Paxton, Ken

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    Texas Judge Blocks Paxton’s Request for Transgender Minors’ Records

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    An L.G.B.T.Q. organization had sued after the state’s attorney general asked for documents on children receiving gender-affirming care.A judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Texas attorney general from forcing an L.G.B.T.Q. organization to turn over documents on transgender minors and the gender-affirming care they may be receiving.In Texas, medical care for gender transition is prohibited for minors under a law passed last year. As part of an investigation into violations of the ban, the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton demanded early last month that the nonprofit PFLAG National, which supports families in accessing gender-affirming care for children, provide information on minors in the state who may have received such treatments. But on Friday, Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel of Travis County District Court issued an injunction against Mr. Paxton, just days after PFLAG sued to block the request, saying turning over the documents would cause “irreparable injury, loss or damage” to the group. The judge added that such an ask would infringe on the group’s constitutional rights and that its members would be subject to “gross invasions” of privacy.In a statement, PFLAG’s lawyers, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said they were “grateful that the court saw the harm the attorney general’s office’s intrusive demands posed.”Mr. Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday’s order. But he has previously argued that the information from PFLAG is “highly relevant” to his investigation into medical providers who he says are trying to work around the ban on gender-affirming care for minors. “Any organization seeking to violate this law, commit fraud or weaponize science and medicine against children will be held accountable,” he said in a statement. The judge scheduled a hearing for March 25 to give the attorney general a chance to argue against the injunction. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Texas Governor Greg Abbott Announces Military Base Camp in Eagle Pass

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      The base for up to 2,300 soldiers will establish a significant state law enforcement infrastructure in an area where Texas is contesting the federal government’s sole authority.Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said on Friday that the state would begin building a forward operating base in the border city of Eagle Pass for up to 2,300 soldiers, creating the most significant military infrastructure yet to support the state’s efforts to limit the number of people crossing illegally from Mexico.While Texas has been deploying National Guard troops and state police officers up and down the state’s border since 2021, the move to create an 80-acre base camp cements a large law enforcement infrastructure in the region and signals Texas’ commitment to a security role that previously belonged almost exclusively to the federal government.“This will increase the ability for a larger number of Texas military department personnel in Eagle Pass to operate more effectively and more efficiently,” Mr. Abbott said in his announcement, as he was flanked by a row of armed National Guard members. The camp, Mr. Abbott added, “will amass a large army in a very strategic area.”Mr. Abbott did not say on Friday how much money the state was spending to build the base, but added that the financial impact would be “minimal” in view of the state’s existing expenditures to house those deployed on the border.The camp, which will include a 700-seat dining facility, a gym, a laundry and medical services, will save on hotel costs for the existing deployment. And it will presumably make way for additional states that are sending troops to help patrol the border as part of a widening rift between Republican governors and the federal government over border enforcement.Mr. Abbott has been testing the legal limits of what states can do to enforce immigration law. Several of his Republican cohorts, including the governors of Florida and Georgia, have sent their own National Guard troops to help patrol the border in Texas, where record numbers of migrants have been crossing without authorization in recent years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      State Dept.’s Fight Against Disinformation Comes Under Attack

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      The Global Engagement Center has become the focus of Republican-led criticism that the U.S. government coerces social media platforms into removing offensive content.A Republican-led campaign against researchers who study disinformation online has zeroed in on the most prominent American government agency dedicated to countering propaganda and other information operations from terrorists and hostile nations.The agency, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, is facing a torrent of accusations in court and in Congress that it has helped the social media giants — including Facebook, YouTube and X — to censor Americans in violation of the First Amendment.The attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, and two conservative digital news outlets last week became the latest plaintiffs to sue the department and its top officials, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. The lawsuit said the center’s work was “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.”The center faces a more existential threat in Congress. House Republicans blocked a proposal this month to reauthorize the center, which began in 2011 to counter the propaganda of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. A small agency, with a regular staff of 125 people, many of them contractors, and a budget of $61 million, the center coordinates efforts across the government to track and expose propaganda and disinformation from Russia, China and other adversaries. With its mandate set to expire at the end of next year, the center is now operating under a shroud of uncertainty, even though its supporters say there is no evidence to back the charges against it.If the Republicans hold firm, as a core bloc in the House appear determined to do, the center would disband amid two major regional wars and a wave of elections in 2024, including the U.S. presidential campaign.James P. Rubin, the center’s coordinator since early this year, disputed the allegations that his organization censored Americans’ comments online. The center’s legal mandate, he said, was to “focus on how foreign adversaries, primarily China and Russia, use information operations and malign interference to manipulate world opinion.”“What we do not do is examine or analyze the U.S. information space,” he said.The center’s fate has become enmeshed in a much broader political and legal campaign over free speech and disinformation that has gained enough traction to reach the Supreme Court.A lawsuit filed last year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accused numerous government agencies of cajoling or coercing social media platforms into removing content that spread what officials called false or misleading information about the Covid-19 pandemic, the presidential election of 2020 and other issues.A federal court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor in July, temporarily barring government officials from contacting officials with the companies except in matters of law enforcement or national security. An appeals court largely upheld the ruling in September but limited its reach, excluding several agencies from the lower court’s injunction against contacts, the Global Engagement Center among them.“There is no indication that State Department officials flagged specific content for censorship, suggested policy changes to the platforms or engaged in any similar actions that would reasonably bring their conduct within the scope of the First Amendment’s prohibitions,” wrote a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.The Global Engagement Center, which is part of the State Department, is facing a torrent of accusations in court and in Congress that it has helped the social media giants to censor Americans.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressThe Supreme Court is expected to weigh in next spring on the Missouri case, a decision that could have big ramifications for the government and free speech in the internet era. The campaign against researchers who study the spread of disinformation has already had a chilling effect on universities, think tanks and private companies, which have found themselves smothered by subpoenas and legal costs.The efforts have been fueled by disclosures of communications between government officials and social media companies. Elon Musk who released a selection of messages after he purchased Twitter, since rebranded as X, called the Global Engagement Center “the worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation.”“They are a threat to democracy,” wrote Mr. Musk, who has restored numerous accounts that Twitter had suspended for violating the platform’s guidelines for disinformation, hate speech and other content. (Over the weekend, he allowed the return of Alex Jones, a far-right conspiracy theorist who spent years falsely claiming the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was a hoax.)The Global Engagement Center has faced criticism before — not over censorship, but for having little effect at a time when global propaganda and disinformation has become more pernicious than ever with the rise of social media.A report by the State Department’s inspector general last year said the center suffered from a sclerotic bureaucracy that limited its ability to manage contractors and failed to create a strategic planning process that could measure its effectiveness. The department accepted the findings and promised to address them, the report said.Mr. Rubin, who was appointed at the end of last year, has sought to bolster the center’s core mission: challenging disinformation from foreign adversaries intent on undermining American democracy and influence around the world.In September, the center released a sweeping report that accused China’s Communist Party of using “deceptive and coercive methods” to try to control the global information environment. A month later it released two reports on Russia’s covert influence efforts in South America, including one intended to pre-empt an operation before it got off the ground.The Global Engagement Center began in 2011 to counter the propaganda of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.Jon Elswick/Associated PressThe center has had regular interactions with the social media companies, but, the appeals court ruled, there is no evidence that its officials coerced or otherwise influenced the platforms. Federal regulations prohibit any agency from engaging in propaganda at home.“We are not in the business of deciding what is true or not true,” Mr. Rubin said, adding that the center’s role was to identify “the hidden hand” of foreign propaganda.Since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January, however, the Global Engagement Center has faced numerous subpoenas from a subcommittee investigating the “weaponization of government,” as well as depositions in lawsuits and requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act.At public hearings, House Republicans have repeatedly threatened not to renew the center’s expiring mandate and have grilled department officials about Americans whose accounts have been suspended. “The onus on you is to change my mind,” Representative Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, told Daniel Kimmage, the center’s principal deputy coordinator, at a hearing in October.The Democrats in both houses of Congress and the Republicans in the Senate reached an agreement to extend the center’s mandate as part of the defense authorization act — one of the few pieces of legislation that might actually pass this year — but House Republicans succeeded in stripping the provision out of the broader legislation.The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed last week in Texas argued that the department had in effect sidestepped its legal constraints by providing grants to organizations that routinely identify sources of disinformation in public reports and private interactions with social media platforms. The organizations include the Global Disinformation Index, a nonprofit based in London; and NewsGuard, a company in New York.The two news organizations that joined Texas in filing the suit — The Federalist and The Daily Wire — were both listed by the Global Disinformation Index in a December 2022 report as having a high risk for publishing disinformation. (The New York Times was among those rated as having a minimum risk. The Times’s website, the report said, “was not always free of bias, but it generally avoided targeting language and adversarial narratives.”)The center’s grant to the group — $100,000 in total — went to a project focused on disinformation in Southeast Asia. But the lawsuit claimed that its support injured the outlets “by starving them of advertising revenue and reducing the circulation of their reporting and speech — all as a direct result of defendants’ unlawful censorship scheme.”Josh Herr, The Daily Wire’s general counsel, said the outlet might never know “the full extent of the business lost.”“But this lawsuit is not about quantifying those losses,” he said. “We are not seeking damages. What we are seeking is to protect our rights, and all publishers’ rights, under the First Amendment.”Nina Jankowicz, a researcher who briefly served as the head of a disinformation advisory board at the Department of Homeland Security last year before controversy scuttled her appointment and the board itself, said the argument that the State Department was responsible for the impact of research it did not finance was absurd.Ms. Jankowicz said that the campaign to cast efforts to fight disinformation as a form of censorship had proved politically effective even when evidence did not support the claims.“I think any American, when you hear, ‘Oh, the administration, the White House, is setting up something to censor Americans, even if that has no shred of evidence behind it, your ears are going to prick up,” she said. “And it’s really hard to disprove all that.” More

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      The Contagious Corruption of Ken Paxton

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      Let’s talk about leadership again. Last week, I wrote about Vivek Ramaswamy and the power of unprincipled leaders to exploit civic ignorance. This week, I want to address the power of leadership to shape character and the problem of corruption in the era of Trump. And for this discussion, we’ll turn to Texas.A very good thing is belatedly happening in the Lone Star State. Republicans are on the verge not merely of expelling one of their own from office, but of expelling someone with the most impeccable of MAGA credentials. The suspended Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, is facing an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate, and if the early votes are any indication, it’s not going well for him. He’s already lost a number of motions to dismiss the case by margins approximating the two-thirds majority that will be necessary to convict him — and this is an upper chamber that Republicans control 19 to 12.Paxton faces impeachment in large part because seven of his top deputies blew the whistle on him in 2020, claiming that he had engaged in bribery and abuse of office. The charges against Paxton, to which he pleads not guilty, center primarily on his relationship with an investor named Nate Paul. Paxton is accused of providing favors to Paul, including using the power of his office in an attempt to stop foreclosure sales of Paul’s properties, ordering employees not to assist law enforcement investigating Paul and even providing Paul with “highly sensitive information” about an F.B.I. raid on his home.And what did Paxton get in return? Paul reportedly helped Paxton remodel his home and employed Paxton’s mistress. (Paxton’s wife, Angela Paxton, is a Republican state senator who is attending the hearings but is barred from voting on the charges against her husband.)But that’s hardly the complete list of Paxton’s misdeeds. He’s still facing criminal charges — which I’ve long considered questionable — stemming from a 2015 state indictment for securities fraud, and his treatment of the whistle-blowers is also under public scrutiny. Soon after coming forward, every whistle-blower either resigned, was fired or was placed on leave. When they sued for retaliation and improper firing, Paxton attempted to use $3.3 million in taxpayer funds to settle the lawsuit.In addition, following the 2020 election, Paxton filed one of the most outrageous lawsuits in the entire Republican effort to overturn the presidential result. He sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seeking an order preventing those states from voting in the Electoral College. The suit was so transparently specious that Texas’ respected then-solicitor general, Kyle Hawkins — who was appointed to the post by Paxton — refused to add his name to the complaint. The Supreme Court dismissed the case without even granting it a hearing.Naturally, none of these scandals truly hurt Paxton with Texas Republican voters. He won his 2022 primary runoff against George P. Bush by 36 points. He defeated Democrat Rochelle Garza in the general election by 10 points. Texas primary voters — like Republican primary voters in many other states — decided once again that character is irrelevant so long as their candidate fights the right enemies.But that’s not the end of the story. What’s happening now is a Texas-size version of the civil war that rages across the right. Is it possible for Republicans to police their own, or does Paxton’s devotion to Donald Trump and his zealous commitment to the culture wars excuse his misconduct, however egregious? Is it possible for Republicans to potentially start the slow and painful process of healing the G.O.P.?I date my interest in the moral power of leadership back to 1998, when I was shocked that a number of my progressive friends could shrug their shoulders not just at Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern (though I could see their argument that his adultery was a personal matter) but also at his dishonesty under oath. The country was at peace and prosperous, they noted. Besides, weren’t Republicans hypocrites? Newt Gingrich was an adulterer. Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican and speaker-designate to succeed Gingrich, also confessed to extramarital affairs and stepped down.In the midst of these revelations, the Southern Baptist Convention — the nation’s largest Protestant denomination — gathered at its annual convention in Salt Lake City and tried to make the simple case to the American people that character counts. It passed a resolution on the moral character of public officials containing this memorable line: “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”Putting aside the words about God’s judgment, I suspect that a broad range of Americans, regardless of faith, would agree with the basic premise: Corruption is contagious.But why? Consider the relationship between leadership and our own self-interest. Most of us belong to organizations of some type, and unless we’re leading the organization, our income, our power and even our respect within the community can depend a great deal on the good will of the men and women who lead us. In very tangible ways, their character creates our path through our careers, our churches and our civic organizations.Thus, if a leader exhibits moral courage and values integrity, then the flawed people in his or her orbit will strive to be the best versions of themselves.But if a leader exhibits cruelty and dishonesty, then those same flawed people will be more apt to yield to their worst temptations. They’ll mimic the values of the people who lead them.Let me use an analogy I’ve used before: Think of a leader as setting the course of a river. It’s always easier to swim with the current. Yes, you can swim against the current for a while, but eventually you’ll exhaust yourself, and you’ll either yield to the current or leave the stream altogether.And what is the moral current of Trumpism? For Donald Trump’s supporters, tactics that would normally be utterly unacceptable on moral grounds instead become urgent priorities. In this moral calculus, Paxton’s absurd lawsuit against Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin isn’t a mark of shame, but rather a badge of honor.Paxton’s aggressive loyalty to Trump, in other words, acts as a form of indulgence that grants him license in his personal and professional life. Paxton’s acknowledged sins, including his affair, are cheap and tawdry. Yet a constellation of Republican stars are rallying to his side, led by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ted Cruz and Steve Bannon. Because he’s a fighter. He goes to war against the left, and if the age of Trump teaches us anything, it’s that the current of his leadership flows eternally toward conflict and self-interest, consequences be damned.It’s hard to overstate how much this ethos contradicts the Christianity that Paxton purports to proclaim. In fact, scriptures teach that the role of the godly man or woman isn’t to yield to power, but to confront power when that power is corrupt. The mission is to swim against the cultural current. That brings me to one of the most grievous abuses of scripture during the Trump presidency — the constant comparison of Trump to King David.Trump is flawed, his supporters acknowledge. But so was David, they argue, and God blessed David. Scripture calls him a man after God’s own heart. But David’s virtues did not excuse his vices. In one of scripture’s most memorable passages, the prophet Nathan not only directly confronted the king but also declared a harsh judgment for David’s sins. And what was David’s response? Repentance. “I have sinned against the Lord,” he said. He then penned a poignant, penitent psalm. “God, create a clean heart for me,” he begs. “Do not banish me from your presence,” he pleads.Does any of that sound like Donald Trump? Does that bear any resemblance to the religious right in the age of Trump? Of course not. The contagious corruption of a broken president and a broken party has turned the hearts of millions of Christians away from scripture’s clear moral commands. They have chosen not to swim against the tide.But the battle is not lost, not entirely. In Ken Paxton’s office there were people who had the courage to confront their leader. They put their careers on the line to confront Texas’ legal king. And even if Paxton himself doesn’t have the integrity to repent and accept the consequences, there are other Republican leaders who can impose consequences themselves. They can start the process of altering the current of the Republican river, away from corruption and deception and back toward integrity and respect for the rule of law.The trial of Ken Paxton may well be the most important political trial of the year. It is in Austin that the G.O.P. directly confronts the enduring legacy of Donald Trump and asks itself, will we completely remake ourselves in his malign image? Or do we possess enough lingering moral fortitude to resist his leadership and at least begin respecting the truth once again?America needs two healthy political parties, and not just because healthy parties create better policies. Healthy parties create better leaders, and better leaders can help repair the fabric of a party, a nation and a culture that has been torn and frayed by a man who told America that the road to power was paved with mendacity, self-indulgence and conflict. Defeating Trump and his imitators is the first step onto a better path. More

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      GOP Voter Fraud Crackdowns Falter as Charges Are Dropped in Florida and Texas

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      Dealing setbacks to Republican-led voter fraud prosecutions, judges in Florida and Texas this week dropped charges against two former felons who had been accused of casting ballots when they were not eligible to do so because of their status as offenders.Robert Lee Wood, one of those two felons, was part of an August roundup spearheaded by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, on voter fraud.On Friday, a circuit court judge in Miami-Dade County granted a motion to dismiss two felony charges related to voter fraud against Mr. Wood, 56, who spent two decades in prison for second-degree murder. Mr. Wood was among the 20 people who were recently arrested in Florida on voter fraud charges and became the first defendant to have them dropped.And on Monday, a district court judge in Texas set aside the indictment of Hervis Earl Rogers, a Houston man who gained widespread attention for waiting seven hours to vote during the 2020 primary election. Last year, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and a Republican, charged Mr. Rogers with voting illegally because he was on parole.A lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud has not stopped Republicans from aggressively pursuing it in states where they hold power. Now, the unraveling of the two high-profile cases has compromised the legitimacy of those efforts.Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in an email on Friday that the state disagreed with the dismissal of charges against Mr. Wood and would appeal the ruling.“The state will continue to enforce the law and ensure that murderers and rapists who are not permitted to vote do not unlawfully do so,” Mr. Griffin said. “Florida will not be a state in which elections are left vulnerable or cheaters unaccountable.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.The ruling by Judge Milton Hirsch of the 11th Judicial Circuit was limited to jurisdictional issues and not Mr. Wood’s voting status. It said that state prosecutors did not have standing in what was a local criminal proceeding. The prosecutors had tried to argue that they did have jurisdiction, because Mr. Wood’s voter application and ballot were processed in another county.“Given that elections violations of this nature impact all Florida voters, elections officials, state government, and the integrity of our republic, we continue to view the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution as the appropriate agency to prosecute these crimes,” Mr. Griffin said.Larry Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Wood, said in an interview on Friday that his client was approached in the summer of 2020 by a voter drive representative at a Miami-area Walmart asking if he wanted to register to vote.When Mr. Wood told the person that he was a convicted felon, the person said that a state constitutional amendment had restored voting rights to felons and so he filled out an application, according to Mr. Davis. The amendment, however, excluded people convicted of murder or felony sex offenses and required them to apply separately to have their rights reinstated.Mr. Wood received a voter card from the state six or seven weeks after filling out the application, said Mr. Davis, who described the dramatic scene when his client was arrested at 6 a.m. in August.“The house was surrounded with police that had automatic weapons,” Mr. Davis said. “They wouldn’t even let him get dressed and they took him to jail.”In Florida, a conviction of voter fraud requires proof of intent. Mr. Davis said “there’s absolutely no proof” that his client willfully broke the law.The legal setback for Mr. DeSantis, who is running for re-election in November and has White House ambitions, came days after the release of body camera footage from law enforcement officers in the Tampa area who carried out similar arrests. In the videos, the people arrested seemed puzzled and appeared to have run afoul of the law out of confusion rather than intent.Mr. Davis said that he had requested the body camera footage from Mr. Wood’s arrest, but had not yet received it.In the case of Mr. Rogers in Texas, Judge Lisa Michalk of the 221st District Court in Montgomery County, which is about 40 miles north of Houston, ruled on Monday that Mr. Paxton as Texas’s attorney general did not have the authority to independently prosecute criminal offenses under the Election Code.A spokeswoman for Mr. Paxton did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.In a statement, Mr. Rogers expressed his relief that the indictment had been set aside.“I am thankful that justice has been done,” Mr. Rogers said. “It has been horrible to go through this, and I am so glad my case is over. I look forward to being able to get back to my life.”Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and one of the lawyers who represented Mr. Rogers, in a statement this week lamented what happened to Mr. Rogers.“He never should have been prosecuted in the first place, and this ruling allows him to put this traumatic ordeal behind him and move on with his life,” Mr. Buser-Clancy said. More

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      Abortion Is Motivating Voters, but Republicans Would Rather Change the Subject

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      In Wisconsin, Tim Michels, a Republican running for governor, promised activists that he would never “flip-flop” on his support for an 1849 law that bans abortion except when a woman’s life is threatened. Less than three weeks later, he changed his stance.In the Phoenix suburbs, staffers whisked away Juan Ciscomani, a Republican House candidate, citing an urgent text, after he was asked by a voter whether he supported abortion bans.And in New Hampshire, Don Bolduc, the Republican running for governor, described abortion as a distraction from the “really important issues.”In races across the nation, Republican candidates are waffling on their abortion positions, denying past behavior or simply trying to avoid a topic that has long been a bedrock principle of American conservatism. Less than a month before the midterm elections on Nov. 8, the party lacks a unified policy on abortion, unable to broadly adopt a consistent response in the three and a half months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.Republican positioning on abortion drew renewed attention last week, when Herschel Walker, the party’s Senate nominee in Georgia, was accused by an ex-girlfriend of paying for one abortion and unsuccessfully urging her to get a second one. Mr. Walker takes a hard-line stance against the procedure, supporting abortion bans with no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.For decades, Republicans pushed to overturn federal abortion rights, viewing the issue as an easy rallying cry to identify with a culturally conservative base. Focusing on the country’s highest court allowed them to largely avoid getting into the weeds on thorny issues — life-threatening pregnancy complications, exceptions for child rape, diagnoses of rare and fatal conditions in fetuses. And given that few voters fully believed Roe would be overturned, they were rarely pressed on the specifics of their views.The court ruled in June that each state can formulate its own abortion policy, exactly what small-government conservatives had long wanted. But it had another consequence, plunging the party into months of politically toxic debates.“You hear some of these Republican state legislators, and it’s like, for the first time they are thinking about this and realize that this is a complicated issue with lots and lots of circumstances that are not black and white,” said Christine Matthews, a pollster who has worked for Republicans. “A lot of these male legislators are realizing, ‘Oh, this is really hard to legislate.’”To escape some of those difficult questions, many Republican candidates have been trying to avoid the debate altogether. For weeks, some Republicans have been erasing sections about abortion from their websites, changing their positions on state bans and trying to refocus the national conversation on inflation, crime and the country’s southern border.“I do believe it’s caught them slightly off guard with just how bad an issue this is for them,” said Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist who leads focus groups. “The party has opted for changing the conversation entirely because abortion is just bad terrain for them.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.Some party leaders and strategists have urged candidates to adopt poll-tested positions popular with large swaths of independent voters: No restrictions on contraception, no bans before about 15 weeks and including exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. But those policies conflict with the long-held goal of the party’s socially conservative wing that views abortion as akin to murder, and they also clash with some of the past language and positions of Republican candidates.That has left candidates, particularly those in purple states, caught between the more moderate views of independent voters and a conservative base that views the court’s ruling as the beginning of restrictions, not the end. Now, many of the party’s candidates in the most competitive contests are racing to recast their positions.Tim Michels, a Republican running for governor of Wisconsin, said he supported an 1849 law that bans abortion except when a woman’s life is threatened. Weeks later, he changed his stance.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times“I’m winning because people see a strong leader, a man of conviction, a man who doesn’t waffle, a man who doesn’t flip-flop,” Mr. Michels, the Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, told Republican activists and officials on Sept. 6 about the state ban. “I’m going to stick with what I know is right.”He reversed his position late last month, saying that, if elected, he would sign legislation to expand exceptions to include rape and incest.Many of the pivots have been even less artful. In Maine, a former governor, Paul LePage, is running to lead the state again and repeatedly stumbled over a question about whether he would sign more restrictive abortion laws if elected. “I don’t know what you mean by 15 weeks, 28 weeks. Because I don’t know,” Mr. LePage said after a protracted exchange on a debate stage last week.And in Arizona, a spokesman for Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for governor, had to clarify last week that Ms. Lake was not advocating changes to the state’s near-total abortion ban after she told a Phoenix talk-radio host that the procedure should be “rare and legal.”In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Ms. Lake said she was trying to articulate how far the Democratic Party had moved from its Clinton-era talking points of “safe, legal and rare,” asserting that the procedure has become “anything but rare.” But she refused to say whether she would pursue restrictions on abortions sooner than 15 weeks into pregnancy, diverting the conversation to adoption and falsely casting her Democratic opponent as supportive of “abortion right up until birth.”Her remarks follow guidance circulated by party strategists who are urging their candidates to flip the script, labeling Democrats as the “extremists” on the issue. A memo from the Republican National Committee offering talking points for candidates encouraged a focus on rising prices and violent crime.Republican strategists and party officials argue that the potency of the issue is fading as economic concerns grow more intense.“To sustain that level of interest and enthusiasm in the current political climate for five months is very difficult, especially with more pressing personal pocketbook issues hurting voters,” said Robert Blizzard, a Republican pollster engaged in a number of midterm races.Mark Graul, a longtime Republican strategist based in Wisconsin, said that right after the Supreme Court decision, the abortion issue was “very much front and center.”But in the final weeks of the race, Mr. Graul said, voters are saying, “‘I care about that, but I care about how much it costs to fill up my car and buy groceries. And is my family going to be safe?’” He added: “I think they’re starting to care about that more.”While polls show that the majority of voters support a federal right to an abortion, Democrats are not favored to maintain control of Congress, given still-high inflation, concerns about crime and President Biden’s low approval ratings.Still, Democrats are trying to ensure that Republicans cannot escape so easily. After decades of treating the issue as a second-tier priority, the Democratic Party has made abortion rights a centerpiece of its fall campaign, spending nearly $213 million to blanket the airwaves with ads about it, according to AdImpact, an advertising-tracking firm.Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster and strategist, called the political debate over abortion rights “the best thing going for the Democrats.”“It can’t be the only thing going for the Democrats,” she added. But many Republicans, she said, are “having a lot of difficulty” discussing the issue.The need to square decades of opposition to abortion rights with the new political environment has led to some complicated contortions for Republicans, some of whom have tried to cast themselves less as drivers of abortion bans and more as bystanders.Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, a Republican who faces a tough race for re-election, said he supported not only the 15-week federal ban but prohibiting abortion starting at conception. But Mr. Bacon also argues that such a policy would never pass the Senate because it would be unable to garner the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster — essentially telling voters not to worry about his positions because they will be blocked by Democrats.Kari Lake stated that abortions should be “rare and legal” but said she was misunderstood.Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York Times“Whether we have a pro-abortion majority in the House and Senate, or a pro-life majority in the Senate or House, you’re not going to get past a 60-vote threshold in the Senate,” he said, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” “So the reality is, most of this is going to be done at the state level.”In his primary race, Joe Lombardo, the sheriff of the Las Vegas area who is running for Nevada governor, summarized his position on abortion with three words: “Joe is pro-life.”But a 747-word note published on his campaign website late last month reversed his stance on an abortion rule in Nevada. He said he would not repeal an executive order protecting women from being prosecuted for seeking an abortion in the state, which has emerged as a safe haven for the procedure as neighboring Utah, Arizona and Idaho have restricted access.An ad by a conservative group in Nevada echoes that argument, accusing Democrats of “scaring” voters about the state’s abortion laws and saying politicians cannot change the rules allowing the procedure until 24 weeks.The claims by Mr. Lombardo and the group ignore the power of executive orders to add new restrictions and the possibility that Congress could pass a national ban, superseding state law with a stricter federal standard.Not all Republicans have been so quick to finesse their stances.A campaign ad released last week by Jeff Crossman, the Democratic candidate for Ohio attorney general, takes aim at the Republican incumbent and his public questioning of the existence of a 10-year-old rape victim who left the state for an abortion. The child was blocked from obtaining an abortion in Ohio because she was three days past a six-week limit on abortions. The attorney general, Dave Yost, initially said the report was likely to be a “fabrication.”“Dave Yost, you disgust me,” a woman identified only as Geri of Northeast Ohio says to the camera in the ad. “When a 10-year-old was raped and impregnated, Yost went on national TV and called it a hoax? I am a grandmother, and I have a 10-year-old granddaughter.”Mr. Yost has resisted calls to apologize for doubting the victim. “I don’t understand what you think I need to apologize for,” he said in an interview with a local television program. “We didn’t even know the identity, and still don’t, of that poor victim.” More

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      In Trump Case, Texas Creates a Headache for Georgia Prosecutors

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      A Texas court is thwarting Georgia prosecutors’ attempts to compel testimony from Texas witnesses as part of a criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump.ATLANTA — Witnesses called to testify in a Georgia criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his allies have not always come willingly.A number of them have fought their subpoenas in their home-state courts, only to have local judges order them to cooperate. That was the case with Trump-aligned lawyers John Eastman in New Mexico, Jenna Ellis in Colorado and Rudolph W. Giuliani in New York; Mr. Giuliani was also told by an Atlanta judge that he could come “on a train, on a bus or Uber” after his lawyers said a health condition prevented him from flying.But the state of Texas is proving to be an outlier, creating serious headaches for Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, who is leading the investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and others to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Last month, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, thwarted Ms. Willis’s effort to force Jacki L. Pick, a Republican lawyer and pundit, to testify in Atlanta, saying that her subpoena had essentially expired. But in a pair of opinions, a majority of the judges on the all-Republican court went further, indicating that they believed the Georgia special grand jury conducting the inquiry may not have the legal standing to compel testimony from Texas witnesses.After the court’s ruling, two other pro-Trump Texans, Sidney Powell and Phil Waldron, did not show up for their scheduled court dates in Atlanta. And while there may be workarounds for Ms. Willis — experts say the Atlanta prosecutors could go to Texas to depose the witnesses — it looks to some Georgia observers like a pattern of Texas Republicans meddling with Georgia when it comes to the fate of Mr. Trump.Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, has subpoenaed prominent lawyers of Mr. Trump, including Rudolph Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Sidney Powell.Audra Melton for The New York Times“It does seem like there’s a substantial resistance from Texas and Texans to forcing people to cooperate in ways that we haven’t seen from any other jurisdiction,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta.Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, has also weighed in, filing an amicus brief late last month along with other Republican attorneys general that supported efforts by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to avoid testifying in the Atlanta investigation. Mr. Paxton, in a statement accompanying his brief, assailed the investigation for what he said were its “repeated attempts to ignore” the Constitution.Mr. Paxton, who is running for re-election this year despite having been indicted and arrested on criminal securities-fraud charges, has sought to intervene in Georgia before. After the 2020 election, he sued Georgia and three other swing states that Mr. Trump lost, in a far-fetched attempt to get the Supreme Court to delay the certification of their presidential electors.By refusing to compel the three Texas residents to testify in Georgia, the court is breaking with a long tradition of cooperation between states in producing subpoenaed witnesses. All 50 states have versions of what is known as the Uniform Act, which was created in the 1930s to establish a framework for one state to compel testimony from a witness residing in another.Ms. Willis, in a statement, said, “We expect every state to abide by the Constitutional requirement to ensure that full faith and credit is given by them to the laws and proceedings of other states. That requirement includes abiding by the interstate compact to produce witnesses for other states’ judicial proceedings.”Ms. Willis is weighing potential conspiracy and racketeering charges, among others, and is examining the phone call that Mr. Trump made on Jan. 2, 2021, to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, imploring him to “find” nearly 12,000 votes, or enough to reverse the outcome of the Georgia vote.On Friday, her office filed paperwork seeking to compel testimony from three more witnesses, The Associated Press reported: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as well as Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser, and Eric Herschmann, a lawyer who worked in the Trump White House.Nearly 20 people, including Mr. Giuliani, have already been informed that they are targets of Ms. Willis’s investigation and could face criminal charges. Ms. Pick, a radio host and former lawyer for House Republicans whose husband, Doug Deason, is a prominent Republican donor and Dallas power broker, has also been told she is among the targets of the investigation, according to one of her lawyers, Geoffrey Harper.She played a central role in one of two December 2020 hearings before Georgia lawmakers that were organized by Mr. Giuliani, who advanced a number of falsehoods about the election. During a hearing before the Georgia Senate, Ms. Pick narrated a video feed that showed ballot counting taking place at a downtown Atlanta arena where voting was held.Jacki L. Pick played a central role in one of two December 2020 hearings before Georgia lawmakers that were organized by Mr. Giuliani.Rebecca Wright/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via APAt the hearing, Ms. Pick said the video “goes to” what she called “fraud or misrepresentation,” and the implication of her presentation was that something improper was taking place. She was immediately challenged by Democrats at the hearing. The office of Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, has also long refuted the idea that anything nefarious took place in the counting of votes at the arena.Mr. Harper said his client had done nothing wrong.“She didn’t suggest there was fraud, she didn’t suggest something untoward had happened,” he said. “She simply said here is a video, here’s what it shows, we’d like to investigate further. Her testimony is the most innocuous thing you’ve ever seen.”Fulton County prosecutors are also seeking the testimony of Ms. Powell, who like Ms. Pick lives in the Dallas area. She is a lawyer and conspiracy theorist who played a high-profile role in efforts to keep Mr. Trump in power. In Georgia, she helped put together a team of Trump allies and consultants who gained access to a wide range of voter data and voting equipment in rural Coffee County; they are currently being investigated by Mr. Raffensperger’s office, as well as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Ms. Willis’s office.In an email, Ms. Powell said, “GA has no need to subpoena me. My involvement in GA issues has been significantly misrepresented by the press including your outlet.”She did not answer questions about her legal strategy with respect to Fulton County’s attempt to make her testify, or say whether she had been informed that she is a target of the investigation or merely a witness.Mr. Waldron, a former Army colonel with a background in information warfare, also advanced a number of conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, and he made a virtual appearance at one of the legislative hearings in Georgia. He could not be reached for comment. He lives outside of Austin, Texas, and the district attorney in the county where he lives said he was not aware of any legal challenge to Ms. Willis’s effort to compel Mr. Waldron’s testimony.Phil Waldron, a former Army colonel, made a virtual appearance at a legislative hearing in Georgia after the 2020 election.Aram Roston/ReutersThe body overseeing the Fulton County investigation is known under Georgia law as a special purpose grand jury. It can sit for longer periods than a regular grand jury and has the ability to subpoena targets of the investigation to provide testimony, though it lacks the power to indict. Once a special grand jury issues a report and recommendations, indictments can be sought from a regular grand jury.A majority of judges on the Texas court expressed the view that the Georgia grand jury was not a proper criminal grand jury because it lacks indictment authority, and thus likely lacks standing to compel the appearance of witnesses from Texas.“I am inclined to find such a body is not the kind of grand jury envisioned by the Uniform Act,” wrote Judge Kevin Yeary. “And if I may be wrong about that, I would place the burden to show otherwise on the requesting state.”His view was essentially backed by four other judges on the nine-member court.The question of whether the Fulton County special grand jury is civil or criminal in nature came up in late August, when lawyers for Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, unsuccessfully sought to quash a subpoena demanding that he testify. The governor’s lawyers argued that the special grand jury was civil, and that Mr. Kemp would not have to testify in a civil action under the doctrine of sovereign immunity.But in a written order on Aug. 29, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I. McBurney rejected the idea that the special grand jury was civil, noting that none of the paperwork establishing the grand jury mentioned that it would be considering civil actions.“That a special purpose grand jury cannot issue an indictment does not diminish the criminal nature of its work or somehow transmogrify that criminal investigation into a civil one,” Judge McBurney wrote. “Police officers, too, lack the authority to indict anyone, but their investigations are plainly criminal.”Ronald Wright, a law professor at Wake Forest University who studies the work of criminal prosecutors, said that the Texas court’s decision, based on its interpretation of the special grand jury’s purpose, appeared unusual. “I haven’t heard anything about one state saying categorically, ‘No we read your statute, that doesn’t apply here, you can’t get this witness,’” he said.The nine members of Texas’ Court of Criminal Appeals are elected and are all Republicans. But they have not always been in sync with Gov. Greg Abbott and Mr. Paxton, both vociferous Trump supporters. Mr. Harper said his reading of Georgia law is that the special grand jury is a civil proceeding. He believes that witnesses living in other states can challenge efforts to compel their testimony, at least if it is in person.“Civil cases can get testimony from out-of-state witnesses, but they have to do it by deposition,” he said. “I believe that if pressed on the issue, it would be a unanimous ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that a special grand jury in Georgia cannot subpoena live testimony from witnesses outside of Georgia.” More

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      Who won, who lost and what was too close to call on Tuesday.

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      Ever since former President Donald J. Trump lost in the state of Georgia during the 2020 presidential election, he has sought revenge against the Republican incumbents there whom he blamed for not helping him overturn the results. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump lost in Georgia again, with his endorsed candidates losing in their Republican primaries for governor, secretary of state and attorney general.But those weren’t the only races that voters decided on Tuesday. Here is a rundown of the winners and losers in some of the most important contests in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas:Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, won his primary despite Mr. Trump’s best efforts against him.The Georgia governor who stood up to Mr. Trump, Brian Kemp, easily defeated a Trump-backed challenger. Mr. Kemp will face Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee, whom he narrowly defeated four years ago.Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney general, also defeated his Trump-backed challenger, John Gordon, to win the Republican nomination for that office. Mr. Gordon had embraced Mr. Trump’s election lie and made that a key part of his appeal to voters. Herschel Walker, the former football star and a Trump-backed candidate to represent Georgia in the Senate, defeated a crowded field of Republican rivals. In Georgia, one House Democrat beat another House Democrat in a primary orchestrated by Republicans. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene won the Republican primary for her House district in Georgia.In Texas, a scandal-scarred attorney general defeated a challenger named Bush. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former White House press secretary under Mr. Trump and the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, won the Republican nomination for governor of Arkansas.Representative Mo Brooks made it into an Alabama Senate runoff after Mr. Trump pulled back his endorsement.In Texas, a Democratic House runoff between Representative Henry Cuellar, a Democrat who opposes abortion rights, and his progressive challenger, Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney, was too close to call. (Results are being updated in real time here). More