Smith, Jack (Attorney)

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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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      How Jack Smith Quickly Brought Two Indictments Against Trump

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      Last fall, a largely unknown former prosecutor with a beard and a brisk gait flew unnoticed to Washington from The Hague after being summoned to a secret meeting by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.Jack Smith’s job interview would remain unknown to all but a handful of department officials until hours before he was appointed special counsel to oversee two investigations into former President Donald J. Trump in mid-November.Over the past few months of frenetic activity, Mr. Smith’s anonymity has vanished. He has now indicted Mr. Trump twice: in June, for risking national security secrets by taking classified documents from the White House, and on Tuesday, in connection with his widespread efforts to subvert democracy and overturn an election in 2020 he clearly lost.And he has taken these actions with remarkable speed, aggressiveness and apparent indifference to collateral political consequences.Mr. Smith has now indicted former President Donald J. Trump twice.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times“He’s going at a very fast clip — not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good — to the point that I sometimes worry they might be going a little too fast and haven’t buttoned everything up,” said Ryan Goodman, a professor at the New York University School of Law, before the release of the indictment in the election case.Mr. Smith told reporters that the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was “fueled by lies” — Mr. Trump’s lies — during brief remarks on Tuesday, after a jury in Washington indicted the former president on four counts.Mr. Smith is not the first special counsel to investigate Mr. Trump. From 2017 to 2019, Robert S. Mueller III examined ties between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia. In his final report, he laid out a frantic effort by Mr. Trump to thwart a federal inquiry but ultimately cited a Justice Department policy in not making a determination on whether the sitting president had committed a crime. Mr. Smith, by contrast, faces no such limits, given that Mr. Trump is no longer in office.But where Mr. Mueller took two years to conclude his investigations into Mr. Trump, Mr. Smith — who took over investigations into Mr. Trump that were several months old — delivered his basic assessment in two criminal investigations in a little over eight months.Beyond the contrast in circumstances and timing, there are undeniable differences between the two men, rooted in their respective ages, experiences, management styles and prosecutorial philosophies, that have shaped their divergent charging decisions.“His disposition, compared to Mueller, seems very different — he’s working against the clock, Mueller moved a lot more slowly,” said Mr. Goodman, who is a co-founder of Just Security, an online publication that has closely monitored the Trump investigations.Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans have accused Mr. Smith, without evidence, of pursuing a politically motivated investigation intended to destroy Mr. Trump’s chances of retaking the White House, including by leaking details of the case. But department officials have said Mr. Smith is committed to conducting a fair investigation, and he has defended his own lawyers against attacks from the Trump team, who accuse them of using unethical tactics.The former president has taken to calling Mr. Smith “deranged,” and some of his supporters have threatened the special counsel, his family and his team — prompting the U.S. Marshals to spend $1.9 million to provide protection for those who have been targeted, according to federal expense reports that cover the first four months of his tenure. Mr. Smith was flanked by a three-person security detail inside his own building when he delivered remarks to reporters on Tuesday.Mr. Mueller was an established and trusted national figure when he was appointed special counsel, unlike Mr. Smith, who was virtually unknown outside the department and drew a mixed record during his tenure. Mr. Mueller had already solidified a reputation as the most important F.B.I. director since J. Edgar Hoover, after protecting and reshaping the bureau at a time when some were calling for breaking it up following the intelligence failures that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, was an established and trusted national figure when he was appointed.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesBut there was, at times, a gap between the perception of Mr. Mueller and his ability to execute a difficult job under fire. Already in his mid-70s, he struck many of those who working with him as a notably diminished figure who, in testifying before Congress at the end of the investigation, was not entirely in command of the facts of his complex investigation.By comparison, Mr. Smith is someone who rose to the upper echelons of the Justice Department but is not well known outside of law enforcement circles. At 54, Mr. Smith, a lifelong prosecutor, is leading the investigation at the height of his career, not at the end of it.Mr. Smith is fresh off a stint as a war crimes prosecutor in The Hague and took over two investigations that were already well down the road. Mr. Smith sees himself as a ground-level prosecutor paid to make a series of fast decisions. He is determined to do everything he can to quickly strengthen a case (or end it) — by squeezing witnesses and using prosecutorial tools, such as summoning potential targets of prosecution before a grand jury to emphasize the seriousness of his inquiries, people close to him have said.When Mr. Smith took over as chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity unit in 2010, the unit was reeling from the collapse of a criminal case against former Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska. In his first few months on the job, he closed several prominent investigations into members of Congress without charges.At the time, Mr. Smith brushed off the suggestion that he had lost his nerve. “If I were the sort of person who could be cowed,” he said, “I would find another line of work.”Among his more notable corruption cases was a conviction of Robert McDonnell, the Republican former governor of Virginia, that was later overturned by the Supreme Court, and a conviction of former Representative Rick Renzi, Republican of Arizona, whom Mr. Trump pardoned during his final hours as president.Mr. Smith appears to be somewhat more involved than Mr. Mueller in the granular details of his investigations. Even so, he seldom sits in personally on witness interviews — and spoke only sparingly during two meetings with Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers, delegating the discussions to subordinates, according to people familiar with the situation.Mr. Smith’s stony style, intentional or not, has the effect of sowing considerable unease across a conference table or courtroom.James Trusty, who quit the former president’s defense team a day after meeting with Mr. Smith’s team in June, worked for years with Mr. Smith as a senior criminal prosecutor at Justice Department headquarters and told associates he was a “serious” adversary not to be underestimated. Other lawyers said Mr. Smith’s team has fed the sense of mystery by describing him in veiled or cryptic terms, with one calling him “the man behind the curtain.”He has been more public-facing than Mr. Mueller in one critical respect — delivering short, sober statements to the news media after each grand jury indictment.Mr. Mueller said little when faced with a barrage of falsehoods pushed publicly by Mr. Trump and his allies about him and his investigative team. But at a news conference after Mr. Trump was indicted in the documents case, Mr. Smith seemed to be speaking with an added purpose: to rebut claims that one of his prosecutors, Jay I. Bratt, had inappropriately pressured a defense lawyer representing one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.“The prosecutors in my office are among the most talented and experienced in the Department of Justice,” he said. “They have investigated this case hewing to the highest ethical standards.”While much attention has centered on Mr. Smith, most of the day-to-day work on critical elements of the case has been done by several prosecutors known for their aggressive approaches.One of them is J.P. Cooney, the former leader of the public corruption division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. Mr. Cooney has worked on several politically fraught trials and investigations that drew the ire of Republicans and Democrats alike.He unsuccessfully prosecuted two Democrats — Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Greg Craig, a former White House counsel during the Obama administration — and investigated Andrew G. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director, who was vilified by Mr. Trump for the bureau’s Russia investigation. (Mr. McCabe was never prosecuted.)More recently, Mr. Cooney oversaw the lawyers prosecuting Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime political adviser to Mr. Trump. The lawyers quit in protest after the Justice Department under William P. Barr intervened in his sentencing. (Mr. Cooney was deeply upset by the intervention, but he said the case was “not the hill worth dying on” according to Aaron Zelinsky, a career prosecutor, who testified before the House Oversight Committee in 2020.)A second key player is Thomas P. Windom, who was brought in nearly a year before Mr. Smith’s appointment to coordinate the complicated Jan. 6 investigation that had once been seated in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington.Mr. Smith had a stint as a war crimes prosecutor at The Hague, in the Netherlands.Pool photo by Peter DejongMr. Smith has relied on F.B.I. agents to perform investigative tasks, which is not uncommon for special counsels. But the F.B.I. is not walled off from Mr. Smith’s investigation, unlike the agents who were detailed to work for John H. Durham, a special counsel who investigated the origins of the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation.In a letter to House Republicans in June, Carlos F. Uriarte, the Justice Department’s legislative affairs director, disclosed that Mr. Smith employed about 26 special agents, with additional agents being brought on from “time to time” for specific tasks related to the investigations.Mr. Smith, unlike many previous special counsels, did not hire most of the staff: He inherited two existing Trump investigations and moved them from Justice Department headquarters to his new office across town. Some of the investigative legwork was also done by investigators with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and agents with the Justice Department’s inspector general working alongside Mr. Windom at one point.He has, however, exerted direct control over both inquiries, trying to keep even the most quotidian information about his efforts away from the news media, and been present, if sotto voce, at the most critical moments.During Mr. Trump’s arraignment in Miami in June, Mr. Smith sat in the gallery, closely watching the proceedings. Some in the courtroom suggested he stared at Mr. Trump for much of the hearing, sizing him up.But that was not really the case. He listened intently to the lawyers on both sides, at times leaning in toward a colleague to make a whispered comment or ask a question.Alan Feuer More

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      Donald Trump es acusado de cuatro cargos

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      El expresidente, que está en campaña para regresar a la Casa Blanca, ha sido imputado por sus intentos de usar los mecanismos del Estado para permanecer en el poder.El expresidente Donald Trump fue imputado el martes por sus esfuerzos generalizados de revertir las elecciones de 2020, luego de una amplia investigación federal sobre su intento de aferrarse al poder después de perder la presidencia ante Joseph Biden.La imputación la presentó el fiscal especial Jack Smith en la Corte Federal de Distrito en Washington.Se acusa a Trump de tres conspiraciones: una para defraudar a Estados Unidos, otra para obstruir un procedimiento oficial del gobierno y una tercera para privar al pueblo de derechos civiles previstos en la ley federal o la Constitución.“Cada una de estas conspiraciones, que se aprovechaban de la desconfianza generalizada que el acusado creaba a través de mentiras generalizadas y desestabilizadoras sobre el fraude electoral, atacaban una función esencial del gobierno federal de Estados Unidos: el proceso nacional de recolección, conteo y certificación de resultados de las elecciones presidenciales”, decía la acusación.También se indicó que Trump tuvo seis conspiradores pero no los nombró.Los cargos representan un momento extraordinario en la historia estadounidense: un expresidente, que está en campaña para regresar a la Casa Blanca, ha sido imputado por sus intentos de usar los mecanismos del poder gubernamental con el fin de trastocar la democracia y quedarse en el cargo contra la voluntad de los votantes.La acusación se produjo más de dos años y medio después de que una turba favorable a Trump —alentada por los discursos incendiarios del exmandatario y sus aliados— irrumpieron en el Capitolio el 6 de enero de 2021, en el peor ataque contra la sede del Congreso desde la Guerra de 1812.Un gran jurado federal devolvió la acusación unos ocho meses después de que el procurador general Merrick Garland nombrara a Smith, un fiscal federal de carrera, para que supervisara dos investigaciones contra Trump, una sobre el manejo de documentos clasificados y la otra sobre la manipulación de las elecciones. Sucedió un año después de que la Cámara de Representantes realizó audiencias de alto nivel sobre el ataque del 6 de enero y sus causas que dieron como resultado pruebas extensas de los esfuerzos de Trump por revertir los resultados electorales.Garland procedió a nombrar a Smith como fiscal especial unos días después de que Trump declarara que volvía a postularse.El expresidente enfrenta dos acusaciones federales distintas. En junio, Smith presentó cargos en Florida acusando a Trump —el principal contendiente a la nominación republicana a la presidencia para 2024— de retener de manera ilegal un conjunto de documentos de defensa nacional muy delicados y luego obstaculizar los intentos del gobierno para recuperarlos. Se espera que ese caso llegue a juicio en mayo.El esquema que Smith imputó el martes en el caso de la elección se desarrolló sobre todo en los dos meses transcurridos entre el Día de las Elecciones en noviembre de 2020 y el ataque al Capitolio. En ese tiempo. Trump participó en un amplio repertorio de esfuerzos para permanecer en el poder, a pesar de haber perdido frente a Biden en la contienda presidencial.Trump también enfrenta dificultades legales en las cortes estatales, además de los cargos a nivel federal en los casos de los documentos y las elecciones.La oficina del fiscal de distrito de Manhattan lo acusó en un caso enfocado en pagos hechos a la estrella porno Stormy Daniels con el fin de acallarla antes de las elecciones de 2016.Los esfuerzos de Trump y sus aliados para revertir su derrota electoral también son motivo de otra investigación a cargo del fiscal de distrito del Condado de Fulton, Georgia. Parece ser que esa indagatoria podría formular cargos este mes.Alan Feuer cubre los tribunales y la justicia penal para la sección Metro. Ha escrito sobre mafiosos, cárceles, mala conducta policial, condenas injustas, corrupción gubernamental y El Chapo, el jefe encarcelado del cártel de Sinaloa. Se unió al Times en 1999.Maggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y fue parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia. More

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      Trump PAC Down to $4 Million Cash on Hand After Legal Fees

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      The scramble to cover legal bills for former President Donald J. Trump and his associates has prompted what appears to be the largest refund in federal campaign finance history.Former President Donald J. Trump’s political action committee, which began last year with $105 million, now has less than $4 million left in its account after paying tens of millions of dollars in legal fees for Mr. Trump and his associates.The dwindling cash reserves in Mr. Trump’s PAC, called Save America, have fallen to such levels that the group has made the highly unusual request of a $60 million refund of a donation it had previously sent to a pro-Trump super PAC. This money had been intended for television commercials to help Mr. Trump’s candidacy, but as he is the dominant front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, his most immediate problems appear to be legal, not political.The super PAC, which is called Make America Great Again Inc., has already sent back $12.25 million to the group paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, according to federal records — a sum nearly as large as the $13.1 million the super PAC raised from donors in the first half of 2023. Those donations included $1 million from the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner, whom Mr. Trump pardoned for federal crimes in his final days as president, and $100,000 from a candidate seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement.The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns.It comes as Mr. Trump’s political and legal fate appear increasingly intertwined. The return of money from the super PAC, which Mr. Trump does not control, to his political action committee, which he does, demonstrates how his operation is balancing dueling priorities: paying lawyers and supporting his political candidacy through television ads.Save America, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, is prohibited by law from directly spending money on his candidacy. When Save America donated $60 million last year to Mr. Trump’s super PAC — which is permitted to spend on his campaign — it effectively evaded that prohibition.It is not clear from the filing exactly when the refund was requested, but the super PAC did not return the money all at once. It gave back $1 million on May 1; $5 million more on May 9; another $5 million on June 1; and $1.25 million on June 30. These returns followed Mr. Trump’s two indictments this year: one in Manhattan in March, and one last month in federal court.An additional transfer of a chunk of money to Save America came in July, according to a person familiar with the matter, suggesting that the super PAC could continue to issue refunds and therefore indirectly pay for Mr. Trump’s legal bills in the coming months. The communications director for the super PAC, Alex Pfeiffer, declined to comment on any additional transfer.The super PAC spent more than $23 million on mostly negative advertising attacking his leading rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, earlier this year.Super PACs can raise unlimited money, while regular PACs have strict $5,000 donation limits. Some campaign finance experts described the refunds as a backdoor effort by Save America to skirt that limit.“I don’t know that calling it a refund changes the fundamental illegality,” said Adav Noti, a former lawyer for the Federal Election Commission’s litigation division.The pro-Trump super PAC and Trump-controlled PAC must be independent entities and are barred from any coordination on strategy, a fact that Mr. Noti indicated could be at issue with the staggered refunds.“So for the super PAC and the Trump PAC to be sending tens of millions dollars back and forth depending upon who needs the money more strongly suggests unlawful financial coordination,” said Mr. Noti, who is now the legal director of the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group that had filed a previous complaint about the $60 million transfer.In response to Mr. Noti’s suggestion of illegality, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement: “Everything was done in accordance with the law and upon the advice of counsel. Any disgusting insinuation otherwise, especially by Democrat donors, is nothing more than a feeble attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump is dominating this race — both in the polls and with fund-raising — and is the only candidate who will beat Crooked Joe Biden.”Save America was already under scrutiny by the special counsel Jack Smith for paying lawyers representing witnesses in cases against Mr. Trump. The group was seeded with the more than $100 million that Mr. Trump raised almost immediately after losing the 2020 election, as he claimed he was fighting widespread voter fraud. Federal prosecutors are also looking into whether Republicans and Trump advisers knew he had lost but continued with such claims anyway.Some of Mr. Trump’s rivals and their allies have seized on the Save America legal payments, accusing him of using small-dollar donations intended for another purpose to pay for his lawyers.Mr. Trump’s more recent actions appear to acknowledge his vulnerability to such criticism.For instance, his team recently formed a legal-defense fund to help allies of Mr. Trump who are facing legal scrutiny, though the fund is not expected to help cover his own bills. And at a rally in Erie, Pa., on Saturday, Mr. Trump said that he would spend as much of his own money on his campaign as was necessary, without mentioning his legal expenses.The DeSantis campaign is keenly aware that the multiple criminal indictments against Mr. Trump have only intensified his support among many Republican primary voters, who view him as a victim of political persecution.But the latest revelations provided an opening for Mr. DeSantis’s team to claim the former president was grifting off his supporters.Mr. DeSantis’s rapid-response director, Christina Pushaw, suggested that “MAGA grandmas were scammed” out of their Social Security checks “in order to pay a billionaire’s legal bills.”Mr. DeSantis himself declined to address the subject after an economic policy speech in Rochester, N.H., on Monday, dismissing a question about it as uninteresting to voters.Save America also footed some of the costs of salaries for staff members who are being paid by Mr. Trump’s campaign as well. That included the salary of Walt Nauta, a personal aide to Mr. Trump who is also one of his two co-defendants in the federal indictment accusing the former president of improperly retaining classified material and obstructing efforts to retrieve it.After all its spending and refunded money, Mr. Trump’s super PAC entered July with $30 million on hand. Among the group’s largest contributions were $5 million from Trish Duggan, a prominent Florida Scientologist; $1 million from Woody Johnson, Mr. Trump’s former ambassador to England and an heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical empire; and $2 million from Phil Ruffin, a Las Vegas casino magnate.The super PAC also received $100,000 from Bernie Moreno, a businessman who is running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio and who is seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement. And it received another $138,400 from Saul Fox, a Republican donor who also gave money to the super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis.High-dollar fund-raising for the Trump super PAC has accelerated in recent weeks as the former president has added to his commanding polling lead over Mr. DeSantis, according to people familiar with the group’s finances. An official with Make America Great Again Inc., who was not authorized to discuss contributions not on the federal filing, said the super PAC had raised $15 million in July — more than it had raised in the first six months of the year combined.Nicholas Nehamas More

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      Jack Smith’s Experience in The Hague and the Trump Investigations

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      Donald Trump openly flatters foreign autocrats such as Vladimir V. Putin and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and in many ways Mr. Trump governed as authoritarians do around the globe: enriching himself, stoking ethnic hatreds, seeking personal control over the courts and the military, clinging to power at all costs. So it is especially fitting that he has been notified that he may soon be indicted on charges tied to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election by an American prosecutor who is deeply versed in investigating the world’s worst tyrants and war criminals.Jack Smith, the Justice Department special counsel — who has already indicted Mr. Trump on charges of illegally retaining secret documents and obstructing justice — has a formidable record as a career federal prosecutor in Tennessee, New York and Washington. Yet he also has distinctive expertise from two high-stakes tours of duty as an international war crimes prosecutor: first at the International Criminal Court and then at a special legal institution investigating war crimes in Kosovo. For several momentous years in The Hague, he oversaw investigations of foreign government officials and militia members who stood accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.There are two competing visions of national and international justice at play in Mr. Smith’s investigation of Mr. Trump. One is the lofty principle that even presidents and prime ministers must answer to the law. The other is the reality that such powerful leaders can try to secure their own impunity by decrying justice as a sham and rallying their followers, threatening instability and violent backlash. These tensions have defined the history of international war crimes prosecutions; they marked Mr. Smith’s achievements in court; they are already at play in Mr. Trump’s attempts to thwart the rule of law.Start with the ideals. The United States championed two international military tribunals held at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II, which put senior German and Japanese leaders on trial for aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Henry L. Stimson, the U.S. secretary of war, privately exhorted Franklin Delano Roosevelt that even Nazi war criminals should be given a “well-defined procedure” including “at least the rudimentary aspects of the Bill of Rights.”Both the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials convicted senior leaders for atrocities committed while in government, treating their deeds not as acts of state but as personal crimes punishable by law. After the Cold War, these principles of legal punishment for the world’s worst criminals were revived with United Nations tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as special courts for East Timor, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.Mr. Smith hewed to the ideal of individual criminal responsibility as the prosecutor for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, which was created under U.S. and European pressure to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity from 1998 to 2000 related to Kosovo’s struggle for independence from Serbia. Although part of Kosovo’s legal system, the institution is headquartered in The Hague and staffed by international judges and personnel — which is how Mr. Smith, a U.S. citizen, wound up serving as its specialist prosecutor.In June 2020, his office revealed that it was seeking to indict Hashim Thaci, then Kosovo’s popular president, who was on his way to the White House for a summit with Serbia convened by the Trump administration. Mr. Thaci, a former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla leader, returned home, later resigning as president and being detained in The Hague in order to face several counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in an ongoing trial that could last for years.It is always difficult and risky to prosecute national leaders with some popularity among their people. Savvy dictators will often secure a promise of amnesty as the price for a transition of power, which is why a furtive impunity — such as that promulgated in Chile by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military government in 1978 — is more common than spectacular trials such as Nuremberg or Tokyo. In order to impose justice on Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the Allies had to commit to a devastating policy of unconditional surrender, which meant that German and Japanese war criminals could not negotiate for their own necks. Even so, the Truman administration quietly undercut that pledge of unconditional surrender for Emperor Hirohito, fearing that the Japanese might fight on if he was prosecuted as a war criminal. The Truman administration left the emperor securely in the Imperial Palace while his prime ministers and generals were tried and convicted by an Allied international military tribunal in Tokyo.At an earlier point in his career, from 2008 to 2010, Mr. Smith worked as the investigation coordinator in the prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court, the permanent international war crimes tribunal based in The Hague. Although 123 countries from Afghanistan to Zambia have joined the I.C.C., the tribunal was a bugbear for the Trump administration; Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, vowed to let it “die on its own,” while his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, reviled it as a “renegade, unlawful, so-called court.”Anyone working at the I.C.C. must understand how constrained and weak the court actually is. In 2009 and 2010, the I.C.C. issued arrest warrants for Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charging him with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the Darfur region; he is still at large, even after being overthrown. When a prominent Kenyan politician, Uhuru Kenyatta, was charged with crimes against humanity after ethnic violence in the wake of his country’s 2007 presidential election, he decried the I.C.C. as a neocolonial violation of Kenya’s sovereignty. In 2013 he was narrowly elected president of Kenya. In 2014, the I.C.C. prosecutor dropped the charges against Mr. Kenyatta, fuming that Kenya’s government had obstructed evidence and intimidated witnesses.From Kenya to Kosovo, Mr. Smith presumably knows all too well how an indicted politician can mobilize his loyalists to defy and obstruct a prosecution. When Mr. Thaci’s trial started in The Hague in April, some Kosovars rallied in support of a leader seen by them as a heroic guerrilla fighter against Serbian oppression. Mr. Smith’s office has complained that Mr. Thaci and other suspects were trying to obstruct and undercut the work of prosecutors, as well as convicting two backers of the Kosovo Liberation Army for disseminating files stolen from the office.Mr. Trump is already instinctively following a similar playbook of bluster and intimidation — even though he is not facing an international tribunal, but the laws of the United States. He has compared the F.B.I. agents investigating him to the Gestapo and smeared Mr. Smith as “deranged,” while crudely warning an Iowa radio show that it would be “very dangerous” to jail him since he has “a tremendously passionate group of voters.”Yet Mr. Trump will find that Mr. Smith has dealt with the likes of him — and worse — before. The American prosecutor is well equipped to pursue the vision of a predecessor Robert H. Jackson, the eloquent Supreme Court justice who served as the U.S. chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, who declared in his opening address there: “Civilization asks whether law is so laggard as to be utterly helpless to deal with crimes of this magnitude by criminals of this order of importance.”Gary J. Bass is the author of “The Blood Telegram” and the forthcoming “Judgment at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia.”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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      New Trump Charges Highlight Long-Running Questions About Obstruction

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      The accusation that former President Donald J. Trump wanted security camera footage deleted at Mar-a-Lago added to a pattern of concerns about his attempts to stymie prosecutors.When Robert S. Mueller III, the first special counsel to investigate Donald J. Trump, concluded his investigation into the ties between Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia, his report raised questions about whether Mr. Trump had obstructed his inquiry.Justice Department officials and legal experts were divided about whether there was enough evidence to show Mr. Trump broke the law, and his attorney general — chosen in part because he was skeptical of the investigation — cleared him of wrongdoing.Four years after Mr. Mueller’s report was released, Jack Smith, the second special counsel to investigate Mr. Trump, added new charges on Thursday to an indictment over his handling of classified documents, setting out evidence of a particularly blatant act of obstruction.The indictment says that just days after the Justice Department demanded security footage from Mar-a-Lago, his residence and private club in Florida, Mr. Trump told the property manager there that he wanted security camera footage deleted. If proved, it would be a clearer example of criminality than what Mr. Mueller found, according to Andrew Goldstein, the lead investigator on Mr. Mueller’s obstruction investigation.“Demanding that evidence be destroyed is the most basic form of obstruction and is easy for a jury to understand,” said Mr. Goldstein, who is now a white-collar defense lawyer at the firm Cooley.“It is more straightforwardly criminal than the obstructive acts we detailed in the Mueller report,” he said. “And if proven, it makes it easier to show that Trump had criminal intent for the rest of the conduct described in the indictment.”The accusation about Mr. Trump’s desire to have evidence destroyed adds another chapter to what observers of his career say is a long pattern of gamesmanship on his part with prosecutors, regulators and others who have the ability to impose penalties on his conduct.And it demonstrates how Mr. Trump viewed the conclusion of the Mueller investigation as a vindication of his behavior, which became increasingly emboldened — particularly in regards to the Justice Department — throughout the rest of his presidency, a pattern that appears to have continued despite having lost the protections of the office when he was defeated in the election.In his memoir of his years in the White House, John R. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser, described Mr. Trump’s approach as “obstruction as a way of life.”In the hours after the new charges became public, Mr. Trump, whose advisers have been blunt that he must win the election to overcome his legal challenges, highlighted the stakes for him of the 2024 election.He suggested in an interview with a right-wing news site that if he is elected, he will use the powers of the presidency to insulate himself from legal accountability on the documents case and the other inquiry being conducted by Mr. Smith into Mr. Trump’s efforts to retain power after his 2020 election loss.Jack Smith, the second special counsel to investigate Mr. Trump, added new charges on Thursday.Kenny Holston/The New York Times“I wouldn’t keep him,” Mr. Trump told Breitbart, the news site, in response to a question about whether he would fire Mr. Smith. “Jack Smith? Why would I keep him?”The new charges show how even in the face of Justice Department scrutiny into whether he still had classified documents in his possession, Mr. Trump has continued to try to find ways to upend its investigation.In June of last year, in the midst of its efforts to retrieve classified material Mr. Trump had taken from the White House upon leaving office, the Justice Department served a grand jury subpoena on Mr. Trump’s organization for surveillance footage from Mar-a-Lago that would show how boxes of the documents had been handled, especially around a storage room where many of them had been stashed.Shortly after the Trump Organization received the subpoena, the revised indictment said, the former president called Mar-a-Lago’s property manager and head of maintenance, Carlos De Oliveira. The two men spoke for 24 minutes, prosecutors say.Two days later, Mr. De Oliveira and another defendant in the case, Mr. Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta, “went to the security guard booth where surveillance video is displayed on monitors, walked with a flashlight through the tunnel where the storage room was located, and observed and pointed out surveillance cameras.”Days later, Mr. De Oliveira had a private conversation with the Mar-a-Lago employee in charge of the surveillance footage. The conversation was supposed to “remain between the two of them,” according to the charging document.Mr. De Oliveira told the employee that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted,” the indictment said.The employee in charge of the footage said “that he would not know how to do that, and that he did not believe that he would have the rights to do that.”But Mr. De Oliveira continued to push, asking, “What are we going to do?” (The Trump Organization ultimately turned over security footage, but, as The New York Times reported in May, investigators became suspicious about whether someone in Mr. Trump’s orbit tried to limit the amount of footage given to the government.)The indictment says that after the Justice Department demanded security footage from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump told the property manager there that he wanted security camera footage deleted.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe updated indictment also demonstrates how Mr. Trump, in the aftermath of the search of Mar-a-Lago last August, turned to an issue that he obsessed about in the White House: loyalty.“Someone just wants to make sure Carlos is good,” the indictment quoted Mr. Nauta as saying about Mr. De Oliveira to another Trump employee.That employee told Mr. Nauta that Mr. De Oliveira was “loyal” and “would not do anything to affect his relationship with Mr. Trump.”Shortly after that exchange, Mr. Trump called Mr. De Oliveira and said that he would get him a lawyer, the indictment said. Legal fees for Mr. De Oliveira, Mr. Nauta and other Trump employees who have become witnesses or defendants in the documents case are being paid by a political action committee affiliated with Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump’s desire for loyalty echoed behavior that Mr. Mueller captured in his report, which laid out how Mr. Trump asked the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, for his loyalty just days after taking office. Mr. Comey continued to pursue an investigation into ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia and was fired in Mr. Trump’s fifth month in office. Mr. Mueller was appointed as special counsel in the aftermath of Mr. Comey’s dismissal.Mr. Mueller’s investigation ultimately identified nearly a dozen acts Mr. Trump took that could be seen as obstruction of justice. One of the most damning related to how Mr. Trump pressured his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to create a fake document rebutting statements he gave to Mr. Mueller’s office. Mr. McGahn refused to go along with what Mr. Trump wanted.Another example related to Mr. Trump’s powers as president. During Mr. Mueller’s investigation, several of his allies and associates — including Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort — were indicted by the Justice Department in cases that could have produced damaging testimony about Mr. Trump and his campaign. As the prosecutions of the men went forward, Mr. Trump publicly dangled the idea of issuing pardons. In the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s presidency, he pardoned them.The former special counsel Robert S. Mueller at a hearing in 2019. Mr. Mueller’s investigation identified nearly a dozen acts Mr. Trump took that could be seen as obstruction of justice.Doug Mills/The New York Times“There are all sorts of ways to obstruct an investigation, but not every one has an equal impact,” said Brandon Van Grack, a former prosecutor on Mr. Mueller’s team. “Hiding and lying are damaging, but prosecutors can often still get at the truth. Destruction is often looked at seriously because it’s permanent. It’s permanently deleting or destroying” evidence in the case.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, assailed the investigations into the former president’s conduct, saying “the weaponized justice system along with their Democrat allies have failed at every turn because they are on the wrong side of the facts. History will judge them harshly.”Over many decades before reaching the White House, Mr. Trump engaged in gamesmanship with prosecutors, regulators and officials who had authority in aspects of the industries in which he operated. He lived in a New York City where corruption touched aspects of the political and government establishments and the real-estate construction businesses, and he came to believe that everything could be worked out through some kind of deal, associates and former employees said.He courted officials who had prosecutorial jurisdiction in New York City, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, then the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, and Robert Morgenthau, the district attorney in Manhattan. Faced with massive amounts of civil litigation, his impulse, former employees said, was to find lawyers who knew the judge.In April 2018, an aspect of the Russian investigation spun off into a separate one into Michael D. Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization who also served as a fixer for Mr. Trump and knew many of his secrets. After Mr. Cohen’s hotel, apartment and office were searched by the F.B.I. that month, Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen with a message: stay strong.He then predicted on Twitter that Mr. Cohen would never “flip” on him. Mr. Cohen eventually did provide prosecutors with information about Mr. Trump’s hush-money payments before the 2016 election to a porn star who said she had a sexual liaison with him. He later said that Mr. Trump spoke in “code” to avoid plainly communicating his desires.Mr. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, wrote in his book, “The Room Where It Happened,” that Mr. Trump repeatedly sought to interfere with law enforcement and other official actions involving foreign leaders.During an investigation into Halkbank, a state-financed institution based in Turkey that was facing an investigation by U.S. officials for a scheme to evade sanctions on Iran, Mr. Trump told the country’s leader that he would “take care of things,” Mr. Bolton wrote.In a brief interview on Friday, Mr. Bolton pointed to a specific aspect of Mr. Trump’s view of how the rules apply to him: his use of government power for his personal and political benefit while in office.He cited Mr. Trump’s efforts to solicit damaging information about the Bidens from Ukraine as he withheld military aid to that country. “It shows as president he had fundamental difficulty distinguishing himself from the government,” Mr. Bolton said. “And it’s also why he couldn’t understand why government officials weren’t personally loyal to him.” More

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      Justices Ignoring the ‘Scent of Impropriety’

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      More from our inbox:The Costs of the Trump InquiryGiuliani’s False AccusationsReform the College Admissions SystemBiden’s Dog Needs a New HomeA Brit’s Struggles, After Brexit Hannah RobinsonTo the Editor:Re “What Smells Off at the Court?,” by Michael Ponsor (Opinion guest essay, July 16):Judge Ponsor’s bewilderment at the loss of olfaction on the Supreme Court is spot on. As he explained, it isn’t that hard for a judge to catch even a faint whiff of the scent of impropriety.And you don’t have to be a federal judge to smell it. Every federal employee knows that aroma. When I was a Justice Department lawyer, a group of federal and state lawyers spent months negotiating in a conference room at the defendant’s law firm. The firm regularly ordered in catered lunches and invited the government attorneys to partake. None of us ever accepted a bite.Another time, a company hoping to build a development on a Superfund site hosted a presentation for federal and municipal officials. The company’s spokesperson presented each city official with a goodie bag filled with stuff like baseball caps bearing the project’s name. To me and my colleagues, the spokesperson said: “We didn’t bring any for you. We knew you wouldn’t take them.” They were right.The sense of smell is more highly evolved in the depths of the administrative state than in the rarefied air at the pinnacle of the judicial branch.Steve GoldCaldwell, N.J.The writer now teaches at Rutgers Law School.To the Editor:Judge Michael Ponsor alludes to the Code of Conduct for United States Judges as the guide he has followed his entire career. However, he implies that the code is faulty by stating the Supreme Court needs a “skillfully drafted code” to avoid political pressure on justices. He does not elaborate on what shortcomings the existing code has that make it inapplicable to the Supreme Court.The existing code is very skillfully drafted. It emphasizes that the foundation of the judicial system is based on public trust in the impartiality of judges. The code is very clear that the “appearance of impropriety” is as important as its absence.This is at the core of the scandals of current sitting justices. The actions and favors received most certainly have the appearance of impropriety. Those appearances of impropriety are undermining confidence and trust in the Supreme Court. No amount of rationalization and argle-bargle by the justices can change that.R.J. GodinBerkeley, Calif.To the Editor:When I served as a United States district judge, it did not take an acute sense of smell for me to determine what action was ethically appropriate. I had a simple test that was easy to apply: Do I want to read about this in The New York Times? I think the current members of the Supreme Court are beginning to realize the value of this simple test.John S. MartinFort Myers, Fla.The writer served as a district judge for the Southern District of New York from 1990 to 2003.The Costs of the Trump InquiryThe scope of Jack Smith’s investigation of former President Donald J. Trump greatly exceeds that of the special counsel investigating President Biden’s handling of classified documents after he left the vice presidency.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Cost of Scrutinizing Trump Continues to Grow” (front page, July 24):We should weigh the cost of investigating and prosecuting allegations of major crimes committed by Donald Trump against the cost of doing nothing.Imagine a world in which the United States descends into an authoritarian regime — with our rulers selected by violent mobs rather than in elections. The costs to our rights as citizens and our system of free enterprise would be incalculably larger in such a world than what Jack Smith is currently spending to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his actions.Eric W. OrtsPhiladelphiaThe writer is a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a visiting professor of law at Columbia University.Giuliani’s False Accusations Nicole Craine for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Poll Workers Get Retraction From Giuliani” (front page, July 27):If there was such widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election, why did Rudy Giuliani resort to falsely accusing the two Atlanta election workers? Didn’t he have many true examples of fraud to choose from?Tom FritschlerPort Angeles, Wash.Reform the College Admissions SystemThe Harvard University campus last month. The Biden administration’s inquiry comes at a moment of heightened scrutiny of college admissions practices.Kayana Szymczak for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Legacy Admission at Harvard Faces Federal Inquiry” (front page, July 26):While I applaud the focus on legacy admissions, it is clear that the entire process needs an overhaul. Every day now it feels as if a new study is released that confirms what we had long suspected: that elite colleges favor the wealthy and the connected. Does anyone believe that removing legacy admissions alone will change this?As it stands, elite schools care too much about wealth and prestige to fundamentally alter practices that tie them to wealthy and connected people. If the Education Department is serious about reform, it will broaden its inquiry to examine the entire system.However one feels about the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, at the very least it has forced us to reconsider the status quo. I pray that policymakers take this opportunity instead of leaving the bones of the old system in place.Alex ChinSan FranciscoThe writer is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Teachers College, Columbia University.Biden’s Dog Needs a New HomeA White House staff member walking Commander, one of the Biden family’s dogs, on the North Lawn of the White House earlier this year.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Emails Report List of Attacks by Biden’s Dog” (news article, July 26):I support Joe Biden’s presidency and think he is generally a thoughtful, kind man. But I am appalled to learn that Secret Service agents — or any employees at the White House — have to regularly contend with the risk of being bitten by the president’s German shepherd.No one deserves to face not just the physical harm and pain of dog bites but also the constant fear of proximity to such an aggressive pet. Keeping the dog, Commander, at the White House shows poor judgment.This situation hardly reflects the Bidens’ respect and caring for those sworn to serve them. It’s time for Commander to find a new home better suited to his needs.Cheryl AlisonWorcester, Mass.A Brit’s Struggles, After Brexit Andy Rain/EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “The Disaster No One Wants to Talk About,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, July 23):I am a Brit, a fact I have been ashamed of since the Brexit vote in 2016, if not before.I voted to stay in the European Union. I was shocked at the result, and I was more shocked at the ignorance of others who voted.Our lives absolutely have changed since Brexit, but not for the better. My family is poorer, and we can no longer afford a holiday or many of the luxuries we previously could. As the economy suffers, with the rise in interest rates our mortgage is set to reach unspeakable sums. Package that with a near doubling in the cost of our weekly groceries, and we have big decisions that need to be made as a family.And still, despite this utter chaos, the widespread use of food banks, the regular striking of underpaid and underappreciated key workers, despite all of this, there are still enough people to shout loud in support of Brexit and the Conservative Party.We are a nation in blind denial. We are crashing. And yes, we are being pushed to breaking up into pieces not seen for centuries.As a family we miss the E.U., we mourn the E.U., and we grieve for the quality of life we once had but may never see again.Nevine MannRedruth, England More

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      Trump’s Lawyers Meet With Prosecutors as Election Interference Charges Loom

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      The former president’s legal team reportedly arrived at the office of Jack Smith, the special counsel leading the inquiry.Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump were expected to meet on Thursday with officials in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, as federal prosecutors edged closer toward bringing an indictment against Mr. Trump in connection with his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to three people familiar with the matter.It was not immediately clear what subjects would be discussed at the meeting or if Mr. Smith would take part. But similar gatherings are often used by defense lawyers as a last-ditch effort to argue against charges being filed or to convey their version of events in a criminal investigation.ABC News reported earlier that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had arrived at Mr. Smith’s office in Washington. They were seen driving into an underground garage shortly before 10 a.m.The former president’s legal team — including Todd Blanche and a newly hired lawyer, John Lauro — has been on high alert since last week, when prosecutors working for the special counsel sent Mr. Trump a so-called target letter in the election interference case. It was the clearest signal that charges could be coming.The letter described three potential counts that Mr. Trump could face: conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding and a Reconstruction-era civil rights charge that makes it a crime to threaten or intimidate anyone in the “free exercise or enjoyment” of any right or privilege provided by the Constitution or by federal law.Another team of lawyers working at the time for Mr. Trump had a similar meeting with officials at the Justice Department last month, days before prosecutors led by Mr. Smith filed an indictment in Florida charging the former president with illegally holding onto 31 highly sensitive classified documents after leaving the White House.The indictment in the Florida case, which is set to go to trial in May, also accused Mr. Trump of conspiring with one of his personal aides, Walt Nauta, to obstruct the government’s repeated attempts to retrieve the classified documents.If Mr. Trump is charged in connection with his efforts to reverse his election loss, it would be an extraordinary moment in which a former president — and current presidential candidate — stood accused of using the powers of his own government to remain in office against the will of the voters.Mr. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has already been charged not only in the classified documents case but also by the Manhattan district attorney, who has accused him of dozens of felonies related to hush money payments made to a porn actress in the run-up to the 2016 election.Mr. Trump also faces scrutiny from the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who is investigating his efforts to bend the results of the 2020 election in that state in his favor. More