue sentenciado a 40 meses de prisión por fraude federal y que había expresado en línea su postura contra Biden, para decirle que había encontrado el diario. Ambos creían que podían venderlo, lo que ayudaría a Harris para pagar los abogados que la representaban en la disputa por la custodia.Nuevos detalles tomados de entrevistas y documentos han aclarado lo que sucedió después. Kurlander se puso en contacto con Elizabeth Fago, la donante de Trump que luego organizó el evento de recaudación de fondos al que asistió Donald Trump Jr. Cuando le hablaron por primera vez del diario, Fago afirmó haber pensado que podría ayudar a incrementar las posibilidades de que Donald Trump ganara las elecciones, según dos personas familiarizadas con el asunto.Richard G. Lubin, abogado de Fago, se negó a hacer comentarios.El 3 de septiembre, la hija de Fago alertó al Proyecto Veritas sobre la existencia del diario.Tres días después, Harris y Kurlander asistieron al evento de recaudación de fondos, donde también estaba presente Donald Trump Jr., en la casa de Fago en Jupiter, Florida, para ver si el equipo de la campaña de reelección del presidente podría estar interesado en el diario. Mientras estaba allí, Kurlander les mostró el diario a otras personas. No se sabe con claridad quiénes lo vieron.Después de que la investigación criminal sobre el Proyecto Veritas se hizo pública durante el otoño pasado, un destacado abogado republicano que cabildea en nombre de la organización y O’Keefe informó a un grupo de republicanos del Congreso sobre el caso, con el fin de instarlos a tratar de persuadir al Departamento de Justicia para que dejaran la investigación debido a que el grupo no había hecho nada malo, según una persona informada sobre el asunto.El presidente Donald Trump durante un discurso en Júpiter, Florida, en septiembre de 2020. Días antes, dos personas que luego le vendieron el diario a Project Veritas, lo llevaron a un evento de recaudación de fondos para la campaña de Trump.Doug Mills/The New York TimesEl abogado, Mark Paoletta, dijo que al enterarse de la existencia del diario en el evento de recaudación de fondos, Donald Trump Jr. no mostró ningún interés y dijo que quienquiera que lo tuviera debería informar al FBI. Pero poco después, Paoletta, quien se había desempeñado como el principal abogado del vicepresidente Mike Pence en la Casa Blanca, volvió a llamar a los republicanos del Congreso para decir que no estaba seguro de si la versión sobre la reacción de Donald Trump Jr. era precisa.Los archivos de cabildeo muestran que Paoletta recibió 50.000 dólares durante los últimos dos meses del año pasado para informar a los miembros del Congreso sobre la redada del FBI en la casa de O’Keefe. Paoletta y un abogado de Donald Trump Jr. no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentarios.Cuando el Proyecto Veritas se enteró de la existencia del diario a principios de septiembre, el grupo buscó adquirirlo. Aproximadamente una semana después del evento de recaudación de fondos, Harris y Kurlander volaron a Nueva York con el diario. Se reunieron con varios agentes del Proyecto Veritas en un hotel de Manhattan.Las dos partes comenzaron a negociar un acuerdo, pero no se llegó a un trato final. Como respuesta a la pregunta sobre qué pudo haberle pedido el Proyecto Veritas para ayudar a autenticar el diario, Kurlander, a través de su abogado Jonathan Kaplan, se negó a hacer comentarios.Pero Proyecto Veritas tuvo que dilucidar varios temas difíciles: ¿en realidad era el diario de Ashley Biden y no se trataba de una falsificación o una trampa? ¿Cómo es que Proyecto Veritas, una organización conocida por sus operaciones encubiertas, podría asegurarse de que no era víctima de sus propias tácticas engañosas?Uno de los subalternos de O’Keefe, Spencer Meads, fue enviado a Florida para investigar la autenticidad del diario.Lo que sucedió después aún no ha sido aclarado, y es uno de los grandes problemas de la investigación. El Proyecto Veritas ha dicho en documentos judiciales que sus agentes obtuvieron artículos adicionales pertenecientes a Biden que sus “fuentes” habían descrito como “abandonados”, sugiriendo así que no tenía conocimiento de ningún robo y que consiguieron las pertenencias de Biden de la misma manera en que los periodistas reciben información.“Poco después, las fuentes acordaron reunirse con el periodista de Project Veritas en Florida para darle artículos abandonados adicionales”, escribieron los abogados del grupo en un expediente judicial federal.Desde hace tiempo, los abogados de Proyecto Veritas habían advertido a los miembros que alentar o incentivar a las fuentes a robar documentos o artículos podría implicar al grupo en un delito. En un memorando dirigido a O’Keefe en 2017, uno de los abogados concluyó: “Bajo este precedente, PV disfruta de protecciones legales sustanciales para informar y divulgar material que puede haberse obtenido ilegalmente, siempre que no haya participado en el proceso para conseguirlo”.Sin embargo, al menos una de las “fuentes” les contó a otras personas que un agente del Proyecto Veritas le había preguntado si podía recuperar más artículos de la casa que pudieran ayudar a demostrar que el diario pertenecía a Ashley Biden, según una persona con conocimiento de la conversación. Una de las fuentes les informó a otras personas que procedió a sacar artículos adicionales de la casa y dárselos al integrante del grupo.En respuesta a las afirmaciones de la organización de que no había hecho nada malo y que su papel en el caso estaba protegido por la Primera Enmienda, los fiscales acusaron al grupo en los documentos judiciales de hacer declaraciones no juradas que son “falsas o engañosas y se contradicen directamente con la evidencia”. También declararon que incluso una organización de noticias legítima no sería protegida por la Primera Enmienda al adquirir materiales mediante robos u otros delitos.“En pocas palabras, incluso los miembros de los medios de comunicación ‘no pueden irrumpir con impunidad y entrar en una oficina o vivienda para recolectar noticias’”, dijeron los fiscales.Sin citar evidencia específica, los fiscales desafiaron directamente un argumento de Proyecto Veritas: la “reiterada afirmación del grupo de que no habían ‘participado’ en cómo se ‘adquirieron’ las pertenencias de la víctima”.El plan de Ashley Biden de que un amigo fuera a recuperar el diario, que tenía la persona que la llamó en octubre, fracasó. Y las versiones que Proyecto Veritas presentó en las últimas semanas, tanto en documentos judiciales como ante la policía local en Florida, sobre cómo obtuvo el diario dejan varias preguntas sobre el desarrollo de los eventos.El FBI obtuvo una orden y allanó la casa de James O’Keefe, el fundador del Proyecto Veritas.Cooper Neill para The New York TimesProyecto Veritas le dijo a un juez federal que el 12 de octubre, O’Keefe envió un correo electrónico diciéndole a su equipo que había tomado la decisión de no publicar la historia sobre el diario, aunque no tenían “ninguna duda de que el documento es real”. Sin embargo, sostenía que las reacciones a su publicación serían “calificadas como un golpe bajo”. La fecha del correo, proporcionada por O’Keefe, fue poco después de la llamada a Biden.Pero cuatro días después de que O’Keefe le dijera a su personal que no publicaría el diario, un importante abogado del Proyecto Veritas le dijo a la campaña de Joe Biden que tenía el diario y que quería entrevistarlo en cámara al respecto, según el Times reportó en diciembre.Menos de una semana después, Proyecto Veritas cerró un acuerdo por 40.000 dólares con Kurlander y Harris para comprar los derechos de publicación del diario, les transfirió el dinero y sugirió que el grupo planeaba publicarlo pronto, según una persona con conocimiento del caso.Al final, Proyecto Veritas decidió no publicarlo. En cambio, un sitio web de derecha publicó el diario en octubre, pero recibió muy poca atención antes de las elecciones. O’Keefe estaba furioso, y algunas personas dentro del Proyecto Veritas pensaron que uno de sus propios integrantes, frustrado por la falta de voluntad del grupo para publicar el diario, lo había filtrado.Proyecto Veritas decidió que uno de sus integrantes regresaría el diario, y las demás pertenencias de Biden, a Florida.Según un informe del Departamento de Policía de Delray Beach, un abogado se presentó en el departamento y le entregó los artículos a un oficial. El abogado, según las imágenes de la cámara corporal de la policía, dijo que los artículos fueron “posiblemente robados”.La policía alertó al FBI, que hizo que un agente recuperara el diario de Biden y otras pertenencias. Casi un año después, el FBI contactó a Harris y a Kurlander.Unas dos semanas después, agentes del FBI consiguieron órdenes para allanar las casas de O’Keefe y dos de sus colaboradores: Meads y Eric Cochran, quienes abandonaron la organización después del incidente del diario. En el caso de Meads, su abogado dijo que el FBI derribó la puerta de su apartamento. Los documentos judiciales indican que el FBI incautó 47 dispositivos, incluida una decena de teléfonos de Meads.Kenneth P. Vogel More