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      Ivanka Trump to Testify to House Panel Investigating Jan. 6 Attack

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      The former president’s daughter and adviser was in the West Wing with him as a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. She is said to have tried to persuade him to call off the rioters.WASHINGTON — Ivanka Trump, former President Donald J. Trump’s eldest daughter, who served as one of his senior advisers, plans to testify on Tuesday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the matter.Ms. Trump was one of several aides who tried to persuade the president to call off the violence that ultimately injured more than 150 police officers and sent lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence fleeing for safety, according to evidence gathered by the committee.The schedule for her testimony, which was reported earlier by NBC, comes days after her husband, Jared Kushner, who was also a top adviser to Mr. Trump, sat for an interview and provided what one member of the panel described as “valuable” and “helpful” information.“There were some things revealed, but we’ll just share that a little later,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said of Mr. Kushner’s testimony.Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner are among the highest-ranking Trump White House officials to testify before the committee. The interviews have been closed to the public as the panel conducts its work in secret.Ms. Trump’s lawyers have been in talks with the committee since January, when it sent her a letter requesting voluntary testimony. In the letter, dated Jan. 20, the committee said it had heard from Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general who was Mr. Pence’s national security adviser. Mr. Kellogg had described Mr. Trump’s refusal to condemn the violence as the mob engulfed the Capitol, despite White House officials — including Ms. Trump, at least twice — urging him to do so, the letter said.Mr. Kellogg testified that the president had rejected entreaties from him as well as from Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, and Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary. Mr. Kellogg then appealed to Ms. Trump to intervene.“She went back in, because Ivanka can be pretty tenacious,” Mr. Kellogg testified.Mr. Kellogg also testified that he and Ms. Trump had witnessed a telephone call in the Oval Office on the morning of Jan. 6 in which Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Pence to go along with a plan to throw out electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr. when Congress met to certify the Electoral College results. The call to Mr. Pence was part of an effort to invalidate the 2020 election and give Mr. Trump a chance to stay in office.Mr. Kellogg told the committee that the president had accused Mr. Pence of not being “tough enough” to overturn the election. Ms. Trump then said to Mr. Kellogg, “Mike Pence is a good man,” Mr. Kellogg testified.The committee has interviewed more than 800 witnesses and plans to interview dozens more. Mr. Thompson told reporters on Monday that he had authorized five additional subpoenas that day.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Justice Department widens inquiry. More

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      ‘The Illegality of the Plan Was Obvious’

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      Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen and Rachel Quester and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherAfter months of investigation by a congressional committee, a federal judge has found that President Donald J. Trump and his allies most likely engaged in illegal activity in the wake of the 2020 election.How did the committee achieve that ruling?On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.Donald J. Trump at a rally in Georgia on Saturday.Audra Melton for The New York TimesBackground readingThe judge’s comments in the civil case of a lawyer, John Eastman, who advised Mr. Trump, marked a significant breakthrough for the House committee.The ruling does not necessarily mean that a prosecution would arrive at the same conclusion. Here’s an explanation.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Kaitlin Roberts, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Chelsea Daniel, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky and John Ketchum.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Sofia Milan, Desiree Ibekwe, Wendy Dorr, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli and Maddy Masiello. More

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      Why the Jan. 6 Investigation Is a Test for Biden and Merrick Garland

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      WASHINGTON — Immediately after Merrick B. Garland was sworn in as attorney general in March of last year, he summoned top Justice Department officials and the F.B.I. director to his office. He wanted a detailed briefing on the case that will, in all likelihood, come to define his legacy: the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.Even though hundreds of people had already been charged, Mr. Garland asked to go over the indictments in detail, according to two people familiar with the meeting. What were the charges? What evidence did they have? How had they built such a sprawling investigation, involving all 50 states, so fast? What was the plan now?The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.Speaking to reporters on Friday, Mr. Garland said that he and the career prosecutors working on the case felt only the pressure “to do the right thing,” which meant that they “follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead.”Still, Democrats’ increasingly urgent calls for the Justice Department to take more aggressive action highlight the tension between the frenetic demands of politics and the methodical pace of one of the biggest prosecutions in the department’s history.“The Department of Justice must move swiftly,” Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia and a member of the House committee investigating the riot, said this past week. She and others on the panel want the department to charge Trump allies with contempt for refusing to comply with the committee’s subpoenas.“Attorney General Garland,” Ms. Luria said during a committee hearing, “do your job so that we can do ours.”This article is based on interviews with more than a dozen people, including officials in the Biden administration and people with knowledge of the president’s thinking, all of whom asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations.In a statement, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said the president believed that Mr. Garland had “decisively restored” the independence of the Justice Department.“President Biden is immensely proud of the attorney general’s service in this administration and has no role in investigative priorities or decisions,” Mr. Bates said.A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.The Jan. 6 investigation is a test not just for Mr. Garland, but for Mr. Biden as well. Both men came into office promising to restore the independence and reputation of a Justice Department that Mr. Trump had tried to weaponize for political gain.For Mr. Biden, keeping that promise means inviting the ire of supporters who say they will hold the president to the remarks he made on the anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, when he vowed to make sure “the past isn’t buried” and said that the people who planned the siege “held a dagger at the throat of America.”President Biden and Mr. Garland are managing a relationship between the White House and the Justice Department unlike any other in American history. Doug Mills/The New York TimesComplicating matters for Mr. Biden is the fact that his two children are entangled in federal investigations, making it all the more important that he stay out of the Justice Department’s affairs or risk being seen as interfering for his own family’s gain.The department is investigating whether Ashley Biden was the victim of pro-Trump political operatives who obtained her diary at a critical moment in the 2020 presidential campaign, and Hunter Biden is under federal investigation for tax avoidance and his international business dealings. Hunter Biden has not been charged with a crime and has said he handled his affairs appropriately.Justice Department officials do not keep Mr. Biden abreast of any investigation, including those involving his children, several people familiar with the situation said. The cases involving Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden are worked on by career officials, and people close to the president, including Dana Remus, the White House counsel, have no visibility into them, those people said.Still, the situation crystallizes the delicate ground that Mr. Biden and Mr. Garland are navigating.When it comes to Jan. 6, Justice Department officials emphasize that their investigation has produced substantial results already, including more than 775 arrests and a charge of seditious conspiracy against the leader of a far-right militia. More than 280 people have been charged with obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the election results.And federal prosecutors have widened the investigation to include a broad range of figures associated with Mr. Trump’s attempts to cling to power. According to people familiar with the inquiry, it now encompasses planning for pro-Trump rallies ahead of the riot and the push by some Trump allies to promote slates of fake electors.The Justice Department’s Jan. 6 inquiry has led to more than 775 arrests. More than 280 people have been charged with obstructing Congress’s duty to certify the election results.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe Justice Department has given no public indication about its timeline or whether prosecutors might be considering a case against Mr. Trump.The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack can send criminal referrals to the Justice Department, but only the department can bring charges. The panel is working with a sense of urgency to build its case ahead of this year’s midterm elections, when Republicans could retake the House and dissolve the committee.Mr. Biden, a longtime creature of the Senate, is aghast that people close to Mr. Trump have defied congressional subpoenas and has told people close to him that he does not understand how they think they can do so, according to two people familiar with his thinking.Mr. Garland has not changed his approach to criminal prosecutions in order to placate his critics, according to several Justice Department officials who have discussed the matter with him. He is regularly briefed on the Jan. 6 investigation, but he has remained reticent in public.“The best way to undermine an investigation is to say things out of court,” Mr. Garland said on Friday.Even in private, he relies on a stock phrase: “Rule of law,” he says, “means there not be one rule for friends and another for foes.”He did seem to acknowledge Democrats’ frustrations in a speech in January, when he reiterated that the department “remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.”Quiet and reserved, Mr. Garland is well known for the job he was denied: a seat on the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama nominated him in March 2016 after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but Senate Republicans blockaded the nomination.Mr. Garland’s peers regard him as a formidable legal mind and a political centrist. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal appeals court judge and Justice William J. Brennan Jr. of the Supreme Court before becoming a top official in the Justice Department under Attorney General Janet Reno. There, he prosecuted domestic terrorism cases and supervised the federal investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing.His critics say that his subsequent years as an appeals court judge made him slow and overly deliberative. But his defenders say that he has always carefully considered legal issues, particularly if the stakes were very high — a trait that most likely helped the Justice Department secure a conviction against Timothy J. McVeigh two years after the Oklahoma City attack.During the presidential transition after the 2020 election, Mr. Biden took his time mulling over candidates to be attorney general, according to a senior member of the transition team. He had promised the American people that he would reestablish the department as an independent arbiter within the government, not the president’s partisan brawler.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Justice Department widens inquiry. More

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      Democratic Hopes and Anxiety Rise Over the Jan. 6 Panel

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      As the congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot races to conclude its work, the political stakes are increasing along with the legal expectations.It’s one of the X factors that could, in theory, alter the contours of this year’s midterm elections: What does the Jan. 6 committee have in its pocket?The bipartisan House investigation of the assault on the U.S. Capitol is “entering a critical stage,” as the panel’s vice chair, Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, put it this week — and it is kicking up a lot of dust along the way.On Monday, the committee voted to recommend that two onetime aides to former President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino, be held in contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. Also Monday, a federal judge wrote that it was “more likely than not” that Trump had broken the law by trying to disrupt a joint session of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.Investigators have identified a nearly eight-hour gap in Trump’s call logs from Jan. 6 and are discussing whether to demand the former president’s mobile phone records. They’re also looking into whether a Trump tweet from December 2020, in which he invited his supporters to swarm Washington on Jan. 6, constituted incitement. Lawmakers on the panel are constantly weighing the value of trying to gather additional information against the danger that the former president and his allies will bog them down in time-consuming litigation.“We’re playing beat-the-clock here against Trump’s inner coterie,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, told reporters this week.The Justice Department’s own inquiries are proceeding in parallel, and a grand jury has convened in Washington to investigate the planning of the pre-riot rallies. But that work is shrouded in mystery, and pressure is growing on Attorney General Merrick Garland to produce results. Federal law enforcement officials have arrested more than 775 people suspected of involvement in the Capitol riot, but they have yet to charge any member of Trump’s inner circle with a crime.As a political matter, Democrats hope the committee’s work will highlight what they say is the extremism of House Republicans, anchoring them to Trump. And though voters are currently preoccupied with inflation and the war in Ukraine, Democrats expect that a series of upcoming public hearings and reports about Jan. 6 will put Republicans’ anti-democratic behavior on display for the American people to judge.“It’s going to be an enormous exclamation point on the fact that House Republicans are dangerous,” said Simon Rosenberg, the president of NDN, a center-left think tank.Republican Party leaders counter that the panel is seeking to criminalize “legitimate political discourse,” and have censured its two Republican members for their involvement in the Jan. 6 inquiry. This week, a lobbyist close to Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, took the extraordinary step of hosting a fund-raising event for Cheney’s primary opponent, and more than 50 House Republicans attended the gathering.But, ultimately, the Jan. 6 committee will be judged by whether Americans view its findings as authoritative, fair and comprehensible, said Garrett Graff, the author of a new history of the Watergate scandal. Recalling the disappointment many Democrats felt upon the unveiling of Robert Mueller’s spare, legalistic account of the dealings between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, Graff said it was important for lawmakers to grab the public’s attention with a compelling narrative of the Jan. 6 events.“Congress can assign moral blame and moral responsibility in a way that Mueller couldn’t and Garland can’t,” Graff said. “I think it’s possible that the Jan. 6 committee can surprise us.”Members of the Jan. 6 committee have treaded carefully in trying to interview Trump allies.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesWhere will the investigation go next?To try to make some sense of it all, we spoke with Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The Times who has been covering the investigation for months. Our conversation, edited lightly for length and clarity:There’s been a constant dribble of news about the House investigation. Where would you say the inquiry stands? Is it in the final stages?I would say it’s in the third quarter, to use a sports metaphor. The committee has interviewed 800 witnesses, which is a ton, but there are probably at least 100 more people they’d like to talk to and some witnesses they want to re-interview.And the people they haven’t met with include some of the most important: Mike Pence, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani and Ivanka Trump.The committee is still shooting for public hearings in May, though I would not be surprised if those get pushed back again.You wrote this week about the hourslong gap in the records of Trump’s phone calls on the day of Jan. 6. Why are investigators so interested in that?The committee is highly interested in Trump’s activities the day of the Capitol riot, especially what he was doing for the 187 minutes during which he delayed making any statement to call off the violence. The committee has argued that his lack of action makes him culpable for the violence and sheds light into his mind-set.But the call logs are blank for the duration of the riot, so that presents a challenge for investigators as they try to determine exactly whom Trump was talking to during that pivotal time.This week, the panel heard from Jared Kushner, the former president’s son-in-law. What’s the holdup with the others you mentioned: Pence, Giuliani and Ivanka Trump?Each case is different, but each witness has been engaged in negotiations with the committee. Two of Pence’s top aides have already testified, causing his team to argue, according to what I’m told, that they have supplied the committee with plenty of testimony that alleviates the need for the former vice president to appear. Giuliani has made clear that he does not intend to provide information against Trump, but he is considering providing information about his dealings with members of Congress, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Ivanka Trump is also negotiating. Each of these is a sensitive dance, in which the committee wants to get information out of the witness without threatening him or her in a way that could lead to a contempt of Congress charge but no information.Our colleagues wrote that Attorney General Merrick Garland is under “growing political pressure” to move more aggressively with the Justice Department’s criminal inquiry. Is that a complaint you hear from House members, too?Yes, constantly — particularly with regard to the criminal contempt of Congress referral against Mark Meadows, Trump’s final chief of staff. Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, has encouraged Garland to move “with alacrity” against Meadows. And Representative Elaine Luria, Democrat of Virginia, made this statement this week: “Attorney General Garland, do your job so that we can do ours.”That said, there are signs the Justice Department investigation has entered a new phase. A grand jury in Washington has recently issued subpoenas (one of which we were able to review) that seek information about people “classified as V.I.P. attendees” at Trump’s Jan. 6 rally and about members of the executive and legislative branches who were involved in the “planning or execution” of any attempt to delay the certification of the 2020 election.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Justice Department widens inquiry. More

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      Battleground Nevada

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      The state will help determine Senate control in this year’s midterm elections. Nevada, perhaps more than any other state, has showcased the potential for a more diverse America to move the country’s politics to the left. Rising numbers of Asian American and Latino residents have helped Democrats win the state in the past four presidential elections. The party also holds both of Nevada’s Senate seats.How Nevada’s population has changed More

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      Ginni Thomas’s Texts Show Why Our Democracy Is in Danger  

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      A week has gone by and I’m still aghast. Still astonished. Still absorbing what Ginni Thomas said in those text messages to Mark Meadows, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, as she urged him to overturn the 2020 election, and what she apparently believes in her poisoned mind.So let’s please, please move past Will Smith and the deconstruction of that ugly incident and reallocate our attention to her behavior. It has broader and more profound consequences. It also explains why, despite my efforts not to, I sometimes feel almost hopeless about this country’s present and future.“Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!” Thomas wrote to Meadows in the days following the election, her derangement and despair wrought in a bonanza of exclamation points. “You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America’s constitutional governance at the precipice.”The precipice! I should haul out a few extra exclamation points myself, especially because Thomas went on to say that she and Meadows were watching “the Left” attempt “the greatest Heist of our History.”She’s up in arms. She’s uppercase. And she’s emblematic: Her gratuitously capitalized words distill what makes political discussion today so difficult and why our democracy is indeed in danger.“This Great President.” That’s no accidental pinkie — no clumsy thumb — on the shift key. Among today’s extreme partisans, who represent a frighteningly large slice of the electorate, a given president or politician is a commanding general in the battle of good versus evil. I mean Good versus Evil.Restraint is retro. Hyperbole is the order of the day. Thus, “precipice” is the new “edge,” “Heist” is the updated “scam,” and “of our History” is an essential qualifier, lest someone underestimate the threat and minimize the stakes.There’s no entertaining the thought that a majority of your fellow Americans may not share your views. In an age of extreme narcissism, that’s unimaginable, impossible, phantasmagorical.If the polls cast you in the minority, they’re wrong. If the vote runs contrary to your desires, it’s rigged. Or those fellow Americans just don’t matter, not like you do. You’re on the side of the angels. They’re trying to shepherd everyone into the abyss.That Manichaean mind-set is legible in Thomas’s language, which jettisons temperance and truth. There’s no oxygen for either in the right’s — excuse me, the Right’s — exaggerated sense of extreme grievance, which she so perfectly embodies.What a terrifying moment, in which the wife of a serving Supreme Court justice unabashedly exploits her insider access, ignores the idea of checks and balances, promotes conspiracy theories and essentially endorses insurrection. Her conduct isn’t some passing curiosity. It’s a sign of the times. And it’s a warning to us all.A Few Notes About ‘Don’t Say Gay’Octavio Jones/ReutersFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis is right. The words “Don’t Say Gay” appear nowhere in the “parental rights” legislation that he signed on Monday, which bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity with young schoolchildren in Florida. “Don’t Say Gay” is the negative nickname that the law’s opponents have given it, and DeSantis has deftly portrayed that nomenclature as liberal hysteria and leftist overreach.But that, too, is unfair. There are reasons aplenty to balk at what Florida has done — to see it as more than a simple caveat affecting only students through the third grade. And I say that as someone who is not pushing instruction on matters gay or trans for students in that age range, who doesn’t care a whit whether a 7-year-old knows the name Harvey Milk, who agrees that parents’ sensibilities and sensitivities must be factored into how schools operate.Here’s what DeSantis doesn’t cop to: a vagueness in the legislation’s language that suggests its potential application to children well beyond the third grade. Look at the words I’ve boldfaced in this clause of the law: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade three or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” What additional prohibitions — what future muzzling — are those phrases opening the door to?It’s a necessary question, because it’s coupled with this one: What’s motivating the law’s promoters and supporters, who’ve lifted this issue above so many others with more relevance to, and impact on, the quality of Floridians’ everyday lives?In case you missed it, DeSantis’s press secretary, Christina Pushaw, framed the bill as an important defense against pedophiles’ recruitment of children into homosexual activity. There’s no other way to read this tweet of hers: “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4-8 year old children.” She’s paid to articulate DeSantis’s viewpoints, and she’s peddling perhaps the nastiest, cruelest homophobic stereotype there is.Under fire for those remarks, she said that she was using her personal Twitter account during her off-work hours. How very reassuring.For the Love of SentencesGetty ImagesIn the Times newsletter Read Like the Wind, the book critic Molly Young spins many magical sentences, sometimes within a single paragraph, like this one in a recent reflection on the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and his novel “Ubik”: “It may be worth noting that what jelly beans were to President Reagan, amphetamine tablets were to Dick. The man simply loved his uppers. Sometimes I approximate his state of mind by bolting a Monster energy drink before settling in for some sci-fi. (My favorite flavor of Monster is called ‘Assault.’ It tastes like Coca-Cola mixed with poison.) The blurb on this copy of ‘Ubik’ describes Dick as ‘The most brilliant SF mind on any planet.’ Any planet!” (Thanks to Zoe Zagorski of Portland, Ore., and Conrad Macina of Landing, N.J., for nominating Molly’s prose.)Sticking with Times book critics, here’s Alexandra Jacobs in her recent review of “Truly, Madly,” by Stephen Galloway, which describes Vivien Leigh’s romance with a certain screen and stage legend named Laurence: “Her three-decade entanglement with Olivier, considered one of the greatest talents of his generation, was its own sort of doomed flight: It soared sharply into the heavens, then was rocked with turbulence before its inevitable tumble down to earth and straight through to hell.” (Sandy Peters, Phoenix)Also in The Times, Ligaya Mishan, contemplating lentils, had lyrical leguminous fun: “They start out as pebbles in the hand, hard and tiny — in certain parts of the world, they are the size against which all small things are measured. Then, in the pot, their little stony hearts melt. They soften, loosen up and let other flavors in. They’re still discrete, still individuals, but now joined in common cause, and they swell and grow plump, so you end up with more than twice as much, velvety and lush.” (Stella Liu, Manhattan)Paul Krugman noted: “Putin’s response to failure in Ukraine has been extremely Trumpian: insisting that his invasion is all going ‘according to plan,’ refusing to admit having made any mistakes and whining about cancel culture. I’m half expecting him to release battle maps crudely modified with a Sharpie.” (Avi Liveson, Chatham, N.J., and Valerie Masin, Boston, among others)And Bret Stephens, in his weekly back-and-forth with Gail Collins, wrote: “It looks like we have a new superinfectious subvariant of Covid to keep us awake at night. Forget Omicron, now we’ve got Omigod.” (Kris Schaff, Omaha, Neb., and Larry Berman, Westfield, N.J.)In National Parks magazine, Jacob Baynham reported on a positive reaction to the meatless, fungus-based breakfast patties he cooked for his family one morning: “Our disobedient dog begged at my feet, an endorsement tempered by the fact that he also eats mouth guards, used tissues and socks.” (Peter Alexander, Longmont, Colo.)In a review of “Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman,” by Susanne Schattenberg, in The London Review of Books, Neal Ascherson wrote: “Polish communism was dead, though it took nearly eight years for the nation to wriggle out from under the corpse.” (George Milman, Beverly Hills, Calif.)And in his Weekly Dish newsletter on Substack, Andrew Sullivan pondered the rebirth of imperial Russia with this observation: “The greatest mistake liberals make when assessing reactionaryism is to underestimate it. There is a profound, mesmerizing allure — intensified by disillusion with the shallows of modernity — to the idea of recovering some great meaning from decades or centuries gone by, to resurrect and resuscitate it, to blast away all the incoherence and instability of postmodern life into a new collective, ancient meaning.” (Stephen Ranger, Toronto)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here, and please include your name and place of residence.On a Personal Note (Reader Mailbag Edition)ReganFrank BruniI’ve felt the lash of your anger when I’ve written harshly about a public figure you admire. I’ve experienced the sting of your disappointment when I’ve praised a book or movie that you then checked out and didn’t like at all. In a manner that pleases me — because it tells me that you’re engaged — you’re quick to give me feedback, bitter as well as sweet.And you let me have it about my possible miscoloring of a beautiful bird.I wrote last week about “flares of orange” outside my windows in Chapel Hill, N.C., and I guessed that those were cardinals flying by. Many of you were scandalized and sent me emails noting that cardinals are red. You recommended apps that could help me with my avian ineptitude. You urged me to educate myself about the natural world. I could feel myself being marched off to flora-and-fauna boot camp — which is probably where I indeed belong.My feathered friends are definitely cardinals, and they may well have been more red than orange — my grasp of color is less than firm. But cardinals, it turns out, can be orange or at least orange-ish red. They’re chromatically noncommittal. I was probably being sloppy with my description of those “flares,” but maybe my yard’s cardinals are special? I’ll keep an eye peeled and a color wheel at hand and I’ll let you know.You wrote me, too, with a complaint that I’ve also fielded from many of you in the past: Where’s Regan? When a few newsletters go by without any photo of, or tribute to, my canine companion, some of you object and others actually worry.I’m happy to alleviate your concern with the picture at the top of this section of the newsletter. It’s Regan rolling around recently in the front yard, just for the tactile sensation and pure fun of it. She does that sometimes when she’s excited, or when there’s a perfect nip in the air, or maybe when she’s bored, or possibly when she feels some generous impulse to entertain me. Down she goes and around she twists. Each of my giggles prompts more of her squiggles. We have this down to a clownish science.Many of you also point out errors of language, and Ervin Duggan of Davidson, N.C., flagged my statement last week that Ted Cruz, so odious during the confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, at least deserved points for “gumption.” “Gumption” actually or usually means initiative or resourcefulness, and I indeed didn’t intend to compliment the Texas senator for either. I was steering toward something more along the lines of audacity and took a wrong turn. Maybe I had, in my mind, “bumption,” which isn’t a word according to several dictionaries I consulted but has, in the past, circulated a bit as a kin to overblown arrogance. Cruz possesses that in spades.Judge Jackson doesn’t, as best I can tell. None of you complained that in my assessment of the hearing, I never digressed from my disgust over many senators’ bad behavior to praise her for a preternatural degree of restraint. But I’ll say it: I should have. She comported herself with dignity, which strikes me as the ideal cornerstone of judicial character. More

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      Justice Dept. Widens Jan. 6 Inquiry to More Pro-Trump Figures

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      Federal prosecutors have been seeking documents and testimony about the fake electors scheme and the planning for the rally just before the storming of the Capitol.Federal prosecutors have substantially widened their Jan. 6 investigation to examine the possible culpability of a broad range of figures involved in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, people familiar with the inquiry said on Wednesday.The investigation now encompasses the possible involvement of other government officials in Mr. Trump’s attempts to obstruct the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory and the push by some Trump allies to promote slates of fake electors, they said.Prosecutors are also asking about planning for the rallies that preceded the assault on the Capitol, including the rally on the Ellipse on Jan. 6 of last year, just before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol.The federal investigation initially focused largely on the rioters who had entered the Capitol, an effort that has led to more than 700 arrests. But the Justice Department appears to have moved into a new phase, seeking information about people more closely tied to Mr. Trump. This development comes amid growing political pressure on Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to move more aggressively on the case.A grand jury sitting in Washington is investigating the rallies that preceded the storming of the Capitol, a person familiar with the matter said.One of the subpoenas, which was reviewed by The New York Times, sought information about people “classified as VIP attendees” at Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 rally.It also sought information about members of the executive and legislative branches who had been involved in the “planning or execution of any rally or any attempt to obstruct, influence, impede or delay” the certification of the 2020 election.And it asked about the effort by Trump supporters to put forward alternate slates of electors as Mr. Trump and his allies were seeking to challenge the certification of the Electoral College outcome by Congress on Jan. 6.Another person briefed on the grand jury investigation said at least one person involved in the logistics of the Jan. 6 rally had been asked to appear.In pursuing Jan. 6 cases, prosecutors have been assembling evidence documenting how defendants have cited statements from Mr. Trump to explain why they stormed the Capitol. And prosecutors have cited in some cases a Twitter post from Mr. Trump weeks before Jan. 6 exhorting his followers to come to Washington, a call that motivated extremist groups in particular.The expanded criminal inquiry is unfolding as a separate investigation by the House select committee on the Capitol riot is gathering evidence about Mr. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power and weighing the possibility of making a criminal referral of Mr. Trump to the Justice Department.On Monday, a federal judge in California, in a civil case involving the House committee, concluded that Mr. Trump likely engaged in criminal conduct, including obstructing the work of Congress and conspiring to defraud the United States.Mr. Garland has given little public indication of whether the Justice Department would consider prosecuting Mr. Trump, saying only that the department will follow the facts wherever they lead.But the expanded inquiry, elements of which were reported earlier by the Washington Post, suggests that prosecutors are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry. Those include any connections between the attack on the Capitol and the organizers and prominent participants in the rally on the Ellipse, and potential criminality in the promotion of pro-Trump slates of electors to replace slates named by states won by Mr. Biden.The Justice Department previously said it was looking into the slates of electors that had falsely declared Mr. Trump the victor in seven swing states won by Mr. Biden.Even as election officials in the seven contested states sent official lists of electors who had voted for Mr. Biden to the Electoral College, the fake slates claimed Mr. Trump was the winner in an apparent bid to subvert the election outcome.Lawmakers, state officials and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot had asked the Justice Department to look into the role played by those fake electors and the documents they submitted to the National Archives on Dec. 14, 2020. The grand jury subpoenas suggest that prosecutors are seeking to gather evidence of whether submitting the documents to a federal agency amounted to a crime.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4Jan. 6 call logs. More

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      Cawthorn Draws Criticism From Republicans Over Cocaine and Orgies Comments

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      For Mr. Cawthorn, a pro-Trump North Carolina congressman, youthful brashness that helped him win his seat now strikes some voters as recklessness. HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. — In the era of Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party — when making falsehoods about an election isn’t disqualifying, when heckling a president at the State of the Union is no big deal, when attending an event tied to white supremacists doesn’t lead to exile — it may still be possible for a hard-right member of Congress to go too far.That is the object lesson of Representative Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, the House’s youngest member, whose bid for a second term is in jeopardy after a series of incendiary statements and personal foibles have soured many former supporters.“I voted for Madison, but I think I’ll pass now because of integrity issues,’’ said John Harper, a retired furniture finisher in Franklin, N.C., at a Republican event in Mr. Cawthorn’s district last week. “I was fooled last time. I won’t be fooled again.”Mr. Cawthorn, 26, called President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine “a thug” and his country “incredibly evil” as Russian tanks rolled in. The congressman has made headlines for bringing a knife to a school board meeting and bringing a gun through airport security. Mr. Cawthorn, who has used a wheelchair since being injured in an automobile accident when he was 18, was charged this month with driving with a revoked license. He has a May court date on the misdemeanor count that carries jail time. Unlike some other far-right members of Congress — including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, both of whom booed President Biden during his State of the Union speech — Mr. Cawthorn is also saddled with a yearslong series of hyperbolic claims about his personal life, raising questions about his honesty.One of those claims finally set off his fellow House Republicans this week: a bizarre assertion he made on a conservative YouTube channel that people he “looked up to” in Washington — presumably Republican lawmakers — invited him to orgies and used cocaine. On Tuesday, upset House Republicans at a closed-door meeting questioned the remarks, and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, told colleagues that he would speak to Mr. Cawthorn. On Wednesday, he did so. Afterward, Mr. McCarthy told reporters that Mr. Cawthorn admitted the allegations were untrue. The minority leader said that he told the freshman congressman that he had lost trust in him and that he needed to turn his life around. Mr. McCarthy, who aspires to be House speaker, acted only after declining to discipline other members for norm-shattering behavior and accusations. They include Representatives Paul Gosar of Arizona, who posted an animated video showing him killing a Democratic congresswoman, and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is under federal investigation for allegations of sex trafficking. Although Mr. McCarthy recently condemned Ms. Taylor Greene for an appearance at a conference organized by a white supremacist, he refused last year to back her removal from committees for endorsing violent behavior and spreading bigoted conspiracy theories. Well before Mr. Cawthorn’s latest episode, his youthful brashness — which once appealed to the conservative older voters of far-west North Carolina — struck some as reckless and immature. Interviews last week with Republican voters and party leaders in his district — a largely working-class region set amid the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains — suggested that his impetuousness is working against him.“People of western North Carolina are tired of the antics,’’ said Michele Woodhouse, the elected Republican chair of Mr. Cawthorn’s district and a former staunch supporter. Now she is running against him in the primary in May.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.Mr. Cawthorn faces a total of seven Republican challengers, a field that includes other former supporters, who accuse him of neglecting constituents while chasing Instagram followers with fiery rhetoric and pursuing donors with expensive travel outside the state.In the past, North Carolina’s Republican officials largely held their tongues about Mr. Cawthorn. His comments about Ukraine ushered in more open criticism, including from Senator Thom Tillis and the State House speaker, Tim Moore, who called him “reckless” in The News & Observer. The congressman, who declined repeated requests for an interview, seemed to acknowledge some of the doubts about him at a debate in Henderson County on Saturday. “I’ll be the first to admit, 26 years old, I don’t have all the wisdom in the world,’’ he told the crowd. “Obviously when it comes to driving, I’ve got some work to do.’’The audience, largely voters with gray hair, laughed, and some applauded.The audience listens during the primary debate at Blue Ridge Community College in Flat Rock, N.C., on Saturday.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesLuke Ball, a spokesman for Mr. Cawthorn, predicted that Mr. Cawthorn would easily win the primary and suggested that voters at the district gatherings were unrepresentative. “Some attending local G.O.P. events are affiliated with Congressman Cawthorn’s primary opponents and have welcomed the opportunity to slight Mr. Cawthorn’s service and candidacy,’’ Mr. Ball said.Jennifer Cook, a nurse in Macon County, attended one such gathering to support her husband, who is running for sheriff. She said she voted for Mr. Cawthorn in 2020 but has no plans to do it again. “Madison has disappointed me in his actions on many things since he was elected,’’ Ms. Cook said. “I think driving without a license is saying, ‘I can do what I want, the law doesn’t pertain to me.’ That’s not the kind of person I want representing me.’’Mr. Cawthorn has the advantage of broad name recognition in a field of challengers who, with a couple of exceptions, have raised little money needed to become better known. He also has the endorsement of Mr. Trump, whom Mr. Cawthorn identified on Saturday as “a man who mentors me.”An internal poll of likely Republican voters this month for a Cawthorn rival showed the congressman leading the field with 52 percent and 17 percent undecided. “Cawthorn is right on the bubble of the 50 percent mark; incumbents who slip below that during the campaign are in danger,’’ wrote Glen Bolger, a top Republican pollster who conducted the poll.Mr. Cawthorn did himself no favors last year when he announced he would run in a new district near Charlotte, the state’s largest city. Political insiders speculated that he sought a higher profile in a major media market ahead of an eventual statewide run. But then legal challenges led to a redrawn state congressional map, and Mr. Cawthorn’s planned new district tilted Democratic. So he returned home to his old district, where viable contenders had joined the race in his absence.“Had he not flirted with another district, he wouldn’t be in this situation, where there’s a question of whether he’ll win this primary,’’ said Christopher Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, N.C. “It’s the thing that opened the door for the field to expand.”It’s unclear if Mr. Cawthorn’s temporary desertion has penetrated to average voters, even if it angers party officials. “I believe he probably has lost most of the local-level Republican movers and shakers,’’ said David Baker, a voter who attended a recent Republican convention in Jackson County. But Mr. Baker, an employee benefits expert, said rank-and-file Republicans like himself still support Mr. Cawthorn because of his “clarity on those issues that were so important to Trump.”Mr. Cawthorn was raised in Hendersonville, N.C., a small community where he was home-schooled. His meteoric rise began with his defeat of a primary candidate handpicked to fill the seat held by former Representative Mark Meadows, who was appointed Mr. Trump’s White House chief of staff.During the 2020 campaign, a group of alumni of Patrick Henry College, which Mr. Cawthorn briefly attended, accused him of “sexually predatory behavior,’’ which he denied. He suggested during the campaign that his 2014 auto accident had “derailed” his plans to attend the Naval Academy. Reporting showed that his Annapolis application had already been rejected before the crash. Mr. Cawthorn amplified false accusations of election fraud at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington that preceded the riot at the Capitol.Jim Bourg/ReutersDays after being sworn in, Mr. Cawthorn addressed the rally behind the White House on Jan. 6 that preceded the violent siege of the Capitol. He amplified false conspiracies of fraud in the presidential election. Days earlier, he had tweeted, “It’s time to fight.’’ In the aftermath of the riot, he denounced the violence, writing in a tweet that “it wasn’t patriotism it was thuggery.”This year, a group of North Carolina voters sought to have Mr. Cawthorn disqualified from re-election because of his participation in an “insurrection.” A judge blocked the effort.George Erwin, a retired county sheriff who organized a group of law enforcement officials to endorse Mr. Cawthorn in 2020, said he no longer backed him, in part because of his actions around Jan. 6.“The words that come out of his mouth incite people,’’ said Mr. Erwin, who is now supporting a Cawthorn challenger, Rod Honeycutt, a retired Army colonel. “He says he backs the blue, but what he does is, he backs them in a corner with his antics. If you really want to back the blue, obey the law.”The biggest primary threat to Mr. Cawthorn may come from a state senator, Chuck Edwards, who has the endorsements of most members of the state legislature in the district.State Senator Chuck Edwards, who owns several McDonald’s franchises, may be the biggest primary threat to Mr. Cawthorn.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMichele Woodhouse, a former supporter of Mr. Cawthorn, is now running against him in the Republican primary.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesMr. Edwards, the owner of several McDonald’s franchises, had more than $300,000 in his campaign account at the end of last year, more than Mr. Cawthorn reported. Mr. Cawthorn has been one of the House’s top fund-raisers, pulling in $2.8 million in 2021 thanks to a national donor base, but he has also spent prodigiously, with more than half going toward fund-raising. He spent $28,000 on campaign air travel and $11,000 at a Waldorf Astoria hotel in Orlando, according to an analysis by The Asheville Citizen Times.At the debate, Mr. Edwards confined his attacks to a resolution Mr. Cawthorn introduced in Washington: a 52-point plan calling for a one-third reduction in federal spending, as well as reforming Social Security by “incentivizing people to work and get off entitlement programs.’’“I would not cut Social Security benefits by a third, as is suggested in our congressman’s garbled 52-point plan for America,’’ Mr. Edwards said. “Go read it,’’ he told the audience. “It would require you to go back to work to collect your Social Security.”Mr. Cawthorn responded that he wants to cut “wasteful” spending but not Social Security. Mr. Cawthorn, seated at the far-right of the table, at a debate last Saturday in Flat Rock, N.C., with seven Republican rivals.Mike Belleme for The New York TimesTo prevail in the primary on May 17, a candidate must win with more than 30 percent of the vote; if not, the top two finishers will face a runoff. There is broad speculation over whether Mr. Cawthorn, even as the front-runner, can surpass 30 percent. Still, whether his rivals can pull down his support to such a threshold remains to be seen. The leading Democrat in the race, Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, is considered a long shot in a district that Mr. Trump won by 10 percentage points.Chelsea Walsh, a life insurance agent who volunteered for Mr. Cawthorn in 2020 but said she is open to other candidates now, predicted a runoff between Mr. Cawthorn and Mr. Edwards.“If I had to pick, I would say Madison is still the front-runner,’’ she said. “But he has his work cut out for him.”Annie Karni More