Regulation and Deregulation of Industry

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      A Bipartisan Plan to Limit Big Tech

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      More from our inbox:DeSantis Admits the Inconvenient Truth: Trump LostScenarios for a Trump Trial and the Election‘Thank You, Mr. Trump’Mushroom CloudsMacho C.E.O.s Erik Isakson/DigitalVision, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “We Have a Way for Congress to Rein In Big Tech,” by Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren (Opinion guest essay, July 27):The most heartening thing about the proposal for a Digital Consumer Protection Commission is its authorship.After years of zero-sum legislative gridlock, to see Senators Warren and Graham collaborating is a ray of hope that governing may someday return to the time when opposing parties were not enemies, when each party brought valid perspectives to the table and House-Senate conference committees forged legislation encompassing the best of both perspectives.David SadkinBradenton, Fla.To the Editor:Senators Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren propose a new federal mega-regulator for the digital economy that threatens to undermine America’s global technology standing.A new “licensing and policing” authority would stall the continued growth of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence in America, leaving China and others to claw back crucial geopolitical strategic ground.America’s digital technology sector enjoyed remarkable success over the past quarter-century — and provided vast investment and job growth — because the U.S. rejected the heavy-handed regulatory model of the analog era, which stifled innovation and competition.The tech companies that Senators Graham and Warren cite (along with countless others) came about over the past quarter-century because we opened markets and rejected the monopoly-preserving regulatory regimes that had been captured by old players.The U.S. has plenty of federal bureaucracies, and many already oversee the issues that the senators want addressed. Their new technocratic digital regulator would do nothing but hobble America as we prepare for the next great global technological revolution.Adam ThiererWashingtonThe writer is a senior fellow in technology policy at the free-market R Street Institute.To the Editor:The regulation of social media, rapidly emerging A.I. and the internet in general is long overdue. Like the telephone more than a century earlier, as any new technology evolves from novelty to convenience to ubiquitous necessity used by billions of people, so must its regulation for the common good.Jay P. MaillePleasanton, Calif.DeSantis Admits the Inconvenient Truth: Trump Lost Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “DeSantis Acknowledges Trump’s Defeat: ‘Of Course He Lost’” (news article, Aug. 8):It is sad to see a politician turn toward the hard truth only in desperation, but that is what the failing and flailing Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has done.Mr. DeSantis is not stupid. He has known all along that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner of the 2020 presidential election, but until now, he hedged when asked about it, hoping not to alienate supporters of Donald Trump.Now Mr. DeSantis says: “Of course he lost. Joe Biden is the president.”In today’s Republican Party, telling the inconvenient truth will diminish a candidate’s support from the die-hard individuals who make up the party’s base.We have reached a sad point in the history of our country when we have come to feel that a politician who tells the truth is doing something extraordinary and laudable.Oren SpieglerPeters Township, Pa.Scenarios for a Trump Trial and the Election Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Layered Case in Indictment Reduces Risk” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 6):It may well be that the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, has fashioned an indictment ideally suited for achieving a conviction of Donald Trump. However, even in the event that the trial comes before the election, there is little reason to believe that it will relieve us of the scourge of Mr. Trump’s influence on American life.First, there is the possibility of a hung jury, even in Washington, D.C. Such an outcome would be treated by Trump supporters as an outright exoneration.A conviction would not undermine his support any more than his myriad previous shocking transgressions. While the inevitable appeals would last well past the election, his martyrdom might improve his electoral chances.And were he to lose the election, he would surely claim that he lost only because of these indictments. Here he would have a powerful argument because so many of us hope that the indictments will have precisely that effect.The alternative, that he wins the election, either before or after the trial, is too dreadful to contemplate.If there is anything that can terminate the plague of Trumpism, it is for a few prominent Republicans whose seniority makes their voices important — Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney and George W. Bush — to speak out and unequivocally state that Donald Trump is unfit for office. That they all believe this is generally acknowledged.If they fail to defend American democracy at this time, they will be complicit in what Trumpism does to the Republican Party and to the Republic.Robert N. CahnWalnut Creek, Calif.‘Thank You, Mr. Trump’Former President Donald Trump has made his 2024 race principally about his own personal grievances — attempting to convince supporters to see themselves in him.David Degner for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Playing Indicted Martyr, Trump Draws In His Base” (news article, Aug. 9):Thank you, Mr. Trump, for sacrificing yourself for the greater good. And when you spend years and years and years in prison, we will never forget what you did to (oops, I mean for) us.Winnie BoalCincinnatiMushroom Clouds U.S. Department of DefenseTo the Editor:Re “A Symbol Evoking Both Pride and Fear,” by Nicolas Rapold (Critic’s Notebook, Arts, Aug. 1):Richland High School in Washington State is in an area, highly restricted during World War II, where plutonium essential to building the first atomic bombs was produced. As in areas of New Mexico, there have been numerous “downwind” cancer cases, as well as leakage of contaminated water into the Columbia River basin.Bizarrely, Richland High’s athletic teams are called the Bombers; a mushroom cloud is their symbol on uniforms and the gym floor. This must be the worst “mascot” on earth.Nancy AndersonSeattleMacho C.E.O.s Illustration by Taylor CalleryTo the Editor:Re “We’re in the Era of the ‘Top Gun’ C.E.O.” (Sunday Business, July 30):The propensity of the current class of business leaders to grab at team-building gimmicks knows no bounds. Simulating the role of fighter pilots at $100,000 a pop might give a C.E.O. a fleeting feeling of exhilaration, but it is a poor substitute for actual team-building.That happens when organizations and compensation levels are flattened to more down-to-earth levels. With some C.E.O.s pulling in pay rewards that are hundreds, if not thousands, of times more than their median employee, team-affirming commitment in the boardroom is far from genuine.Employees are not fooled by C.E.O.s trying to play Top Gun for a day, and making more in that short time than most employees will earn in a year.J. Richard FinlayTorontoThe writer is the founder of the Finlay Center for Corporate and Public Governance. More

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      Trump Plans to Expand Presidential Power Over Agencies in 2025

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      Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”Mr. Trump and his advisers are openly discussing their plans to reshape the federal government if he wins the election in 2024.Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times“The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal,” said John McEntee, a former White House personnel chief who began Mr. Trump’s systematic attempt to sweep out officials deemed to be disloyal in 2020 and who is now involved in mapping out the new approach.“Our current executive branch,” Mr. McEntee added, “was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”Mr. Trump and his advisers are making no secret of their intentions — proclaiming them in rallies and on his campaign website, describing them in white papers and openly discussing them.“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House and now runs a policy organization, the Center for Renewing America.The strategy in talking openly about such “paradigm-shifting ideas” before the election, Mr. Vought said, is to “plant a flag” — both to shift the debate and to later be able to claim a mandate. He said he was delighted to see few of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary rivals defend the norm of Justice Department independence after the former president openly attacked it.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the former president has “laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term, something no other candidate has done.” He added, “Voters will know exactly how President Trump will supercharge the economy, bring down inflation, secure the border, protect communities and eradicate the deep state that works against Americans once and for all.”The agenda being pursued by Mr. Trump and his associates has deep roots in a longstanding effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut the so-called administrative state.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe two driving forces of this effort to reshape the executive branch are Mr. Trump’s own campaign policy shop and a well-funded network of conservative groups, many of which are populated by former senior Trump administration officials who would most likely play key roles in any second term.Mr. Vought and Mr. McEntee are involved in Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election. The transition project, the scale of which is unprecedented in conservative politics, is led by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has shaped the personnel and policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency.That work at Heritage dovetails with plans on the Trump campaign website to expand presidential power that were drafted primarily by two of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Vincent Haley and Ross Worthington, with input from other advisers, including Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration agenda.Some elements of the plans had been floated when Mr. Trump was in office but were impeded by internal concerns that they would be unworkable and could lead to setbacks. And for some veterans of Mr. Trump’s turbulent White House who came to question his fitness for leadership, the prospect of removing guardrails and centralizing even greater power over government directly in his hands sounded like a recipe for mayhem.“It would be chaotic,” said John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s second White House chief of staff. “It just simply would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts.”The agenda being pursued has deep roots in the decades-long effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut what has become known as the administrative state — agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits.Its legal underpinning is a maximalist version of the so-called unitary executive theory.The legal theory rejects the idea that the government is composed of three separate branches with overlapping powers to check and balance each other. Instead, the theory’s adherents argue that Article 2 of the Constitution gives the president complete control of the executive branch, so Congress cannot empower agency heads to make decisions or restrict the president’s ability to fire them. Reagan administration lawyers developed the theory as they sought to advance a deregulatory agenda.Mr. Trump and his allies have been laying out an expansive vision of power for a potential second term.Christopher Lee for The New York Times“The notion of independent federal agencies or federal employees who don’t answer to the president violates the very foundation of our democratic republic,” said Kevin D. Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, adding that the contributors to Project 2025 are committed to “dismantling this rogue administrative state.”Personal power has always been a driving force for Mr. Trump. He often gestures toward it in a more simplistic manner, such as in 2019, when he declared to a cheering crowd, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”Mr. Trump made the remark in reference to his claimed ability to directly fire Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia inquiry, which primed his hostility toward law enforcement and intelligence agencies. He also tried to get a subordinate to have Mr. Mueller ousted, but was defied.Early in Mr. Trump’s presidency, his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, promised a “deconstruction of the administrative state.” But Mr. Trump installed people in other key roles who ended up telling him that more radical ideas were unworkable or illegal. In the final year of his presidency, he told aides he was fed up with being constrained by subordinates.Now, Mr. Trump is laying out a far more expansive vision of power in any second term. And, in contrast with his disorganized transition after his surprise 2016 victory, he now benefits from a well-funded policymaking infrastructure, led by former officials who did not break with him after his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.One idea the people around Mr. Trump have developed centers on bringing independent agencies under his thumb.Congress created these specialized technocratic agencies inside the executive branch and delegated to them some of its power to make rules for society. But it did so on the condition that it was not simply handing off that power to presidents to wield like kings — putting commissioners atop them whom presidents appoint but generally cannot fire before their terms end, while using its control of their budgets to keep them partly accountable to lawmakers as well. (Agency actions are also subject to court review.)Presidents of both parties have chafed at the agencies’ independence. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal created many of them, endorsed a proposal in 1937 to fold them all into cabinet departments under his control, but Congress did not enact it.Later presidents sought to impose greater control over nonindependent agencies Congress created, like the Environmental Protection Agency, which is run by an administrator whom a president can remove at will. For example, President Ronald Reagan issued executive orders requiring nonindependent agencies to submit proposed regulations to the White House for review. But overall, presidents have largely left the independent agencies alone.Mr. Trump’s allies are preparing to change that, drafting an executive order requiring independent agencies to submit actions to the White House for review. Mr. Trump endorsed the idea on his campaign website, vowing to bring them “under presidential authority.”Such an order was drafted in Mr. Trump’s first term — and blessed by the Justice Department — but never issued amid internal concerns. Some of the concerns were over how to carry out reviews for agencies that are headed by multiple commissioners and subject to administrative procedures and open-meetings laws, as well as over how the market would react if the order chipped away at the Federal Reserve’s independence, people familiar with the matter said.The former president views the civil service as a den of “deep staters” who were trying to thwart him at every turn in the White House.John Tully for The New York TimesThe Federal Reserve was ultimately exempted in the draft executive order, but Mr. Trump did not sign it before his presidency ended. If Mr. Trump and his allies get another shot at power, the independence of the Federal Reserve — an institution Mr. Trump publicly railed at as president — could be up for debate. Notably, the Trump campaign website’s discussion of bringing independent agencies under presidential control is silent on whether that includes the Fed.Asked whether presidents should be able to order interest rates lowered before elections, even if experts think that would hurt the long-term health of the economy, Mr. Vought said that would have to be worked out with Congress. But “at the bare minimum,” he said, the Federal Reserve’s regulatory functions should be subject to White House review.“It’s very hard to square the Fed’s independence with the Constitution,” Mr. Vought said.Other former Trump administration officials involved in the planning said there would also probably be a legal challenge to the limits on a president’s power to fire heads of independent agencies. Mr. Trump could remove an agency head, teeing up the question for the Supreme Court.The Supreme Court in 1935 and 1988 upheld the power of Congress to shield some executive branch officials from being fired without cause. But after justices appointed by Republicans since Reagan took control, it has started to erode those precedents.Peter L. Strauss, professor emeritus of law at Columbia University and a critic of the strong version of the unitary executive theory, argued that it is constitutional and desirable for Congress, in creating and empowering an agency to perform some task, to also include some checks on the president’s control over officials “because we don’t want autocracy” and to prevent abuses.“The regrettable fact is that the judiciary at the moment seems inclined to recognize that the president does have this kind of authority,” he said. “They are clawing away agency independence in ways that I find quite unfortunate and disrespectful of congressional choice.”Mr. Trump has also vowed to impound funds, or refuse to spend money appropriated by Congress. After Nixon used the practice to aggressively block agency spending he was opposed to, on water pollution control, housing construction and other issues, Congress banned the tactic.On his campaign website, Mr. Trump declared that presidents have a constitutional right to impound funds and said he would restore the practice — though he acknowledged it could result in a legal battle.Mr. Trump and his allies also want to transform the civil service — government employees who are supposed to be nonpartisan professionals and experts with protections against being fired for political reasons.The former president views the civil service as a den of “deep staters” who were trying to thwart him at every turn, including by raising legal or pragmatic objections to his immigration policies, among many other examples. Toward the end of his term, his aides drafted an executive order, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” that removed employment protections from career officials whose jobs were deemed linked to policymaking.Mr. Trump signed the order, which became known as Schedule F, near the end of his presidency, but President Biden rescinded it. Mr. Trump has vowed to immediately reinstitute it in a second term.Critics say he could use it for a partisan purge. But James Sherk, a former Trump administration official who came up with the idea and now works at the America First Policy Institute — a think tank stocked heavily with former Trump officials — argued it would only be used against poor performers and people who actively impeded the elected president’s agenda.“Schedule F expressly forbids hiring or firing based on political loyalty,” Mr. Sherk said. “Schedule F employees would keep their jobs if they served effectively and impartially.”Mr. Trump himself has characterized his intentions rather differently — promising on his campaign website to “find and remove the radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education” and listing a litany of targets at a rally last month.“We will demolish the deep state,” Mr. Trump said at the rally in Michigan. “We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists. And we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” More

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      Former Ohio Speaker Householder Faces Sentencing in Bribery Scheme

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      Larry L. Householder, former speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, awaits sentencing on Thursday after being convicted of participating in a racketeering conspiracy that resulted in a bailout for two struggling nuclear power plants.It is, federal prosecutors say, perhaps the biggest public corruption scandal in Ohio’s history, a three-year conspiracy in which one of Ohio’s biggest corporations funneled some $60 million to one of the state’s most powerful politicians in exchange for a $1.3 billion bailout.And those investigators say they are only coming to the end of Act I.On Thursday, the former Republican speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry L. Householder, will be sentenced in federal court in Cincinnati for violating racketeering and bribery laws.The outlines of the charges have been known since his arrest, with four other men, three years ago: FirstEnergy Corporation, a Fortune 500 electric utility based in Akron, funneled the $60 million though various nonprofit entities. In return, Mr. Householder rammed a law through the state legislature that gave the company the bailout for two troubled nuclear power plants. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of up to 20 years.But, as described early this year in a 26-day trial, the alliance between the utility and Mr. Householder, 64, was far more than a bribery scandal. Among other things, prosecutors and experts say, it was an almost cinematic example of how the dark money that pervades both state and federal politics slithers unseen from donor to beneficiary.It is also a cautionary tale about how state legislatures — second-rung political bodies that are often run by part-time politicians, but increasingly dealing with issues of national importance — are at least as prone to manipulation by special interests as their Washington counterparts.David DeVillers, who oversaw the federal investigation as the U.S. attorney in Cincinnati until early 2021, said in an interview that the gusher of dark money was crucial to the plot and an issue well beyond Ohio.“Any time you have a supermajority, whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, and industries that are based on passing laws like marijuana or sports gambling or energy, it’s a formula for corruption,” he said.In a memorandum on sentencing last week, Mr. Householder’s lawyer, Steven L. Bradley, said that his client had not admitted wrongdoing, and that Mr. Householder genuinely believed that the legislation enacting the bailout “was an important piece of legislation, which is why he advocated and voted for it.” The blare of publicity and the ignominy of conviction, Mr. Bradley wrote, had left Mr. Householder “a broken man.” In an email, Mr. Bradley said he plans to “vigorously pursue an appeal with the hope of winning a new trial.”Mr. Householder, a onetime insurance agent from an impoverished rural county in southeast Ohio, had been House speaker from 2001 to 2004. He left his legislative seat because of term limits and faced a federal corruption investigation after leaving the post then, but was not charged.After returning to the legislature in 2016, Mr. Householder secretly spent millions in 2018 to support Republican candidates for 21 seats in the State House — more than a fifth of the 99 seats — who would back his insurgent campaign to again become House speaker. He spent more millions on a media campaign to push the nuclear bailout law to passage, and then tens of millions on a scorched-earth crusade to undermine a ballot initiative that threatened to undo it.By the time he was arrested in July 2020, Mr. Householder was soliciting secret contributions from others seeking legislative favors — and plotting to change the State Constitution’s term limits clause to extend his tenure by 16 years.At each step, a web of political action committees and dummy nonprofit organizations called 501(c)(4)s, after their place in the federal tax code, ensured that money fueling the schemes could not be traced to Mr. Householder or FirstEnergy.“The scope of the conspiracy was unprecedented,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memorandum. “So was the damage it left in its wake, both in terms of its potential financial harm to Ohioans and its erosion of public trust.”In a wiretap disclosed during the trial, a lobbyist charged in the affair, Neil Clark, boasted to undercover F.B.I. agents about his handiwork.“I spent close to $20 million in the last eight weeks, $20 million,” he said. “FirstEnergy got $1.3 billion in subsidies, free payments.”He later added: “So what do they care about putting in $20 million a year for this thing?”FirstEnergy sought a bailout for two nuclear power plants, including this one in North Perry, Ohio.Amy Sancetta/Associated PressFirstEnergy had sought state subsidies for two nuclear power plants on the shore of Lake Erie for years when Mr. Householder returned to the State House in 2016. The company claimed that renewable energy and cheaper fuels had made both plants unprofitable.Mr. Householder left little doubt that he wanted his old job as speaker back. After his 2016 election, FirstEnergy’s chief executive at the time, Chuck Jones, invited him to fly on the company’s private jet to attend the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.Over several days of socializing at high-end restaurants, prosecutors said, they discussed a deal: Mr. Householder needed money to regain the speaker’s post when its occupant left office in 2018. The company needed a legislative solution to its nuclear power woes.What began with a handshake became a multimillion-dollar political operation, with the money laundered through nonprofit groups allowed by the tax code to conceal donors’ names.“They can give as much or more to the (c)(4) and nobody would ever know,” the lobbyist, Mr. Clark, told Mr. Householder in another wiretapped conversation. “So you don’t have to be afraid.”Chuck Jones in 2015, when he was FirstEnergy’s president and chief executive.Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal, via Associated PressNeil Clark, a lobbyist, was also charged in the affair.Jonathan Quilter/The Columbus Dispatch, via USA Today NetworkWeeks later, Mr. Householder established a 501(c)(4) called Generation Now. Other nonprofits, both new and old, were rolled into the scheme: a PAC called Hardworking Ohioans, two new nonprofits and many more.Rivers of anonymous money — most, but not all, from FirstEnergy — began to flow. In one typical transaction, Generation Now shunted $1 million of FirstEnergy donations to the newly formed Coalition for Growth and Opportunity, whose only reported officer was a Kentucky lawyer who oversaw other nonprofits. The Coalition for Growth and Opportunity donated $1 million to its separate PAC, which spent it on media campaigns supporting Republicans friendly to Mr. Householder and opposing unfriendly ones.And so it went: At least $3 million spent in 2018 to elect Republicans backing Mr. Householder’s speaker ambitions. Nearly $17 million more in 2019 on a successful media campaign supporting House Bill 6, the legislation bailing out FirstEnergy nuclear plants.Clean energy advocates and the natural gas industry opposed the $1.3 billion measure, which propped up two unrelated coal-fired plants and solar energy projects besides the $1 billion nuclear subsidy. And when they began collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to overturn the bailout, FirstEnergy devoted another $38 million to quash that effort.The money paid for a private detective and bullies to disrupt signature gatherers, as well as a saturation advertising campaign claiming that China was “quietly invading our energy grid” with the help of opponents of the bailout.Backers considered it money well spent. When House Bill 6 became law in July 2019, Mr. Jones, the FirstEnergy chairman, sent a picture of Mount Rushmore to Samuel C. Randazzo, then the chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission. Supplanting the mountain’s four presidents were faces of the two men and executives at FirstEnergy and another utility.Below that, prosecutors said, was an all-capital-letters caption that extolled their political clout with a common sexual vulgarity.Meanwhile, Mr. Householder’s Generation Now nonprofit was already plowing new ground. In a wiretapped conversation in 2018, Mr. Householder said he was “expecting big things in (c)(4) money from payday lenders,” an industry that has lobbied federal and state officials against regulating high-interest loans to the poor.For some, the cost of exposure has been heavy.FirstEnergy fired its top executives. Later, it paid $234 million in fines to federal agencies and surrendered another $115 million in ill-gotten gains after admitting to large-scale fraud.Mr. Clark, the lobbyist, died by suicide in 2021 after publishing a book that alleged a lifetime of dirty deals in state politics.Federal prosecutors say their inquiry is continuing, although they have not said where it might lead.F.B.I. agents removing items from the home of Samuel C. Randazzo, then the Ohio Public Utilities Commission chairman, in 2020.Adam Cairns/The Columbus Dispatch, via Associated PressIn what was, in effect, a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, FirstEnergy confessed that it had given Mr. Randazzo $4.3 million “to further FirstEnergy Corp.’s interests” on nuclear and other issues in 2019, weeks before Gov. Mike DeWine named him to head the state Public Utilities Commission.Mr. Randazzo, who denies wrongdoing, has not been charged.Court filings and related lawsuits have referred to Governor DeWine and Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, who have said they were unaware of the illegal payments. Both supported House Bill 6, and Mr. DeWine benefited from hundreds of thousand of dollars in get-out-the-vote support from FirstEnergy during his 2018 election campaign. The company also donated $75,000 to his daughter’s failed bid for a local elective office.FirstEnergy, meanwhile, faces investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission and shareholder lawsuits.And in the five states where it owns electric utilities, utility commissions are likely to require tens of millions of dollars in refunds to customers, in part involving scandal-related spending.On Wednesday, the company said in a statement that it “has accepted responsibility for its actions related to House Bill 6 and has taken significant steps to put past issues behind us.”“Today we are a different, stronger company with a sound strategy and focused on a bright future,” it added.Mr. DeVillers, the former U.S. attorney, said that nonprofits like those central to the FirstEnergy scandal have been largely ignored by law enforcement. Enforcement of restrictions in the federal tax code on 501(c)(4) groups has been lax.Dave Anderson, the communications director of the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that follows the energy industry, said that might now change.“This is a case that really illustrates how they can be used for criminal malfeasance,” he said, referring to nonprofits. Now, he said, lawyers who told clients that 501(c)(4) groups are safe conduits for secret cash may be “holding their breath and thinking, ‘Maybe the convictions will be thrown out.’” More

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      The Supreme Court Has Earned a Little Contempt

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      Although the Supreme Court has been deciding cases at a glacial pace this term — and that with an almost comically small docket of only 59 merits cases — the justices have found other ways to keep busy. They have been spinning their ethical lapses (Justice Clarence Thomas), blowing off congressional oversight (Chief Justice John Roberts), giving interviews whining about public criticism (Justice Samuel Alito) and presenting awards to one another (Justice Elena Kagan to Mr. Roberts).In the cases it has decided, the Supreme Court has gutted an important provision of the Clean Water Act and made it easier for private litigants to mount constitutional challenges to an administrative agency’s structure or existence. Opinions still to come threaten to strike down everything from affirmative action in education to student debt relief to the Indian Child Welfare Act.Court observers might be tempted to describe all this as a relatively recent development, a function of the court’s 6-to-3 Republican-appointed supermajority. The University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman has called this the “YOLO court” (for “you only live once”), because of the majority’s apparent sense of liberation in pursuing long-held conservative goals. Mark Lemley of Stanford placed the beginning of the “imperial Supreme Court” in 2020.Mr. Lemley is right to decry the self-aggrandizing nature of the court. But his dating is somewhat off. Judicial self-aggrandizement has been in the works for a lot longer: It has been a hallmark of the John Roberts years.Over roughly the past 15 years, the justices have seized for themselves more and more of the national governing agenda, overriding other decision makers with startling frequency. And they have done so in language that drips with contempt for other governing institutions and in a way that elevates the judicial role above all others.The result has been a judicial power grab.Judges have long portrayed themselves as neutral, apolitical conduits of the law, in contrast to the sordid political branches. This portrayal serves to obscure the institution of the judiciary and to foreground the abstract, disembodied concept of the law. In turn, it serves to empower judges, who present themselves not as one type of political actor but rather as the voice of the majestic principles of the law.But Mr. Roberts’s judiciary has increasingly taken subtext and made it text. Here are three thematic examples out of many.Campaign Finance LawStarting with Citizens United in 2010, the Republican-appointed majority on the court has consistently struck down provisions limiting the influence of money in politics, including provisions that it previously upheld. In a 2014 case, Mr. Roberts wrote that campaign finance regulations that pursue objectives other than eradicating quid pro quo corruption or its appearance “impermissibly inject the government into the debate over who should govern. And those who govern should be the last people to help decide who should govern.”In this brief passage, Mr. Roberts implicitly distances his own institution from “the government” of which it is obviously a part, implies that the court stands outside the processes of governance, and suggests that there is something self-dealing and borderline corrupt about campaign finance laws passed by elected legislatures.In these same cases, the justices have described nonjudicial political speech in terms that make it sound kind of … icky. It involves “sound bites, talking points and scripted messages that dominate the 24-hour news cycle,” in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words. This sort of speech deserves protection for the same reasons that “flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades” do, in Mr. Roberts’s.Yet there has been one glaring exception to the majority’s hostility to campaign finance regulations: In the context of state judicial elections, they have upheld restrictions that they would be highly unlikely to tolerate in the context of nonjudicial elections. Tellingly, these cases describe judges in a manner that starkly contrasts with how they have described nonjudicial officeholders.As Mr. Kennedy put it in a 2009 case about when campaign spending required a state judge to recuse himself, “Precedent and stare decisis and the text and purpose of the law and the Constitution, logic and scholarship and experience and common sense, and fairness and disinterest and neutrality are among the factors at work” when judges consider cases — a far cry from the “sound bites, talking points and scripted messages” of nonjudicial political speech.And in a 2015 case upholding a Florida law that forbade candidates for judicial office from personally soliciting campaign contributions, Mr. Roberts, anachronistically appealing to the authority of Magna Carta, wrote that judges “cannot supplicate campaign donors without diminishing public confidence in judicial integrity” and concluded that “judges are not politicians, even when they come to the bench by way of the ballot.”Mr. Roberts’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, judges are political actors, and striking down federal election laws is an aggressive act of governance by the judiciary. And the justices’ language in these cases, holding up judges as noble instruments of the law and denigrating other officeholders as power-grubbing and superficial, serves to reinforce and justify the notion that they are uniquely qualified to govern us.Congressional OversightOn one day in 2020, the court decided two cases dealing with very similar subpoenas for information about President Donald Trump’s financial and business dealings. One set of subpoenas came from congressional committees; the other came from a New York State grand jury.Mr. Roberts wrote both opinions. In the case dealing with congressional subpoenas, he worried that Congress may aim to “harass the president or render him ‘complaisan[t] to the humors of the legislature.’” Accordingly, the subpoenas must be superintended by the courts, lest the legislature “‘exert an imperious controul’ over the executive branch and aggrandize itself at the president’s expense, just as the framers feared.” (The internal quotations there are from the Federalist Papers to provide a patina of antiquity.) He thus announced a multipart balancing test that applies only when Congress seeks the personal papers of the president.While that decision made the president a supercitizen vis-à-vis congressional subpoenas, the other opinion emphasized that he is just a regular citizen when it comes to judicial subpoenas. Unlike Congress, apparently, a grand jury requires “all information that might possibly bear on its investigation.” Whereas Mr. Roberts worried about Congress harassing the president, “we generally ‘assume[] that state courts and prosecutors will observe constitutional limitations.’”Not only do these opinions stymie congressional oversight — the papers were not handed over to the committees until nearly two years into the Biden administration — they also do so using language that elevates judicial institutions while denigrating legislative ones.Federal RegulationCongress is not alone; administrative agencies also bear the brunt of the justices’ disdain. In a series of recent cases that, for example, struck down the E.P.A.’s clean power plan for addressing climate change, the Republican-appointed justices have invented the so-called major questions doctrine. If they consider an issue major — and they have not told us what makes a question major beyond “vast economic and political significance” or “earnest and profound debate across the country” — then they will not allow an agency to regulate in that manner unless Congress has clearly stated that it may.To use an analogy: If a majority of justices determine that eating an ice cream cone is a major question, then it is not enough that Congress has empowered the agency to “eat any dessert it chooses.” It must legislate that the agency can “eat any dessert it chooses, including ice cream cones.” But Congress has no way of knowing whether eating an ice cream cone is major until it sees what a majority of justices have to say about it.In justifying this doctrine, the justices have raised the specter of out-of-control bureaucrats intruding on the liberty of citizens, undermining legal stability, serving only special interests and invading the domain of the states.You might think that this doctrine is meant to protect congressional power, except that it dictates to Congress how it must legislate, despite the fact that Congress has no way of knowing in advance what issues will be considered major. Moreover, as the legal scholar Beau Baumann has noted, Justice Neil Gorsuch and his colleagues have justified the doctrine on the grounds that Congress is too eager to delegate to agencies in order to avoid political responsibility, so the courts must keep Congress in line. In other words, the justices are paternalistically claiming to protect Congress from itself.***In all of these areas and in plenty more, the justices have seized for themselves an active role in governance. But perhaps even more consequentially, in doing so, they have repeatedly described other political institutions in overwhelmingly derogatory terms while either describing the judiciary in flattering terms or not describing it at all — denying its status as an institution and positioning it as simply a conduit of disembodied law.This is the ideological foundation for the Roberts-era judicial power grab.It is also worth noting that this ideological project is bipartisan. Republican-appointed justices dominate the court and have for many decades, but their Democratic-appointed colleagues — while dissenting in many individual opinions — evince no desire to contest the underlying disdain for other institutions or elevation of their own. When Mr. Roberts recently refused to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, nothing stopped Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan or Ketanji Brown Jackson from volunteering to testify, but they did not. Nothing is stopping them from publicly calling for a binding ethics code or from questioning not just the correctness but also the legitimacy of their institution’s assertiveness, but they have not.Recognizing the justices’ ideological project also points to the beginning of the solution. We ought to begin talking about the justices the way we talk about other political actors — recognizing that their first name is not Justice and that they, like other politicians, should be identified by their party.We should stop talking about another branch’s potential defiance of a judicial opinion as an attack on “the rule of law” and instead understand it as an attack on rule by judges, one that may (or may not) be a justified response to some act of judicial governance. And those other branches should be more willing — as they have at other moments in American history — to use the tools at their disposal, including cutting the judiciary’s funding, to put the courts in their place.In recent years, the judiciary has shown little but contempt for other governing institutions. It has earned a little contempt in return.Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) is a law professor at Georgetown and the author of “Congress’s Constitution.” This essay is adapted from a forthcoming article in The St. Louis University Law Journal.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Ron DeSantis’s Entry Into the Republican Race

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      More from our inbox:The Futility of Debating TrumpListen to Trans People, and Detransitioners TooRegulating A.I.: Can It Be Done?Splitting Finances During DivorceMusing About the ‘Best’ Eze Amos for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Hot Mic, Dead Air and Eventually, DeSantis Speaks” (front page, May 25):So Ron DeSantis finally entered the race. Among his highest priorities is a crusade against D.E.I. (diversity, equity and inclusion) and “woke” that we must all witness now.I have three questions for Mr. DeSantis:First: What is wrong with diversity? Ecosystems are more resilient if there is diversity. Likewise for human societies. And diverse societies are more fascinating. Color is interesting; monochrome is boring.Second: What is wrong with equity? Don’t all Americans believe in equality of opportunity and equality before the law? And we know that extreme inequality of income and wealth hurts the economy.Third: What is wrong with inclusion? Which group do we propose to leave out? Don’t all God’s creatures have a place in the choir?Bonus question: D.E.I. is what wokeness is all about. What is so bad about wokeness? Whom does it harm? Where is the angry mob? Why should “woke” go to Florida to die?I put these questions to the governor.Michael P. BaconWestbrook, MaineTo the Editor:While Twitter may have its share of weaknesses, Gov. Ron DeSantis has skillfully demonstrated his leadership qualities and strengths. Choosing facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over rioting and disorder — Mr. DeSantis’s record speaks for itself.Because of his common sense and guidance, Florida is growing now more than ever as people are migrating and planting new roots in the Sunshine State. With Florida as the model, we need look no further than Ron DeSantis as our nation’s future.JoAnn Lee FrankClearwater, Fla.The Futility of Debating Trump Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:It is not too early to mention presidential debates. The Times should make an unprecedented recommendation that the sitting president not debate former President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign.One simply cannot debate an inveterate, incessant liar. I mean that in the most literal sense: Lying is not debating, and it takes two to engage in debate. It cannot be done.Witness the recent CNN debacle, where, even when checked assiduously by the moderator, Mr. Trump repeated nothing but lies. Everyone who could have conceivably been convinced that the former president ignores the truth completely was already convinced. All others will never be convinced.Therefore, there is no upside whatsoever to sharing the stage with such a mendacious bloviator. In fact, it may serve only as an opportunity for the former president to call for another round of “stand back and stand by.” Should President Biden give him that opportunity?David NeuschulzChatham, N.J.Listen to Trans People, and Detransitioners TooChloe Cole, who lived for years as a transgender boy before returning to her female identity, now travels the country promoting bans on transition care for minors. She received a standing ovation at Gov. Ron DeSantis’s State of the State speech in Florida in March.Phil Sears/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “G.O.P. Focuses on Rare Stories of Trans Regret” (front page, May 17):While the article rightly notes that the campaign to ban gender transition in minors is led by Republicans, it falls into the trap of viewing youth gender medicine and detransition as a right-versus-left issue. Many people who support equality for trans and detrans people insist that a public health lens is crucial.The article doesn’t mention the growing transnational archive of people who detransition, commonly with feelings of regret for having transitioned. If you look at countries with national universal health care systems like Sweden, youth gender care has recently evolved following state-funded reviews of transgender treatment. By contrast, in the U.S., our highly privatized and compartmentalized managed care system contributes to the politicization of this issue to the detriment of all.Perhaps this is why the article seems to downplay the trauma that saturates detransitioners’ testimonies. To mourn the loss of one’s breasts or ability to reproduce is no small matter.Journalists should stop equating detransition with an attack on transgender people. Instead, they should see young people testifying to medical harm as a call for accountability and strive to understand the full range of their experiences without fueling the dangerous right-left divide.Daniela ValdesNew Brunswick, N.J.The writer is a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University who researches detransition.Regulating A.I.: Can It Be Done?Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, believes that developers are on a path to building machines that can do anything the human brain can do.Ian C. Bates for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Most Important Man in Tech (Right Now)” (Business, May 17):Warnings about the enormous dangers of artificial intelligence are warranted, but mere calls for “regulations” are empty. The question is not whether regulatory regimes are needed, but how to control the uses to which A.I. can be put.Anything human or nonhuman that is capable of creative thought is also capable of creating mechanisms for self-preservation, for survival. The quest for a “precision regulation approach to A.I.” is likely to prove elusive.Norman Cousins, Carl Sagan, Alvin Toffler and many others have presciently warned that technological advances provided both a cure to some of humanity’s afflictions and a curse, potentially threatening human existence.One doomsday scenario would be for tech scientists to ask A.I. itself for methods to control its use and abuse, only to receive a chilling reply: “Nice try!”Charles KegleyColumbia, S.C.The writer is emeritus professor of international relations at the University of South Carolina.Splitting Finances During Divorce Lisk FengTo the Editor:Re “Rebuilding Finances After Divorce” (Business, May 18):Your article is correct in advising spouses that they may “land in financial hot water” unless they seek expert advice concerning splitting retirement assets at divorce. But getting good advice, while a necessity, is not enough.Even if a spouse is awarded a share of a 401(k) or pension benefit as part of a divorce decree, that alone is not enough. Under the federal private pension law ERISA, spouses must obtain a special court order called a qualified domestic relations order (better known as a Q.D.R.O.) to get their rightful share of private retirement benefits.This should be done earlier, not later. Getting a Q.D.R.O. after a divorce is much harder — and sometimes impossible — to get.So, to protect themselves at divorce, the word “Q.D.R.O.” should be part of every woman’s vocabulary.Karen FriedmanWashingtonThe writer is the executive director of the Pension Rights Center.Musing About the ‘Best’ O.O.P.S.To the Editor:Re “Our Endless, Absurd Quest to Get the Very Best,” by Rachel Connolly (Opinion guest essay, May 21):As far as I’m concerned, the best of anything is the one that meets my particular needs, not those of the reviewer, not those of the critic and not those of anybody else.Likewise, what’s best for me is not necessarily best for you. I guess you could say that the “best” is not an absolute; it’s relative.Jon LeonardSan Marcos, TexasTo the Editor:While some may suffer from a relentless pursuit of perfection, some struggle with making choices, period. I’ve witnessed parents trying to get their toddlers to make choices about food, clothing, activities, etc. Hello, they’re 2!I wonder how many suffer from what I call “compulsive comparison” chaos, when one goes shopping after purchasing an item to make sure they got the best deal, even if satisfied with their purchase. True madness.Vicky T. RobinsonWoodbridge, Va. More

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      Trump’s Indictment and What’s Next

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      The fallout will be widespread, with ramifications for the 2024 presidential race, policymaking and more.Donald Trump is likely to turn himself in on Tuesday.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesWhat you need to know about Trump’s indictment A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Donald Trump over his role in paying hush money to a porn star, making him the first former president to face criminal charges. It’s a pivotal moment in U.S. politics — there was an audible on-air gasp when Fox News anchors reported the news on Thursday — with ramifications for the 2024 presidential race, policymaking and more.Here are the most important things to note so far.Mr. Trump is likely to turn himself in on Tuesday, which will see the former president be fingerprinted and photographed in a New York State courthouse. (Prosecutors for the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, wanted Trump to surrender on Friday, but were rebuffed by the former president’s lawyers, according to Politico.) Afterward, Mr. Trump would be arraigned and would finally learn the charges against him and be given the chance to enter a plea. The former president has consistently denied all wrongdoing.Mr. Trump and his advisers, who were at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday, were caught off guard by the announcement, believing some news reports that suggested an indictment wouldn’t come for weeks. The former president blasted the news, describing it in all-caps as “an attack on our country the likes of which has never been seen before” on Truth Social, the social network he founded.The case revolves in part around the Trump family business. Charges by the Manhattan district attorney arise from a five-year investigation into a $130,000 payment by the fixer Michael Cohen to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, before the presidential election that year.The Trump Organization reimbursed Mr. Cohen — but in internal documents, company executives falsely recorded the payment as a legal expense and invented a bogus legal retainer with Mr. Cohen to justify them. Falsifying business records is a crime in New York. But to make it a felony charge, prosecutors may tie the crime to a second one: violating election law.The fallout will be wide, and unpredictable. Democrats and Republicans alike used the news to underpin a flurry of fund-raising efforts. (Among them, of course, was Mr. Trump’s own presidential campaign.)It’s unclear how the indictment will affect the 2024 race. Mr. Trump, who can run for president despite facing criminal charges, is leading in early polls. Still, his potential opponents for the Republican nomination — including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Mike Pence, Mr. Trump’s former vice president — harshly criticized the move. House Republicans have also flocked to his defense, potentially increasing the chances of gridlock in Washington.But while the charges may give Mr. Trump a boost in the G.O.P. primary, they could also hurt his standing in the general election against President Biden.HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING European inflation remains stubbornly high. Consumer prices rose 6.9 percent on an annualized basis across the eurozone in March, below analysts’ forecasts. But core inflation accelerated, a sign that Europe’s cost-of-living crisis is not easing. In the U.S., investors will be watching for data on personal consumption expenditure inflation, set to be released at 8:30 a.m.A Swiss court convicts bankers of helping a Putin ally hide millions. Four officials from the Swiss office of Gazprombank were accused of failing to conduct due diligence on accounts opened by a concert cellist who has been nicknamed “Putin’s wallet.” The case was seen as a test of Switzerland’s willingness to discipline bankers for wrongdoing.More Gulf nations back Jared Kushner’s investment firm. Sovereign funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have poured hundreds of millions into Affinity Partners, The Times reports. The revelation underscores efforts by Mr. Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and others in the Trump orbit to profit from close ties they forged with Middle Eastern powers while in the White House.Lawyers for a woman accusing Leon Black of rape ask to quit the case. A lawyer from the Wigdor firm, who had been representing Guzel Ganieva, told a court on Thursday that the attorney-client relationship had broken down and that Ms. Ganieva wanted to represent herself. It’s the latest twist in the lawsuit by Ms. Ganieva, who has said she had an affair with the private equity mogul that turned abusive; Black has denied wrongdoing.Richard Branson’s satellite-launching company is halting operations. Virgin Orbit said that it failed to raise much-needed capital, and would cease business for now and lay off nearly all of its roughly 660 employees. It signals the potential end of the company after it suffered a failed rocket launch in January.A brutal quarter for dealmaking Bankers and lawyers began the year with modest expectations for M.&A. Rising interest rates, concerns about the economy and costly financing had undercut what had been a booming market for deals.But the first three months of 2023 proved to be even more difficult than most would have guessed, as the volume of transactions fell to its lowest level in a decade.About 11,366 deals worth $550.5 billion were announced in the quarter, according to data from Refinitiv. That’s a 22 percent drop in the number of transactions — and a 45 percent plunge by value. That’s bad news for bankers who had been hoping for any improvement from a dismal second half of 2022. (They’ve already had to grapple with another bit of bad news: Wall Street bonuses were down 26 percent last year, according to New York State’s comptroller.)The outlook for improvement isn’t clear. While the Nasdaq is climbing, there’s enough uncertainty and volatility in the market — particularly given concerns around banks — to deter many would-be acquirers from doing risky deals. Then again, three months ago some dealmakers told DealBook that they expected their business to pick up in the middle of 2023.Here’s how the league tables look: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and the boutique Centerview Partners led investment banks, with a combined 58 percent of the market. And Sullivan & Cromwell, Wachtell Lipton and Goodwin Procter were the big winners among law firms, with 46 percent market share.Biden wants new rules for lenders The Biden administration on Thursday called on regulators to toughen oversight of America’s midsize banks in the wake of the crisis triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, as policymakers shift from containing the turmoil to figuring out how to prevent it from happening again.Much of the focus was on reviving measures included in the Dodd-Frank law passed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. These include reapplying stress tests and capital requirements used for the nation’s systemically important banks to midsize lenders, after they were rolled back in 2018 during the Trump administration.Here are the new rules the White House wants to see imposed:Tougher capital requirements and oversight of lenders. At the top of the list is the reinstatement of liquidity requirements (and stress tests on that liquidity) for lenders with $100 billion to $250 billion in assets like SVB and Signature Bank, which also collapsed.Plans for managing a bank failure and annual capital stress tests. The administration sees the need for more rigorous capital-testing measures designed to see if banks “can withstand high interest rates and other stresses.”It appears the White House will go it alone on these proposals. “There’s no need for congressional action in order to authorize the agencies to take any of these steps,” an administration official told journalists.Lobbyists are already pushing back, saying more oversight would drive up costs and hurt the economy. “It would be unfortunate if the response to bad management and delinquent supervision at SVB were additional regulation on all banks,” Greg Baer, the president and C.E.O. of the Bank Policy Institute, said in a statement.Elsewhere in banking:In the hours after Silicon Valley Bank’s failure on March 10, Jamie Dimon, C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, expressed his reluctance to get involved in another banking rescue effort. Dimon changed his position four days later as he and Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, spearheaded a plan for the country’s biggest banks to inject $30 billion in deposits into smaller ailing ones. “If my government asks me to help, I’ll help,” Mr. Dimon, 67, told The Times.“We are definitely working with technology which is going to be incredibly beneficial, but clearly has the potential to cause harm in a deep way.” — Sundar Pichai, C.E.O. of Google, on the need for the tech industry to responsibly develop artificial intelligence tools, like chatbots, before rolling them out commercially.Carl Icahn and Jesus Illumina, the DNA sequencing company, stepped up its fight with the activist investor Carl Icahn on Thursday, pushing back against his efforts to secure three board seats and force it to spin off Grail, a maker of cancer-detection tests that it bought for $8 billion. But it is a reference to Jesus that the company says he made that is garnering much attention.The company said that it had nearly reached a settlement with Mr. Icahn before their fight went public, in a preliminary proxy statement. It added that he had no plan for the company beyond putting his nominees on the board.But Illumina also said Mr. Icahn told its executives that he “would not even support Jesus Christ” as an independent candidate over one of his own nominees because “my guys answer to me.”Experts say Mr. Icahn’s comments could be used against him in future fights. Board members are supposed to act as stewards of a company, not agents for a single investor. “If any disputes along these lines arise for public companies where Icahn has nominees on the board, shareholders are going to use this as exhibit A for allegations that the directors followed Icahn rather than their own judgment,” said Ann Lipton, a professor of law at Tulane University.Mr. Icahn doesn’t seem to care. He said the comments were “taken out of context” and the company broke an agreement to keep negotiations private.“It was a very poor choice of words and he is usually much smarter than that,” said John Coffee, a corporate governance professor at Columbia Law School. “But he can always say that he was misinterpreted and recognizes that directors owe their duties to all the shareholders.”THE SPEED READ DealsBed Bath & Beyond ended a deal to take money from the hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital after reporting another quarter of declining sales, and will instead try to raise $300 million by selling new stock. (WSJ)Apollo Global Management reportedly plans to bid nearly $2.8 billion for the aerospace parts maker Arconic. (Bloomberg)Marshall, the maker of guitar amps favored by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, will sell itself to Zound, a Swedish speaker maker that it had partnered with. (The Verge)PolicyFinland cleared its last hurdle to joining NATO after Turkey approved its entry into the security alliance. (NYT)The F.T.C. is reportedly investigating America’s largest alcohol distributor over how wine and liquor are priced across the U.S. (Politico)“Lobbyists Begin Chipping Away at Biden’s $80 Billion I.R.S. Overhaul” (NYT)Best of the restNetflix revamped its film division, as the streaming giant prepares to make fewer movies to cut costs. (Bloomberg)“A.I., Brain Scans and Cameras: The Spread of Police Surveillance Tech” (NYT)A jury cleared Gwyneth Paltrow of fault in a 2016 ski crash and awarded her the $1 she had requested in damages. (NYT)“Do We Know How Many People Are Working From Home?” (NYT)We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com. More

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      Never Mind About Ron DeSantis

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I guess we have to talk about Donald Trump’s potential indictment and arrest, right? But before we go there: You know how I told you that I’d vote for Ron DeSantis over Joe Biden?Well, never mind.Gail Collins: Bret! You’re gonna vote for our big-spending president? Student-loan forgiver? Tax-the-richer?Bret: I’m still holding out faint hope that Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or my friend Vivek Ramaswamy or some other sound and sane Republican long shot somehow gets the nomination.Gail: Happy to gear up for that fight.Bret: But for DeSantis to call Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” in which the United States does not have a “vital interest” tells me that he’s totally unfit to be president. He’s pandering to the Tucker Carlson crowd.Gail: The Terrible Tuckerites …Bret: He is parroting Kremlin propaganda. He’s undermining NATO. He’s endangering America by emboldening other dictators with “territorial disputes,” starting with China’s Xi Jinping. He’s betraying the heroism and sacrifice of the Ukrainian people. He’s turning himself into a kind of Diet Pepsi to Trump’s Diet Coke. He’s showing he’s just another George Costanza Republican, whose idea of taking a foreign-policy stand is to “do the opposite” of whatever the Democrats do.Gail: Wow, can’t believe I’ve found someone who thinks less of DeSantis than I do.Bret: So, about Donald: to indict and arrest or not to indict and arrest? That’s the question. Where do you come down?Gail: No real doubts on the guilt front, and I’m pretty confident we’ll eventually see an indictment. The question is — what then? I’m hoping for a procedure in which he has to appear in public to answer the charges but doesn’t get treated in any way that’ll cause any not-totally-crazy supporters to gather for a riot.Bret: True, though why do I get the sense that Trump is practically jumping for joy? I mean, the first indictment of a former American president is going to be over what is typically a misdemeanor? I yield to nobody in my disgust with the guy, but so far, this sounds like prosecutorial abuse and political malpractice. Democrats will live to regret it.But to go from the horrifying to the truly horrifying: How goes your banking crisis?Gail: Bret, would definitely appreciate this not being “my” banking crisis.Bret: Give the crisis about six months. Or six weeks. Or maybe six days. It’ll be all of ours. Suggest you buy inflation-proof assets, like a rare instrument or 50-year-old scotch.Gail: Or some great old wine! Although in my house it’d never outlast the bank bust.As to a response, I’m in Bidenesque territory — the government does what it has to do to stabilize the situation, including covering the deposits in delinquent institutions like Silicon Valley Bank. But the only people who get rescued are the depositors.Bret: The big mistake of the administration was to bail out all the depositors, including a lot of very rich people who ought to have known better, instead of sticking to the F.D.I.C. limit of $250,000. Now the Feds have bailed out a bunch of rich, foolish and undeserving Silicon Valley dipsticks while creating an implicit, and systemically dangerous, guarantee for all depositors at all banks.Gail: I don’t love the idea of helping out $250,000-plus depositors, even over the short term, but this is not a good moment to destabilize the whole economy.Over the long term, however, those banks, their managers and big stockholders are going to have to be held accountable. Also Congress, which watered down regulations on midsize banks a few years back.Bret: Hard to tell whether the real issue was inadequate regulation, a badly run bank or — my guess — far deeper problems in the economy. Turns out Silicon Valley Bank didn’t even have a full-time chief risk officer for much of last year.Gail: You will notice I haven’t mentioned the Federal Reserve. Saving that for you …Bret: The Fed now has two bad problems, both of them largely of its own making. The first is inflation, which remains stubbornly high and was brought on in part because interest rates were too low for way too long. The second is an economy, particularly the banking sector, that seems to be seriously ill prepared for an era of higher rates. A classic Scylla and Charybdis situation, through which Jay Powell is somehow supposed to steer us. My advice to Powell — other than to tie himself to the mast — is to continue to raise rates, even if it means recession, and call for fiscal relief in the form of tax breaks for businesses ….Gail: Stopstopstop. Bret, Congress has to get a budget passed somehow, and the Republican plan is so nutty that even some Republicans don’t buy it. You’re suggesting that we cut taxes for businesses that are already making handsome profits.Bret: Businesses may be looking forward to a steep recession and much steeper borrowing costs. It’s a recipe for collapsing revenues and mass layoffs for businesses large and small. Better for the government to lighten the load for employers, even if it means piling on additional federal debt. In fact, it could be a good way to solve the debt-ceiling question.Gail: The people who are demanding this kind of bonanza for the rich are the same ones who are violently opposed to giving the deeply underfunded I.R.S. any new money. What could be worse than efficiently monitoring tax compliance?Bret: We’re both in favor of giving the I.R.S. the funding it needs to answer taxpayer phone calls. But if the economy is about to fall off a cliff, I don’t think the answer is to make sure the taxman is at the bottom of it, picking the pockets of the dead and wounded. Gail, this topic is … getting me down. You wrote a column last week saying that Kamala Harris is definitely staying on Joe Biden’s ticket. That gets me down, too, but please explain further.Gail: Well, we both agreed for quite a while that if Biden ran again, he should pick a different veep.Bret: Like Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, or Michelle Lujan Grisham, the governor of New Mexico, or Danielle Allen, the brilliant Harvard political philosopher who has the added virtue of not being a politician.Gail: Yes, but then I gave it a long, hard thought — trying to imagine how that would work out. Tossing Harris off the ticket would be hugely disrespectful. There’s nothing she’s done that deserves that kind of insult.Bret: Did Nelson Rockefeller deserve it? Politics is politics.Gail: There are lots of terrific women in high places — governors and senators — who’d be terrific as vice president. But we aren’t starting from scratch. Harris has made some errors in her current job, but she’s done some good things, too. Just don’t think this rises to the occasion of Throw Her Out.Bret: To me, she’s Dan Quayle-level ridiculous — and George H.W. Bush would have been wise to toss Quayle from the ticket in 1992. You can bet that whoever the Republican nominee is next year will hammer away at Biden’s age and her shortcomings — like saying we have a secure border with Mexico or confusing North and South Korea — to very good political effect.Gail: Let’s go back to the president you … may be willing to vote to re-elect. He’s fighting hard to reduce federal student debt payments for low- and moderate-income people. I remember your not loving this idea in the past. Any change of heart?Bret: Nope. The problem we have with the banks stems from what economists call moral hazard — basically, encouraging risky behavior. Pardoning student debt is another form of moral hazard: It encourages people to take out loans unwisely in the expectation that they might one day be forgiven. If we are forgiving college loans now, why not forgive mortgages next? Also, it’s an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s legislative prerogatives. Democrats objected when Trump steered Defense Department money to building the border wall without congressional authorization; Democrats shouldn’t further establish a bad precedent.Assuming you see it otherwise.Gail: Yeah. A lot of these people have been making loan payments for decades without making much progress in erasing the actual debt. None of them are rich, and a lot are struggling endlessly.I can understand the resentment from folks who made a great effort and did pay off their loans. But we’re talking, in general, about people who were given the impression that borrowing large amounts of money to get a no-frills degree was a great investment that always paid off.Bret: If the government is expected to backstop everybody’s bad or dumb decisions, the country would bankrupt itself in a week. Part of living in a free society is being responsible for your choices, including your mistakes.Gail: I’m looking at this as a one-time shot that’s worth taking. But I have to admit I don’t love the idea of Biden acting without congressional authorization. Even though he wouldn’t have gotten it.Sigh.Bret: Never mind Congress — I can’t see this getting past the Supreme Court, so what we’re really talking about is another phony campaign promise.Gail: Well, I guess it’s a case of what ought to be versus what can be. But I still think there should be loan forgiveness for those who’ve spent half their lives trying to pay off a debt they were generally too young and uninformed to realize they should avoid.Really, Bret, who wants to perpetually punish people who fell for the siren call of “borrow money for your education”?Bret: In the meantime, Gail, we have Wyoming outlawing abortion pills. We’ll need to devote more time to the subject soon, but all I’ll say for now is: When the world goes to hell, it has a way of getting there fast.Gail: I’ve been thinking about Wyoming so much, Bret. Let’s go at it in depth next week. But if you hear that I was caught growling in public, you’ll know why.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More