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      Ginni Thomas Was in Contact With John Eastman as He Pushed to Overturn Election

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      The Jan. 6 committee has received emails showing the contact between the wife of the Supreme Court justice and the conservative lawyer who created a blueprint for Donald J. Trump’s postelection fight.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has received emails that show Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was in contact with the conservative lawyer John Eastman as he pushed to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the panel’s work.The emails show Ms. Thomas, who had advocated widely for conservatives to fight the results of the election, expressed those views to Mr. Eastman, according to one person familiar with the messages. The existence of the emails was reported earlier by The Washington Post.While it was not immediately clear when the emails involving Ms. Thomas were sent, a federal judge recently ordered Mr. Eastman to turn over additional documents to the panel from the period after the November election when he was meeting with conservative groups to discuss fighting the election results.The committee received the emails as it prepares on Thursday to present new details of the intense pressure campaign President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Eastman waged against Vice President Mike Pence, which the panel says directly contributed to the violent siege of Congress.The public hearing, the panel’s third this month as it lays out the steps Mr. Trump took to try to overturn the 2020 election, is scheduled for 1 p.m. The committee plans to release materials detailing the threats of violence against Mr. Pence, and the ways the vice president’s security team scrambled to try to keep him safe from the mob.The hearing is set to feature testimony from J. Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who advised Mr. Pence that Mr. Trump’s push for the vice president to unilaterally decide to invalidate election results was unconstitutional, and that he should not go along with the plan.Also scheduled to appear is Greg Jacob, Mr. Pence’s top White House lawyer, who has provided the committee with crucial evidence about the role played by Mr. Eastman, who wrote a memo that members of both parties have described as a blueprint for a coup.Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California and a member of the panel, is expected to lead a presentation of the evidence. A committee senior investigative counsel, John Wood, whom President George W. Bush hired as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri, is expected to conduct some of the questioning of witnesses.Mr. Eastman, left, and Rudolph W. Giuliani at a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Eastman’s plan to overturn the election is expected to feature prominently in a Jan. 6 committee hearing on Thursday.Jim Bourg/ReutersThe committee is also expected to play video from an interview it recorded with Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short. A day before the mob violence, Mr. Short grew so concerned about Mr. Trump’s actions that he presented a warning to a Secret Service agent: The president was going to publicly turn against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.The committee is not expected to display any of the new emails it received involving Ms. Thomas on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the presentation.The Themes of the Jan. 6 House Committee HearingsMaking a Case Against Trump: The committee appears to be laying out a road map for prosecutors to indict former President Donald J. Trump. But the path to any trial is uncertain.Day One: During the first hearing, the panel presented a gripping story with a sprawling cast of characters, but only three main players: Mr. Trump, the Proud Boys and a Capitol Police officer.Day Two: In its second hearing, the committee assembled an account of how Mr. Trump’s advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night in 2020, but instead he listened to Rudolph W. Giuliani.A Striking Contrast: Many Trump officials have told the committee that they tried to dissuade the former president from his bid to overturn the election. But at the time, their words were far different in public.Fund-Raising Tactics: The Jan. 6 panel has raised questions about Mr. Trump’s aggressive solicitations, accusing him of misleading donors with election fraud claims.Ms. Thomas, known as Ginni, is a right-wing political activist who became a close ally of Mr. Trump during his presidency. After he lost the election, she sent a series of messages to Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows, Arizona lawmakers and others pushing for the election to be overturned.In one of her texts to Mr. Meadows, she said to “release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down,” invoking a slogan popular on the right that refers to a web of conspiracy theories that Trump supporters believed would overturn the election.“Do your constitutional duty,” Ms. Thomas wrote to Arizona lawmakers on Nov. 9. On Dec. 13, with Mr. Trump still refusing to concede on the eve of the Electoral College vote, she contacted the lawmakers again.After debating internally about whether to seek an interview with Ms. Thomas, members of the committee have said in recent weeks that they do not see her actions as central to the plans to overturn the election.Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the committee, this weekend told NBC that Ms. Thomas was “not the focus of this investigation.”But her contact with Mr. Eastman, who was her husband’s former law clerk, is likely to raise new questions for the panel. Mr. Eastman was central to effort to the overturn the 2020 election and put pressure on Mr. Pence.A federal judge has already concluded in a civil case that Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman had “more likely than not” committed two felonies, including conspiracy to defraud the American people, in their attempts to overturn the election.The Jan. 6 committee has been presenting the televised hearings as a series of movie-length chapters laying out the different ways Mr. Trump tried to cling to power. After an initial prime-time hearing that drew more than 20 million viewers, in which the panel sought to establish that the former president was at the center of the plot, investigators focused their second hearing on how Mr. Trump spread the lie of a stolen election.Future hearings are expected to focus on how Mr. Trump and his allies pressured state officials to overturn the election; attempted to interfere with the Justice Department; created slates of pro-Trump electors in states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and amassed a mob that marched on the Capitol, while the president did nothing to stop the violence for 187 minutes.Through the hearings, the committee is drawing upon the more than 1,000 interviews it conducted and the more than 140,000 documents it obtained.The committee is expected to detail on Thursday some of its findings about the plot involving pro-Trump electors. The panel will present evidence that the White House counsel also concluded that the vice president had no legal power to throw out legitimate electoral votes for the fake electors Mr. Trump’s team put forward.Investigators will show how Mr. Trump was advised that his plans were unlawful but he pressed forward with them anyway, committee aides said.The panel also plans to demonstrate that the threat to American democracy is ongoing, committee aides said.To build public anticipation, the committee has begun releasing teaser clips to preview its hearings. On Tuesday, the panel released a clip of Eric Herschmann, a White House lawyer, telling Mr. Eastman the day after the Capitol riot that he believed Mr. Eastman had committed a crime.“I’m going to give you the best free legal advice you’re ever getting in your life,” Mr. Herschmann recalls telling Mr. Eastman before recommending that he find a criminal defense lawyer, and adding, “You’re going to need it.”Mr. Jacob has provided the committee with important evidence about Mr. Eastman’s role in the events that led to the attack on the Capitol.Mr. Eastman conceded during an email exchange with Mr. Jacob that his plan to overturn the election was in “violation” of federal law.As the mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 — some of its members chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” — Mr. Jacob sent an email to Mr. Eastman blaming him for the violence.“Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege,” Mr. Jacob wrote that day at 12:14 p.m.“It was gravely, gravely irresponsible for you to entice the president with an academic theory that had no legal viability,” Mr. Jacob wrote in a subsequent email to Mr. Eastman.The committee could also hear testimony about Mr. Trump’s state of mind during the violence.Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee, said last week that the panel had received testimony that when Mr. Trump learned of the mob’s threats to hang Mr. Pence, he said, “Maybe our supporters have the right idea,” and added that Mr. Pence “deserves it.”The committee has scheduled two more hearings, for June 21 and June 23, at 1 p.m. More

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      Pence Aide Warned Against Blocking Electoral College Count, Memo Shows

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      Shortly before Jan. 6, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief counsel wrote that holding up the certification of the election results would violate federal law.Former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief counsel laid out in a memo the day before Jan. 6, 2021, that the vice president would violate federal law if he bowed to pressure from President Donald J. Trump to interfere with the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory.The three-page memo, obtained by Politico and confirmed as authentic by The New York Times, included arguments from the chief counsel, Greg Jacob, that Mr. Pence could find himself in a legally precarious situation if he decided to block the certification of the Electoral College results either unilaterally or by calling for a 10-day delay in the proceedings.A lawyer advising Mr. Trump, John Eastman, had insisted that Mr. Pence had the power to take both of those actions, emphasizing the 10-day delay as Jan. 6 grew closer. Mr. Eastman pressed his claims in a meeting with Mr. Pence and Mr. Jacob in the Oval Office on Jan. 4.But Mr. Pence, who in the weeks after the election told Mr. Trump that he did not believe he had such power but would continue researching the matter, was given concrete guidance by his own aides.An image of Greg Jacob, the chief counsel to Vice President Mike Pence, was shown at a hearing on Thursday held by the House committee investigating the Capitol attack.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA, via ShutterstockMr. Jacob wrote in the memo that Mr. Pence would most likely be overruled by the courts if he made such a move.“In a best-case scenario in which the courts refused to get involved, the vice president would likely find himself in an isolated standoff against both houses of Congress, as well as most or all of the applicable state legislatures, with no neutral arbiter available to break the impasse,” Mr. Jacob wrote in the memo.A spokesman for Mr. Pence declined to comment.Following its prime-time hearing this past week, the House committee investigating the Capitol riot is scheduled to hold three more hearings in the coming week, including one on Thursday at which Mr. Jacob is set to be a key witness.That session is slated to focus on the pressure campaign on Mr. Pence to insert himself into the certification of the Electoral College vote, a proceeding that is usually routine.Mr. Jacob has told the committee that he wrote the memo after the meeting with Mr. Eastman, Politico reported.Mr. Eastman’s conduct has been a focal point of the House investigation into the events that took place leading up to the riot. In March, in a civil case stemming from Mr. Eastman’s efforts to keep the committee from accessing a tranche of emails related to his advice to Mr. Trump, a federal judge said that he and Mr. Trump “more likely than not” committed crimes as they sought to overturn the results of the election.The memo from Mr. Jacob was one in a series that he wrote related to the pressure on Mr. Pence following the 2020 election. One came at the beginning of December, after Mr. Pence asked Mr. Jacob to explore what his authority was in relation to the Jan. 6 certification.Another memo, also obtained by Politico, was written on Jan. 1. It evaluated the various allegations of widespread fraud that Mr. Trump’s advisers had pointed to, including in Georgia, where Mr. Trump repeatedly made claims that officials said were baseless.The memo detailed claims from six key states — the ones for which Mr. Pence’s advisers anticipated that House lawmakers would try to challenge the certification, potentially with support from senators from those states. More

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      There Has to Be a Tipping Point on Guns, Right?

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I know we’ll talk about Joe Biden’s gun-control proposals, but I wanted to ask how Dan is feeling — about Covid and the Celtics.Gail Collins: Thanks for asking, Bret. I can now march around with a little badge saying “My husband’s testing negative!” He didn’t have a major Covid case, but it was a reminder of how any illness can really lay a family low. And what a disaster it must be for, say, single mothers or poor seniors. And how important it is to have good social services for those folks and …Bret: And a timely prescription of Paxlovid, I presume. Glad he’s better.Gail: OK, not gonna try to lure you into an activist-government argument today. Will move on instead to the championship-contender Boston Celtics and my theory that professional sports, while cheesy in many ways, are an extremely useful part of the culture, not only providing diversion but also uniting folks who would otherwise have absolutely nothing in common.Anybody you’re rooting for?Bret: The Celtics, of course. What’s your over-under on the series, now that it’s tied? Or your bet on Biden getting anything passed on gun legislation?Gail: Sports-wise, I don’t like the idea of betting on whether some team will score over X points or under. Just tell me who you think is going to win.Bret: The Men in Green. Not only does God root for them, he also used to play for them.Gail: However, when it comes to betting on the Senate, God help us, I guess you need to look for ways to celebrate minimal achievement. I can imagine them passing a bill to raise the age for buying an assault rifle to 21, but don’t expect me to throw a party.Bret: I’m hardly the first person to suggest that no one should be able to legally buy a gun in the United States who can’t legally buy a beer in the United States. I’d also argue that every would-be gun buyer should be required to purchase a gun safe while also passing a criminal-background check, a psychiatric evaluation, a three-day waiting period and an extensive gun-safety course. Perhaps a few of the conservatives who argue that school shootings are part of a mental-health crisis might be persuaded to sign on.Gail: Can I also say how it drives me crazy when lawmakers respond to these gun crises by ranting about police efficiency or school construction?Bret: Well, the performance of the police in Uvalde was shameful and I hope the episode lives on as an example to cops everywhere of how not to act when the lives of children and teachers are at risk.Gail: Of course you want well-trained security officers, but that’s not going to stop all these horrors. And kinda amazed by the idea of eliminating entrances to reduce the chance of a murderer sneaking into a school. Could pose a problem if you’re down to one door and the building catches fire.Bret: Which sort of brings us to the nub of the problem: Conservatives want policies that don’t work in practice and liberals want policies that don’t work in politics.Our news-side colleague Nate Cohn had an eye-opening analysis last week on the wide disparity between the way gun-control measures poll and how people actually vote on them. Turns out, gun control just isn’t as popular at the ballot box as many liberals contend. And every time there’s a gun massacre, gun sales go up, not down. Liberals need to reconsider the way they make their case. Your thoughts?Gail: Well, my first idea would be to … ask an extremely talented communicator with ties to the right. Take it, Bret!Bret: Hmmm. Can I start with what doesn’t work?When Beto O’Rourke says, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15s,” it just encourages people to buy them. When Jimmy Kimmel makes a moving plea for gun control, he is preaching to the converted, but he isn’t moving the needle. When hyper-progressives say “abolish the police,” they are tacitly encouraging people — especially in low-income communities — to purchase weapons as a logical means of self-defense. When coastal elites denigrate gun culture, they foster precisely the kinds of cultural resentments that lead people to “cling to guns,” to use Barack Obama’s famous phrase. When Biden pleads “do something,” he merely invites the question: do what, exactly?Gail: As someone who is in favor of getting rid of every assault weapon in the world, I have to protest. Let’s open a conversation about what kind of guns are good for hunting and target shooting and separate them from the ones that are ideal for mowing down students or shoppers or whoever turn out to be the next heartbreaking mass murder victims.The major barrier is the profit-making gun manufacturers and the culture they subsidize. But I understand I’m not exactly moving many AR-15 owners. Give me a better strategy.Bret: Imagine a TV ad from a moderate Democrat like Ohio’s Tim Ryan or Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger that goes something like this:“I believe in the Second Amendment. But not for this guy,” followed by a picture of the Tucson, Ariz., mass murderer Jared Lee Loughner, “or this guy” — a picture of Aurora, Colo., mass murderer James Holmes, “or this guy” — a picture of Newtown, Conn., mass murderer Adam Lanza.It would continue: “I also believe in the right to own firearms responsibly for hunting and self-defense. But not for this” — a picture of the scene outside the Uvalde school, “or this” — a picture of the scene from the Buffalo grocery store, “or this” — scenes from the Parkland massacre.And it could conclude: “Justice Robert Jackson once told us that the Bill of Rights cannot become a suicide pact. That includes the Second Amendment. We can protect your guns while keeping them out of the hands of crazy and dangerous people by using common-sense background checks, 21-years-of-age purchasing requirements, three-day waiting periods and mental-health exams. It’s not about denying your constitutional rights. It’s so your children come home from school alive.”What do you think?Gail: I’m sold. And I have a feeling we’ll be talking about this much, much more as this election year goes on.Bret: Let’s hope it’s not after the next school shooting. Though, considering what we saw over the weekend in Philadelphia or Chattanooga, it may not be long.Gail: Let’s take a rest and talk about politics in the old, non-profound sense. I was fascinated when Mike Pence made a very public endorsement of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the primary. Kemp was perhaps Donald Trump’s top target — he hates him for allowing the state’s presidential vote to go, accurately, to Joe Biden.Bret: At least Pence has better political acumen than Trump. Kemp won his primary over David Perdue by more than 50 points, which was a very satisfying humiliation of one of Trump’s favorite bootlickers.Gail: And our colleague Maggie Haberman recently posted a story from her upcoming book, about the vice president’s security being warned that Trump was going to turn on Pence before Pence went on to accurately record the results of the presidential election.Are we looking at Pence as a hero in a possible primary with his old boss in 2024?Bret: I don’t see how a man whose political theme song might as well have been the Meat Loaf classic, “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)” can sell himself as any kind of hero, much less as a plausible Republican nominee. He’s too close to Trump not to be tainted by his presidency and too alienated from Trump not to be diminished by his wrath.Frankly, Trump’s only serious opponent for the nomination at this point is Ron DeSantis, who seems to be beating the former president in the straw polls, at least in some states. Between those two, who would you prefer as the G.O.P. candidate?Gail: Well DeSantis made a trademark move last week when he canceled funding for a Tampa Bay Rays training facility because the team issued an anti-mass-shooting tweet. (They dared to say: “This cannot be normal.”) He’s horrible, and his advantage is that he’s smarter than Trump. But he doesn’t have nearly as much of that raise-the-rafters-split-the-country creepy charisma.Bret: You have to admire the ideological flexibility of self-described conservatives who are for free speech, until they aren’t, and who think corporations have speech rights, until they don’t. Still, DeSantis is very effective.Sorry, go on.Gail: Not quite sure who scares me more. Especially in an era when people are being encouraged to doubt the whole electoral system. Did you see the story in Politico about Republican poll workers being prepared to contest the Election Day process rather than making it work properly?Bret: This is the mental infection Trump has unleashed on the republic. The notion that elections are a case of “heads I win, tails you lose.”Gail: Just looking forward, I’m imagining an election this fall where either the Republicans win everything or the whole process gets blocked from even taking place. Or both.OK, I’m being way too negative. Be a pal and cheer me up.Bret: Here’s what my crystal ball tells me: ​​Democrats get hammered in the midterms. Biden realizes he has to announce he isn’t running in 2024 so that a savior can appear. Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, beats Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina for the Democratic nomination, and then chooses the widely respected retired Adm. Jim Stavridis as her running mate.Meanwhile, Republicans split acrimoniously between DeSantis and Trump. A brokered convention produces a compromise ticket headed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina as his veep choice. On Election Day, Americans breathe a little easier knowing that none of the candidates is out to destroy the Constitution, and we’re back to politics as it was before Trump.Reality check: Naaaaaaaaaaaaaah.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Pence Staff Feared for His Safety Amid Trump’s Pressure Campaign Before Jan. 6

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      New details flesh out how the pressure campaign by Donald J. Trump and his allies to block certification of the 2020 election left the vice president’s staff fearing for his safety.The day before a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office.The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.The stark warning — the only time Mr. Short flagged a security concern during his tenure as Mr. Pence’s top aide — was uncovered recently during research by this reporter for an upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” to be published in October.Mr. Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr. Trump on Mr. Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Mr. Trump’s defeat, Mr. Short seemed to have good reason for concern. The vice president’s refusal to go along was exploding into an open and bitter breach between the two men at a time when the president was stoking the fury of his supporters who were streaming into Washington.Mr. Short’s previously unreported warning reflected the remarkable tension in the West Wing as Mr. Trump and a band of allies, with the clock running out, searched desperately for a means of overturning the election. Mr. Trump grew agitated as his options closed, and it became clear that he was failing in his last-ditch effort to muscle his previously compliant vice president into unilaterally rejecting the voting outcomes in key states.The warning also shows the concern at the highest levels of the government about the danger that Mr. Trump’s anticipated actions and words might lead to violence on Jan. 6.It is unclear what, if anything, Mr. Giebels did with the message. But as Mr. Trump attacked his second in command — and democratic norms — in an effort to cling to power, it would prove prophetic.A day after Mr. Short’s warning, more than 2,000 people — some chanting “Hang Mike Pence” — stormed the Capitol as the vice president was overseeing the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Outside, angry Trump supporters had erected a mock gallows. After Mr. Pence was hustled to safety, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, is reported to have told colleagues that Mr. Trump said that perhaps Mr. Pence should have been hanged.Mr. Short was asked about the conversation with Mr. Giebels during an interview with the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, a person familiar with his appearance said.New details from the weeks leading up to Jan. 6 help to flesh out how Mr. Trump and his allies sought to intimidate Mr. Pence into accepting their baseless theory that the vice president had the authority to block congressional certification of the Electoral College results — and how Mr. Pence’s refusal to do so would lead him to peril.A spokeswoman for the Secret Service did not respond to an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Mr. Pence declined to comment.Mr. Pence said about five months after the Capitol attack, “There is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s former chief of staff, alerted the Secret Service to a potential violent threat to the vice president.Doug Mills/The New York TimesA few weeks after Election Day on Nov. 3, 2020, aides to Mr. Pence learned that some in Mr. Trump’s loose network of advisers were discussing the possibility of Jan. 6, 2021 — set under statute as the day of the Electoral College certification — as a potentially critical date in Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power. Soon, Mr. Pence asked his general counsel, Greg Jacob, to write a memo explaining what his powers were during the certification.The memo did not take a clear position, but Mr. Pence’s advisers continued to research the issue, ultimately concluding that the vice president had no authority to dictate the outcome.But Mr. Pence and his team were faced with regular pressure from a cast of Trump supporters arguing that he did have such power.At the end of December, Mr. Pence traveled to Vail, Colo., for a family vacation. While he was there, his aides received a request for him to meet with Sidney Powell, a lawyer who promoted some of the more far-fetched conspiracy theories about flaws in voting machines, and whom Mr. Trump wanted to bring into the White House, ostensibly to investigate his false claims of widespread voter fraud.The request to meet with Ms. Powell was relayed through Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona Republican Party, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Ms. Ward had joined a suit filed by Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, that asked a court to say that Mr. Pence could decide whether to accept or reject slates of electors from states during the Electoral College certification.The suit was asserting precisely what Mr. Pence’s aides argued he did not have the power to do. Some Pence advisers were suspicious that Ms. Powell wanted to serve the vice president with legal papers related to the case.Mr. Short objected to Ms. Ward’s support of the suit. She relayed to him that they would not pursue it if Mr. Trump was uneasy with it. (The proposed meeting with Ms. Powell never happened.) Ms. Powell and a spokesman for Ms. Ward did not respond to emails seeking comment.There were other points of friction that left the Pence team on high alert about the pressure campaign. Mr. Meadows told Mr. Short that the president was withholding approval of a pot of transition funding for Mr. Pence to establish a post-White House office.Amid the rising tension, Mr. Short reached out between Christmas and New Year’s Day to Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, asking how he could defuse what was becoming an untenable clash between the Pence and Trump camps. Mr. Kushner deflected the outreach, saying he was wrapped up in negotiations in the Middle East.At one point, John McEntee, the head of presidential personnel, wrote a handwritten note that circulated in the West Wing that seemed to acknowledge that Mr. Pence did not think he could influence the outcome of the election.Yet with Mr. Trump failing in his other efforts to reverse the results, Mr. Pence continued to receive unsolicited memos arguing that he had the power to block certification — including one from Mr. McEntee that looked far back into American history to find precedent: “JEFFERSON USED HIS POSITION AS VP TO WIN.”Mr. Trump also persisted, soon trying more direct means of pressuring Mr. Pence. On Jan. 4, 2021, he summoned the vice president to meet with John Eastman, the lawyer who had been especially influential in pressing the case that the vice president could intervene. During the meeting, Mr. Eastman appeared to acknowledge that Mr. Pence did not have the power to arbitrarily settle the election. Still, he maintained that the vice president could send the results back to states to re-evaluate the results over a 10-day recess.Mr. Trump tried several different pressure tactics to persuade Mr. Pence not to certify the election results.Veasey Conway for The New York TimesBy early January, Mr. Pence made clear to Mr. Trump that he did not believe he had the power to do what the president wanted, but he also indicated that he would keep studying the issue.Mr. Trump tweeted on the morning of Jan. 5 that Mr. Pence could reject electors. He had tried to persuade some of his informal advisers outside the White House to go to the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, to seek an audience to pressure Mr. Pence. That day, Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Pence again, pressing him to do what the vice president said he could not.It was that day that Mr. Short called Mr. Giebels to his office.The next day, Jan. 6, Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman addressed a crowd of thousands of Trump supporters at a rally at the Ellipse near the White House, before the start of the Electoral College certification at 1 p.m. Mr. Trump and Mr. Eastman both applied public pressure on Mr. Pence to do what they wanted.“You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” Mr. Trump told his supporters. At another point, he said: “Mike Pence, I hope you’re going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you’re not, I’m going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I’m not hearing good stories.”Mr. Trump, who repeatedly told aides he wanted to march to the Capitol as the certification was beginning, told the crowd that he would do so. But the Secret Service told him they could not protect him, and he returned to the White House.At about 1 p.m., Mr. Pence released a memo making clear that he disagreed with the president about his power to intervene in the certification. The memo was not shared with the White House counsel in advance; the trust between the offices was shattered by then.Soon, Mr. Trump’s supporters swarmed the Capitol, breaking in through doors and windows and disrupting the count.Mr. Giebels rushed Mr. Pence from the Senate chamber and took him to an underground loading dock. The vice president refused to get in a waiting car, despite Mr. Giebels’s repeated urging, believing it would let the rioters and others score a victory against a core democratic process, his aides have said.Mr. Pence stayed there for hours, until it was safe to return to the Senate chamber, where he insisted on finishing the certification process.His post-White House transition funding was approved soon after Jan. 6. More

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      Trump’s Primary Losses Puncture His Invincibility

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      With many of Donald J. Trump’s endorsed candidates falling to defeat in recent primaries, some Republicans see an opening for a post-Trump candidate in 2024.Donald J. Trump had cast this year’s primaries as a moment to measure his power, endorsing candidates by the dozen as he sought to maintain an imprint on his party unlike any other past president.But after the first phase of the primary season concluded on Tuesday, a month in which a quarter of America’s states cast their ballots, the verdict has been clear: Mr. Trump’s aura of untouchability in Republican politics has been punctured.In more than five years — from when he became president in January 2017 until May 2022 — Mr. Trump had only ever seen voters reject a half-dozen of his choices in Republican primaries. But by the end of this month, that figure had more than doubled, with his biggest defeat coming on Tuesday when Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia thrashed a Trump-backed challenger by more than 50 percentage points. Three other Trump recruits challenging Kemp allies also went down to defeat.The mounting losses have emboldened Mr. Trump’s rivals inside the party to an extent not seen since early 2016 and increased the chances that, should he run again in 2024, he would face serious competition.“I think a non-Trump with an organized campaign would have a chance,” said Jack Kingston, a former Georgia congressman who advised the first Trump presidential campaign.Mr. Trump remains broadly popular among Republicans and has a political war chest well north of $100 million. But there has been a less visible sign of slippage: Mr. Trump’s vaunted digital fund-raising machine has begun to slow. An analysis by The New York Times shows that his average daily online contributions have declined every month for the last seven months that federal data is available.Mr. Trump has gone from raising an average of $324,633 per day in September 2021 on WinRed, the Republican donation-processing portal, to $202,185 in March 2022 — even as he has ramped up his political activities and profile.Those close to Mr. Trump — and even Republicans who aren’t — caution against misreading the significance of primary losses in which he himself was not on the ballot. Mr. Kemp, for instance, took pains ​​not to say a cross word about the former president to avoid alienating his loyal base.“To be the man, you have to beat the man,” said Jim Hobart, a Republican pollster with Public Opinion Strategies. “And until Trump either bows out of electoral politics, or is beaten by a Republican at the ballot box, his strength remains.”Rivals, including his own former vice president, Mike Pence, are gearing up for potential presidential runs, as he and others visit key early states like Iowa and ramp up their own fund-raising operations. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has amassed a $100 million re-election war chest and is the talk of many donors, activists and voters interested in the future of Trumpism without Trump.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida speaking to the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., in February.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“Donald Trump had four good years,” said Cole Muzio, president of the Frontline Policy Council, a conservative Christian group based in Georgia, who voted twice for Mr. Trump but is now looking for someone more “forward-looking.”“DeSantis is great about seeing where the left is going and playing on the field that they’re going to be on, rather than reacting to what happened a couple of years ago,” Mr. Muzio said, echoing the frustration that Mr. Trump continues to obsess about denying his 2020 election loss.After the Georgia Primary ElectionThe May 24 races were among the most consequential so far of the 2022 midterm cycle.Takeaways: G.O.P. voters rejected Donald Trump’s 2020 fixation, and Democrats backed a gun-control champion. Here’s what else we learned.Rebuking Trump: The ex-president picked losers up and down the ballot in Georgia, raising questions about the firmness of his grip on the G.O.P.G.O.P. Governor’s Race: Brian Kemp scored a landslide victory over David Perdue, delivering Mr. Trump his biggest setback of the 2022 primaries.2018 Rematch: Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor, will again face Mr. Kemp — but in a vastly different political climate.Mr. Muzio, whose organization is hosting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as its fall gala headliner, spoke as he waited to hear Mr. Pence this week in Kennesaw, Ga., at a rally for Mr. Kemp — all names he included in the party’s “deep bench” of 2024 alternatives.Mr. Trump still remains the most coveted endorsement in his party, and he has boosted some big winners. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas virtually cleared the field for governor with his support, and Representative Ted Budd in North Carolina defeated a past governor to win his party’s Senate nomination.Yet the difficult primary season has added to Mr. Trump’s personal anxieties about his standing, after he has sought to fashion himself as something of an old-school party boss in his post-presidency. He has told advisers he wants to declare his candidacy or possibly launch an exploratory committee this summer.Most of Mr. Trump’s advisers believe he should wait until after the midterm elections to announce a candidacy. Yet the sense among Republicans that Mr. Trump has lost political altitude is taking hold, including among some of those close to him.Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesman, said the “undeniable reality” is that Republicans rely on Mr. Trump to “fuel Republican victories in 2022 and beyond.”“President Trump’s political operation continues to dominate American politics, raising more money and driving more victories than any other political organization — bar none,” Mr. Budowich said.Some Republican strategists have fixated on the fact that so many of Mr. Trump’s endorsees have landed about one-third of the vote — big winners (J.D. Vance in Ohio), losers (Jody Hice in Georgia, Janice McGeachin in Idaho and Charles Herbster in Nebraska) and those headed for a recount (Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania).One-third of the party is at once an unmatched base of unbending loyalists — and yet a cohort far from a majority.Notably, Mr. Trump’s share of what is raised overall among all Republicans online has also declined. Mr. Trump’s main fund-raising committee accounted for 19.7 percent of what was raised by Republican campaigns and committees on WinRed in the last four months of 2021, but just 14.1 percent of what was raised during the first three months of 2022. Some of that decrease is the result of other candidates on the ballot raising more this year.Still, only 10 times since July 2021 has Mr. Trump’s committee accounted for less than 10 percent of the money raised on WinRed during a single day — and nine of those instances came in March 2022, the last month data was available.The vocal opposition is no longer just confined to anti-Trump forces inside the party but is also evident in the pro-Trump mainstream. When a triumphant Mr. Kemp, whom Mr. Trump had targeted because he refused to go along with his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election, arrived in Nashville on Thursday to speak before a gathering of the Republican Governors Association, he received a standing ovation.Former Vice President Mike Pence, left, joined Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia during a Kemp campaign stop in Kennesaw, Ga.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“There is this temptation to engage in wish-casting in which, ‘This is the moment in which Trump is slipping!’” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative anti-Trump commentator. “On the other hand, what happened in Georgia was significant. He drew a bright red line — and voters just stampeded across it.”Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      Trump Said to Have Reacted Approvingly to Jan. 6 Chants About Hanging Pence

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      The House committee investigating the Capitol assault has heard accounts of the former president’s remarks as he watched the riot unfold on television.Shortly after hundreds of rioters at the Capitol started chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” on Jan. 6, 2021, the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, left the dining room off the Oval Office, walked into his own office and told colleagues that President Donald J. Trump was complaining that the vice president was being whisked to safety.Mr. Meadows, according to an account provided to the House committee investigating Jan. 6, then told the colleagues that Mr. Trump had said something to the effect of, maybe Mr. Pence should be hanged.It is not clear what tone Mr. Trump was said to have used. But the reported remark was further evidence of how extreme the rupture between the president and his vice president had become, and of how Mr. Trump not only failed to take action to call off the rioters but appeared to identify with their sentiments about Mr. Pence — whom he had unsuccessfully pressured to block certification of the Electoral College results that day — as a reflection of his own frustration at being unable to reverse his loss.The account of Mr. Trump’s comment was initially provided to the House committee by at least one witness, according to two people briefed on their work, as the panel develops a timeline of what the president was doing during the riot.Another witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Mr. Meadows who was present in his office when he recounted Mr. Trump’s remarks, was asked by the committee about the account and confirmed it, according to the people familiar with the panel’s work. It was not immediately clear how much detailed information Ms. Hutchinson provided. She has cooperated with the committee in three separate interviews after receiving a subpoena.A lawyer for Mr. Meadows said he has “every reason to believe” that the account of what Mr. Meadows said “is untrue.”Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, criticized the committee’s work. “This partisan committee’s vague ‘leaks,’ anonymous testimony and willingness to alter evidence proves it’s just an extension of the Democrat smear campaign that has been exposed time and time again for being fabricated and dishonest,” he said. “Americans are tired of the Democrat lies and the charades, but, sadly, it’s the only thing they have to offer.”Mr. Budowich did not address the substance of the information provided to the committee.A lawyer for Ms. Hutchinson did not respond to a message seeking comment. A spokesman for the committee declined to comment.Mr. Pence resisted weeks of pressure from Mr. Trump and some of his allies to use his ceremonial role in overseeing Congress’s certification of the electoral votes on Jan. 6 to block or delay Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. Despite being told by Mr. Pence and his advisers that they did not believe that the vice president had that power, Mr. Trump continued to apply pressure, privately and publicly, through that morning.Mr. Trump denounced Mr. Pence’s unwillingness to go along with the effort during his rally at the Ellipse just before the Electoral College certification began in the Capitol.“We want to be so respectful of everybody,” Mr. Trump said in a slashing speech in which he attacked various people and institutions for not cooperating with his desires. “And we are going to have to fight much harder. And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn’t, that will be a sad day for our country. Because you’re sworn to uphold our Constitution.”A short time later, Mr. Trump’s supporters marched up to the Capitol on his encouragement. Some chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” as a gallows was set up outside the Capitol building. Mr. Pence, who had arrived earlier at the Capitol, was taken to safety in an underground garage as the top congressional leadership of both parties was evacuated.Mr. Trump, watching television throughout the riot, spoke approvingly of those chants as he discussed them with Mr. Meadows and possibly other aides, according to the testimony that the committee has heard.Mr. Trump made his displeasure with Mr. Pence clear not just to his aides but to the public when he tweeted, at 2:24 p.m., as the rioters were swarming the building, that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.”The panel is trying to develop a report portraying the events as part of Mr. Trump’s quest to stay in office, including how he stoked anger at his loss among his supporters and redirected it against Mr. Pence and members of Congress during what is typically a routine certification process.The committee has also gathered testimony that Mr. Meadows used the fireplace in his office to burn documents, according to two people briefed on the panel’s questions. The committee has asked witnesses about how Mr. Meadows handled documents and records after the election. Mr. Meadows’s lawyer did not respond to a question about the testimony regarding the fireplace.The news came as one of the five Republican members of Congress who received subpoenas to appear before the committee signaled he would not appear for his deposition on Friday unless the panel turned over voluminous documents to him.Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, who is in line to become Judiciary Committee chairman should his party take control of the House next year, demanded that he be given “all documents, videos or other material in the possession of the select committee” to be used in his questioning and any material in the panel’s possession in which his name appears.“Your attempt to compel testimony about a colleague’s deliberations pertaining to a statutorily prescribed legislative matter and an important constitutional function is a dangerous escalation of House Democrats’ pursuit of political vendettas,” Mr. Jordan wrote to Representative Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chairman of the committee.A spokesman for the committee said the panel did not have an immediate response to Mr. Jordan.The four other Republican congressmen subpoenaed, including Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the minority leader, have all denigrated the committee, but have not ruled out testifying. Two of their depositions are scheduled for Thursday. More

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      Pence, Tiptoeing Away From Trump, Lays Groundwork for ’24 Run

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      The former vice president is part of a group of Republicans who have visited early nominating states as they weigh a challenge to their party’s most dominant force.AMES, Iowa — For months, former Vice President Mike Pence has been edging away from his alliance of convenience with former President Donald J. Trump.After four years of service bordering on subservience, the increasingly emboldened Mr. Pence is seeking to reintroduce himself to Republican voters ahead of a potential presidential bid by setting himself apart from what many in the G.O.P. see as the worst impulses of Mr. Trump. He’s among a small group in his party considering a run in 2024 no matter what Mr. Trump decides.Mr. Pence first used high-profile speeches to criticize the former president’s push to overturn the 2020 election results, stating flatly that Mr. Trump was “wrong” in his assertion that Mr. Pence could have blocked the Electoral College ratification on Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Pence then unsubtly visited the Charlottesville, Va., memorial to Heather Heyer, who was killed in the 2017 white supremacist riot there that Mr. Trump sought to rationalize by faulting “both sides.”Now, on Monday outside Atlanta, Mr. Pence is taking his boldest and most unambiguous step toward confronting his former political patron. On the eve of Georgia’s primary, the former vice president will stump with Gov. Brian Kemp, perhaps the top target of Mr. Trump’s 2022 vengeance campaign against Republicans who didn’t bow to his election lies.Mr. Pence grew close with Mr. Kemp during the pandemic and 2020 campaign, and now he is lining up against Mr. Trump’s handpicked candidate, former Senator David Perdue. But more than that, Mr. Pence is seeking to claim a share of credit in what’s expected to be the starkest repudiation yet of Mr. Trump’s attempt to consolidate power, with Mr. Kemp widely expected to prevail.It is an emphatic break between the onetime running mates, who have not spoken for nearly a year but have also not publicly waged a proxy war until now. Mr. Pence, his aides say, knows full well what going down to Georgia represents and the symbolism alone will stand without him targeting Mr. Trump or even Mr. Perdue in his remarks.In a statement ahead of Mr. Pence’s visit to Georgia, Mr. Trump belittled his vice president through a spokesman. “Mike Pence was set to lose a governor’s race in 2016 before he was plucked up and his political career was salvaged,” said Taylor Budowich, the spokesman. “Now, desperate to chase his lost relevance, Pence is parachuting into races, hoping someone is paying attention. The reality is, President Trump is already 82-3 with his endorsements, and there’s nothing stopping him from saving America in 2022 and beyond.”Georgia may represent only the beginning of a new rivalry.In Texas on Jan. 6, 2021, a Trump supporter cut Pence’s name from a campaign sign.Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesMr. Pence on Monday will stump with Gov. Brian Kemp, perhaps the top target of Donald Trump’s 2022 vengeance campaign.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesIn an interview before a speech last month in Iowa, Mr. Pence pointedly declined to rule out running even if Mr. Trump also enters the 2024 primary. “We’ll go where we’re called,” Mr. Pence said, explaining that he and his wife would act on prayer. “That’s the way Karen and I have always approached these things.”How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.A Modern-Day Party Boss: Hoarding cash, doling out favors and seeking to crush rivals, Mr. Trump is behaving like the head of a 19th-century political machine.Power Struggle: Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, a band of anti-Trump Republicans is maneuvering to thwart the ex-president.Post-Presidency Profits: Mr. Trump is melding business with politics, capitalizing for personal gain.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.Recalling the gratitude he gets from resisting Mr. Trump’s demands that he block Congress from affirming President Biden’s victory, he said: “I have been very moved traveling around the country how much people have made a point to express appreciation, it has been very humbling to me.”Yet in the same interview, he recalled spending “five years in the foxhole” with Mr. Trump, noting that he was “incredibly proud of the record,” before giving a dinner speech trumpeting the “Trump-Pence” administration multiple times.His approach amounts to the first soundings of a sort of Trump-without-the-chaos strategy, a bet that Republican primary voters crave the policy record of the last administration but without the impulsiveness, norm-breaking and naked demagogy.There may yet be a constituency for such an appeal, as this year’s G.O.P. primaries demonstrate how Trumpism is flourishing no matter whom its architect blesses.However, it’s far from clear that the sober-minded Mr. Pence is the best vessel for that message at a time many G.O.P. voters thrill more to closed-fist Trumpian pugnacity than paeans to the power of prayer.As of now, Mr. Trump is the clear favorite. Yet all his hints about becoming the first former president in over a century to try to reclaim the office haven’t stopped a host of other potential aspirants.Mr. Pence and the president he served for four years on the campaign trail in Michigan in 2020.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWhether it’s Mr. Pence or former Trump cabinet members or a range of other elected officials, ambitious Republicans are already visiting early nominating states like Iowa and New Hampshire, courting influential lawmakers and cultivating relationships with donors.Even if Mr. Trump runs, many Republicans believe there will still be a hotly contested race.“I don’t think it ends the primary,” said Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who is mulling a presidential campaign. “My sense is you’re still going to have a very robust primary here just because everyone has to earn it.”So far, Republican contenders are voting with their feet.Among those who have beaten a path to the early nominating states: Mr. Pence; former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; the former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley; and Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Rick Scott of Florida.Should Mr. Trump run, he would most likely sideline some Republicans who would either find him difficult to beat or just as soon wait it out. A smaller group of contenders, however, may find the less crowded field more appealing.Those ranks include former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was one of Mr. Trump’s earliest and most prominent supporters in 2016, but who has broken with him since the 2020 election.“Given the problems the country is facing at home and abroad, if you only feel up for it if somebody else doesn’t run, well, then you better not run,” Mr. Christie said. “Everybody who is considering running for president in ’24 should have a moral obligation to make that decision regardless of who else runs.”As for his own plans, he said: “Sure, I’m thinking about it.”Mr. Trump’s populist and pugilist imprint on the party has been cemented, whether he runs or not. That’s why Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is being so closely watched by conservative voters, donors and activists.Seizing on every chance to confront the left and the news media, and to draw coverage on right-wing media for both, Mr. DeSantis has risen to second place behind Mr. Trump in a series of way-too-early polls of Republican voters.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who split with Mr. Trump over the 2020 vote, campaigning for Governor Kemp in Georgia.Elijah Nouvelage/Getty ImagesConservative voters, donors and activists are watching for a possible run by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesBut he’s steadfastly refused to visit Iowa and New Hampshire as a would-be White House candidate, leaving Florida mostly just to stockpile more money for his re-election. That’s not to say he’s not keeping his eye on national politics — he reached out to Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa to wish her well before her response to President Biden’s State of the Union address this year.Mr. DeSantis, though, is hardly beloved among his fellow Republican governors, a group that’s unlikely to rally around him in the same fashion they did George W. Bush, then the Texas governor, in 2000.“I know there’s a lot of talk on Fox News and stuff like that on the national level or in Florida but there’s really not talk about him here in New Hampshire,” Mr. Sununu said of Mr. DeSantis.What there is there, said the longtime Republican strategist Jim Merrill, is a quiet but persistent appetite among many in the rank-and-file to turn the page on Mr. Trump, at least as the party’s nominee.“There is a desire to move on here and it’s not just among the John Kasich and Bill Weld crowd,” said Mr. Merrill, alluding to two former Republican governors who ran as anti-Trump moderates in the state’s primary.Yet if Mr. Trump faces a divided Republican field as he did in the first wave of caucuses and primaries in 2016, he could again claim the nomination with a plurality rather than a majority in many states because of his seemingly unshakable hold on a third of his party’s electorate.At a county G.O.P. dinner in Ames — a college community that’s more upscale, and decidedly less Trump oriented, than much of Iowa — it was not difficult to find Republicans eager to find a fresh nominee, even if they edged into saying as much with Midwest Nice euphemisms.“He’s calm and predictable so that’s a good thing,” Eric Weber said of Mr. Pence.Mr. Trump was “too divisive even though what he did is great,” Mr. Weber said as his wife, Carol, suggested another Trump bid “may divide people.”Yet they weren’t ready to sign up with Mr. Pence, as both noted their affection for Mr. Cotton and Mr. DeSantis.Mr. Pence’s speech was received well if not overwhelmingly so. It had all the bearings of a Republican in Iowa leaning toward a presidential bid — knowing references to local politicians, Midwest totems like John Deere and attacks on the Democrats in power in Washington.Yet it also had the distinct air of a pre-Trump brand of Republicanism, with only the slightest criticism of the news media (and that was even gloved with “all due respect”), references to becoming a grandfather and G-rated jokes that could have just as easily been delivered by Mitt Romney (it involved Washington, D.C., and “hot air.”)Mr. Pence’s Iowa speech featured references to local politicians and attacks on the Democrats in power in Washington.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesFew at the gathering liked Mr. Pence as much as Kevin and Linda Lauver.Their phones blaring with tornado warnings, the Lauvers took shelter in the Ames Country Club basement ahead of the April G.O.P. dinner. And they bumped into the evening’s keynote speaker.“We want somebody from the Midwest,” Ms. Lauver told Mr. Pence, nudging him to run for president in 2024. “I like Mike,” Mr. Lauver chimed in.Mr. Pence earnestly patted his heart and offered his thanks.As Mr. Lauver headed back upstairs after the tornado false alarm, he wanted to be clear that he liked Mr. Trump.“He did what he said what he was going to do,” said Mr. Lauver, before adding in Iowa deadpan: “When he said the least it was the best.”Now, he continued, “We need him to say, ‘OK, I’ll step aside.’” Then Mr. Lauver paused.“I don’t know if he’ll do that.” More

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      The Ohio Primary and the Return of the Republican Civil War

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      Why has the Ohio Republican Senate primary, which reaches its conclusion Tuesday, been so interesting (if not always edifying) to watch? In part, because it’s the first time the divides of the party’s 2016 primary campaign have risen fully to the surface again.Six years ago, under the pressure of Donald Trump’s insurgency, the G.O.P. split into three factions. First was the party establishment, trying to sustain a business-friendly and internationalist agenda and an institutionalist approach to governance. This was the faction of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, much the party’s Washington D.C. leadership — but fewer of its media organs and activists.Those groups mostly supported the more movement-driven, True Conservative faction — the faction of Ted Cruz, the Tea Party, the House Freedom Caucus, talk radio. This faction was more libertarian and combative, and richer in grassroots support — but not as rich as it thought.That’s because Trump himself forged a third faction, pulling together a mixture of populists and paleoconservatives, disaffected voters who didn’t share True Conservatism’s litmus tests and pugilists who just wanted someone to fight liberal cultural dominance, with no agenda beyond the fight itself.When Trump, astonishingly, won the presidency, you might have expected these factions to feud openly throughout his chaotic administration. But that’s not exactly what happened. Part of the establishment faction — mostly strategists and pundits — broke from the party entirely. The larger part, the Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan and Nikki Haley camp, essentially ran policy in the early Trump era — passing tax reform, running the national security bureaucracy, bemoaning Trump’s tweets while setting much of his agenda.The movement faction, Tea Partyers and TrueCons, was given personnel appointments, the chance to write irrelevant budget proposals, and eventually a degree of personal power, through figures like Mick Mulvaney and Mark Meadows. (Trump clearly just liked the Freedom Caucus guys, whatever their ideological differences.) The populists, meanwhile, won some victories on immigration policy and trade, while complaining about the “deep state” on almost every other front.But because both the TrueCons and the populists delighted in Trump’s pugilism — even unto his election-overturning efforts in 2020 — it could be hard to see where one faction ended and the next began. And this pattern often held in Trump-era Republican primary battles, in which candidates with TrueCon or establishment backgrounds recast themselves as Trumpists by endorsing his grievances and paranoias.But in the Ohio Senate primary, finally, you can see the divisions clearly once again. First you have a candidate, Matt Dolan, who is fully in the establishment lane, explicitly refusing to court Trumpian favor and trying to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine to peel Republicans away from the America First banner.You have a candidate in the TrueCon lane, the adaptable Josh Mandel, who tried to hug Trump personally but who draws his support from the old powers of movement conservatism — from the Club for Growth to talk radio’s Mark Levin to the political consultancy that runs Ted Cruz’s campaigns.And you have J.D. Vance, who is very clear about trying to be a populist in full — taking the Trump-in-2016 line on trade and immigration and foreign policy, allying himself with thinkers and funders who want a full break with the pre-Trump G.O.P.Given this division, it’s significant that Trump decided to endorse Vance, and that his most politically active scion, Donald Jr., is enthusiastic for the “Hillbilly Elegy” author. It’s also significant that Trump’s endorsement hasn’t prevented the Club for Growth from continuing to throw money against Vance, prompting blowback from Trump himself. For the first time since 2016, there’s a clear line not just between Trump and the establishment but between Trumpian populism and movement conservatism.That line will blur again once the primary is settled. But the battle for Ohio suggests things to look for in 2022 and beyond. First, expect a Trump revival to be more like his 2016 insurgent-populist campaign than his incumbent run in 2020. Second, expect populism writ large to gain some strength and substance but still remain bound to Trump’s obsessions (and appetite for constitutional crisis).Third, expect many of the movement and TrueCon figures who made their peace with Trump six years ago to be all-in for Ron DeSantis should he seem remotely viable. Fourth, expect the remains of the establishment to divide over whether to rally around a candidate of anti-Trump principle — from Liz Cheney to certain incarnations of Mike Pence — or to make their peace with a harder-edged figure like DeSantis.Finally, expect a potential second Trump presidency to resemble the scramble for his endorsement in Ohio: the establishment left out in the cold, no Reince Priebus running the White House or McConnell setting its agenda, but just constant policy battles between movement conservatives and populists, each claiming to embody the true and only Trumpism and hoping that the boss agrees.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTOpinion) and Instagram. More