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      Jan. 6 Inquiry Subpoenas 6 Tied to False Pro-Trump Elector Effort

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      The committee is digging deeper into a plan by former President Donald J. Trump’s allies to reverse his election loss in key states by sending fake slates of electors who would say he won.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol subpoenaed two of Donald J. Trump’s campaign aides and Republican Party officials from battleground states on Tuesday as it dug deeper into a plan to use false slates of electors to help the former president stay in office after he lost the 2020 election.The use of bogus slates was one of the more audacious gambits employed by allies of Mr. Trump to try to keep the presidency in his hands, and the committee’s members and investigators have made it increasingly clear in recent days that they believe the effort — along with proposals to seize voting machines — was a major threat to democracy.Among those subpoenaed on Tuesday were Michael A. Roman and Gary Michael Brown, who served as the director and the deputy director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump’s campaign. The panel also summoned Douglas V. Mastriano, a Pennsylvania state senator; Laura Cox, the former chairwoman of Michigan’s Republican Party; Mark W. Finchem, an Arizona state legislator; and Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of Arizona’s Republican Party.In letters accompanying the subpoenas, the committee said it had obtained communications that showed Mr. Roman’s and Mr. Brown’s “involvement in a coordinated strategy to contact Republican members of state legislatures in certain states that former President Trump had lost and urge them to ‘reclaim’ their authority by sending an alternate slate of electors that would support former President Trump.”“It appears that you helped direct the Trump campaign staffers participating in this effort,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, wrote to Mr. Roman.The committee said that Mr. Finchem, who was on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, was in communication with leaders from the “Stop the Steal” movement regarding a rally at the Capitol, and that Mr. Finchem said he was in Washington to “deliver an evidence book and letter to Vice President Pence showing key evidence of fraud in the Arizona presidential election, and asking him to consider postponing the award of electors.”In its letter to Ms. Cox, the panel said it had evidence that she witnessed Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, pressure state lawmakers to disregard the election results in favor of Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Michigan and say that certifying the results would be a “criminal act.”After the November election was over, Ms. Ward sent a message to an Arizona elections official warning to “stop the counting,” according to the committee. She also “apparently spoke with former President Trump and members of his staff about election certification issues in Arizona” and “posted a video advancing unsubstantiated theories of election interference by Dominion Voting Systems along with a link to a donation page to benefit the Arizona Republican Party,” the committee said.After the election, Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party, warned an Arizona elections official to “stop the counting,” according to the House committee.Ross D. Franklin/Associated PressMs. Ward also claimed to be an “alternate” elector for Mr. Trump, even though Mr. Biden won Arizona.Ms. Ward has already filed a lawsuit to try to block the committee from gaining access to logs of her phone calls.The committee said Mr. Mastriano had spoken directly with Mr. Trump about his “postelection activities.” Mr. Mastriano, a former Army officer, was also on the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, though he later explained in a statement that “he followed the directions of the Capitol Police and respected all police lines” that day.The subpoenas instruct the witnesses to produce documents and sit for depositions in March.“The select committee is seeking information about efforts to send false slates of electors to Washington and change the outcome of the 2020 election,” Mr. Thompson said, adding, “The select committee has heard from more than 550 witnesses, and we expect these six individuals to cooperate as well as we work to tell the American people the full story about the violence of Jan. 6 and its causes.”The six did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.The scheme to employ the so-called alternate electors was one of Mr. Trump’s most expansive efforts to overturn the election. It began even before some states had finished counting ballots and culminated in the pressure placed on Mr. Pence to throw out legitimate votes for Mr. Biden when he presided over the joint congressional session to certify the election outcome.At various times, the gambit involved lawyers, state lawmakers and top White House aides.The New York Times reported this month on legal memos that show some of the earliest known origins of what became the rationale for the use of alternate electors.Key Developments in the Jan. 6 InvestigationCard 1 of 3Giuliani in talks to testify. More

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      2020 Election Denier Will Run for Top Elections Position in Colorado

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      Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, has been stripped of her county election oversight but is seeking to oversee her state’s elections as secretary of state.A Republican county clerk in Colorado who was stripped of her responsibility of overseeing county elections is joining a growing movement of people throughout the country who spread false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election and want to oversee the next one.Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk, who is facing accusations that she breached the security of voting machines, announced on Monday that she would run to be the top elections official in Colorado.At least three Republican challengers are already running to unseat the current Colorado secretary of state, Jena Griswold, a Democrat.Colorado is a purple state that President Biden won with 55 percent of the vote in 2020. The state’s primary is on June 28, and Colorado is one of 27 states whose top elections official will be on the ballot this year.In 2020, when former President Donald J. Trump and his allies sought to undo the results of the election, they focused their pressure campaign on these relatively little-known officeholders.“I am the wall between your vote and nationalized elections,” Ms. Peters said during an appearance Monday on a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, the embattled former top aide to Mr. Trump. “They are coming after me because I am standing in their way — of truth, transparency and elections held closest to the people.”Ms. Griswold, who is also the head of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said in a statement on Monday that Ms. Peters was “unfit to be secretary of state and a danger to Colorado elections,” citing Ms. Peters’s attempts to discredit the results of the 2020 presidential election.Ms. Peters did not immediately respond to telephone and email messages on Monday seeking comment.Elected in 2018, Ms. Peters took office as clerk and recorder of Mesa County, in far western Colorado, in 2019. By late 2021 a Mesa County Court judge had upheld Ms. Griswold’s removing Ms. Peters from overseeing elections in the county and replacing her with an appointee.In May of last year, Ms. Peters and two other people entered a secure area of a warehouse in Mesa County where crucial election information was stored. They copied hard drives and election-management software from voting machines, the authorities said.In early August, the conservative website Gateway Pundit posted passwords for the county’s election machines. In October Ms. Peters spoke at a gathering in South Dakota of people determined to show that the 2020 election had been stolen from Mr. Trump.The gathering also featured a large screen that, at one point, showed the software from the election machines in Mesa County.Ms. Griswold said her office had concluded that the passwords leaked out when Ms. Peters enlisted a staff member to accompany her to surreptitiously record a routine voting-machine maintenance procedure. State and county officials announced last month that a grand jury was looking into allegations of tampering with Mesa County election equipment and “official misconduct.”More recently, Ms. Peters was briefly detained by the police when she obstructed efforts by officials with the local district attorney to serve a search warrant for her iPad. Ms. Peters may have used the iPad to record a court proceeding related to one of her deputies, according to Stephanie Reecy, a spokeswoman for the county.In video of the Feb. 8 encounter, taken by a bystander and posted on Twitter, Ms. Peters can be heard repeatedly saying, “Let go of me,” as officers seek to detain her. “It hurts. Let go of me,” she says, before bending her leg and raising her foot toward the officer standing behind her.An officer responds, “Do not kick,” according to body camera video posted by KJCT News 8, a local station. “Do you understand?”Ms. Peters was charged with obstructing a peace officer and obstructing government operations, according to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office. She turned herself in to the authorities on Thursday, posted $500 bond and was released, according to county officials.“I still have the bruises on my arm where they manhandled me,” Ms. Peters told Mr. Bannon on Monday. Later she said: “I just want to say I love the people. That’s why I’m doing this.”Mr. Bannon said Ms. Peters had been targeted because of her fight against “this globalist apparatus.”“Thank you,” Ms. Peters told the host. “I’ll work hard for you guys.” More

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      Quick Fix to Help Overwhelmed Border Officials Has Left Migrants in Limbo

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      Republicans say the policy helps undocumented immigrants disappear; many immigrants say it has prevented them from following the government’s instructions.WASHINGTON — A Haitian couple and their young son were among thousands of undocumented immigrants whom U.S. officials decided to allow entry through the southwest border last summer — part of a record-setting surge in unauthorized crossings over the past year.Beginning last spring, immigration officials were so overwhelmed that they admitted tens of thousands of migrants while issuing them a new document that did not include the typical hearing dates or identification numbers recognized in the immigration court system. The change sped up the process of releasing them into the country, but also made it much harder for the new arrivals to start applying for asylum — and for the government to track them.Months later, the government has not been able to complete the processing started at the border, showing how ill prepared the system was for the surge and creating a practical and political quagmire for the Biden administration.President Biden pledged as a candidate to fix the country’s broken immigration system, a campaign mantra that resonated with many voters after the harsh policies of President Donald J. Trump. But over Mr. Biden’s first year in office, his administration’s response to the surge in migration has consisted largely of crisis-driven reactions — including the faster entry process.Migrants were caught crossing the southwest border illegally more than 2 million times between December 2020 and December 2021, the largest number since at least 1960. They came not just from Central America and the Caribbean but from around the world, many fleeing persecution and economic hardship with the expectation that Mr. Biden would be more welcoming than Mr. Trump.Although migrants were expelled in a little more than half the cases, more than 400,000 of them were released into the country for a variety of reasons during Mr. Biden’s first year in office. Of those, more than 94,000 were released through the sped-up process — a streamlined version of a longtime practice that critics call “catch and release,” in which those who are apprehended at the border are released from custody pending their immigration court proceedings. These migrants were instructed to register with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement within 60 days to complete the process the border officials started. But in some parts of the country, local ICE offices were overwhelmed and unable to give them appointments. So the Haitian family and other new arrivals have spent months trying in vain to check in with ICE and initiate their court cases. “It was a quick fix — ‘Deal with them later,’” said Evangeline Chan, an immigration lawyer in New York. “But they have not been able to.”Human rights advocates say the change has made it harder for those seeking asylum to get by while they wait to be officially recognized in the immigration system. Republicans, in the meantime, have pounced on the Biden administration for releasing undocumented immigrants into the country with even less ability to keep track of them.“Those who cross our border illegally should be detained and deported, not released into the interior of our country on an unenforceable promise to reappear,” 80 Republican House members wrote in a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement earlier this month. “It is nothing short of reckless.”Migrants in Del Rio, Texas, in 2020. Under a Trump administration policy, many asylum seekers had to wait in Mexico until U.S. immigration judges ruled on their cases.Verónica G. Cárdenas for The New York TimesA ‘huge mess’Mr. Trump’s policy was to restrict the flow of asylum seekers at the southwest border by making it harder to qualify and by making some people wait in Mexico before they could enter the country to apply. In some cases, applicants had to stay in Mexico until U.S. immigration judges ruled on their cases.The most restrictive policy, however, came at the beginning of the pandemic when the federal government started using an obscure public health rule known as Title 42 to turn migrants away at the border, including those seeking asylum.Even so, hundreds of thousands have been allowed into the country for a variety of reasons including a lack of detention space because of pandemic precautions. The Biden administration has also made exceptions for humanitarian reasons, particularly for families and children.Mr. Biden’s stated goal is to reverse Mr. Trump’s harshest immigration policies and be more welcoming to immigrants, but so far, immigration and human rights advocates say he has not come through, in large part because he has kept the public health order in place. Without it, Mr. Biden would have to make the tough choice of releasing even more undocumented immigrants into the country to await proceedings or detaining them..A record number of migrants were caught illegally crossing the southern U.S. border in President Biden’s first year in office, putting his administration in crisis-reaction mode. Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesAs of the end of January, nearly 33,000 immigrants who were issued documents without court dates and the typical identification number had missed their deadline to check in and start their proceedings in immigration court, according to an ICE official speaking on condition of anonymity. It is impossible to know how many have tried to check in with ICE to get court cases started and how many have chosen not to.Hopeful that immigration will prove a potent campaign issue, Republicans are blaming Mr. Biden for the sharp increase in migrants at the border because of his campaign promise that his administration would be more welcoming than the last. His response to the surge, they say, has only made things worse.“D.H.S. was forced to deal with an unmitigated disaster, and notices to report was one of the desperate policies it implemented trying to cope,” Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement. The streamlined document, known as a notice to report, he added, “just exacerbated the problem.”Some immigration advocates agree.“This N.T.R. situation is a huge mess that everyone is trying to navigate right now,” Emily Haverkamp, an immigration lawyer and expert on asylum policies, said.The potential for complications with the expedited processing was not lost on some members of the Biden administration, according to several current and former administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the internal debate. But some officials in the Department of Homeland Security argued that border officials could not have handled the surge of migrants without the expedited option to release them into the country.Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, head to request asylum in El Paso, Texas. Border officials have been overwhelmed by the surge in illegal crossings.Jose Luis Gonzalez/ReutersA ‘vicious cycle’After setting off last June on a treacherous journey from Chile — where they had relocated to years earlier — the Haitian family made it to Texas in August, where border officials released them without a court summons and told them to report to an immigration office once they reached Miami, their destination.When they did so, the office was closed, operating on a reduced schedule because of the pandemic. When they tried to register online, they were told they would not get an appointment to finish their paperwork and receive official identification numbers, known as alien numbers, until 2032. When they wrote to an ICE email address, the automated response said the agency needed the family’s alien numbers.“It’s a vicious cycle,” the husband said through a translator.The delays have been felt most acutely in Miami, New York, Houston and Los Angeles, where many of the recent immigrants have settled. Miami appears to have the biggest backlog, and the Homeland Security Department said it is in the process of sending more staff to there to help address it.Once people are officially entered into the immigration court system — now facing its greatest backlog in history — the average wait for an initial court appearance is nearly five years, according to data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.The Haitian couple, like most new immigrants, are not authorized to work, making it impossible to earn an honest living; they are residing with other Haitian immigrants in the Miami region. They tried for months to enroll their son in kindergarten, facing bureaucratic roadblocks at every turn. They cannot afford a lawyer to help them find a way to comply with the government.Some of their challenges are standard for people stuck in the broken immigration system; other challenges are new, resulting from the fact that they were released without being enrolled in immigration court proceedings.“You’re more under the radar and you’re more in the shadows,” Ruby Powers, an immigration lawyer in Texas, said.Stuck in this gray area, immigrants have to wait even longer to apply for a work permit. Once they have the work permit, immigrants can apply for a Social Security Number, which makes it possible to start settling in. With a Social Security Number, an asylum-seeking immigrant can apply for a driver’s license in many states, open a bank account, enter a contract for a cellular phone, and more.In the past, families willing to house new immigrants could count on them eventually getting permission to work, said Leonie Hermantin, the director of development, communications and strategic planning at the Sant La Haitian Community Center in North Miami.Leonie Hermantin of the Sant La Haitian Community Center in North Miami, speaking with a Haitian family who had recently arrived in the U.S.Scott McIntyre for The New York Times“Now you have people who are stuck staying at people’s houses who are getting increasingly inhospitable,” she said, adding that some will soon face homelessness. “They are in this state of limbo. We at social service agencies — we just don’t know what to do.” More

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      The Conservative Case for Reforming the Electoral Count Act

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      The clear and present danger to our democracy now is that former President Donald Trump and his political allies appear prepared to exploit the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the law governing the counting of votes for president and vice president, to seize the presidency in 2024 if Mr. Trump or his anointed candidate is not elected by the American people.The convoluted language in the law gives Congress the power to determine the presidency if it concludes that Electoral College slates representing the winning candidate were not “lawfully certified” or “regularly given” — vague and undefined terms — regardless of whether there is proof of illegal vote tampering. After the 2020 election, Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri tried to capitalize on those ambiguities in the law to do Mr. Trump’s bidding, mounting a case for overturning the results in some Biden-won states on little more than a wish. Looking ahead to the next presidential election, Mr. Trump is once again counting on a sympathetic and malleable Congress and willing states to use the Electoral Count Act to his advantage.He confirmed as much in a twisted admission of both his past and future intent earlier this month, claiming that congressional efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act actually prove that Mike Pence had the power to overturn the 2020 presidential election because of the alleged “irregularities.” The former vice president pushed back forcefully, calling Mr. Trump “wrong.”The back-and-forth repudiations by Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence lay bare two very different visions for the Republican Party. Mr. Trump and his allies insist that the 2020 election was “stolen,” a product of fraudulent voting and certifications of electors who were not properly selected. Over a year after the election, they continue to cling to these disproved allegations, claiming that these “irregularities” were all the evidence Mr. Pence needed to overturn the results, and demanding that the rest of the G.O.P. embrace their lies. The balance of the Republican Party, mystifyingly stymied by Mr. Trump, rejects these lies, but, as if they have fallen through the rabbit hole into Alice’s Wonderland, they are confused as to exactly how to move on from the 2020 election when their putative leader remains bewilderingly intent on driving the wedge between the believers in his lies and the disbelievers.This political fissure in the Republican Party was bound to intensify sooner or later, and now it has, presenting an existential threat to the party in 2024. If these festering divisions cost the Republicans in the midterm elections and jeopardize their chances of reclaiming the presidency in 2024, which they well could, the believers and disbelievers alike will suffer.While the Republicans are transfixed by their own political predicaments, and the Democrats by theirs, the right course is for both parties to set aside their partisan interests and reform the Electoral Count Act, which ought not be a partisan undertaking.Democrats, for their part, should regard reform of the Electoral Count Act as a victory — essential to shore up our faltering democracy and to prevent another attack like the one at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. These are actually the worthiest of objectives.Republicans should want to reform the law for these same reasons, and more. Of course, some may never support reform of the Electoral Count Act simply because the former president has voiced his opposition to the efforts to revise it. But there are consequential reasons of constitutional and political principle for the large remainder of Republicans to favor reform in spite of the former president’s opposition.Republicans are proponents of limited federal government. They oppose aggregation of power in Washington and want it dispersed to the states. It should be anathema to them that Congress has the power to overturn the will of the American people in an election that, by constitutional prescription, is administered by the states, not Washington. If the Democrats are willing to divest themselves of the power to decide the presidency that the 49th Congress wrongly assumed 135 years ago, then it would be the height of political hypocrisy for the Republicans to refuse to divest theirs.Constitutional conservatives, especially, should want Electoral Count Act reform, because they should be the first to understand that the law is plainly unconstitutional. Nothing in the Constitution empowers Congress to decide the validity of the electoral slates submitted by the states. In fact, the Constitution gives Congress no role whatsoever in choosing the president, save in the circumstance where no presidential candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes cast.Trump acolytes like Mr. Cruz and Mr. Hawley should appreciate the need to reform this unconstitutional law. They are also politically smart enough to understand that however likely it is that the Republican presidential candidate will lose in 2024, it is just as likely that he or she will win. Attempts to time reform based on handicapping the quadrennial presidential election are futile, and no Republican should want to be an accessory to any successful attempt to overturn the next election — including an effort by Democrats to exploit the law.If the Republicans want to prevent the Electoral Count Act from being exploited in 2024, several fundamental reforms are needed. First, Congress should formally give the federal courts, up to and including the Supreme Court, the power to resolve disputes over state electors and to ensure compliance with the established procedures for selecting presidential electors — and require the judiciary’s expeditious resolution of these disputes. Congress should then require itself to count the votes of electors that the federal courts have determined to be properly certified under state law.Congress should also increase the number of members required both to voice an objection and to sustain one to as high a number as politically palatable. At the moment, only one member of each chamber is necessary to send an objection to the Senate and House for debate and resolution — an exceedingly low threshold that proved a deadly disservice to the country and the American people during the last election.Currently, Congress has the power under Article II and the Necessary and Proper Clause to prevent states from changing the manner by which their electors are appointed after the election, but it has not clearly exercised that authority to prevent such postelection changes. It should do so.Finally, the vice president’s important, but largely ministerial, role in the joint session where the electoral votes are counted should once and for all be clarified.It is hardly overstatement to say that the future of our democracy depends on reform of the Electoral Count Act. Republicans and Democrats need to put aside their partisan differences long enough to fix this law before it enables the political equivalent of a civil war three years hence. The law is offensive to Republicans in constitutional and political principle, officiously aggrandizing unto Congress the constitutional prerogatives of the states. It is offensive to Democrats because it legislatively epitomizes a profound threat in waiting to America’s democracy. The needed changes, which would meet the political objections of both parties, should command broad bipartisan support in any responsible Congress. For Republicans in particular, these changes are idiomatic sleeves off their vests.Come to think of it, the only members in Congress who might not want to reform this menacing law are those planning its imminent exploitation to overturn the next presidential election.J. Michael Luttig (@judgeluttig) was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Giuliani in Talks to Testify to House Jan. 6 Panel

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      It is not clear how much assistance he might provide in the investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to hold onto power.Rudolph W. Giuliani, who as former President Donald J. Trump’s lawyer helped lead the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is in discussions with the House Jan. 6 committee about responding to its questions, according to three people familiar with the matter.The extent of any assistance that Mr. Giuliani might provide remains unclear and the negotiations could easily fall apart, especially as Mr. Trump continues to publicly rail against the investigation.But Mr. Giuliani, through his lawyer, has signaled to the committee that he plans to take a less confrontational stance toward its requests than some other members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle who are fighting the committee’s subpoenas or have otherwise refused to cooperate.Mr. Giuliani’s discussions with committee officials suggest that he may be seeking to avoid a potentially costly legal fight over a subpoena that was issued to him last month. By engaging with the committee, Mr. Giuliani could also make it more difficult for the House to issue a criminal referral of him to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress if he in the end does not comply with the subpoena.Should Mr. Giuliani ultimately provide the committee with substantive cooperation, it would be a major breakthrough for the investigation and a breach in the relationship between Mr. Trump and one of his closest if most problematic advisers. Mr. Giuliani was instrumental not only in the post-Election Day effort to keep Mr. Trump in power but also in the pressure campaign on Ukraine that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.One person familiar with the matter said that Mr. Giuliani was still negotiating over whether to give investigators an informal interview or a formal deposition, and that he had not yet determined how much information he might seek to shield from the committee by invoking executive privilege or attorney-client privilege with Mr. Trump.A committee aide said that the panel would not comment on negotiations with its witnesses. But the aide said that the committee had allowed Mr. Giuliani, who was scheduled to appear for a deposition before the panel last Tuesday, to reschedule it at “his request.” The aide said the committee was pressing Mr. Giuliani to “cooperate fully.”However preliminary, the conversations suggest that Mr. Giuliani is considering taking a vastly different approach than those taken by other close Trump allies.Mr. Trump’s onetime chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has been referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal charges after refusing an interview with the committee. Another former aide, Stephen K. Bannon, was indicted in November after refusing to provide information to congressional investigators.As a key figure in some of Mr. Trump’s attempts to stave off electoral defeat, Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, would be in a position to tell investigators how much the former president knew about a series of extraordinary measures that were proposed to him last fall and winter in a bid to maintain his grip on power.Among those efforts was a scheme to disrupt the normal workings of the Electoral College by persuading lawmakers in contested swing states to draw up alternate slates of electors showing Mr. Trump was victorious in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Giuliani was also instrumental in vetting a plan to use the Department of Homeland Security to seize voting machines in order to examine the data housed inside them for supposed evidence of fraud. At Mr. Trump’s direction, Mr. Giuliani asked a top homeland security official if the department could legally take control of the machines — a notion that the official shot down. Mr. Giuliani later opposed an even more explosive proposal to have the military seize the machines.Mr. Giuliani was subpoenaed with other members of a legal team that billed itself as “an elite strike force” and pursued a set of conspiracy-filled lawsuits on behalf of Mr. Trump in which they made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the election. They were initially scheduled to testify this week, but were granted delays through discussions with their lawyers.The subpoena sought all documents that Mr. Giuliani had detailing the pressure campaign that he and other Trump allies initiated targeting state officials; the seizure of voting machines; contact with members of Congress; any evidence to support the bizarre conspiracy theories he pushed; and any arrangements for his fees.On Jan. 6, speaking to a crowd of Trump supporters before the attack on the Capitol, Mr. Giuliani called for “trial by combat.” Later, after the building was under siege, both he and Mr. Trump called lawmakers in an attempt to delay the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory.Key Developments in the Jan. 6 InvestigationCard 1 of 3White House phone records. More

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      Shredded, Flushed or Removed: The Trump Papers

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      More from our inbox:Moving Toward a ‘Republican Autocracy’Why Does the Postal Service Have to Make a Profit?Protesters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Call Logs From Jan. 6 Have Gaps, Panel Finds” (front page, Feb. 11):Shredded documents, records improperly taken to Mar-a-Lago, papers flushed down the toilet, plans to seize voting machines, and now gaps in the official Oval Office call record from Jan. 6. Does this sound like a former president who has done nothing improper or illegal? Hardly! They seem like an archetypal example of the “res ipsa loquitur” legal doctrine — “the thing speaks for itself.”I eagerly await the Jan. 6 committee’s final report. Unpacking more fully these facts and many more, a well-documented and clear story will be told. I suspect that at least some of the committee’s findings will be referred to the Justice Department for investigation.The only question is: Will Donald Trump once again escape legal accountability?Richard CherwitzAustin, TexasThe writer is professor emeritus at the Moody College of Communication, the University of Texas at Austin.To the Editor:Re “Trump Turns Documents Over to U.S. Archives” (news article, Feb. 8):You report that, at the end of his term in office, Donald Trump unlawfully removed 15 cartons of documents and other items from the White House. There has long been a federal statute that makes it illegal to remove papers or documents from a public office. The offense is punishable by up to three years in prison, and the person is “disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”I know this because, in 1970, I was prosecuted for this crime when I burglarized the Selective Service complex in Providence, R.I., and carried off a bit over 15 cartons of papers and documents to destroy later at my leisure. I held a news conference about the burglary. I was duly prosecuted, convicted and sentenced (and, I believe, was the only convicted felon in my graduating class at Harvard Law School).Donald Trump should also be prosecuted for this offense.Jerry ElmerProvidence, R.I.To the Editor:Re “Trump Is Said to Have Taken Possible Classified Material With Him” (news article, Feb. 10):Is the irony lost on anyone that one of the most critical events contributing to Donald Trump’s 2016 victory was Hillary Clinton’s supposed mishandling of classified emails and James Comey’s investigation? Can Donald Trump plead ignorance on his reported destruction or removal of documents, some of which may have been classified, from the White House after reveling in the Clinton email investigation?Let us hope that Republicans don’t deliver up yet another double-standard response to this even more egregious misconduct by Mr. Trump.Larry LobertGrosse Pointe Park, Mich.To the Editor:So wads of paper were stuffed down the White House toilets. Well, remember how hard it was to get toilet paper during the early days of the pandemic?Mary GarripoliLos AngelesMoving Toward a ‘Republican Autocracy’“They’re the two most important leaders in the Republican Party,” said one lobbyist.Samuel Corum for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As Trump Re-emerges, His Base Shows Fractures” (front page, Feb. 1) and “How DeSantis Gamed the Media as He Rose” (news article, Feb. 1):Former President Donald Trump was the catalyst for transforming the Republican Party from a policy-based party to one now focused on replacing our pluralistic democracy with one-party authoritarianism. But while Mr. Trump may be the titular leader of the Republican Party, he is not the future. He will serve only as the figurehead for the future revolution.Others such as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are the emerging leaders, and they are building a one-party autocratic government. For their vision of America look at how Mr. DeSantis successfully enacted voter suppression legislation, is proposing ballot police to intimidate voters, has signed legislation to suppress political demonstrations and has suppressed academic speech at a state university.The Trump Republicans have a national vision of taking the House and the Senate in 2022, and the presidency in 2024. When that is accomplished all three branches of government will effectively be in Trump Republican autocratic control, and the American experiment in constitutional democracy will be brought to an end.Michael AbelsDeLand, Fla.To the Editor:I can’t believe people still don’t get it. Or if they do, they can’t admit it. The G.O.P. and Donald Trump are one and the same. Reporters try to prod Republican politicians to refute Mr. Trump’s latest madman rant. It won’t happen. Not because they are “afraid” of the base. Because the Republican Party started this coup years ago, before Mr. Trump was elected in 2016.The Republicans are not interested in democracy or this country’s promised ideals. They are interested in total control, a permanent Republican autocracy, power and wealth. And if they have to get in bed with a vengeful, hate-filled wannabe king to bring their coup to a successful conclusion, so be it.They got oh so close. They won’t stop now. Take off the blinders, shake off the wishful thinking. They’re feeding the divisions; they’re dismantling our democratic institutions.Olivia KoppellBrookline, Mass.Why Does the Postal Service Have to Make a Profit?  Desiree Rios for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Lawmakers Vote to Avert Postal Insolvency” (news article, Feb. 9):You write, “Despite being a popular mainstay of American life, the Postal Service regularly fails to turn a profit, with 2020 marking the 14th consecutive year it incurred a net annual loss.”The police, the firefighters, the Army and the Navy all fail to turn a profit. These are responsibilities we expect our government to fulfill regardless of cost.Holding the Postal Service to a standard of profitability is unreasonable and plays into the hands of those who want to eliminate it for private gain.Tamar SingerNew York More

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      Mitch McConnell vs. Republicans

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      Making sense of the G.O.P. leader’s squabble with his own party.Mitch McConnell has a long history of playing hardball — even changing the rules of American politics — to benefit the Republican Party.He has opposed limits on campaign finance, knowing that corporations and the wealthy donate to Republicans. As the Republican Senate leader, he has helped turn the filibuster into a normal tactic. He has boasted about his desire to damage the presidencies of both Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And McConnell in 2016 refused to consider any Supreme Court nominee by Obama, effectively flipping the seat back to a Republican nominee.In each of the cases, McConnell has been willing to break with precedent in ways that many historians and legal scholars consider dangerous. He often seems to put a higher priority on partisan advantage than on American political traditions or even the national interest, these scholars say.So how is the country supposed to make sense of McConnell’s actions this week?On Tuesday, he criticized the Republican National Committee for its response to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The committee — the party’s official organization — had described the events of Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse” and censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, two House members who are helping investigate the riot.McConnell repudiated his own party. “We saw what happened,” he told reporters. “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”G.O.P., favoredThe remarks were striking because McConnell’s position on Jan 6. — and on Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud that inspired the attack — has been inconsistent. At first, McConnell harshly criticized Trump for inciting it, only to back off. He voted to acquit Trump of impeachment charges, effectively keeping Trump as the party’s dominant figure.“To this day McConnell has been unwilling to impose any political consequences on Trump,” Amanda Carpenter of The Bulwark, a conservative publication, has written. McConnell also waited more than a month to acknowledge that Biden had won the 2020 election.Still, I think there is a consistent explanation for McConnell’s behavior, whatever you think of it.McConnell’s biggest goals are plain to see. He wants to hold power and ensure that the federal government’s policies are largely conservative, pro-business and anti-regulation.Downplaying his rifts with Trump serves these goals. It helps the Republican Party remain united and increases its chances of winning elections. McConnell is surely savvy enough to understand that Trump appeals to some voters whom past Republicans did not win.At the same time, Trump alienates other voters whom Republicans have historically won, like the suburbanites who helped Democrats flip Arizona and Georgia in 2020. Fully aligning with the violence and lies of the Jan. 6 movement, as the R.N.C. did last week, brings potential political costs.McConnell understands that, as well. He remembers the 2010 midterms, when far-right “unelectable candidates” — a phrase he used last month, when recalling that year — lost winnable races.“This isn’t what he wants at all,” Carl Hulse — The Times’s chief Washington correspondent, who has been covering McConnell for years — told me, referring to the R.N.C. statement.The current political atmosphere looks quite favorable to Republicans, as Carl noted. Polls suggest they are heavily favored to retake the House and may retake the Senate, too. The Democratic Party is divided over President Biden’s agenda, and many Democrats seem out of step with public opinion on Covid-19 policies and several social issues. “It’s highly likely to be a situation where the wind is at our backs,” McConnell recently told CNN about this year’s campaign.Republicans also have some large long-term advantages, like control of the Supreme Court and the Senate’s built-in bias toward small states.Put all this together, and you start to understand why even somebody whose only goal was maximizing Republican power might choose to speak out against a violent insurrection that tried to overturn an election on Republicans’ behalf. In today’s political environment, such extremism might be both unnecessary and counterproductive.‘Partially courageous’Of course, there is another potential motivation for McConnell. He may genuinely believe in a hardball approach to partisan power while also opposing the fraudulent overturning of an election result. McConnell, who has spent decades working on Capitol Hill, was “personally appalled by what happened on Jan. 6,” Carl said.To people who are alarmed about the threats to American democracy, this principled explanation would be modestly encouraging.“He’s been only partially courageous,” said Richard Hasen, an election-law expert and the author of a new book on political disinformation. Even as he has overturned long-lasting political traditions, he has “drawn the line on election subversion,” Hasen told me.I also asked Daniel Ziblatt, a Harvard professor and a co-author of “How Democracies Die,” for his thoughts, and his email response is worth excerpting:When democracies face political violence, it’s almost as important how mainstream parties respond to it — Do they condemn it unambiguously and consistently? McConnell’s words were unambiguous (the good news) but he hasn’t been consistent (the bad news).The story isn’t over. Indeed, I fear he, and certainly his party are engaging in what I would call the “semi-loyalists’ swerve” — condemning anti-democratic behavior one day, backtracking the next, being ambiguous the next.The broader point is this: A democracy can’t survive in the way we have come to expect when one of two major political parties behaves as a party of authoritarians or democratic semi-loyalists. And that’s where the American Republican Party is today.An important thing to watch, Ziblatt said, is how McConnell and other Republicans react in coming weeks to the findings of the Jan. 6 investigation.THE LATEST NEWSThe VirusAn elementary school in Newton, Mass., this month.Tony Luong for The New York TimesIllinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island joined other Democratic-leaning states lifting mask mandates.The changes leave school districts in charge of their own mask rules.Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined plans to lift England’s remaining restrictions within weeks.PoliticsChuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that they were open to banning members of Congress from trading stocks.The National Archives found possible classified information in documents Trump took from the White House.J. Michelle Childs, a federal judge on Biden’s Supreme Court short list and a graduate of public schools, is getting bipartisan praise.Violent threats against members of Congress surged after Trump became president.The OlympicsNathan Chen won the gold that eluded him in 2018.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesNathan Chen won gold with a dominant performance in men’s figure skating.Chloe Kim won her second gold in halfpipe snowboarding. (See how she pulled off her tricks.)Officials have delayed the medal ceremony for team figure skating. CNN and others report that a Russian skater failed a drug test.Here are The Times’s photos of the day and the current medal count — as well as a guide to watching the events.Other Big StoriesColorado is trying to change its approach to road construction to address climate change.A former casino executive was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for a bribery scheme to get his daughter into U.S.C.The N.F.L. will investigate sexual harassment allegations against Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington Commanders.A geomagnetic storm fueled by an outburst of the sun knocked out dozens of satellites.Why doesn’t America have enough truckers? It’s a stressful, exhausting, lonely job.OpinionsCheap chicken comes at a high cost, this Times Opinion video shows.Become a regular at a restaurant, bar or coffee shop, Xochitl Gonzalez suggests in The Atlantic.Facebook has coasted on others’ inventions for so long that it’s forgotten how to innovate, Farhad Manjoo writes.MORNING READSRivian trucks during the company’s initial public offering.Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersElectric vehicles: Rivian was a stock market hit, but it’s struggling to actually produce trucks.Sim Senate: Politics can be a serious business. One former journalist turned it into a video game.Drink up: Winemakers are desperate to win over the White Claw generation.Advice from Wirecutter: The secret to delicious coffee? A reliable grinder.A Times classic: How not to wear a face mask.Lives Lived: Ashley Bryan brought diversity to children’s literature, writing and illustrating books that retold African folk tales. He died at 98.ARTS AND IDEAS From left, Rick Glassman, Albert Rutecki and Sue Ann Pien star in “As We See It.”From left: Maggie Shannon for The New York Times; Ryan Collerd for The New York Times; Maggie Shannon for The New York TimesChildren grow up“A lot of what we read about and see about autism is about children with autism,” said Jason Katims, a producer on “Friday Night Lights,” “Parenthood” and other television shows.Katims himself created a young character on “Parenthood” with Asperger’s syndrome, inspired partly by his own son. But children with autism grow up, even if you wouldn’t necessarily know it from popular culture. When television and movies do include adults on the spectrum, they are often savants, like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rain Man.”Katims’s latest show, “As We See It,” sets out to portray a more realistic version of adult autism. It’s a dramedy on Amazon Prime that follows three young adults who are navigating life, love, family and less typical challenges in Los Angeles. The three lead actors are all on the spectrum.The goal, Katims said, is to create a show that is both deeply respectful and full of laughs. “He has this ability to sort of be very sincere and very sweet and then all of the sudden, just crack you up,” Sosie Bacon, who plays a behavioral aide on the show, told The Associated Press.More recommendations: 50 shows to watch on Netflix now.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookRyan Liebe for The New York TimesRosemary-paprika chicken with fries is a delightful sheet-pan dinner.What to Listen ToThe dishy podcast “Celebrity Book Club” delves into the bizarre genre of memoirs by the rich and famous.What to ReadLaura Kipnis’s book “Love in the Time of Contagion” is about how relationships, including her own, have changed during the pandemic.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was vanguard. Here is today’s puzzle — or you can play online.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Like some slippers and memories (five letters).If you’re in the mood to play more, find all our games here.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. Somini Sengupta will become the anchor of the Climate Fwd newsletter.Here’s today’s front page. “The Daily” is about mask mandates. On the Modern Love podcast, what teenage anthems teach us about love.Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Jan. 6 Inquiry Subpoenas Navarro, Who Worked to Overturn Election

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      Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to former President Donald J. Trump, has written and spoken about his work on a plan to get Congress to reject the results of the 2020 election.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued a subpoena on Wednesday to Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to former President Donald J. Trump who was involved in what he called an “operation” to keep Mr. Trump in office after he lost the 2020 election.The subpoena was the committee’s latest attempt to obtain information about efforts underway in Mr. Trump’s White House to invalidate the election. In his book, titled “In Trump Time,” and in interviews with The New York Times and other outlets, Mr. Navarro has said that he worked with Stephen K. Bannon and other allies of Mr. Trump to develop and carry out a plan to delay Congress’s formal count of the 2020 presidential election results to buy time to change the outcome.Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, highlighted how openly and proudly Mr. Navarro has discussed those machinations, saying he “hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and has even discussed the former president’s support for those plans.”Mr. Navarro has insisted that the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was not part of his plans, which he said included having Vice President Mike Pence reject electors for Joseph R. Biden Jr. when Congress met in a joint session to formally count them.“To pull off an operation Bannon has dubbed the Green Bay Sweep — and thereby keep President Trump in the White House for a second term — we must have only peace and calm,” Mr. Navarro wrote in his book.On Wednesday, he said he would not comply with the committee’s subpoena, citing Mr. Trump’s invocation of executive privilege.“It is not my privilege to waive,” Mr. Navarro said. He also berated Mr. Pence for failing to go along with Mr. Trump’s demands that he unilaterally throw out electoral votes for Mr. Biden. And he insulted Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s former top aide who has cooperated with the panel; Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff; and the two Republicans on the committee, Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.“Pence betrayed Trump. Marc Short is a Koch Network dog. Meadows is a fool and a coward. Cheney and Kinzinger are useful idiots for Nancy Pelosi and the woke Left,” Mr. Navarro wrote in an email.In his book, Mr. Navarro wrote that the idea was for Mr. Pence to be the “quarterback” of the plan and “put certification of the election on ice for at least another several weeks while Congress and the various state legislatures involved investigate all of the fraud and election irregularities.”There has been no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election, though Mr. Trump continues to claim that it was “stolen” from him.Mr. Navarro also wrote a 36-page report alleging election fraud as part of what he called an “Immaculate Deception.” In an interview with The Times, he said he relied on “thousands of affidavits” from Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, to help produce the report, which claimed there “may well have been a coordinated strategy to effectively stack the election deck against the Trump-Pence ticket.”The Jan. 6 committee described the claims in Mr. Navarro’s report as having been “discredited in public reporting, by state officials and courts.”Mr. Navarro said that he made sure Republican members of Congress received a copy of his report and that more than 100 members of Congress had signed onto the plans. (Ultimately, 147 Republican members of Congress objected to certifying at least one state for Mr. Biden.)Latest DevelopmentsCard 1 of 3A G.O.P. resolution. More