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      Why Jack Smith Had to Bring This Indictment Against Trump

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      Donald Trump has now been indicted three times, accused of crimes occurring before, during and after his presidency. The latest indictment alleges facts from all quarters to prove his criminality: from the vice president to the White House counsel and the heads of the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of National Intelligence, as well as many others. All are Republican loyalists.But the indictment does more: It skillfully avoids breathing air into a Trump claim of selective prosecution. To not have brought this case against Mr. Trump would have been an act of selective nonprosecution. The Justice Department has already charged and obtained convictions for myriad foot soldiers related to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including charging well over 300 people for obstructing the congressional proceedings. In this indictment, the special counsel Jack Smith wisely brings that same charge, but now against the alleged leader of the effort to thwart the transfer of power.That charge of obstruction and conspiracy to defraud the United States in the administration of elections are entirely fitting for the conduct alleged in the indictment. In a civil case last year, the Federal District Court judge David Carter held that Mr. Trump and John Eastman likely engaged in a criminal conspiracy under both those statutes in their schemes to organize false electors and pressure the vice president. Mr. Smith has now said he can prove the same conduct beyond a reasonable doubt.Although the Jan. 6 select committee referred Mr. Trump for investigation for inciting an insurrection, Mr. Smith wisely demurred. The Justice Department has not charged that offense in any other case involving the attack on the Capitol, and insurrection has not been charged since the 19th century. Of course, no president has engaged in it since then — but since no one else has been charged with that crime relating to Jan. 6, it likely would have been an issue. And since the penalty for the insurrection offense is that the defendant would not be eligible to hold federal office, it would have fueled a claim of weaponizing the Justice Department to defeat a political rival.Mr. Trump and others like him will of course continue to assert that the Justice Department has been politically weaponized. That claim has it exactly backward.To not charge Mr. Trump for trying to criminally interfere with the transfer of power to a duly elected president would be to politicize the matter. It would mean external political considerations had infected the Justice Department’s decision-making and steered the institution away from its commitment to holding everyone equally accountable under the law.What those circling their wagons around Mr. Trump are in effect asking for is a two-tiered system, in which the people who were stirred by lies to interrupt the congressional certification are held to account but not the chief instigator. That injustice has not been lost on judges overseeing cases related to Jan. 6. In the 2021 sentencing of John Lolos — a 48-year-old man with no criminal record who traveled from Seattle to hear Mr. Trump’s speech at the Ellipse before being convinced to “storm” the Capitol — Judge Amit Mehta commented on the incongruity in the D.C. courtroom.“People like Mr. Lolos were told lies, fed falsehoods, and told that our election was stolen when it clearly was not,” the judge said. He went on to add that those “who created the conditions that led to Mr. Lolos’s conduct” and the events of Jan. 6 have “in no meaningful sense” been held “to account for their actions and their words.”We are now on the doorstep of the sort of accountability that Judge Mehta found lacking.That is what also makes this indictment of the former president different. Where both the Manhattan hush money case and classified documents case have been, in some part, mired in discussions of whataboutism, the 2020 election interference indictment is where whataboutism goes to die.In this case, the Trump stratagem is unmasked. Given the record of robust prosecutions of Jan. 6 foot soldiers and Mr. Trump’s responsibility for their actions, he has had to resort to saying the Capitol attack was good, and he and his enablers have lauded convicted felons as heroes and “political prisoners.” Mr. Trump’s continued statements in favor of the Jan. 6 defendants can and likely will be used against him in any trial.As the narrative of the indictment lays out, Mr. Trump’s schemes — to sell the big lie and promote election fraud even when he privately conceded to advisers the claims were “unsupported” and “crazy” — are what contributed to the attack of Jan. 6. And it is a relief that the indictment includes Mr. Trump’s role and responsibility in that violence. Many Americans would not understand the Justice Department focusing only on bureaucratic and procedural efforts to affect the congressional certification.As Senator Mitch McConnell said at the close of Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial, “There is no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”He added: “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.”What is also clear from the indictment is that Mr. Trump will most likely not be the last white-collar defendant charged for the set of crimes it sets out. Mr. Smith clearly, and properly, considers that the six co-conspirators — parts of the indictment describe actions by co-conspirators that correspond with those taken by, for example, Mr. Eastman and Rudy Giuliani — committed federal offenses that threatened the core of our democracy. The rule of law cannot tolerate those actors facing charges with the main protagonist going scot free.The main task ahead for Mr. Smith is getting his cases to trial before the general election. But the true test ahead will not be for Mr. Smith. It will be for us: Will Americans care about the rule of law enough to vote for it? The courtroom is a place where facts and law still matter, but the criminal cases against Mr. Trump will test whether the same can be said for the ballot box.Ryan Goodman, a law professor at the New York University School of Law, is a co-editor in chief of Just Security. Andrew Weissmann, a senior prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, is a professor at N.Y.U. School of Law and a host of the podcast Prosecuting Donald Trump.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: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Who Are Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Donors?

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      A super PAC backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid for the Democratic nomination received $5 million from a major Republican donor who has supported Donald J. Trump in the past.As he cut into steak frites at the recent fund-raiser he hosted for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, the financier Omeed Malik surveyed the crowd.What he saw on that July evening was unusual, he said: Environmentalists and admirers of Mr. Kennedy’s family were mingling at a restaurant in Sag Harbor, N.Y., alongside Hollywood figures, hippies and right-wing conservatives.“It was a complete hodgepodge of characters that I have never seen at a political event,” recalled Mr. Malik, an investor and merchant banker based in Palm Beach, Fla. “Because everyone is attracted to him for a different reason.”Fueled by an unusual combination of views — passionate environmentalism, for example, alongside a deep distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and public health orthodoxy — Mr. Kennedy’s campaign has stood out for its curious coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents of varying backgrounds.Financial filings this week from two super PACs supporting him, which together have raised nearly $10.5 million, seemed to underscore this theme. The pro-Kennedy super PAC American Values 2024 received the bulk of its money from two megadonors: one who has contributed tens of millions to Republican causes, and another who has backed both Democrats and Republicans.Timothy Mellon, a Wyoming Republican who contributed $53 million in stock to a Texas fund paying for construction of a new border wall, gave that super PAC $5 million. Gavin de Becker, a security executive who describes himself as a Democrat and consulted for the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos during Mr. Bezos’s text message scandal, donated $4.5 million.“The fact that Kennedy gets so much bipartisan support tells me two things,” Mr. Mellon, previously a top donor to former President Donald J. Trump, said in a statement issued by American Values 2024. “That he’s the one candidate who can unite the country and root out corruption, and that he’s the one Democrat who can win the general election.”In 2019 and 2020, Mr. Mellon gave $70 million combined to super PACs pushing for Republican control of the House and Senate and to one supporting Mr. Trump, records show.The support from Republicans is likely to heighten suspicions about Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy among Democrats who see him as a pawn in an effort to undermine President Biden. Dozens of venture capitalists, tech executives, real-estate builders and investors with varying political alliances also contributed to the Kennedy-aligned PACs.Patrick Byrne, the former chief executive of Overstock.com — and one of the most prominent supporters of the effort to overturn the 2020 election — gave $100,000 in Bitcoin to Common Sense, another PAC supporting Mr. Kennedy.Abby Rockefeller, a daughter of the investment banker David Rockefeller who runs a cannabis farm in upstate New York, gave $100,000 to the American Values 2024 PAC. She said in a statement that she always voted for Democrats.Common Sense reported a total fund-raising haul of about $711,000 in the three-month period ending in June.A photo of Mr. Kennedy with his father, Robert F. Kennedy, was shown at a speech the Democratic presidential candidate gave in Boston in April. Many of the Kennedys have expressed anguish at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political stances. Brian Snyder/ReutersMr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, the scion of a storied American political dynasty and a hero of the so-called medical freedom movement — which has seeded public skepticism about vaccines and other public health measures — is unlikely to prevail in his quest for the Democratic nomination.More than five months before the Iowa caucuses, he is trailing far behind Mr. Biden. He has the support of just 13 percent of registered voters compared with Mr. Biden’s 64 percent, according to a recent New York Times/Siena poll.And his financial support is likely to pale in comparison with the powerhouse of fund-raising and institutional support behind the incumbent president.But the fact that some of deep-pocketed supporters include some who favored Mr. Trump in the past suggest that those numbers may have room to grow.“I don’t think he has the influential tech leaders,” said Charles Phillips, a venture capitalist who co-founded a nonpartisan PAC to support candidates with strategies for economic growth in Black communities. Mr. Kennedy, he added, “won’t get broad support. Most of the tech guys supporting him are really Republicans.”Mr. Mellon, the grandson of former Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon, also gave $5 million last quarter to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to the House of Representatives, and $1 million to Fair Courts America, a committee backed by other major Republican donors that has supported conservative candidates for state supreme court seats.Patrick Byrne, the former head of Overstock.com and a supporter of the effort to overturn the 2020 election, is one of the largest donors to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesSome of Mr. Kennedy’s smaller-scale supporters said their admiration was driven by Mr. Kennedy’s unfiltered quality as well as his willingness to take on legacy institutions like the mainstream news media (which he says has censored him), the banking system (which he believes takes advantage of consumers), the medical establishment (he has said that big government has been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry), and the government’s response to Covid-19, which he has said was both overreaching and ineffective.Some are willing to set aside his more extreme views — including his vaccine skepticism and his conspiracy theories about anti-depressants and “Deep State” corruption — because they admire what they see as his integrity.The Sag Harbor dinner last month drew more than 30 attendees who each pledged $6,600 to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign, the maximum amount that can be contributed by individuals to a campaign for a primary and a general-election bid combined, according to Mr. Malik. During the evening, Mr. Kennedy took questions on subjects including Russia’s war in Ukraine and cryptocurrency.In June, Common Sense PAC hosted a fund-raiser in San Francisco with two tech investors, David Sacks — a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Republican donor who has supported Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — and Chamath Palihapitiya, a former senior executive at Facebook.Nick Corasaniti More

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      A President Accused of Betraying His Country

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      Of all the ways that Donald Trump desecrated his office as president, the gravest — as outlined in extraordinary detail in the criminal indictment issued against him on Tuesday — was his attempt to undermine the Constitution and overturn the results of the 2020 election, hoping to stay in office.The special counsel Jack Smith got right to the point at the top of the four-count federal indictment, saying that Mr. Trump had knowingly “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election.”Bedrock. It’s an apt word for a sacred responsibility of every president: to honor the peaceful transfer of power through the free and fair elections that distinguish the United States. Counting and certifying the vote, Mr. Smith said, “is foundational to the United States democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years,” since electoral counting rules were codified. Until Mr. Trump lost, at which point, the indictment makes clear, he used “dishonesty, fraud and deceit to impair, obstruct and defeat” that cornerstone of democracy.The criminal justice system of the United States had never seen an indictment of this magnitude. It’s the first time that a former president has been explicitly accused by the federal government of defrauding the country. It’s the first time a former president has been accused of obstructing an official proceeding, the congressional count of the electoral votes. Mr. Trump also stands accused of engaging in a conspiracy to deprive millions of citizens of the right to have their votes counted. This fraud, the indictment said, led directly to a deadly attack by Mr. Trump’s supporters on the seat of American government.It’s the third criminal indictment of Mr. Trump, and it demonstrates, yet again, that the rule of law in America applies to everyone, even when the defendant was the country’s highest-ranking official. The crimes alleged in this indictment are, by far, the most serious because they undermine the country’s basic principles.The prosecution’s list of false voter fraud claims made by Mr. Trump and his associates is extensive: that 10,000 dead people voted in Georgia, that there were tens of thousands of double votes in Nevada, 30,000 noncitizens voting in Arizona and 200,000 mystery votes in Pennsylvania, as well as suspicious vote dumps and malfunctioning voting machines elsewhere.After presenting this list, the indictment makes its case with 12 simple but searing words: “These claims were false, and the defendant knew that they were false.” Mr. Smith points out how many people told Mr. Trump that he was repeating lies. He was told by Vice President Mike Pence that there was no evidence of fraud. He was told the same thing by the Justice Department leaders he appointed, by the director of national intelligence, by the Department of Homeland Security, by senior White House attorneys, by leaders of his campaign, by state officials and, most significantly, by dozens of federal and state courts. The indictment emphasizes that every lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump and his allies to change the outcome was rejected, “providing the defendant real-time notice that his allegations were meritless.”Demonstrating Mr. Trump’s knowledge that he was lying will be central to the prosecution’s case when it comes to trial, because Mr. Smith wants to make clear that Mr. Trump wasn’t genuinely trying to root out credible instances of voter fraud. The indictment doesn’t charge him with lying or speaking his mind about the outcome of the election, and it notes that he had the right to challenge the results through legal means. But the charges show in detail how, after all those methods failed, his “pervasive and destabilizing lies” set the table for the criminal activity that followed, specifically fraud, obstruction and deprivation of rights. As much as defense lawyers are trying to frame the case as an attack on Mr. Trump’s free speech, the indictment makes clear that it was his actions after Election Day that were criminal.That “criminal scheme” began, the indictment says, on Nov. 14, 2020, when Mr. Trump turned to Rudy Giuliani (acknowledged by his lawyer to be “co-conspirator 1”) to challenge the results in the swing state of Arizona, which Mr. Trump had lost. “From that point on,” the charges state, “the defendant and his co-conspirators executed a strategy to use knowing deceit in the targeted states,” which also included Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In an example cited in the charges, Mr. Giuliani sent a text to the Senate majority leader in Michigan on Dec. 7 demanding that the legislature pass a resolution saying the election was in dispute and that the state’s electors were not official. That demand was refused, but Mr. Trump continued to claim that more than 100,000 ballots in Detroit were fraudulent.The scope of Mr. Trump’s plot touched every level of American political life. While the four federal crimes charged by Mr. Smith all relate to the same set of facts, three of those crimes, one for fraud and two related to obstruction of a proceeding, are crimes against the U.S. government. The fourth crime is against the American people, millions of whom Mr. Trump sought to deprive of their right to have their vote counted. This crime carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.It appears increasingly likely that Mr. Trump will soon face charges for crimes against yet another level of American government — the states — as the district attorney in Atlanta reaches the final stages of a grand jury investigation into his pressure campaign to get Georgia to reverse its certified vote count and award its 16 electors to him instead of Joe Biden.The former president responded to this latest and most serious indictment in his customary style, denouncing it as “corrupt” and invoking, among other things, the “Biden Crime Family” and Nazi Germany. Mr. Smith, a veteran prosecutor on the International Criminal Court who has prosecuted far more brutal and popular leaders than Mr. Trump, has surely heard it all before. But that does not excuse the support Mr. Trump is receiving from his Republican allies in Congress, who insist that this prosecution is political and have helped damage the respect for the criminal justice system in the minds of so many voters. Yes, some in Mr. Trump’s party, including his former vice president, have stood up for democratic norms in the wake of these indictments, and yet it is impossible to ignore those who have not. These attacks are dangerous and have led to death threats against prosecutors, judges and other civil servants for doing their jobs.If Mr. Smith’s previous indictment of Mr. Trump is any indication, we have not heard the end of the charges in this case. In that earlier case, which charged Mr. Trump with illegally hoarding and refusing to return highly classified documents after he left office, the special counsel issued a superseding indictment last week, adding serious obstruction charges against the former president and one of his aides at Mar-a-Lago. It would not be surprising if Mr. Smith has more coming in the new case as well, whether additional evidence of Mr. Trump’s lawbreaking or charges against his co-conspirators, who are not named in the indictment but who are readily identifiable. Several are lawyers who advised or worked for the former president, including Mr. Giuliani, Sidney Powell and John Eastman.In many ways, the indictment continues the work of the House Jan. 6 committee, which uncovered many of the same allegations. Several of the committee’s members had urged this prosecution, particularly after the Senate failed to convict Mr. Trump after he was impeached for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. After he voted to acquit Mr. Trump, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, said there were other ways to bring Mr. Trump to account. “We have a criminal justice system in this country,” he said. “We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one.”In that, at least, Mr. McConnell was right. A former president is now being charged with extreme abuse of office and will eventually be judged by a jury. Mr. Trump tried to overturn the nation’s constitutional system and the rule of law. That system survived his attacks and will now hold him to account for that damage.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: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Charges Against Trump for Conspiring to Overturn the Election

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      Stella Tan and Rachel Quester and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicOn Tuesday afternoon, the special counsel Jack Smith filed criminal charges against former President Donald Trump over his wide-ranging attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.Luke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The Times, talks us through the indictment and the evidence it lays out that Trump participated in an illegal conspiracy to remain in power.On today’s episodeLuke Broadwater, a congressional reporter for The New York Times.The indictment accuses Donald Trump of three conspiracies and obstructing or attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBackground readingThe New York Times’s live coverage of the indictment.Four takeaways from the indictment.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Luke Broadwater More

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      Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the 2020 Election Investigation

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      Jack Smith made only his second televised appearance as special counsel on Tuesday to explain his decision to charge former President Donald J. Trump with leading a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.He took no questions and urged viewers to read the 45-page indictment in its entirety.The indictment of the former president for trying to subvert democracy — an episode that has no precedent in American history — was issued by a federal grand jury in Washington and unsealed shortly before Mr. Smith gave his statement.Mr. Trump has been charged with four crimes, including conspiracies to defraud the United States and to obstruct an official proceeding.Here are four takeaways:The indictment portrays an attack on American democracy.Mr. Smith framed his case against Mr. Trump as one that cuts to a core function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power.By underscoring this theme, which he also laid out in the indictment, Mr. Smith cast his effort as not just an effort to hold Mr. Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.Mr. Smith said the former president’s efforts to overturn the election went well beyond his First Amendment right to make claims about voter fraud. The indictment details Mr. Trump’s efforts to use the machinery of government — including his own Justice Department — to help him cling to power.Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy.Mr. Smith puts Mr. Trump at the heart of three overlapping conspiracies: a conspiracy to “defraud the United States” in his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election; a conspiracy to “corruptly obstruct” the counting and certification of election results on Jan. 6; and a conspiracy to disenfranchise American voters by trying to override legitimate votes.These overlapping conspiracies culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, when the so-called fake electors, the pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence and the riot at the Capitol all converged to obstruct Congress’s function in ratifying the Electoral College outcome.Mr. Smith argued in the indictment that Mr. Trump knew his claims about a stolen election were false. He cited a litany of episodes in which campaign advisers, White House officials, top Justice Department lawyers, speakers of statehouses and election administrators all told Mr. Trump his claims about “outcome-determinative fraud” in the election were false. Mr. Trump nonetheless kept repeating them.Establishing that Mr. Trump knew he was lying could be important to convincing a jury to convict him. A lawyer for Mr. Trump has already signaled that his defense could rest in part on showing that he truly believed he had been cheated out of re-election.Trump didn’t do it alone.The indictment lists six co-conspirators, without naming or indicting them.Based on the descriptions provided of the co-conspirators, they match the profiles of a crew of outside lawyers and advisers that Mr. Trump turned to after his campaign and White House lawyers failed to turn up credible evidence of fraud and had lost dozens of cases to challenge the election results in swing states.After many of his core advisers told him his claims of fraud weren’t bearing out, Mr. Trump turned to lawyers who were willing to argue ever more outlandish conspiracy theories and to devise edge-of-the-envelope legal theories to keep him in power.These advisers included Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York; the constitutional lawyer John Eastman, who came up with the scheme to pressure Mr. Pence to block the certification of election results on Jan. 6; and Sidney Powell, the lawyer who pushed the theory that foreign nations had hacked into voting machines and flipped votes to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Even Mr. Trump told advisers at the time that Ms. Powell’s theories sounded “crazy,” but he kept repeating them in public.It’s unclear whether any or all of these co-conspirators will be indicted or whether they now have a period in which there’s an opportunity for them to decide to cooperate with prosecutors.Indictments have only strengthened Trump’s hold on the Republican Party.Mr. Trump may be on trial next year in three or four separate criminal cases — and there’s no telling what effect that might have on his general election prospects if he’s the Republican nominee. But in the short term, the indictments so far appear to have had nothing but political upside for the former president.All evidence leads to a fact that would have been unbelievable in the pre-2015 Republican Party: In part by allowing him to claim that he is the victim of politicized prosecution by the Biden administration and liberal foes in New York and Georgia, the criminal investigations have helped consolidate Mr. Trump’s position as his party’s overwhelming front-runner in the presidential primaries.Tuesday’s was Mr. Trump’s third indictment since early April. In the four months since his first indictment in New York, Mr. Trump has gained nearly 10 percentage points in national polling averages. During that same period, his closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has seen his support collapse to the point where he now lags Mr. Trump nationally by more than 30 percentage points and is far behind in all the early voting states.To understand the depths of frustration that Mr. Trump’s presidential rivals are wallowing in as they helplessly watch a Republican electorate in thrall to the former president, consider a single data point from this week’s New York Times/Siena College poll.“In a head-to-head contest with Mr. DeSantis,” The Times wrote, “Mr. Trump still received 22 percent among voters who believe he has committed serious federal crimes — a greater share than the 17 percent that Mr. DeSantis earned from the entire G.O.P. electorate.”If Mr. Trump does well among Republican voters who already think he’s a criminal, what hope do his G.O.P. opponents have of exploiting this latest indictment? More

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      After Indictment, DeSantis Suggests Trump Can’t Get a Fair Trial in D.C.

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      Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida raced to respond to news that former President Donald J. Trump had been indicted a third time not by opining one way or the other on the new federal charges, but by leveling an unusual attack at residents of the District of Columbia, where the case is being prosecuted.Suggesting that Mr. Trump could not get a fair trial if the jurors were residents of the nation’s capital, an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Mr. DeSantis called for enacting reforms to let Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, D.C. to their home districts.“Washington, D.C. is a ‘swamp’ and it is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality,” Mr. DeSantis wrote on Twitter. “One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses — I will end the weaponization of the federal government.”The judge assigned to Mr. Trump, who was indicted on charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, is Tanya S. Chutkan, a D.C. District Court judge who has routinely issued harsh penalties in Jan. 6-related cases against people who stormed the Capitol.The Republican candidates, who have sought to overtake the former president’s substantial lead in early polls with little success, have campaigned amid a backdrop of Mr. Trump’s legal battles that have sucked up valuable airtime and dominated media coverage. Here’s what the others said on Tuesday: Former Vice President Mike Pence, who was present at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack and was the target of some rioters — and whom the indictment describes as a key target of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election — said that the indictment “serves as an important reminder: Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States.”Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, in a statement to The Times, echoed a common refrain among Republicans: that the Justice Department, under the Biden administration, had been weaponized against Mr. Biden’s political opponents. He referenced the case against Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s son, and said, “We’re watching Biden’s D.O.J. continue to hunt Republicans while protecting Democrats.”Vivek Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur and one of Mr. Trump’s most vocal defenders in the 2024 field, called the indictment “un-American.” He sought to absolve Mr. Trump of any responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and reiterated his previous promise that, if elected, he would pardon Mr. Trump. “The corrupt federal police just won’t stop until they’ve achieved their mission: eliminate Trump,” he said, and added: “Trump isn’t responsible for what happened on Jan 6. The real cause was systematic and pervasive censorship of citizens in the year leading up to it.”Former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, who has refused to pledge his support to Mr. Trump if he is the eventual nominee, was the first candidate to respond to the new indictment. “Let me be crystal clear: Trump’s presidential bid is driven by an attempt to stay out of prison and scam his supporters into footing his legal bills,” Mr. Hurd wrote. “His denial of the 2020 election results and actions on Jan. 6 show he’s unfit for office.”Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who is running an explicitly anti-Trump campaign, reiterated his earlier calls for Mr. Trump to quit his campaign, calling him “morally responsible for the attack on our democracy.” Mr. Hutchinson said that if Mr. Trump does not drop out of the race, “voters must choose a different path.” More

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      The Republicans Who Could Qualify for the First Presidential Debate

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      At least seven candidates appear to have made the cut so far for the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 23. Trump(may not attend) Trump(may not attend) The latest polling and fund-raising data show that the playing field is narrowing for the Republican presidential debate scheduled for later this month. Although former President Donald J. […] More

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      ¿Dónde está Melania Trump y qué papel tendrá en la campaña de 2024?

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      Mientras su marido busca regresar a la Casa Blanca y se enfrenta a un riesgo legal cada vez mayor, la ex primera dama ha decidido mantenerse fuera del ojo público.Desde que salió de la Casa Blanca, el mundo de Melania Trump se ha hecho más pequeño.Tal como a ella le gusta.Resguardada tras las puertas cerradas de sus tres casas, su mundo se limita a un pequeño círculo: su hijo, sus padres ya mayores y un puñado de viejos amigos. Visita a sus peluqueros, consulta a Hervé Pierre, su estilista de toda la vida, y a veces se reúne con su marido para cenar los viernes por la noche en sus clubes. Pero su objetivo máximo es una campaña personal: ayudar a su hijo Barron, de 17 años, en su búsqueda de universidad.Lo que no ha hecho, a pesar de las invitaciones de su marido, es aparecer en la campaña electoral. Tampoco ha estado a su lado en ninguna de sus comparecencias ante los tribunales.Así pasa los días Melania Trump, ex primera dama, actual cónyuge de un candidato en campaña y esposa de una de las figuras más divisorias de la vida pública estadounidense. A diferencia de sus predecesoras, no hay planes para una gira de conferencias, un libro o una gran expansión de sus actividades de beneficencia, la mayoría de las cuales, dicen personas cercanas a los Trump, no son del todo visibles para el público. En su vida después de ser primera dama, quiere lo que no pudo conseguir en la Casa Blanca: una sensación de privacidad.Esos intentos de retirarse de la vida pública se han visto obstaculizados por su marido, que la ha convertido de nuevo en la esposa de un candidato. Mientras Donald Trump se enfrenta a una posible tercera acusación formal, ella ha guardado un silencio inquebrantable sobre su creciente riesgo judicial.Aunque apoya su candidatura presidencial, Melania Trump no se ha dejado ver en público desde que Trump anunció su campaña en noviembre y no fue sino hasta mayo que habló de eso, cuando manifestó su apoyo en una entrevista con Fox News Digital.“Tiene mi apoyo y esperamos devolver la esperanza por el futuro y gobernar Estados Unidos con amor y fortaleza”, declaró.Su ausencia marca una notable diferencia con el inicio de la primera campaña de Trump, cuando Melania Trump, con un vestido blanco sin tirantes, descendió por la escalera mecánica dorada delante de su marido en el arranque de su campaña en la Torre Trump.Melania Trump mantiene el contacto y la amistad con un reducido grupo de personas de su época en la Casa Blanca, entre ellas la diseñadora Rachel Roy y Hilary Geary Ross, la destacada relacionista de Palm Beach y esposa de Wilbur L. Ross, ex secretario de Comercio de Trump. Sigue muy unida a sus padres, que tienen un apartamento en la Torre Trump de Manhattan y han sido vistos en eventos de Trump en Mar-a-Lago, el club privado y residencia de los Trump.“Desde su punto de vista y el de sus amigos, ha pasado por muchas cosas, que la han convertido en una mujer fuerte e independiente”, dijo R. Couri Hay, publicista que conoció a Melania Trump en Nueva York antes de que se fuera a Washington. “Ha aprendido a cerrar puertas y persianas y a permanecer en privado. No vemos mucho, no oímos mucho”.Melania Trump declinó una solicitud de entrevista. Este relato se basa en una decena de entrevistas con asociados, ayudantes de campaña y amigos, la mayoría de los cuales hablaron bajo condición de anonimato porque no estaban autorizados a discutir los detalles privados de su vida.Personas cercanas a la familia afirman que la falta de apoyo público de Melania Trump no debe confundirse con desaprobación o indiferencia. Ella sigue defendiendo a su marido y comparte su creencia de que su familia está siendo atacada injustamente. Desconfía mucho de los principales medios de comunicación y es una ávida lectora del Daily Mail en internet, en el que sigue la cobertura de Trump que hace el tabloide conservador británico.Melania Trump muestra un particular escepticismo ante el caso de E. Jean Carroll, quien obtuvo 5 millones de dólares por daños y perjuicios en un juicio en el que acusó a Trump de abusos sexuales en la década de 1990 y de difamación después de que dejara la Casa Blanca, según dos personas familiarizadas con sus declaraciones. Cuando Melania Trump vio la cobertura de la declaración de su marido en el caso, se enfureció con su equipo legal por no haber hecho más para plantear objeciones. También ha cuestionado en privado por qué Carroll no podía recordar la fecha exacta de la supuesta agresión.A pesar de ello, Melania Trump cree que, a pesar de los riesgos judiciales, Trump podría regresar a la Casa Blanca el año próximo. En privado, ha mostrado curiosidad por Casey DeSantis, la esposa de Ron DeSantis, el gobernador de Florida y principal rival de Trump. Casey DeSantis es una asesora cercana de su marido, una presencia habitual en sus eventos y ha empezado a aparecer por su cuenta en actos de campaña a favor de él. En una de sus escasas entrevistas, Melania Trump reflexionó en Fox News sobre la posibilidad de volver a ser primera dama y afirmó que, de tener una segunda oportunidad en el cargo, “priorizaría el bienestar y el desarrollo de los niños”.Melania Trump ha mostrado curiosidad en privado por Casey DeSantis, quien ha pasado tiempo haciendo campaña junto a su marido, Ron DeSantis.Rachel Mummey para The New York TimesPero aún no le ha dado prioridad a la campaña. Aunque se ha mostrado dispuesta a participar en eventos para su marido el año que viene, hasta ahora ha rechazado sus invitaciones a los actos de campaña.“No creo que vaya a ser nada parecido a lo que hemos visto con Casey DeSantis”, dijo Stephanie Grisham, una exasistente de Trump que renunció el 6 de enero. “No va a dejarse ver en jeans ni a caminar en desfiles”.Kellyanne Conway, asesora de Trump desde hace años y cercana a Melania Trump, dijo que la ex primera dama apoya “por completo” la candidatura de su marido y seguía siendo su “consejera de mayor confianza y más transparente”. Comentó que el matrimonio ha discutido en privado las “prioridades” de un segundo mandato.“Conozco pocas personas tan seguras de sí mismas como Melania Trump”, dijo Conway, quien no trabaja para la campaña. “Ella sabe quién es y mantiene sus prioridades bajo control. Melania los mantiene a la expectativa y siguen interpretándola mal”.Ese aire de misterio se extiende a las comunidades cerradas de los clubes de su esposo. En Palm Beach, Melania Trump no forma parte del circuito social, afirmó Lore Smith, una agente de bienes raíces de Palm Beach desde hace mucho tiempo, la cual visita con frecuencia el club.A diferencia de sus predecesoras modernas, que asistían a clases de gimnasia o de spinning, a Melania Trump no se le ve en el gimnasio y no se tiene información de que tenga un entrenador, según otros asiduos del club y exayudantes. Durante mucho tiempo ha sido fanática de los días que pasa en el spa, pero casi nunca se le ve afuera en la piscina en Mar-a-Lago o Bedminster, el campo de golf y resort de Trump en Nueva Jersey. De vez en cuando, hace breves apariciones en eventos de caridad en Mar-a-Lago junto a su esposo.“Son muy reservados detrás de los confines de Mar-a-Lago”, dijo Smith.Melania Trump no forma parte del circuito social en Mar-a-Lago, el club privado de su esposo. Se dice que prefiere Nueva York.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesMelania Trump sigue muy involucrada con la educación de Barron. Su hijo está inscrito en una escuela privada en West Palm Beach y está empezando a buscar universidades en Nueva York.Se dice que Melania Trump prefiere la ciudad a Mar-a-Lago o Bedminster. Se le ha visto yendo a su peluquero y entrando y saliendo de la Torre Trump, lo cual hace a través de una entrada lateral especial y un ascensor privado.Fuera de las residencias familiares, la agenda pública de Melania Trump ha sido limitada. Ha participado en un puñado de eventos, incluida la recaudación de 500.000 dólares en tarifas el año pasado de Log Cabin Republicans, un grupo conservador que apoya los derechos de la comunidad LGBT, y Fix California, una organización electoral fundada por Richard Grenell, ex alto funcionario del gobierno de Trump. Grenell se negó a comentar sobre la aparición de la ex primera dama en los eventos.En febrero de 2022, Melania Trump inició “Fostering the Future”, un programa de becas para niños de acogida que ya están a punto de cumplir la edad máxima para pertenecer al sistema. Una persona familiarizada con el programa, que habló bajo condición de anonimato, no ofreció detalles ni reveló cuántas becas se otorgaron, y solo afirmó que fueron “más de dos”. No existe ninguna organización benéfica con el nombre “Fostering the Future” o “Be Best” registrada en Florida o Nueva York.Michael Weitzman, el primer beneficiario de una de las becas, dijo que recibió financiación durante cuatro años en la Universidad Oral Roberts a través de un mentor, que conocía a un amigo relacionado con los Trump. “Me preguntó si ir a la universidad todavía era un sueño para mí”, contó Weitzman, quien pasó su infancia viviendo en 12 hogares de acogida. “Dijo que podría conocer a alguien realmente rico que podría querer pagar para que yo fuera”.Weitzman no llenó ningún tipo de solicitud, pero un día después de que el mentor le planteó la idea, recibió un correo electrónico del equipo de relaciones públicas de Melania Trump, preguntándole si estaba dispuesto a participar en una entrevista de Fox News con la ex primera dama, la primera desde que dejó la Casa Blanca. La beca se anunció durante la entrevista de mayo de 2022, con la participación de Weitzman a través de Zoom. Weitzman, de 26 años, dijo que no había tenido ninguna interacción con Melania Trump desde entonces.“No la he conocido en persona. A menudo me preguntaba si lo haría y me encantaría”, dijo. “Estoy más que agradecido. No hay ninguna razón por la que alguien tendría que haber hecho esto por mí”.Los asistentes de Melania Trump se negaron a discutir los detalles de sus planes de campaña, sus emprendimientos benéficos y comerciales y sus puntos de vista sobre los problemas legales de su esposo. Los voceros de la campaña de Donald Trump se negaron a comentar.Melania Trump y Barron Trump asistieron al lanzamiento de la campaña de Donald Trump en noviembre. Desde entonces, la ex primera dama ha dicho poco sobre la campaña de su esposo para la Casa Blanca.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressEn muchos sentidos, la vida de Melania Trump posterior a la Casa Blanca es una extensión de su estilo como primera dama.Desde el comienzo del mandato de su esposo, cuando no se mudó de inmediato a la Casa Blanca, Melania Trump constantemente vaciló entre dos extremos: aceptar de lleno su papel o desafiar todas las expectativas asociadas con él.Uno de sus momentos más memorables se realizó a través de una declaración de moda. Cuando regresaba de una visita a un pueblo fronterizo de Texas para encontrarse con niños migrantes detenidos, vistió una chaqueta estampada con la frase: “Realmente no me importa. ¿Y a ti?Gran parte de su experiencia en la Casa Blanca estuvo marcada por lo que personas cercanas a ella describieron como decepción y traición por parte de amigos, ayudantes e incluso miembros de la familia Trump. En ocasiones, su relación con Ivanka Trump y Jared Kushner, la hija y el yerno de Trump, fue tensa, según exasesores. Desde entonces, su exsecretaria de prensa, Grisham, y una exayudante y amiga, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, han escrito libros reveladores que la describen como fría y desconectada de su cargo.Esas experiencias empujaron a Melania Trump a ocultarse aún más del ojo público, aseguraron personas vinculadas con la familia.Melania Trump es “la primera dama más francamente desconocida”, dijo la autora de un libro sobre el tema. “Hay algo radical en ello”.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPero esa privacidad puede ser difícil de mantener bajo el escrutinio de unas contenciosas primarias presidenciales y las investigaciones legales.Recientemente, Chris Christie criticó a ambos Trump por un pago de 155.000 dólares a Melania Trump de parte de un comité de acción política alineado con la campaña de su esposo. Un representante del comité dijo que Melania Trump fue contratada en 2021 para “consultoría de diseño”, incluida la elección de vajillas, distribución de asientos y arreglos florales.“Existe la estafa y luego existe la estafa al estilo de los Trump”, escribió Christie, el exgobernador de Nueva Jersey y el crítico más abierto de Trump en el campo de las primarias republicanas de 2024, en Twitter. “Son los campeones indiscutibles”.La mayor parte de su perfil público, realizado casi siempre a través de sus cuentas de redes sociales, se centra en la venta de una variedad de cromos virtuales. Sus NFT, o tokens no fungibles, incluyen dibujos digitales de sus ojos, un sombrero de ala ancha que usó durante una visita de estado, adornos navideños de la Casa Blanca y una rosa azul destinada a conmemorar el Mes Nacional del Programa de Acogida.La mayoría de sus tuits y publicaciones de Instagram promocionan directamente los NFT o una empresa llamada USA Memorabilia, que los vende. Un día después de que su esposo anunciara en su red social, Truth Social, que había recibido una notificación de la investigación federal sobre sus esfuerzos para frustrar la transferencia de poder en 2020, el único comentario público de Melania Trump fue el anuncio de una nueva colección de NFT: “Hombre en la Luna”.Una parte de sus ganancias se destina a donaciones, aunque sus asistentes no proporcionaron detalles sobre la cantidad ni especificaron a qué organización benéfica.Si bien las primeras damas a menudo sacan provecho de la fama que viene con el cargo, la empresa lucrativa de Trump es diferente de la de sus predecesores, dijo Kate Andersen Brower, autora del libro First Women: The Grace and Power of America’s Modern First Ladies.Según los informes, a Michelle Obama se le pagó más de 60 millones de dólares en un acuerdo de libro conjunto con su esposo, además de recibir cientos de miles de dólares por discursos y firmar un lucrativo acuerdo de producción con Netflix. Laura Bush y Hillary Clinton también vendieron sus memorias por millones. Sus memorias y discursos pagados requerían que las ex primeras damas compartieran algunos detalles sobre sí mismas, sus puntos de vista y sus vidas en la Casa Blanca.Simplemente vendiendo imágenes, Melania Trump no tiene que revelar nada.Eso es exactamente lo que prefiere, dijo Brower.“Ella es la primera dama más francamente desconocida”, dijo sobre la personalidad pública de Melania Trump. “Hay algo radical al respecto. Se espera que las primeras damas quieran complacer a la gente y no estoy seguro de que eso a ella realmente le importe”.Maggie Haberman More