Presidential Election of 2020

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Who Is Financing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Caucus? Corporations You Know.

      by

      Immediately after the Jan. 6 attack, hundreds of corporations announced freezes on donating money to Republican lawmakers who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s victory. “Given recent events and the horrific attack on the U.S. Capitol, we are assessing our future PAC criteria,” a spokesperson for Toyota said a week after the attack.For many corporations, that pause was short-lived.“By April 1, 2021, Toyota had donated $62,000 to 39 Republican objectors,” the journalist Judd Legum wrote in his newsletter, Popular Information. That included a donation of $1,000 that Toyota gave to Representative Andy Biggs, a Republican from Arizona who is a close ally of Donald Trump and a fervent devotee of the “big lie.”In July 2021, Toyota reversed course and announced another hiatus from donating to lawmakers who voted to overturn the election results. Six months later, the money started to flow again. The company, in a statement to The Times, said it donates equally to both parties and “will not support those who, by their words and actions, create an atmosphere that incites violence.” (Corporations aren’t allowed to give directly to campaigns but instead form political action committees that donate in the name of the company.)Giving equally to both parties sounds good. But what if a growing faction of one political party isn’t committed to the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power?In the year and a half since the attack, rivers of cash from once skittish donors have resumed flowing to election deniers. Sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. Sometimes just a thousand. But it adds up. In the month of April alone, the last month for which data is available, Fortune 500 companies and trade organizations gave more than $1.4 million to members of Congress who voted not to certify the election results, according to an analysis by the transparency group Accountable.US. AT&T led the pack, giving $95,000 to election objectors.Of all the revelations so far from the hearings on the Jan. 6 attack, the most important is that the effort to undermine democratic elections in the United States is continuing. More than a dozen men and women who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection or the rallies leading up to it have run for elected office this year. Supporters of Mr. Trump have also run for public offices that oversee elections. And according to an investigation by The Times, at least 357 Republican legislators in nine states have used the power of their offices to attack the results of the 2020 election.This isn’t a hypothetical threat. On Tuesday, New Mexico’s secretary of state was forced to ask the State Supreme Court to compel a Republican-led county election commission to certify primary election results. The commission had refused to do so, citing its distrust of its own voting machines.There is also an active effort underway to frustrate the Jan. 6 committee’s work, including refusing to comply with subpoenas. Mr. Biggs, for instance, has refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to testify, as have other Republican members of Congress, including Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, Mo Brooks and Scott Perry. (Mr. Perry, among other congressmen, asked for a presidential pardon for efforts to challenge and overturn the 2020 election, according to Representative Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee. He has denied that charge.) Representatives Barry Loudermilk and Ronny Jackson have yet to agree to interview requests from the committee. Six of these congressmen alone have brought in more than $826,000 from corporate donors since Jan. 6, according to Accountable.US. (Mr. Brooks didn’t receive any money from the Fortune 500 companies and trade groups tracked in the report.)We tend to think of the past and future threat to elections as coming from voters for Donald Trump and those whom they’d elect to office. But the success of these politicians also depends on money. And a lot of money from corporations like Boeing, Koch Industries, Home Depot, FedEx, UPS and General Dynamics has gone to politicians who reject the 2020 election results based on lies told by the former president, according to a tally kept by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, known as CREW.All told, as of this week, corporations and industry groups gave almost $32 million to the House and Senate members who voted to overturn the election and to the G.O.P. committees focused on the party’s congressional campaigns. The top 10 companies that gave money to those members, according to CREW’s analysis of campaign finance disclosures, are Koch Industries, Boeing, Home Depot, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, General Motors and FedEx. All of those companies, with the exception of Koch Industries and FedEx, once said they’d refrain from donating to politicians who voted to reject the election results.Of the 249 companies that promised not to fund the 147 senators and representatives who voted against any of the results, fewer than half have stuck to their promise, according to CREW.Kudos aplenty to the 85 corporations that stuck to their guns and still refuse to fund the seditious, including Nike, PepsiCo, Lyft, Cisco, Prudential, Marriott, Target and Zillow. That’s what responsible corporate citizenship looks like. It’s also patriotic.We’re going to need more patriotic companies for what’s coming. Not only are Republican lawmakers who refused to certify the election results still in office; their party is poised to make gains during the midterm elections. Their electoral fortunes represent not only an endorsement from voters who support their efforts to undermine our democracy; they also represent the explicit financial support of hundreds of corporations that pour money into their campaign coffers.Money in politics is the way of the world, especially in this country. But as the Jan. 6 committee’s investigation has made clear, Mr. Trump’s attempted coup was orders of magnitude different from the normal rough-and-tumble of politics. Returning to the status quo where corporate money flowed to nearly every politician elected to office isn’t just unseemly; it is helping to fund a continuing attack on our democracy.Many Americans say they’ve moved on from the attack on Jan. 6. For those who haven’t, a good place to focus their attention is on the continuing threat to the Republic posed by politicians who are actively undermining it, and the money that helps them do so.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

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Playing to Trump’s G.O.P. Base, Combat Veteran Wins Nevada House Primary

      by

      A decorated Air Force combat veteran who lined up support from the Trump wing of the Republican Party will face a Democratic incumbent in a tossup congressional race in Nevada.The Republican candidate, Sam Peters, won a three-way primary in Nevada’s Fourth District. The seat has been held by Steven Horsford, a Democrat, for the past two terms as well as a single term a decade ago.Mr. Peters, 47, defeated Annie Black, The Associated Press said Wednesday. Ms. Black is an assemblywoman who attended the Jan. 6, 2021, rally for Mr. Trump in Washington and was censured by state lawmakers for refusing to wear a mask. Chance Bonaventura, a Republican campaign operative who is chief of staff for a Las Vegas city councilwoman, finished third in Tuesday’s primary.Extending from the northern part of Las Vegas through central Nevada, the sprawling district is larger in land area than 17 states. While Democrats maintain a more than 10-point voter registration advantage in the district, both national parties are investing heavily in the Las Vegas media market, and the race is rated as a tossup by the Cook Political Report.Endorsed by the Nevada Republican Party in May, Mr. Peters had played up the support of several leading figures in the party’s Trump wing, including Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, who are both from Arizona.The two congressmen have been the subject of unsuccessful efforts to disqualify them from running for re-election by Mr. Trump’s critics, who say that they fomented election falsehoods that escalated into the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol.Mr. Peters, who earned a Bronze Star for his service during the war in Afghanistan, has also promulgated Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election and last year called on Nevada’s Republican secretary of state to abandon the use of electronic voting machines for the 2022 election.Making his second run for Congress — two years ago he was the runner-up in the Republican primary — Mr. Peters had vowed to support the completion of a southern border wall that became a cause célèbre for Mr. Trump.Since the Fourth District’s creation a decade ago, Republicans have won the seat just once, holding it for a single term. The party is seeking to seize upon the sagging approval numbers of President Biden and lingering attention on the personal issues of Mr. Horsford, who has acknowledged having an extramarital affair.The details came to light after a woman who had been an intern for Harry M. Reid, the former longtime Nevada senator who died last year, revealed in 2020 to The Las Vegas Review-Journal that she was the woman in a podcast titled “Mistress for Congress” that referred to the affair.In March, Mr. Peters said that Mr. Horsford, who did not have a primary opponent, should not run for re-election. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Republicans Who Deny 2020 Election Outcome Press Closer to Power Over Future Elections

      by

      Midway through primary season, the party has nominated several candidates who deny the 2020 outcome for posts that will have significant sway over the 2024 presidential election.The potential for far-right Republicans to reshape the election systems of major battleground states is growing much closer to reality.As the halfway point nears of a midterm year that is vastly friendlier to Republicans, the party’s voters have nominated dozens of candidates for offices with power over the administration and certification of elections who have spread falsehoods about the 2020 presidential contest and sowed distrust in American democracy.The only way to restore trust, these candidates say, is by electing them.In Michigan, Pennsylvania and now Nevada, Republican voters have elevated candidates who owe their political rise to their amplification of doubts about Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory, and who are now vying in elections for governor, secretary of state and attorney general — offices that will hold significant sway over the administration of the 2024 presidential election in critical swing states.The rise of election deniers is far from over. Primary contests coming later this month in Colorado and in early August in Arizona and Wisconsin will provide more clarity on the depth of Republican voters’ desire to rally behind candidates devoted to the false idea that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald J. Trump.With Republicans widely predicted to make gains in November, it is possible that 2023 will bring newly installed far-right officials willing to wield their influence to affect election outcomes and a possible Supreme Court ruling that could give state legislatures unchecked power over federal elections. Even some Republican candidates and officials who for a time defended the 2020 results as legitimate have begun to question whether Mr. Biden’s victory was on the level.“We are in a dangerous place at the moment,” said Ben Berwick, the counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group dedicated to resisting authoritarianism. “There is a substantial faction in this country that has come to the point where they have rejected the premise that when we have elections, the losers of the elections acknowledge the right of the winner to govern.”On Tuesday, Nevada Republicans chose as their nominee for secretary of state Jim Marchant, an organizer of a Trump-inspired coalition of far-right candidates united by their insistence that the 2020 election was rigged. Mr. Marchant, a former state legislator from Las Vegas, told voters during a February debate that “your vote hasn’t counted for decades.”Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, was a leading figure in the effort to subvert the state’s 2020 results on behalf of former President Donald J. Trump.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesOn the November ballot, Mr. Marchant joins Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, who won his primary last month after promoting efforts to decertify the 2020 results, and Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, who in December 2020 sued to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory, as well as like-minded figures in other states including New Mexico.The number of election deniers who have won Republican nominations is quickly rising in congressional and state legislative races across the country. At least 72 members of Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election have advanced to the general election, according to a New York Times analysis.Understand the June 14 Primary ElectionsTakeaways: Republicans who embraced former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies did well in Nevada, while his allies had a mixed night in South Carolina. Here’s what else we learned.Winners and Losers: Here is a rundown of some of the most notable wins and losses.Election Deniers Prevail: Republicans who deny the 2020 election’s result are edging closer to wielding power over the next one.Nevada Races: Trump-inspired candidates captured key wins in the swing state, setting the stage for a number of tossup contests against embattled Democrats.Texas Special Election: Mayra Flores, a Republican, flipped a House seat in the Democratic stronghold of South Texas. Her win may only be temporary, however.And in Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Texas — four competitive states that have already held primaries — 157 state legislators who took concrete steps to overturn or undermine the 2020 election will be on the ballot in November.These primary results come as the House select committee’s hearings into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have revealed how nearly every senior figure in the Trump orbit except the president himself believed Mr. Biden had won the election despite Mr. Trump’s claims.Still, the former president’s lies, adopted and advanced by his followers, continue to threaten to upset the country’s democratic order nearly 18 months later.For many election-denying candidates, victory is far from assured. Some of the most prominent ones, like Mr. Mastriano, face tough general-election campaigns, and their success may depend on factors like their personal fund-raising networks, the health of the economy and policy debates that have nothing to do with election administration.And voters have at times been hesitant to embrace candidates whose central plank is elections. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia swept aside former Senator David Perdue’s 2020-centric challenge, and Brad Raffensperger, the state’s secretary of state, also handily beat a Trump-backed rival.Still, in primary after primary, election deniers have ascended, signaling that Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election have become deeply embedded in the Republican base.Voters waiting to enter a temporary polling location in Las Vegas on Tuesday.Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesHanging over several marquee 2022 races is the prospect of 2024, when a Democratic presidential nominee — Mr. Biden, if he runs again as promised — might have to confront the open question of whether victories in certain states would be certified.In several battleground states, Republicans who have said they would not have certified Mr. Biden’s 2020 victory are running for governor or secretary of state, positions that oversee elections and the appointment of Electoral College delegates.In particular, races for secretary of state — once little-noticed contests to choose the top election official in most states — have become extraordinarily high-profile and politicized.“I don’t know of a single proven competent election official that says, ‘Gosh, I can’t wait to be on the front page,’” said Pam Anderson, a Republican running for secretary of state in Colorado. “Because usually that’s a really bad thing.”Ms. Anderson is running in a Republican primary against Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, who is under indictment related to allegations that she tampered with elections equipment after the 2020 election. Ms. Peters has become something of a hero to the far-right base, walking the red carpet at a documentary screening at Mar-a-Lago and speaking at Republican events across the country.Tina Peters speaking at a rally hosted by Mr. Trump in Casper, Wyo., in May.Natalie Behring for The New York TimesKristina Karamo addressing the crowd at a Trump rally in Washington, Mich., in April.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesPromoting 2020 falsehoods has also bolstered the prospects of candidates for secretary of state who have no experience managing elections, like Kristina Karamo, who is the likely Republican nominee in Michigan after winning the most delegates at the state party’s convention.Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterm races so important? More

    • 50 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump, monstruo estadounidense

      by

      WASHINGTON D. C. — Los monstruos ya no son lo que solían ser.Estoy leyendo Frankenstein de Mary Shelley para una asignación de la escuela y el monstruo es magnífico. Al principio tiene una mente elegante y dulzura de temperamento, lee Las penas del joven Werther de Johann Wolfgang von Goethe y recoge leña para una familia pobre. Pero su creador, Victor Frankenstein, lo abandona y le niega una pareja para calmar su soledad. La criatura no encuentra a nadie que no retroceda con miedo y disgusto ante su apariencia, hecha de muchas piezas dispares, su piel y ojos amarillos y labios negros. Amargado, busca vengarse de su creador y del mundo.“Doquiera que mire, veo felicidad de la cual solo yo estoy irrevocablemente excluido”, se lamenta. “Yo era bueno y cariñoso; el sufrimiento me ha envilecido”.Al final del libro, antes de desaparecer en el Ártico, el monstruo reflexiona que alguna vez tuvo “grandes pensamientos honorables”, hasta que se acumuló su “espantoso catálogo” de hazañas malignas.El monstruo de Shelley, a diferencia del nuestro, tiene conciencia de sí mismo y una razón para causar estragos. Sabe cómo sentirse culpable y cuándo abandonar el escenario. La malignidad de nuestro monstruo se deriva de la psicopatía narcisista pura, y se niega a abandonar el escenario o cesar su vil mendacidad.Ni por un momento pasó por la mente de Donald Trump que un presidente estadounidense que comete sedición sería algo debilitante y corrosivo para el país. Era solo otra manera para que el Emperador del Caos puliera su título.Escuchamos el jueves por la noche el espantoso catálogo de las hazañas de Trump. Están tan fuera de lo común, son tan difíciles de entender que, de alguna manera, todavía estamos procesándolas en nuestras mentes.En un horario estelar, la audiencia del comité de la Cámara de Representantes encargado de investigar los hechos del 6 de enero, no trató de examinar el bufonesco y grandilocuente camino que tomó Trump para llegar a la presidencia. La audiencia trató de revelar a Trump como un monstruo insensible, y muchos saldrán convencidos de que debería ser acusado penalmente y encarcelado. ¡Enciérrenlo!La audiencia puso de manifiesto el hecho de que Trump hablaba muy en serio acerca de derrocar al gobierno. Si su otrora perro faldero, Mike Pence, hubiese sido colgado en la horca frente al Capitolio por negarse a ayudarlo a conservar su cargo de manera ilegítima, que así sea, dijo Trump. “Tal vez nuestros seguidores tengan razón”, comentó ese día, de manera escalofriante, al señalar que su vicepresidente “se lo merece”.Liz Cheney usó con inteligencia las palabras de los exasesores de Trump para mostrar que, a pesar de sus malévolas quejas, Trump sabía que no había fraude a un nivel que hubiera cambiado el resultado de las elecciones.“Dejé en claro que no estaba de acuerdo con la idea de decir que las elecciones fueron robadas, no estaba de acuerdo con decir eso públicamente por lo que le dije al presidente que esas eran tonterías”, declaró William Barr, fiscal general de Trump.En contraposición con su padre, Ivanka Trump, en una declaración grabada, dijo que aceptó la versión de la realidad de Barr: “Respeto al fiscal general Barr. Así que acepté lo que él decía”.(Su esposo, Jared Kushner, ganó el premio mayor al descaro en su declaración: estaba demasiado ocupado organizando indultos para cretinos como para prestar atención a si los asistentes de Trump amenazaban con renunciar por el cretino que estaba en el despacho oval).Los expertos en datos de Trump le dijeron sin rodeos que había perdido. “Así que allí no hay nada que contender”, comentó Mark Meadows.Trump simplemente no podía soportar ser etiquetado como un perdedor, algo que su padre detestaba particularmente. Trump subvirtió las elecciones con manía por puro egoísmo y maldad, al saber que es fácil manipular a las personas en las redes sociales con la Gran Mentira.A Trump le parecía bien que sus seguidores violaran la ley, atacaran a la policía y fueran a la cárcel, mientras él elogiaba su “amor” a la distancia. Es increíble que ningún legislador haya sido asesinado.Mires donde mires, hay algo que te hiela la sangre. El monstruo de Frankenstein no es el único que ha abandonado los “pensamientos de honor”.Rusia, también en las garras de un monstruo, invade y destruye a una democracia vecina sin ningún motivo, excepto los delirios de grandeza de Vladimir Putin.En Uvalde, Texas, se desarrolla la inimaginable historia de cómo la policía retrasó una hora el rescate de escolares porque a un comandante le preocupaba la seguridad de los oficiales.Íconos codiciosos del golf se unieron a una gira financiada por los saudíes, a pesar de que el príncipe heredero saudí ordenó desmembrar a un periodista. (Kushner está bajo investigación sobre si negoció su posición en el gobierno para asegurar una inversión de 2000 millones de dólares de los saudíes para su nueva firma de capital privado).Como lo señaló Bennie Thompson, presidente del comité, cuando el Capitolio fue atacado en 1814, fue por los británicos. Esta vez, fue por un enemigo interno, incitado por el hombre que estaba en el corazón de la democracia que había jurado proteger.“Lo hicieron alentados por el presidente de Estados Unidos”, declaró Thompson sobre la muchedumbre, “para tratar de detener la transferencia del poder, un precedente que se había respetado durante 220 años”.Es alucinante que tanta gente aún acepte a Trump cuando es tan claro que solo se preocupa por sí mismo. Se apresuró a desestimar a su hija Ivanka Trump el viernes, al indicar que su opinión no tenía validez ya que ella “no estaba involucrada en observar ni estudiar los resultados de las elecciones. Hacía tiempo que ella estaba fuera de la jugada”.Dejemos que algunos conservadores descarten las audiencias como “un festival de bostezos”. Dejemos que Fox News se niegue groseramente a transmitirlas.La sesión fue fascinante, al describir una historia de terror protagonizada por los Proud Boys rapaces y un monstruo que incluso Shelley podría haber apreciado. Los niveles de audiencia fueron un éxito, con casi 20 millones de espectadores.Caroline Edwards, la dura oficial de policía del Capitolio que sufrió una conmoción cerebral, y a la que le rociaron los ojos, y se levantó para volver a la pelea, describió el ataque como un paisaje infernal.“Estaba resbalando en sangre de otras personas”, recordó. “Saben, yo… estaba atrapando a la gente mientras caía. Yo, cómo decirlo, yo estaba… fue una carnicería”.En su discurso distópico inaugural, Trump prometió poner fin a la “carnicería estadounidense”. En cambio, ofreció esa misma carnicería. Ahora debe rendir cuentas por su intento de golpe de Estado, y no solo ante el tribunal de la opinión pública.Maureen Dowd, ganadora del Premio Pulitzer de 1999 en la categoría de comentario distinguido y autora de tres bestsellers del New York Times, es columnista de Opinión desde 1995. @MaureenDowd • Facebook More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Cuatro conclusiones del segundo día de las audiencias del 6 de enero

      by

      Los congresistas que investigan el asalto al Capitolio afirmaron que Trump no quiso escuchar las recomendaciones de sus colaboradores e insistió en declararse victorioso y decir que le robaron las elecciones, sin tener pruebas.El gran tema durante el segundo día de audiencias del comité que investiga los sucesos del 6 de enero fue que al expresidente Donald Trump se le dijo repetidamente, incluso su propio fiscal general se lo comentó, que su “gran mentira” sobre una elección fraudulenta no tenía fundamento. De todos modos hizo el reclamo falso en la noche de las elecciones y no ha parado desde entonces.Tal como lo hicieron durante la audiencia de apertura, los miembros del comité usaron testimonios en video de algunos de los amigos y asesores más cercanos de Trump, incluidos comentarios contundentes del exfiscal general William P. Barr, para demostrar que el exmandatario sabía que sus afirmaciones no tenían fundamento.Aquí presentamos otras conclusiones del segundo día de las audiencias.Trump fue descrito como alguien ‘distanciado de la realidad’, después de las eleccionesEl testimonio en video de Barr fue uno de los más convincentes de la mañana, y el exfiscal general describió a Trump como alguien que, en los días posteriores a las elecciones, estaba cada vez más “distanciado de la realidad”. En su testimonio, Barr dijo que en repetidas ocasiones le dijo al expresidente que sus afirmaciones de fraude eran infundadas, pero “nunca hubo indicios de que se interesara por los hechos reales”.La cruda descripción de la conducta del exmandatario es una pieza clave del argumento que el comité trata de formular: que Trump sabía que sus afirmaciones sobre una elección fraudulenta no eran ciertas pero, de todos modos, las dijo. Barr dijo que en las semanas posteriores a las elecciones, le dijo repetidamente “cuán locas eran algunas de estas acusaciones”.Read More on 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.The Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: 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.Trump’s Depiction: Mr. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.El comité argumenta que Trump fue un mentiroso consciente. Pero el testimonio de Barr ofrece otra posible explicación: que el expresidente llegó a creerse las mentiras que estaba diciendo.“Pensé que, si realmente creía en esas cosas, ya sabes, había perdido el contacto con, con… se había distanciado de la realidad, si realmente creía en esas cosas”, le dijo Barr al comité.Dos grupos rodeaban a Trump: ‘El equipo normal’ vs. ‘El equipo de Rudy’Uno de los aspectos que quedaron claros el lunes fue que había dos grupos de personas alrededor de Trump durante los días y semanas posteriores a las elecciones.Bill Stepien, el director de campaña de Trump, caracterizó a su grupo como “El equipo normal”, a diferencia del equipo dirigido por Rudy Giuliani, el abogado personal de Trump.Al ser un veterano político republicano, Stepien estuvo entre los asistentes de campaña, abogados, asesores de la Casa Blanca y otras personas que instaron a Trump para que abandonara sus afirmaciones infundadas de fraude. En cambio, el equipo de Giuliani impulsaba la paranoia del expresidente instándolo a respaldar las afirmaciones fantasiosas y sin fundamento sobre la recolección de votos, la supuesta manipulación de las máquinas de votación y otras denuncias. “Los llamábamos: mi equipo y el equipo de Rudy”, dijo Stepien a los investigadores del comité en las entrevistas. “No me importaba estar relacionado con ‘El equipo normal’”.Los miembros del comité esperan que la descripción de los dos grupos que competían por la atención de Trump evidencie que el expresidente tomó una decisión: escuchar al grupo dirigido por Giuliani en vez de atender las recomendaciones de las personas que dirigieron su campaña y trabajaron en su gestión. En palabras del “Equipo normal”, Trump decidió escuchar a los que decían argumentos “locos”.Lo que pasó durante la noche de las elecciones en la Casa BlancaLa audiencia del lunes comenzó con un vívido retrato de la noche de las elecciones en la Casa Blanca, describiendo la reacción del expresidente, y quienes lo rodeaban, cuando Fox News dijo que Joe Biden ganó en Arizona. Usando testimonios en video de los asesores más cercanos del exmandatario y algunos miembros de su familia, el comité mostró cómo Trump rechazó las advertencias que le dieron.Stepien dijo en un video que había instado al expresidente para que no declarara su victoria prematuramente, después de haberle explicado que era muy probable que los votos demócratas se contaran más tarde. Trump lo ignoró, según dijeron Stepien y otras personas. En cambio, escuchó a Rudy Giuliani, quien según sus asistentes estaba borracho esa noche, e instaba al expresidente para que se declarara victorioso y dijera que las elecciones estaban siendo robadas.Chris Stirewalt, el editor político de Fox News que fue despedido después de que su cadena declarara la victoria de Biden en Arizona, le dijo al comité que el cambio en los resultados de esa noche que provocó las afirmaciones del presidente sobre manipulación de votantes no fueron más que los resultados esperados de los votos demócratas que se contaron después de los republicanos. Y se mostró orgulloso de que su equipo haya sido el primero en calificar con precisión los resultados de Arizona y dijo que había “cero” posibilidades de que Trump hubiera ganado ese estado.El comité dice que se enviaron millones de dólares a un ‘Fondo de Defensa Electoral’ inexistenteNo fue solo la “gran mentira”, según el comité del 6 de enero. También fue “la gran estafa”.En una presentación de video que concluyó la segunda audiencia, el comité describió cómo Trump y sus asistentes de campaña utilizaron afirmaciones infundadas de fraude electoral para convencer a los partidarios del expresidente con el fin de que enviaran millones de dólares a algo llamado “Fondo de Defensa Electoral”. Según el comité, los partidarios de Trump donaron 100 millones de dólares en la primera semana después de las elecciones, aparentemente con la esperanza de que ese dinero ayudaría a su líder en la lucha para anular los resultados.Pero un investigador del comité dijo que no había evidencia de que ese fondo existiera. En cambio, millones de dólares fluyeron hacia un comité de acción política que el presidente estableció el 9 de noviembre, solo unos días después de las elecciones. Según el comité, esa instancia envió 1 millón de dólares a una fundación benéfica dirigida por Mark Meadows, el exjefe de gabinete de Trump, y otro millón a un grupo político dirigido por varios de sus exmiembros del personal, incluido Stephen Miller, el arquitecto de la agenda de inmigración de Trump.Zoe Lofgren, representante demócrata por California, resumió los descubrimientos de esta manera: “A lo largo de la investigación del comité, encontramos evidencia de que la campaña de Trump y sus colaboradores engañaron a los donantes sobre el destino de sus fondos y para qué se utilizarían”.Y agregó: “Así que no solo se trató de una gran mentira, también se hizo una gran estafa. Los donantes merecen saber adónde van realmente sus fondos. Se merecen algo mejor que lo que hizo el presidente Trump y su equipo”.Michael D. Shear es un corresponsal veterano de la Casa Blanca y dos veces ganador del Premio Pulitzer que también formó parte del equipo que ganó la Medalla de Servicio Público por la cobertura de la COVID-19 en 2020. Es coautor de Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Inmigración. @shearm More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Jan. 6 Panel Tracks How Trump Created and Spread Election Lies

      by

      In its second hearing this month, the committee showed how the former president ignored aides and advisers in declaring victory prematurely and relentlessly pressing claims of fraud he was told were wrong.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol made a wide-ranging case on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump created and relentlessly spread the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him in the face of mounting evidence from an expanding chorus of advisers that he had been legitimately defeated.The committee, in its second hearing this month, traced the origins and progression of what it has described as Mr. Trump’s “big lie.” It showed through live witness testimony and recorded depositions how the former president, defying many of his advisers, insisted on declaring victory on election night before the votes were fully counted, then sought to challenge his defeat with increasingly outlandish and baseless claims that he was repeatedly informed were wrong.“He’s become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff,” William P. Barr, the former attorney general, said of Mr. Trump during a videotaped interview the panel played on Monday, in which he at one point could not control his laughter at the absurdity of the claims that the former president was making.“There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were,” Mr. Barr said.The panel also used the testimony of Bill Stepien, Mr. Trump’s campaign chief, who told its investigators that Mr. Trump had ignored his election-night warning to refrain from declaring a victory that he had no basis for claiming. Instead, the president took the advice of Rudolph W. Giuliani — his personal lawyer who was, according to Jason Miller, a top campaign aide, “definitely intoxicated” — and said he had won even as the votes were still being tabulated.It was all part of the committee’s bid to show how Mr. Trump’s dissembling about the election results led directly to the events of Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in the deadliest attack on the building in centuries, spurred on by the president’s exhortations to “stop the steal.”Investigators went further on Monday, detailing how the Trump campaign and its Republican allies used claims of a rigged election that they knew were false to mislead small donors and raise as much as $250 million for an entity they called the Official Election Defense Fund, which top campaign aides testified never existed.“Not only was there the big lie,” said Representative Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who played a key role in the hearing, “there was the big rip-off.”Money ostensibly raised to “stop the steal” instead went to Mr. Trump and his allies, including, the investigation found, $1 million for a charitable foundation run by Mark Meadows, his chief of staff; $1 million to a political group run by several of his former staff members, including Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda; more than $200,000 to Trump hotels; and $5 million to Event Strategies Inc., which ran the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot.Aides said Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., was paid $60,000 to speak at that event, a speech that lasted less than three minutes.“It is clear that he intentionally misled his donors, asked them to donate to a fund that didn’t exist and used the money raised for something other than what he said,” Ms. Lofgren said of Mr. Trump.Read More on 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.The Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: 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.Trump’s Depiction: Mr. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.But the bulk of the session was dedicated to showing how determined Mr. Trump was to cling to the fiction that he had won the election, only digging in more deeply as aide after aide informed him that he had not.Representatives Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren at the hearing.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesThe list of aides and advisers who sought to steer Mr. Trump away from his false claims was long and varied, according to the committee’s presentation. They included low-level campaign lawyers who outlined how they told the president that the returns coming in from the field showed that he was going to lose the race. Also among them were top officials in the Justice Department — including his onetime attorney general — who walked through how they had investigated claims that the race had been rigged or stolen and found them not only to be unsubstantiated, but to be nonsensical.“There were suggestions by, I believe it was Mayor Giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we’d won it outright,” Mr. Miller said in a video interview played by the panel.Mr. Stepien later said he considered himself part of “Team Normal,” while a separate group of outside advisers including Mr. Giuliani were encouraging Mr. Trump’s false claims.The committee played several portions of a deposition by Mr. Barr, Mr. Trump’s last attorney general, who called the president’s claims of a stolen election “bullshit” and “bogus.”“I told them that it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time,” Mr. Barr testified. “And it was a great, great disservice for the country.”Mr. Trump was still at it on Monday, issuing a rambling 12-page statement several hours after the committee hearing ended in which he doubled down on his claims of fraud, complaining — yet again without any evidence — that Democrats had inflated voter rolls, illegally harvested ballots, removed Republican poll watchers from vote-counting facilities, bribed election officials and stopped the counting on election night when he was still in the lead.“Democrats created the narrative of Jan. 6 to detract from the much larger and more important truth that the 2020 Election was rigged and stolen,” Mr. Trump wrote.Representative Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said Mr. Trump waged an attack on democracy.Shuran Huang for The New York TimesIn the hearing room on Monday, the panel showed in striking detail how Mr. Trump’s advisers tried and failed to get him to drop his lies and accept defeat. In his deposition, Mr. Barr recalled several scenes inside the White House, including one in which he said he asked Mr. Meadows and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and top adviser, how long Mr. Trump intended “to go on with this stolen election stuff.”Mr. Barr recalled that Mr. Meadows had assured him that Mr. Trump was “becoming more realistic” and knew “how far he can take this.” As for Mr. Kushner, Mr. Barr recounted that he responded to the question by saying, “We’re working on this.”After informing Mr. Trump that his claims of fraud were false, Mr. Barr had a follow-up meeting with the president and his White House counsel, Pat Cipollone. Mr. Barr described in his deposition how Mr. Trump became enraged that his own attorney general had refused to back his fraud allegations.Chris Stirewalt, the first witness of the day, was on the Fox News team that called Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr.Doug Mills/The New York Times“This is killing me,” Mr. Barr quoted Mr. Trump as saying. “You must have said this because you hate Trump.”Altogether, Mr. Trump and his allies filed more than 60 lawsuits challenging the results of the election. But among the numerous claims of fraud, Mr. Barr told the committee, the worst — and most sensational — concerned a purported plot by Chinese software companies, Venezuelan officials and the liberal financier George Soros to hack into machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems and flip votes away from Mr. Trump.These allegations were most prominently pushed by a former federal prosecutor named Sidney Powell, who collected several unvetted affidavits from witnesses who supposedly had information about Dominion. In the weeks after the election, Ms. Powell, working with a group of other lawyers, filed four federal lawsuits laying out her claims in the Democratic strongholds of Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee and Phoenix even though the Trump campaign had already determined that some of her allegations were false.All of the suits — known as the “Krakens,” a reference to a mythical, havoc-wreaking sea beast — were eventually dismissed and deemed to be so frivolous that a federal judge sanctioned Ms. Powell and her colleagues. Dominion has sued her and others for defamation.Mr. Barr, in his deposition, described the claims against Dominion as “crazy stuff” — a sentiment that was echoed by other Trump aides whose testimony was presented by the committee.After Mr. Barr left his position as attorney general, his successor, Jeffrey A. Rosen, also told Mr. Trump his claims of widespread fraud were “debunked.”The committee showed through live witnesses and recorded depositions how Mr. Trump refused to listen to those around him.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesAnother witness who testified on Monday and dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud was Byung J. Pak, the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta who abruptly resigned on Jan. 4, 2021. After speaking with Mr. Barr, Mr. Pak looked into allegations of election fraud in Atlanta, including a claim pushed by Mr. Giuliani that a suitcase of ballots had been pulled from under a table in a local counting station on election night.Mr. Trump and his allies also claimed that there was rampant fraud in Philadelphia, with the former president recently asserting that more people voted in the city than there were registered voters. In his deposition, Mr. Barr called this allegation “rubbish.” To bolster this argument, the committee called Al Schmidt, a Republican who served as one of three city commissioners on the Philadelphia County Board of Elections.Mr. Schmidt rejected the fraud claims raised by Mr. Trump and his allies, saying there was no evidence that more people voted in Philadelphia than were registered there or that thousands of dead people voted in the city.Mr. Schmidt also testified that after Mr. Trump posted a tweet accusing of him by name of committing election fraud, he received threats online from people who publicized the names of his family members, his address and photographs of his home.Zach Montague More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Inside the Night That Began Trump’s Bid to Overturn the Election

      by

      Donald J. Trump’s advisers urged him not to declare victory on election night in 2020. He listened to the one who told him what he wanted to hear.The Jan. 6 committee used interviews with Donald J. Trump’s own family and his closest advisers to illustrate how he rejected advice and falsely claimed he won the election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWASHINGTON — Rudolph W. Giuliani seemed drunk, and he was making a beeline for the president.It was election night in 2020, and President Donald J. Trump was seeing his re-election bid slip away, vote by vote. According to video testimony prepared by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and personal lawyer for Mr. Trump, was spouting conspiracy theories.“They’re stealing it from us,” Mr. Giuliani told the president when he found him, according to Jason Miller, one of the president’s top campaign aides, who told the Jan. 6 committee that Mr. Giuliani was “definitely intoxicated” that night. “Where do all the votes come from? We need to go say that we won.”Several times that night, Mr. Trump’s own family members and closest advisers urged him to reject Mr. Giuliani’s advice. Mr. Miller told him not to “go and declare victory” without a better sense of the numbers. “It’s far too early to be making any proclamation like that,” said Bill Stepien, his campaign manager. Even his daughter Ivanka Trump told him that the results were still being counted.But in the end, Mr. Giuliani was the only one that night who told the president what he wanted to hear.Mr. Giuliani’s rantings about stolen ballots fed into the president’s own conspiracy theories about a rigged election, nursed in public and private since long before the votes were counted. They helped spark a monthslong assault on democracy and — in the committee’s view — led inexorably to the mob that breached the Capitol hoping to stop the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. as president.Mr. Trump told Mr. Miller, Mr. Stepien and the rest that they were being weak and were wrong. During a conversation in the reception area of the White House living quarters, he told them he was going to go in “a different direction.”Not long after, Mr. Trump did just that, appearing for the cameras at 2:21 a.m. in the East Room in front of a wall of American flags.He denounced the election in the speech, calling the vote “a fraud on the American public” and an “embarrassment” to the country. “We were getting ready to win this election,” he told his supporters and the television viewers. “Frankly, we did win this election.”The inside account of the White House that night was assembled by the Jan. 6 committee. During its second public hearing on Monday, the committee played a video that painted a vivid portrait of how Mr. Trump rejected cautions from his closest aides and advisers and went out to declare himself the winner.Testimony from those closest to the former president effectively documented the formal beginning of Mr. Trump’s insistence that the election was stolen.Read More on 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.The Meaning of the Hearings: While the public sessions aren’t going to unite the country, they could significantly affect public opinion.An Unsettling Narrative: 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.Trump’s Depiction: Mr. Trump was portrayed as a would-be autocrat willing to shred the Constitution to hang onto power. Liz Cheney: The vice chairwoman of the House committee has been unrepentant in continuing to blame Mr. Trump for stoking the attack on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Trump had not been shy about that expectation; weeks before Election Day, he had predicted a “fraud like you’ve never seen.” And even as the votes were being counted, Mr. Trump began delivering that message. But the testimony offered at Monday’s hearing was the linchpin of the argument that the committee is trying to make: that Mr. Trump knew his claims of a fraudulent election were not true and made them anyway.“That’s the bottom line,” said Representative Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is chairman of the committee. “We had an election Mr. Trump lost, but he refused to accept the results of the democratic process.”In the weeks to follow election night, Mr. Trump was repeatedly told by top aides that his claims of fraud were baseless.The committee underscored that fact with long video clips of former Attorney General William P. Barr, who said that beating back the “avalanche” of fraud allegations from the president was “like playing whack-a-mole because something would come out one day and then the next day it would be another issue.” He called the claims of fraud from Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani “completely bogus and silly and usually based on complete misinformation.”But the committee’s depiction of the White House on election night was the day’s most compelling narrative. And the testimony by Trump aides saying they had doubts about Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud was striking, particularly because some of those same aides had expressed support for the president in public, casting doubt on the outcome of the election.At just after 11:15 p.m., Fox News called Arizona for Mr. Biden, a major blow to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Using interviews with Ivanka Trump, her husband, Jared Kushner, and several of the president’s campaign aides, the committee video captured how the sense of celebration inside the White House residence turned from giddy optimism to grim anxiety.“Both disappointed with Fox and concerned that maybe our data or our numbers weren’t accurate,” Mr. Miller testified, describing the mood among the president’s supporters.After the Arizona call, Mr. Trump’s team was livid, according to earlier reporting about the night. Mr. Trump told aides to get Fox News to reverse course somehow. Mr. Miller made a call to a contact at the network. Mr. Kushner reached out to the network’s owner.“Hey, Rupert,” the president’s son-in-law said into a cellphone as Rupert Murdoch, the head of the network’s corporate parent, took his call.But soon, there would be another concern for the group of aides who later were referred to as “Team Normal,” according to Mr. Stepien. They received an alarming warning: Mr. Giuliani had had too much to drink and had made his way upstairs to the living quarters, where the president was watching returns.Several of Mr. Trump’s aides tries to run interference, but Mr. Giuliani, who had been staring at the screens in the campaign war room and insisted that the president had won Michigan, was undeterred.He demanded to see the president, according to a former aide familiar with the conversation.Mr. Stepien confronted Mr. Giuliani. How are we winning? he asked him. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, was there as well, and told Mr. Giuliani that he was wrong to say Mr. Trump had won Michigan.“That’s not true, Rudy!” he said loudly, according to the person familiar with the conversation. (Mr. Meadows would almost immediately go on to publicly and privately embrace the president’s fraud accusations, as documented in text messages discovered by the committee.)The president’s aides soon failed in their effort to keep Mr. Giuliani away from him. In the video presentation, Mr. Giuliani dismissed his rivals for their attempts to stop him from giving the president his advice.“I spoke to the president,” he told the committee investigators. “They may have been present. But I talked to the president several times that night.”Few of the president’s aides went public with their doubts about the president’s chances in the days after the election. In fact, it was the opposite. During a conference call with reporters the day after the election, Mr. Stepien said that he believed Mr. Trump would win Arizona by 30,000 votes when the counting was over.Mr. Trump had been saying for months that he would win the election, even as polling showed him behind Mr. Biden, in a political climate soured by Mr. Trump’s bumbling and erratic performance during the coronavirus pandemic. But he still started sowing seeds of doubt about the reliability of mail-in ballots, made available more broadly because of the pandemic, much earlier in the year.Warned weeks before Election Day that those ballots, along with the ones cast through early voting, would be tallied later than the same-day votes cast for Mr. Trump, the president stunned advisers by declaring he would simply go out and say he had won.“We want all voting to stop,” Mr. Trump said in his remarks early the morning of Nov. 4. “We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list. OK?”Later that day, Ivanka Trump sent a text to a chain that included Mr. Meadows: “Keep the faith and the fight!” Mr. Trump almost immediately began telling Mr. Giuliani to start gathering what information he could.By Friday, it was clear from the Trump campaign’s data guru that the numbers simply were not there for him to succeed. The following day, Mr. Stepien, Mr. Miller and other aides were sent by Mr. Kushner to tell Mr. Trump that he had extremely low odds of any success coming from ongoing challenges.When the men arrived at the White House residence, Mr. Trump was calm, but he was not interested in heeding the warnings. He continued repeating his election conspiracies after Monday’s hearing, issuing a rambling 12-page response with a simple bottom line:“They cheated!” he wrote. More