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      Fox Files Motion to Dismiss Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Lawsuit

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFox Files Motion to Dismiss Smartmatic’s $2.7 Billion Defamation SuitIn a court filing, Rupert Murdoch’s media company says it had the right to broadcast the debunked claims of election fraud promoted by President Donald Trump’s legal team on Fox News and Fox Business.The Manhattan headquarters for Rupert Murdoch’s American media companies Fox Corporation, home of Fox News and Fox Business, and News Corp.Credit…Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesMichael M. Grynbaum and Feb. 8, 2021Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corporation on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit brought against it last week by the election technology company Smartmatic, which has accused Mr. Murdoch’s cable networks and three Fox anchors of spreading falsehoods that the company tried to rig the presidential race against Donald J. Trump.The lawsuit has roiled right-wing news media outlets whose star personalities repeatedly cast doubt on Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the wake of the election and raised the specter of a significant financial penalty for Fox. On Friday, the day after the lawsuit was filed, Fox canceled the nightly Fox Business program hosted by Lou Dobbs, who is named in the suit along with the Fox anchors Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro.In its 44-page response filed in New York State Supreme Court, Fox argues that the claims of electoral fraud made on its channels by Mr. Trump’s lawyers — including Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who are also named in the defamation suit — were matters of significant interest to viewers and handled fairly.“This lawsuit strikes at the heart of the news media’s First Amendment mission to inform on matters of public concern,” Fox says in the motion, adding, “An attempt by a sitting president to challenge the result of an election is objectively newsworthy.”Paul D. Clement, a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis who served as solicitor general under President George W. Bush, is leading Fox’s defense. “Smartmatic’s theory is fundamentally incompatible with the reality of the modern news network and deeply rooted principles of free speech law,” Mr. Clement said in a statement.A spokesman for Smartmatic did not immediately reply to a request for comment.“It’s a strong move on their part to try to come out and dismiss the claim,” said Timothy Zick, a professor at William & Mary Law School who specializes in First Amendment law.Mr. Zick said that Fox was making use of the concept of “neutral reportage,” arguing that it could not be sued for defamation while covering the news. “They’re arguing that shields Fox News as an organization for simply reporting on the controversy, which is a matter of public interest,” he said.A key to Fox’s defense is the argument that it cannot be held responsible for statements made on its programs by Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell, given their roles as Mr. Trump’s legal representatives.“The public had a right to know, and Fox had a right to cover, that the president and his allies were accusing Smartmatic (and others) of manipulating the election results, regardless of the ultimate truth or accuracy of those allegations,” the motion reads. It also asserts that Smartmatic’s suit does not identify defamatory statements by television hosts employed by Mr. Murdoch’s company.Fox also argues that Smartmatic should be considered a public figure. That argument, which is likely to be contested by the tech company, means that Smartmatic must meet a high bar to prove that it was defamed: demonstrating that the defendants knew their statements were false, or at least had serious doubts about them.Smartmatic’s 276-page lawsuit alleges that Mr. Trump’s lawyers used Fox’s platform, and its sympathetic anchors, to spin conspiracies about the company that damaged its reputation and commercial prospects. The suit has been applauded by those seeking to curb the flow of disinformation from right-wing news outlets, but it has also raised questions about the limits of speech in a changing media landscape.Fox’s argument in its motion — that it provided a forum for newsworthy interviews — may cut into the conceptual heart of Smartmatic’s case, which groups Fox, its hosts and their guests as defendants who collaborated to spread falsehoods.The defamation lawsuit cites exchanges on Fox programs that, Smartmatic said, helped spread the false claim that it was the owner of a rival election tech company, Dominion Voting System, and that it provided its services to districts in multiple contested states. In fact, Smartmatic was used in the 2020 election only by Los Angeles County.And Smartmatic offers vivid examples of Fox programming that spread bizarre falsehoods, like a claim by Ms. Powell made on Mr. Dobbs’s show that the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, had assisted the company in creating software that could covertly alter votes. (Mr. Chávez died in 2013 and had nothing to do with Smartmatic.)In other exchanges cited by Smartmatic, Fox anchors alternately expressed support and astonishment as Mr. Giuliani and Ms. Powell spun out their claims. In one case, a phrase used by Ms. Powell — “cyber Pearl Harbor” — was later invoked by Mr. Dobbs on his show and on social media.Fox’s response on Monday included a 14-page appendix under the title “Fox’s Evenhanded Coverage of Smartmatic,” documenting instances from Fox News and Fox Business that the company believes showed skepticism toward the Trump team’s claims.Among the examples are three identical, pretaped fact-checking segments that ran in mid-December on programs hosted by Ms. Bartiromo, Mr. Dobbs and Ms. Pirro and that featured Eddie Perez, an election expert who debunked a number of false claims about Smartmatic.The segments were broadcast after Smartmatic sent a letter to Fox demanding retractions and threatening legal action.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Georgia Officials Review Trump's Phone Call to Raffensperger

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGeorgia Officials Review Trump Phone Call as Scrutiny IntensifiesThe office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, has initiated a fact-finding inquiry into Donald Trump’s January phone call to Mr. Raffensperger pressuring him to “find” votes.Former President Donald J. Trump boarding Air Force One on Jan. 12. He made several attempts to pressure top Republican officials in Georgia to help reverse the outcome of the election.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesRichard Fausset and Feb. 8, 2021Updated 5:33 p.m. ETATLANTA — The office of Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on Monday started an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the state’s election results, including a phone call he made to Mr. Raffensperger in which Mr. Trump pressured him to “find” enough votes to reverse his loss.Such inquiries are “fact-finding and administrative in nature,” the secretary’s office said, and are a routine step when complaints are received about electoral matters. Findings are typically brought before the Republican-controlled state board of elections, which decides whether to refer them for prosecution to the state attorney general or another agency.The move comes as Fani Willis, the Democratic district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, is weighing whether to begin a criminal inquiry of her own. A spokesman for Ms. Willis declined to comment on Monday.The January call was one of several attempts Mr. Trump made to try to persuade top Republican officials in the state to uncover instances of voting fraud that might change the outcome, despite the insistence of voting officials that there was no widespread fraud to be found. He also called Gov. Brian Kemp in early December and pressured him to call a special legislative session to overturn his election loss. Later that month, Mr. Trump called a state investigator and pressed the official to “find the fraud,” according to those with knowledge of the call.“The Secretary of State’s office investigates complaints it receives,” Walter Jones, a spokesman for the office, said in a statement on Monday. “The investigations are fact-finding and administrative in nature. Any further legal efforts will be left to the Attorney General.” David Worley, the sole Democrat on the state elections board, said Monday that administrative inquiries by the secretary of state’s office could result in criminal charges. “Any investigation of a statutory violation is a potential criminal investigation depending on the statute involved,” he said, adding that in the case of Mr. Trump, “The complaint that was received involved a criminal violation.” Mr. Worley said that now that an inquiry had been started by the secretary of state’s office, he would not introduce a motion at Wednesday’s state board of election meeting, as he had originally planned to do, in an effort to refer the case to the Fulton County district attorney’s office.Not long after the call to Mr. Raffensperger became public, several complaints were filed. One came from John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University law professor. Former prosecutors said Mr. Trump’s calls might run afoul of at least three state laws. One is criminal solicitation to commit election fraud, which can be either a felony or a misdemeanor; as a felony, it is punishable by at least a year in prison. There is also a related conspiracy charge, which can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony. A third law, a misdemeanor offense, bars “intentional interference” with another person’s “performance of election duties.”Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, said in a statement: “There was nothing improper or untoward about a scheduled call between President Trump, Secretary Raffensperger and lawyers on both sides. If Mr. Raffensperger didn’t want to receive calls about the election, he shouldn’t have run for secretary of state.” Mr. Biden’s victory in Georgia was reaffirmed after election officials recertified the state’s presidential election results in three separate counts of the ballots: the initial election tally; a hand recount ordered by the state; and another recount, which was requested by Mr. Trump’s campaign and completed by machines. The results of the machine recount show Mr. Biden won with a lead of about 12,000 votes.Mr. Biden was the first Democrat to win the presidential election in Georgia since 1992. Mr. Trump accused Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger, both Republicans, of not doing enough to help him overturn the result in the weeks after the election. Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger had each resisted numerous attacks from Mr. Trump, who called the governor “hapless” and called on the secretary of state to resign.Maggie Haberman More

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      Reporter Prepares to Cover His Second Impeachment Trial

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesWhere Each Senator StandsTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderCovering a Trial for the Ages. Again.Nicholas Fandos, a congressional correspondent who is reporting on his second presidential impeachment, talks about what seems similar and what feels different.Nicholas Fandos, right, with Representative Adam Schiff of California in May 2019 after a meeting of House Democrats about the possibility of impeaching President Donald Trump.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.On Tuesday, the nation will begin only its fourth impeachment trial of a president, and Nicholas Fandos, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times, will cover his second. Mr. Fandos, who tracked every beat of the proceedings last year, will be reporting on the second trial of Donald J. Trump, who this time faces the charge of “incitement of insurrection” in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. In an edited interview, Mr. Fandos, who was in the building during that assault, discussed his work last year and the job ahead.Where will you be for the impeachment?Well, it’s probably going to work pretty differently than it did a year ago. I remember dozens of us crowding into the Senate press gallery talking about this virus coming out of China that was going to be a big story and nobody was going to care about the impeachment. And it kind of turned out to be true.This time around, I will probably be watching most of the proceedings from home in Washington because, like other news organizations, we’ve tried to limit our physical presence in the Capitol. Luckily, most of these proceedings are captured on C-SPAN or are livestreamed. Vaccinations are starting to get pretty common among lawmakers, but most reporters still don’t have them.How did covering the last impeachment prepare you to cover this one?It’s so wild. There have been three presidential impeachment trials in American history up to this point. So there’s a certain amount of specialized expertise you have to develop to understand the rules of impeachment and the different terms, not to mention the requirement that you have some mastery over a big, complicated political, legal and constitutional story. So, in some ways this time around, I’m lucky because I don’t need to learn the rules again.The last impeachment also involved a big investigation and learning a lot of esoteric things about Ukraine and actions by the president that happened out of public view. I was in the Capitol on Jan. 6, and I, like everybody else, had been watching as the president was trying to undermine and overturn the election results. In a lot of ways, I can understand the case more readily.What is it like to cover this trial when you were in the Capitol on Jan. 6?I have really visceral memories of that day. But as a journalist, I need to set those aside and cover the debates objectively. My own experience doesn’t have a role in that. Our job is always, at its most basic, to bear witness to events and describe what’s happening.Maybe it helps give me some additional access to the emotion and rawness that everybody that’s involved in this is experiencing. The Senate is the jury, and the members were themselves witnesses and victims, in a sense. Everybody’s in uncharted territory.What will you be doing during the trial?I’ll be following it instantaneously and also trying to step back and take a more considered look. That will include tweets, probably live chats and analysis, and short briefing items that we’ll put up on the website. Then at some point on most days, either I or my reporting partners will sit down and distill everything into a comprehensive article that will end up in the print paper the next day.What have you been doing to prepare?Both the prosecution and the defense have had to file lengthy written briefs that act as a preview of their arguments. I’m spending a lot of time trying to familiarize myself with those.I’ve also spent a lot of time going back and reading my own coverage from a year ago. It’s been really fascinating to see how many of the core issues are really the same but also different.What feels similar?The core charge against Donald Trump is in many ways the same. Essentially, he was accused of taking extraordinary, abusive steps to stay in office and to maintain his power at the expense of the Constitution and the country. And you’ll hear a lot of similar themes in the arguments this time. The defense of the president also seems similar. Basically, his lawyers are arguing that the charges are unconstitutional and unfair. I also think many of the political questions are the same. Are Republicans willing to punish and cross this figure, who may have committed these acts, but who is also the most popular figure in their party and commands a huge amount of loyalty? That political dynamic is amazingly unchanged.What feels different?Last year, this was playing out at the beginning of an election year with that momentous decision lingering. We thought then that if the Senate was a court of impeachment, then the November election was going to be the appeals court that was going to deliver the final verdict on Trump. Now that verdict has been delivered, and in a weird way the Senate is being asked to deliver another one on a slightly different question, which is whether Mr. Trump should be allowed to run for office again. It’s a similar question, but the timing changes the atmosphere and the immediacy of it.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Impeachment Case Against Trump Aims to Marshal Outrage of Capitol Attack

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentWhere Each Senator StandsSchumer’s Balancing ActTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyImpeachment Case Aims to Marshal Outrage of Capitol Attack Against TrumpArmed with lessons from the last impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, prosecutors plan a shorter, video-heavy presentation to confront Republicans with the fury they felt around the Capitol riot.The House impeachment managers, including Representative Jamie Raskin, center, meeting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi shortly before voting on whether to charge President Donald J. Trump with “incitement of insurrection.”Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 7, 2021Updated 8:09 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — When House impeachment managers prosecute former President Donald J. Trump this week for inciting the Capitol attack, they plan to mount a fast-paced, cinematic case aimed at rekindling the outrage lawmakers experienced on Jan. 6.Armed with lessons from Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial, which even Democrats complained was repetitive and sometimes sanctimonious, the prosecutors managing his second are prepared to conclude in as little as a week, forgo distracting witness fights and rely heavily on video, according to six people working on the case.It would take 17 Republicans joining every Democrat to find Mr. Trump guilty, making conviction unlikely. But when the trial opens on Tuesday at the very scene of the invasion, the prosecutors will try to force senators who lived through the deadly rampage as they met to formalize President Biden’s election victory to reckon with the totality of Mr. Trump’s monthslong drive to overturn the election and his failure to call off the assault.“The story of the president’s actions is both riveting and horrifying,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead prosecutor, said in an interview. “We think that every American should be aware of what happened — that the reason he was impeached by the House and the reason he should be convicted and disqualified from holding future federal office is to make sure that such an attack on our democracy and Constitution never happens again.”Mr. Trump is unlikely to be convicted as 17 Republicans would need to join with every Democrat to reach the two-thirds majority that is needed to find him guilty.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn making Mr. Trump the first American president to be impeached twice, Democrats have essentially given themselves an unprecedented do-over. When Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, was preparing to prosecute Mr. Trump the first time for a pressure campaign on Ukraine, he read the 605-page record of President Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial cover to cover, sending aides as many as 20 dispatches a day as he sought to modernize a proceeding that had happened only twice before.This time, a new group of nine Democratic managers need reach back only a year to study the lessons of Mr. Schiff’s prosecution: Don’t antagonize Republicans, use lots and lots of video and, above all, make succinct arguments to avoid lulling the jury of lawmakers into boredom or distraction.Mr. Trump’s lawyers have indicated that they once again intend to mount a largely technical defense, contending that the Senate “lacks jurisdiction” to judge a former president at all after he has left office because the Constitution does not explicitly say it can. Though many legal scholars and a majority of the Senate disagree, Republicans have flocked to the argument in droves as a justification for dismissing the case without weighing in on Mr. Trump’s conduct.But the lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David Schoen, also plan to deny that Mr. Trump incited the violence at all or intended to interfere with Congress’s formalizing of Mr. Biden’s victory, asserting that his baseless claims that the election was “stolen” are protected by the First Amendment. And Mr. Castor told Fox News that he, too, would rely on video, possibly of unrest in American cities led by Democrats.The managers will try to rebut them as much with constitutional arguments as an overwhelming compendium of evidence. Mr. Raskin’s team has spent dozens of hours culling a deep trove of videos captured by the mob, Mr. Trump’s own unvarnished words and criminal pleas from rioters who said they acted at the former president’s behest.“The story of the president’s actions is both riveting and horrifying,” Mr. Raskin said in an interview. “We think that every American should be aware of what happened.”Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe primary source material may replace live testimony. Trying to call new witnesses has been the subject of an extended debate by the managers, whose evidentiary record has several holes that White House or military officials could conceivably fill. At the last trial, Democrats made an unsuccessful push for witnesses a centerpiece of their case, but this time, many in the party say they are unnecessary to prove the charge and would simply cost Mr. Biden precious time to move his agenda without changing the outcome.“It’s not that there should not be witnesses; it’s just the practical realities of where we are with a former president,” said Daniel S. Goldman, a former House lawyer who worked on Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. “This is also something that we learned from the last trial: This is a political animal, and these witnesses are not going to move the needle.”Mr. Raskin and other managers declined to speak about strategy, but current and former officials familiar with the confidential preparations agreed to discuss them anonymously. The prosecutors’ almost complete silence in the run-up to the trial has been another departure from the strategy of Mr. Trump’s first impeachment, when Democrats set up a sizable communications war room in the Capitol and saturated the cable television airwaves in an all-out battle against Mr. Trump in the court of public opinion.They have largely left it to trusted allies like Mr. Schiff and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to publicly discuss their case and bat back criticism about why the House is pressing its case even now that Mr. Trump is out of office.“If we were not to follow up with this, we might as well remove any penalty from the Constitution of impeachment — just take it out,” Ms. Pelosi told reporters who questioned why Democrats would consume so much of Congress’s time with a former president.Key questions about the scope and shape of the trial remain unsettled. Senators spent the weekend haggling over the precise structure and rules of the proceeding, the first time in American history a former president will be put on trial.Prosecutors and Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers expected to have at least 12 hours each to make their case. Mr. Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, has been coaching his colleagues in daily meetings to aggressively winnow down their arguments, cling to narrative where possible and integrate them with the visual aids they plan to display on TVs in the Senate chamber and on screens across the country.Behind the scenes, Democrats are relying on many of the same lawyers and aides who helped assemble the 2020 case, including Susanne Sachsman Grooms from the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Aaron Hiller, Arya Hariharan, Sarah Istel and Amy Rutkin from the Judiciary Committee. The House also temporarily called back Barry H. Berke, a seasoned New York defense lawyer, to serve as chief counsel and Joshua Matz, a constitutional expert.Barry H. Berke, left, who is serving as chief counsel in the House’s impeachment case, conferring with Mr. Raskin.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMr. Schiff said his team had tried to produce an “HBO mini-series” featuring clips of witness testimony to bring to life the esoteric plot about Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on Ukraine. Mr. Raskin’s may appear more like a blockbuster action film.“The more you document all the tragic events leading up to that day and the president’s misconduct on that day and the president’s reaction while people were being attacked that day, the more and more difficult you make it for any senator to hide behind those false constitutional fig leaves,” said Mr. Schiff, who has informally advised the managers.To assemble the presentation, Mr. Raskin’s team has turned to the same outside firm that helped put together Mr. Schiff’s multimedia display. But Mr. Raskin is working with vastly richer material to tell a monthslong story of how he and his colleagues believe Mr. Trump seeded, gathered and provoked a mob to try to overturn his defeat.There are clips and tweets of Mr. Trump from last summer, warning he would only lose if the election was “rigged” against him; clips and tweets of him claiming victory after his loss; and clips and tweets of state officials coming to the White House as he sought to “stop the steal.” There is audio of a call in which Mr. Trump pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes needed to reverse Mr. Biden’s victory there; as well as presidential tweets and accounts by sympathetic lawmakers who say that once those efforts failed, Mr. Trump decisively turned his attention to the Jan. 6 meeting of Congress for one last stand.At the center is footage of Mr. Trump, speaking outside the White House hours before the mob overtook the police and invaded the Capitol building. The managers’ pretrial brief suggests they are planning to juxtapose footage of Mr. Trump urging his supporters to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol and confront Congress with videos posted from members of the crowd who can be heard processing his words in real time.The managers are working with material to tell a monthslong story of how they believe Mr. Trump seeded, assembled and provoked a mob of loyalists to try to overturn his loss.Credit…Jason Andrew for The New York Times“Even with this trial, where senators themselves were witnesses, it’s very important to tell the whole story,” Mr. Schiff said. “This is not about a single day; it is about a course of conduct by a president to use his office to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power.”But the proximity could also create complications. Several people familiar with the preparations said the managers were wary of saying anything that might implicate Republican lawmakers who echoed or entertained the president’s baseless claims of election fraud. To have any chance of making an effective case, the managers believe, they must make clear it is Mr. Trump who is on trial, not his party.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Liz Cheney Says G.O.P. Must Move Past Trump

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storySpurning Calls to Resign, Liz Cheney Says G.O.P. Must Move Past TrumpMs. Cheney, having fended off a challenge to her House leadership role, was defiant in defending her impeachment vote and called for Republicans to be “the party of truth.”Republican voters had been “lied to” by a president eager to steal an election, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming said on Sunday.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesFeb. 7, 2021Updated 5:24 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming waded deeper into Republicans’ identity crisis on Sunday, warning her party on the eve of a Senate impeachment trial not to “look past” former President Donald J. Trump’s role in stoking a violent attack on the Capitol and a culture of conspiracy roosting among their ranks.In her first television interview since fending off an attempt by Mr. Trump’s allies to oust her from House leadership over her vote to impeach him, Ms. Cheney said Republican voters had been “lied to” by a president eager to steal an election with baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. She cautioned that the party risked being locked out of power if it did not show a majority of Americans that it could be trusted to lead truthfully.“The notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged was a lie, and people need to understand that,” Ms. Cheney said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We need to make sure that we as Republicans are the party of truth, and that we are being honest about what really did happen in 2020 so we actually have a chance to win in 2022 and win the White House back in 2024.”She added that Mr. Trump “does not have a role as a leader of our party going forward.”The remarks made plain that Ms. Cheney, a leading Republican voice trying to push the party back toward its traditional policy roots, had no intention of backing off her criticism of the former president after two attempts last week to punish her for her impeachment vote. In Washington, her critics forced a vote to try to oust her as the chairwoman of the House Republican conference, but it failed overwhelmingly on a secret ballot. And on Saturday, the Wyoming Republican Party censured her and called for her resignation.Answering that call, Ms. Cheney said on Sunday that she would not resign and suggested that Republicans in her home state continued to be fed misinformation about what had taken place. It came a few days after she privately rebuffed a request by the House Republican leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, to apologize to her conference for how she handled herself around the impeachment vote, according to two people familiar with the exchange, which was first reported on Sunday by Axios.“People in the party are mistaken,” she said on Fox News of the Jan. 6 attack, which, together with nearby protests, killed five people, including a Capitol Police officer. Referring to the Black Lives Matter movement, she added: “They believe that B.L.M. and antifa were behind what happened here at the Capitol. That’s just simply not the case, it’s not true, and we’re going to have a lot of work we have to do.”Firsthand accounts, video, criminal records and swaths of other evidence leave no doubt that supporters of Mr. Trump perpetrated the attack, believing that they could stop Congress from formalizing President Biden’s election victory.Though she declined to say if she would vote to convict Mr. Trump were she a senator, Ms. Cheney urged Republicans to carefully consider the charge and the evidence. She also raised the possibility that a tweet that Mr. Trump had sent as the violence began to unfold criticizing former Vice President Mike Pence for refusing to try to single-handedly overturn the election result was “a premeditated effort to provoke violence.”“What we already know does constitute the gravest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of the country, and this is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn’t happen or try to move on,” Ms. Cheney said. She urged her party to “focus on substance and policy and issues” rather than remain loyal to Mr. Trump.That message is not likely to go over well with wide swaths of Republicans. Public opinion surveys suggest that Mr. Trump remains the most popular national figure in his party by far, and Republican senators appear to be lining up overwhelmingly to acquit him of the “incitement of insurrection” charge that Ms. Cheney backed.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Feb. 5, 2021, 9:20 p.m. ETState Dept. lifts terrorist designation against Houthi rebels issued in Trump’s final days.Two G.O.P. House members, Louie Gohmert and Andrew Clyde, are fined for bypassing security screening.Biden says he will bar Trump from receiving intelligence briefings, saying his ‘erratic behavior’ cannot be trusted.Ms. Cheney also leveled sharp criticism at Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a freshman Republican from Georgia, whose past embrace of QAnon and a range of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theories roiled the House last week. Ms. Cheney said Ms. Greene’s views “do not have any place in our public discourse.”“We are the party of Lincoln,” Ms. Cheney said. “We are not the party of QAnon or anti-Semitism or Holocaust deniers, or white supremacy or conspiracy theories.”Some prominent Republican senators backed Ms. Cheney on Sunday, saying they would carefully consider the impeachment case and seek to steer the party back toward conservative policy arguments rather than personality.“Our party is right now, if you will, being tried by fire,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana. “We win if we have policies that speak to that families sitting around the table.”Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, said he was “really encouraged” by the House’s vote to keep Ms. Cheney in her leadership role. “They could have voted any way they felt right, and they maintained her role,” he said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “That’s how you begin to keep this party united and together and think about how we move on in the post-Trump era.”But Ms. Cheney, the daughter of a storied Republican family in Wyoming — her father, Dick Cheney, also represented the state in the House before he was vice president — still faces the likelihood of a motivated primary challenge for the 2022 election.And last week, even as they wagged their fingers at Ms. Greene, a vast majority of Ms. Cheney’s own House Republican conference refused to punish her. Ms. Greene emerged a day after the vote declaring she had been “freed” to push her party rightward.“The party is his,” Ms. Greene said, referring to Mr. Trump. “It doesn’t belong to anybody else.”Chris Cameron More

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      Strong Trump Supporters Picked to Head Michigan Republican Party

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeMurder Charges?The Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyStrong Trump Supporters Picked to Head Michigan Republican PartyThe state’s selection of party chair and vice chair hinged in large part on who was most loyal to the former president.Meshawn Maddock has been picked as the new vice chair of the Michigan Republican Party. An ardent supporter of former President Donald J. Trump, Ms. Maddock formed the Michigan Conservative Coalition and is the head of Women for Trump in Michigan.Credit…Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesFeb. 6, 2021, 9:36 p.m. ETWEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — Ron Weiser, a wealthy real estate developer from Ann Arbor, was elected chair of the Michigan Republican Party on Saturday, bringing along a vice chair who has caused consternation among some factions of the party because of her fierce support of former President Donald J. Trump.The vote from more than 2,000 party delegates did little to heal the deep divide in the party that surfaced this week when Laura Cox, the chair of the party for the last two years, jumped back into the race at the last minute, saying that Mr. Weiser had used $200,000 in party funds as a payoff to get a candidate out of the race for secretary of state in 2018.The election partially hinged on who was the more loyal supporter of Mr. Trump, with supporters of Mr. Weiser saying Ms. Cox had failed the party when Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the state by more than 154,000 votes, flipping a key state that went for Mr. Trump in 2016.Mr. Weiser, who is also a member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents and a prolific donor to both the Republican Party and the university, has been chairman of the state party twice before — from 2009 to 2011 and 2017 to 2019.He won the election for party chair by a two-to-one ratio. In a statement after the vote, he said: “The skirmishes of yesterday are over. Our focus now rests on the great challenges before us: Rebuilding our party,” and defeating Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Democratic state officials he called “far left radicals.”But the battle over what degree of loyalty to Mr. Trump is appropriate revolved less around Mr. Weiser than his designated choice for vice chair of the party, Meshawn Maddock, who formed the Michigan Conservative Coalition and is the head of Women for Trump in Michigan.She was a vocal opponent of the Michigan election results and protested at the TCF Center in Detroit while absentee ballots were being counted there. She spoke at a Trump rally in Washington on Jan. 5 and had organized dozens of Trump supporters headed to the rally on Jan. 6 that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol.While she condemned the violence at the Capitol, her participation in the events leading up to the riot led students and faculty members at the University of Michigan to sign petitions calling on Mr. Weiser to resign from the Board of Regents, a seat he was elected to in 2016.Their ascension to the leadership of the Michigan Republican Party is another indication that the party at the state and local levels is still largely in the grip of the former president.Also elected to leadership positions were two women, Marian Sheridan and Diane Shindlbeck, who along with Ms. Maddock formed Michigan Trump Republicans after he was elected in 2016. The group organized rallies, caravans and forums across the state to drum up support for his re-election bid.“The Republican Party has evolved into the Trump party, and from the standpoint of Weiser, it brought a lot of new people into the party, and it’s his job to keep them there,” said Tom Shields, a Lansing-based Republican political consultant with Marketing Resource Group. “And using Meshawn as the conduit to the grass roots is smart.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.The race to lead the Michigan Republican Party was thrown into disarray this week when Ms. Cox, the current chair, took aim at Mr. Weiser for what she called a “sleazy payoff” to a party official to get him to drop out of the race for secretary of state in 2018.Ms. Cox claimed that Mr. Weiser had sent $200,000 to Stan Grot, the clerk of Shelby Township in Macomb County, so that Mary Treder Lang would face no opposition for the Republican nomination for secretary of state, Ms. Cox said. She said it was not only unethical but could be a violation of state campaign finance laws. She turned over her complaint to the secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, who could open an investigation into the state Republican Party.“If you think what Ron did is OK, then vote for him,” Ms. Cox wrote in an email to party delegates on Thursday. “If you don’t want back room deals and secret payoffs, then vote for me.”In a social media post, Mr. Weiser called the accusations from Ms. Cox “a shameful attempt to destroy our party with unfounded and reckless conspiracy theories so that she can get back in the chair’s race and save her paycheck.”He said the money paid to Mr. Grot had been for organizing work he did in Macomb County, a key Republican stronghold, during the 2018 election cycle.On social media, Ms. Maddock called Ms. Cox “a bitter, sore loser who failed our president in the 2020 elections.”Ms. Cox told delegates she would resign from her position in April if they elected her as chair, giving the party’s executive committee the chance to name her replacement at its next meeting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Wyoming Republicans Censure Liz Cheney for Impeachment Vote

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentDivisions in the SenateList of Senators’ StancesTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWyoming Republicans Censure Liz Cheney for Impeachment VoteThe state party voted to censure the No. 3 Republican in the House and demanded her resignation.The latest rebuke of Representative Liz Cheney follows similar efforts around the country to punish Republicans who have voiced criticism of former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesFeb. 6, 2021Updated 9:31 p.m. ETThe Wyoming Republican Party voted on Saturday to censure Representative Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, for her vote last month to impeach Donald J. Trump, underlining the sharp party divisions over breaking with the former president.“My vote to impeach was compelled by the oath I swore to the Constitution,” Ms. Cheney said in a statement on Saturday. “Wyoming citizens know that this oath does not bend or yield to politics or partisanship.”The censure, which is largely symbolic, came days after Ms. Cheney easily overcame an effort by Trump loyalists in the House to strip her of her leadership position after she voted to charge Mr. Trump with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in urging on a mob that stormed the Capitol. The vote among the House Republican conference, 145 to 61, was a victory for Ms. Cheney, who also retained the support of Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the top Republican in the chamber.The fierce debate over Ms. Cheney underscored the deep divisions in the Republican Party over Mr. Trump, and state-level Republicans across the country have censured leading political figures who have voiced criticism of Mr. Trump. In Arizona, the party censured Gov. Doug Ducey, former Senator Jeff Flake and Cindy McCain, the widow of former Senator John McCain. In Nebraska, Senator Ben Sasse faces censure by his state’s party, slamming the party in a video on Friday and denouncing what he called the organization’s “worship” of Mr. Trump.The resolution to censure Ms. Cheney also called on her to “immediately resign” and refund donations the party made to her 2020 campaign, according to a copy obtained by Forbes.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More