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      ‘The 2024 Issue: Democracy or Autocracy?’

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      More from our inbox:Trump as Target: Is Another Indictment Coming?The Israeli-Palestinian ConflictStudent Loans, and the Purpose of CollegeDonald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump and Allies Seeking Vast Increase of His Power” (front page, July 17):Donald Trump plans, if elected next year, to revamp the administrative state, also known to conservatives as the deep state, also known to Mr. Trump as the warmongers, the globalists, the “communists, Marxists and fascists,” “the political class that hates our country.”Once revamped, this new state would be much more under Mr. Trump’s control, without those pesky independent agencies that are beyond his reach.We had a state like that in the past, headed by King George III, and decided that we did not like it, which is why we have what are quaintly known as “checks and balances,” designed precisely to prevent the president from amassing too much power.Are we really ready to replace “Hail to the Chief” with “Hail to the King”?John T. DillonWest Caldwell, N.J.To the Editor:If someone told Donald Trump that he is merely a tool of the Republican Party, he would be livid. But tool he is, and also a tool of the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation and all the billionaires who stand to gain from longstanding Republican tenets, if implemented.Going back to the Nixon era, conservative Republicans would often say, “The best government is the least government.” During several Republican administrations there have been efforts to reduce the size and the role of government. They have sought a smaller I.R.S., so that earnings of wealthy people would not be audited, and reduced regulation by federal agencies, maximizing the profits of businesses that would otherwise be regulated, at the expense of the health and safety of American citizens.Mr. Trump is a useful tool to the Republicans, who hope he can normalize discussion about a reduced government in a strongman executive branch. Even if another Republican is elected president in 2024, he will follow the Republican blueprint for the executive branch, and we can kiss our seminal experiment in democracy goodbye.Ben MyersHarvard, Mass.To the Editor:Those supporters of broader powers for a re-elected President Donald Trump should keep in mind the proverb “what goes around comes around.”If Republicans are successful in broadening a president’s executive branch powers, those powers could just as easily be used, and abused, by a future liberal Democratic president.Bert ElyAlexandria, Va.To the Editor:This article about Donald Trump and his allies seeking a vast increase in power for the president almost makes this anti-Trumper want to vote for him. What the article suggests that Mr. Trump will do is long overdue. I just wish he’d shut up and quit social media.Tom BrownKansas City, Mo.To the Editor:Donald Trump has said, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” This is as clear a statement of intent as Mussolini’s in 1936: “We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.”The common goal is to establish an autocracy. With his militarized acolytes, media allies and anti-regulation donors, Mr. Trump presents a clear threat to democracy, rule of law and any hope for equity or equality.This is the 2024 issue: democracy or autocracy?Brian KellyRockville Centre, N.Y.To the Editor:If people weren’t scared before, they should be after reading this. How fascism comes to the United States.People of good conscience know what must be done. Save our democracy! Vote!Alison Goodwin SchiffNew YorkTrump as Target: Is Another Indictment Coming? Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Says He’s a Target in Special Counsel’s Capitol Attack Investigation” (news update, nytimes.com, July 18):Donald Trump announced that on Sunday he received a notice that he is a target in the ongoing federal investigation into the Jan. 6 uprising being conducted by the special counsel Jack Smith. Such notices are almost always followed by an actual indictment.This is huge news. It felt like a lock that the Justice Department would indict Mr. Trump for his flagrant mishandling of classified documents. But it was far from certain that the evidence would be deemed compelling enough to indict him on charges related to Jan. 6.In the past it has often seemed as if Mr. Trump was shrouded in an impenetrable Teflon coating and nothing could pierce that protective barrier. Perhaps this, an indictment on charges he helped to incite the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, will prove to be his final undoing.Whether the news affects his strong front-runner status in the Republican presidential race remains to be seen. But what does seem certain is that it will erode his support in the 2024 general election if he is the Republican nominee and help to ensure that this man never again resides in the White House.Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.The Israeli-Palestinian ConflictRepresentative Pramila Jayapal told a Netroots Nation conference over the weekend that some lawmakers “have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.” Kenny Holston for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Hysteria Over Jayapal’s ‘Racist State’ Gaffe,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, July 18):I write to thank Ms. Goldberg for calling attention to an important point: Israel’s defenders must face the reality that its policies are deeply destructive to the Palestinian people and ultimately to the state of Israel itself.It is impossible to choose to oppress a people without morally implicating oneself. This is true for a single human and true for any state in our complex and conflicted world.Unless Israel acknowledges the humanity of the Palestinian people and changes its policies, it is doomed to fail by its own hand.Marea Siris WexlerNorthampton, Mass.To the Editor:Michelle Goldberg’s thoughtful column does not mention the reason the Israeli people and government have turned rightward. The Palestinians refuse to recognize the right of the Israeli nation to exist and have been lax in preventing Palestinian attacks, including murders of Israeli citizens.Albert MarshakAtlantic Beach, N.Y.Student Loans, and the Purpose of CollegeAmerica’s Student Loans Were Never Going to Be RepaidDuring the pandemic, the U.S. paused regular payments for student loans. But repayment was dwindling for at least a decade before that.To the Editor:Re “Who Repays Student Loans?,” by Laura Beamer and Marshall Steinbaum (Opinion guest essay, July 16):Proposed policies to fund or defund public colleges based on students’ labor market outcomes will merely reinforce the notion that colleges are job-training institutions and will further damage liberal arts education at institutions serving minorities and the working class.Having students rack up more debt will ultimately damage the economy when those indebted former students cannot afford to buy cars or homes, marry or have children.We should revisit how the interest on student loans is compounded, which forces former students to pay two or three times the original amount of their loans as interest accrues over time.But in the larger sense, we must rethink the whole system of higher education to see it as a public good rather than a privilege reserved for those who can best afford it.Max HermanBloomfield, N.J.The writer is an associate professor of sociology at New Jersey City University. More

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      Prosecutors Push Back on Trump’s Request to Delay Documents Trial

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      The office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, said there “is no basis in law or fact” for granting a motion from former President Donald J. Trump that could push the start of the trial until after Election Day.Federal prosecutors on Thursday asked the judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s classified documents case to reject a motion by Mr. Trump’s lawyers to have his trial indefinitely postponed, a move that could serve to delay the proceeding until after the 2024 election.The filing by the prosecutors came three days after Mr. Trump’s legal team made an unusual request to the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, asking her to set aside the government’s initial suggestion to hold the trial in December and delay it until all “substantive motions” in the case were presented and resolved.The timing of a trial is crucial in all criminal matters. But it is especially important in this case, in which Mr. Trump has been charged with illegally holding on to 31 classified documents after leaving the White House and conspiring with one of his personal aides, Walt Nauta, to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim them.Mr. Trump is now both a federal criminal defendant and the Republican Party’s leading candidate in the presidential campaign. There could be untold complications if his trial seeps into the final stages of the race. Moreover, if the trial is pushed back until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter entirely.Apparently recognizing these high stakes, prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, told Judge Cannon that she should not allow Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta to let the case drag on without a foreseeable ending.“There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion,” they wrote, “and the defendants provide none.”Mr. Trump’s lawyers based their motion for a delay — which was filed on Monday in the Southern District of Florida — on several assertions.They said that as the case moved forward, they intended to make novel — and presumably time-consuming — arguments that the Presidential Records Act permitted Mr. Trump to take documents with him from the White House. That interpretation of the Watergate-era law is at odds with how legal experts interpret it.Prosecutors responded by saying this potential defense “borders on frivolous.” They also reminded Judge Cannon that it was not new at all, but in fact was central to an extended legal battle last year that she oversaw, in which an outside arbiter was put in place to review a trove of materials seized by the F.B.I. from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.Mr. Trump’s lawyers also complained that a first trove of discovery evidence provided by the government was expansive — including more than 800,000 pages of material — and would take a significant amount of time to sort through.Prosecutors shot back, saying about a third of those pages contained unimportant “email header and footer information” and that a set of “key” documents that would guide the defense toward the crucial sections of discovery was only about 4,500 pages.The prosecutors also told Judge Cannon that they intended to provide Mr. Trump’s lawyers with a second batch of unclassified discovery evidence as early as next week, including interviews conducted with witnesses as recently as June 23 — a few weeks after Mr. Trump was indicted. That suggests, as The New York Times has reported, that the investigation of the classified documents case continued even after charges were filed.As for the classified discovery evidence, prosecutors said they planned to take the bulk of the classified materials seized from Mar-a-Lago to a sensitive compartmented information facility inside Miami’s federal courthouse next week for review by Mr. Trump’s lawyers — even though some of them only have interim security clearances.Once the lawyers have their final security clearances, the prosecutors said, they will be able to look at the remaining classified records, including some “pertaining to the declassification of various materials during the Trump administration.”In asking for a delay, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had said that his campaign schedule “requires a tremendous amount of time and energy” and that these efforts would continue until the election. They argued that Mr. Nauta had a similar problem since his job requires him to accompany Mr. Trump on “most campaign trips around the country.”But prosecutors seemed to have no patience for this argument, saying the two men’s “professional schedules do not provide a basis to delay.”“Many indicted defendants have demanding jobs that require a considerable amount of their time and energy, or a significant amount of travel,” they wrote. “The Speedy Trial Act contemplates no such factor as a basis for a continuance, and the court should not indulge it here.” More

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      Prosecutors Ask Witnesses Whether Trump Acknowledged He Lost 2020 Race

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      Jared Kushner was questioned before a federal grand jury as prosecutors appeared to be trying to establish if the former president knew his efforts to stay in power were built on a lie.Federal prosecutors investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election have questioned multiple witnesses in recent weeks — including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — about whether Mr. Trump had privately acknowledged in the days after the 2020 election that he had lost, according to four people briefed on the matter.The line of questioning suggests prosecutors are trying to establish whether Mr. Trump was acting with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power — essentially that his efforts were knowingly based on a lie — evidence that could substantially bolster any case they might decide to bring against him. Mr. Kushner testified before a grand jury at the federal courthouse in Washington last month, where he is said to have maintained that it was his impression that Mr. Trump truly believed the election was stolen, according to a person briefed on the matter.The questioning of Mr. Kushner shows that the federal investigation being led by the special counsel Jack Smith continues to pierce the layers closest to Mr. Trump as prosecutors weigh whether to bring charges against the former president in connection with the efforts to promote baseless assertions of widespread voter fraud and block or delay congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory.A spokesman for Mr. Kushner and a spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to an email seeking comment.Mr. Trump is already facing federal charges brought by Jack Smith, the special counsel, in connection with classified documents taken from the White House. Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut others in Mr. Trump’s orbit who interacted with him in the weeks after the 2020 election, who have potentially more damaging accounts of Mr. Trump’s behavior, have been questioned by the special counsel’s office recently.Among them is Alyssa Farah Griffin, the White House communications director in the days after the 2020 election. Repeating an account she provided last year to the House select committee on Jan. 6, she told prosecutors this spring that Mr. Trump had said to her in the days after the election: Can you believe I lost to Joe Biden?“In that moment I think he knew he lost,” Ms. Griffin told the House committee.Ms. Griffin’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, declined to comment.Still other witnesses have been asked whether aides told Mr. Trump that he had lost, according to people familiar with some of the testimony, another topic explored by the House committee. Witnesses have also been asked about things the former president was telling people in the summer months leading up to Election Day and even as far back as the spring of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic began.The question of Mr. Trump’s intent could be important in strengthening the hand of prosecutors if they decide to charge Mr. Trump in the case. It is not known what charges they might be considering, but the House select committee, controlled by Democrats, referred a number of possible charges to the Justice Department last year, including inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing an act of Congress.Prosecutors may be trying to establish whether Mr. Trump was acting with corrupt intent as he sought to remain in power after the election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Trump is already facing federal charges brought by Mr. Smith in connection with classified documents taken from the White House, and he is under indictment in New York on charges related to hush-money payments to a pornographic film actress before the 2016 election. A district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., has been investigating efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia.Legal experts and former federal prosecutors say that establishing Mr. Trump’s mind-set to show he knew that what he was doing was wrong would give prosecutors in Mr. Smith’s election-focused inquiry a more robust case to put in front of a jury if they choose to bring charges.Prosecutors do not need hard evidence of a defendant saying: I know that I am breaking the law. But their cases are made stronger when they can produce evidence that the defendant knows there is no legal or factual basis for a claim but goes ahead with making it anyway.Daniel Zelenko, a partner at the firm Crowell & Moring and a former federal prosecutor, said that being able to cite a defendant’s own words can go a long way in helping prosecutors convince a jury that the defendant should be convicted.“Words are incredibly powerful in white-collar cases because in a lot of them you’re not going to hear from a defendant, as they are seldom going to take the stand,” he said. “So, having those words put in front of a jury gives them more importance and makes them more consequential.”Andrew Goldstein, the lead prosecutor in the investigation into Mr. Trump for obstruction during the Russia investigation and a partner at the law firm Cooley, said there were other benefits to having Mr. Trump’s own statements that were critical in such a potentially weighty case.“Just as important, if the Department of Justice has this kind of evidence, it could help justify to the public why charges in this case would be necessary to bring,” Mr. Goldstein said.Some aides and allies who interacted with Mr. Trump in the days after the election have previously disclosed that Mr. Trump indicated that he knew he lost the election. In testimony before the House select committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said that in an Oval Office meeting in late November or early December 2020, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he had lost the election.“He says words to the effect of: Yeah, we lost, we need to let that issue go to the next guy,” Mr. Milley said, adding: “Meaning President Biden.”“And the entire gist of the conversation was — and it lasted — that meeting lasted maybe an hour or something like that — very rational,” General Milley said. “He was calm. There wasn’t anything — the subject we were talking about was a very serious subject, but everything looked very normal to me. But I do remember him saying that.”General Milley said, though, that in subsequent meetings Mr. Trump had increasingly discussed how the election was stolen from him.“It wasn’t there in the first session, but then all of a sudden it starts appearing,” General Milley said. A text message from early December 2020 between some of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, disclosed on Tuesday night, shows Mr. Trump searching at that time for reports of how the election was stolen, if they had not been substantiated. The text was sent by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, Boris Epshteyn, to other members of the legal team, including Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Epshteyn said that he was relaying a direct message from Mr. Trump’s communications aide Jason Miller.Rudolph W. Giuliani urged Mr. Trump to follow through with a plan to simply declare victory in the 2020 election.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“Urgent POTUS request need best examples of ‘election fraud’ that we’ve alleged that’s super easy to explain,” the text message said. “Doesn’t necessarily have to be proven, but does need to be easy to understand.”He continued, “Is there any sort of ‘greatest hits’ clearinghouse that anyone has for best examples? Thank you!!!”That same day, Mr. Giuliani replied: “The security camera in Atlanta alone captures theft of a minimum of 30,000 votes which alone would change result in Georgia.” He continued, “Remember it will live in history as the theft of a state if it is not corrected by State Legislature.”The text messages were made public in connection with a defamation lawsuit being brought by two Georgia election workers against Mr. Giuliani.Mr. Trump has continued to maintain publicly, without any credible evidence, that he lost his re-election bid because of fraud and has defended the motivations of the mob that sought to disrupt the certification of his loss on Jan. 6, 2021. Even if Mr. Kushner, a key White House adviser to Mr. Trump, did not provide prosecutors with evidence to bolster any charge they might bring, his testimony gives them a sense of what he might say if called by the defense to testify in any trial.The New York Times reported in February that Mr. Smith’s office had subpoenaed Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to testify before the grand jury. The special counsel’s office has yet to question her before the grand jury. Ms. Trump testified before the House committee last year.The House Jan. 6 committee determined that Mr. Trump’s decision to declare victory on election night even though the votes had not been fully counted yet was not spontaneous, but rather a “premeditated” plan promoted by a small group of his advisers.The panel found evidence, for instance, that Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, was in direct communication with Mr. Trump even before Election Day and understood that he “would falsely declare victory on election night and call for the vote counting to stop.”Similarly, congressional investigators unearthed an audio recording made on Oct. 31, 2020, of Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to Mr. Trump, who told associates that the president was going to summarily declare he had won the election.“But that doesn’t mean he’s a winner,” Mr. Bannon said in the recording. “He’s just going to say he’s a winner.”Mr. Bannon was issued a subpoena last month to appear before the grand jury in Washington investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.In the last two years, reported accounts of Mr. Trump’s final months in office included his former White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, describing to a friend how Mr. Trump had acted out a script the month before the election that he planned to deliver on election night, saying he had won if he was ahead in the early returns. Mr. Trump at the White House on election night. The House Jan. 6 committee determined that Mr. Trump’s decision to declare victory was a “premeditated” plan.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn election night, Mr. Giuliani — who, witnesses testified to the House committee, appeared inebriated — wanted Mr. Trump to follow through with the plan to simply declare victory. Mr. Giuliani was the sole adviser encouraging Mr. Trump to pursue that course, the committee found.Among those telling Mr. Trump on election night that it was too early to know if he had won or lost were his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, and Mr. Miller, the communications adviser. In the weeks that followed, several other aides and advisers told Mr. Trump there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the results of the election, including William P. Barr, his former attorney general.Alan Feuer More

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      Special Counsel Inquiries Into Trump Cost at Least $5.4 Million

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      The Justice Department also disclosed $616,000 in spending by the special counsel scrutinizing President Biden’s handling of classified files.The investigations into former President Donald J. Trump’s hoarding of government files and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election cost taxpayers about $5.4 million from November through March as the special counsel, Jack Smith, moved toward charging Mr. Trump, the Justice Department disclosed on Friday.Budgeting documents also showed that Robert K. Hur, the special counsel investigating President Biden’s handling of classified documents after he left the vice presidency, spent just under $616,000 from his appointment in January through March.And John H. Durham, who was appointed special counsel during the Trump administration to investigate the Russia inquiry, reported spending a little over $1.1 million from October 2022 to the end of March, representing the first half of the 2022-2023 fiscal year. Mr. Durham’s investigation had ended, but he was writing a final report he delivered in May.The budget disclosures covered an extraordinary period in which the Justice Department had three special counsels — prosecutors who operate with a greater degree of day-to-day autonomy than ordinary U.S. attorneys — at work. With the conclusion of Mr. Durham’s investigation, two such inquiries remain.Last month, Mr. Smith, who was appointed in November, obtained a grand jury indictment against Mr. Trump and an aide, Walt Nauta. The former president faces 31 counts of unauthorized retention of secret national-security documents and six other counts involving accusations of obstructing the investigation and causing one of his lawyers to lie to the government.Mr. Smith has also continued to investigate Mr. Trump and several of his associates over the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. Both investigations have involved significant litigation over Mr. Trump’s attempts to block grand-jury testimony by various witnesses under attorney-client privilege.The largest line item of spending by Mr. Smith through the end of March — $2,672,783 — covered personnel compensation and expenses, according to the statement of expenditures. Most of that salary money was to reimburse the Justice Department for employees who already worked for the government and had been detailed to the special counsel’s office.Mr. Smith’s operation also paid $1,881,926 for contractual services, including litigation and investigative support and purchasing transcripts.Mr. Hur’s investigation has been much quieter. Mr. Garland appointed him in January after several classified documents were found at a former office of Mr. Biden’s in Washington and at his home in Wilmington, Del. Mr. Biden and his lawyers, who alerted the government to the discoveries and have portrayed their retention as inadvertent, have said they are cooperating with the investigation.The largest line item in Mr. Hur’s office during the two and a half months covered by the budgeting document was also personnel compensation and benefits, at $346,139. That figure indicates that his operation is significantly smaller than Mr. Smith’s, reflecting the narrower scope of his assignment.Of the three special counsels, only Mr. Durham’s office was operating for the entire six-month period covered by the budgeting documents. His largest expenditure — $544,044 — also covered employee salaries and benefits.To date, Mr. Durham has reported spending about $7.7 million in taxpayer funds since Attorney General William P. Barr gave him special counsel status in October 2020, entrenching him to continue his investigation after Mr. Trump lost the election.Mr. Durham, however, began his assignment in the spring of 2019, and the Justice Department has not disclosed what taxpayers spent on about the first 16 months of his work. That period included trips to Europe as Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham fruitlessly pursued a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that the Russia inquiry had originated in a plot by Western spy agencies.Mr. Durham also later developed two narrow cases accusing nongovernment officials of making false statements, both of which ended in acquittals. More

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      Investigation of Trump Documents Case Continues After His Indictment

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      A grand jury has issued more subpoenas to people involved in the case after the unveiling of a 38-count indictment this month against the former president and an aide.Three weeks after former President Donald J. Trump was indicted on charges of illegally retaining national security records and obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them, a federal grand jury in Miami is still investigating aspects of the case, according to people familiar with the matter.In recent days, the grand jury has issued subpoenas to a handful of people who are connected to the inquiry, those familiar with it said. While it remains unclear who received the subpoenas and the kind of information prosecutors were seeking to obtain, it is clear that the grand jury has stayed active and that investigators are digging even after a 38-count indictment was issued this month against Mr. Trump and a co-defendant, Walt Nauta, one of his personal aides.Prosecutors often continue investigating strands of a criminal case after charges have been brought, and sometimes their efforts go nowhere. But post-indictment investigations can result in additional charges against people who have already been accused of crimes in the case. The investigations can also be used to bring charges against new defendants.When the office of the special counsel Jack Smith filed the charges against Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta in the Southern District of Florida, the 49-page indictment offered an unusually detailed picture of the former president holding on to 31 highly sensitive government documents at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in West Palm Beach, Fla. Among the documents were some that concerned U.S. nuclear programs and others that detailed the nation’s potential vulnerabilities to attack.The indictment was strewn with vivid photographs of government records stored in boxes throughout Mar-a-Lago in a haphazard manner. Some of the boxes were piled up in a storage room, others in a bathroom and on a ballroom stage.Several of Mr. Trump’s aides and advisers appeared in the indictment, identified only as Trump Employee 1 or similar descriptions. In one episode, the indictment recounted how Mr. Trump displayed a classified map to someone described as “a representative of his political action committee” during a meeting in August or September 2021 at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.The representative of the PAC was Susie Wiles, one of the top advisers for Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, according to two people briefed on the matter. A Trump spokesman declined to comment.Ms. Wiles’s appearance in the indictment was reported earlier by ABC News.The fact that Ms. Wiles could become a prosecution witness should Mr. Trump’s case go to trial, even as she is helping run his third bid for office, underscores the complexities that the former president now faces as he deals with both a presidential campaign and a criminal defense with an overlapping cast of characters.During the meeting with Ms. Wiles, the indictment says, Mr. Trump commented that “an ongoing military operation” in an unnamed country was not going well. He then showed Ms. Wiles, who did not have proper security clearance, a classified map of that country, the indictment says, even while acknowledging that he should not be displaying the map and warning Ms. Wiles “to not get too close.”Many of Mr. Trump’s aides and employees at Mar-a-Lago were questioned as part of the investigation that resulted in his indictment, and Mr. Trump has been barred from discussing the facts of the case with them even though many work in close contact with him. Mr. Trump has made defending himself against the charges a central part of his political and fund-raising messages, adding to the level of overlap that exists between his legal and political worlds.Other aides who have been close to Mr. Trump are featured in the indictment, such as “Trump Employee 2,” who has been identified as Molly Michael, an assistant to Mr. Trump in the White House and his post-presidential office. The portion of the indictment describing the transcript of an audio recording in which Mr. Trump described what he said was a plan to attack Iran given to him by the Pentagon lists someone as a “staffer,” whom three people identified as Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump.Some Trump aides and employees who had initially caught the attention of investigators were mentioned in the indictment only in passing.At one point, for example, prosecutors under Mr. Smith appeared to be focused on Mr. Nauta’s dealings with a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, Carlos Deoliveira, who helped him move boxes into a storage room at the compound. The movement of those boxes — at Mr. Trump’s request, prosecutors say — ultimately lay at the heart of a conspiracy charge in the indictment accusing Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta of obstructing the government’s attempt to retrieve all of the classified materials in Mr. Trump’s possession.In a previously unreported detail, prosecutors obtained a warrant to seize Mr. Deoliveira’s phone as part of their investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter.Records from the phone eventually showed that Mr. Deoliveira called an I.T. specialist who worked for Mar-a-Lago last summer around the time that prosecutors issued a subpoena to Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, demanding footage from a surveillance camera near the storage room where the boxes of documents were kept.But Mr. Deoliveira is referenced as “an employee of the Mar-a-Lago Club” in only a single paragraph in the indictment. More

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      Giuliani Sat for Voluntary Interview in Jan. 6 Investigation

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      The onetime personal lawyer for Donald Trump answered questions from federal prosecutors about the former president’s efforts to remain in power after his 2020 election loss.Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as former President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, was interviewed last week by federal prosecutors investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, people familiar with the matter said.The voluntary interview, which took place under what is known as a proffer agreement, was a significant development in the election interference investigation led by Jack Smith, the special counsel, and the latest indication that Mr. Smith and his team are actively seeking witnesses who might cooperate in the case.The session with Mr. Giuliani, the people familiar with it said, touched on some of the most important aspects of the special counsel’s inquiry into the ways that Mr. Trump sought to maintain his grip on power after losing the election to Joseph R. Biden Jr.“The appearance was entirely voluntary and conducted in a professional manner,” said Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Mr. Giuliani.A proffer agreement is an understanding between prosecutors and people who are subjects of criminal investigations that can precede a formal cooperation deal. The subjects agree to provide useful information to the government, sometimes to tell their side of events, to stave off potential charges or to avoid testifying under subpoena before a grand jury. In exchange, prosecutors agree not to use those statements against them in future criminal proceedings unless it is determined they were lying.Prosecutors working for Mr. Smith asked Mr. Giuliani about a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were actually won by Mr. Biden, one person familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. They focused specifically on the role played in that effort by John Eastman, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump about ways to stay in office after his defeat.Mr. Giuliani also discussed Sidney Powell, a lawyer who was briefly tied to Mr. Trump’s campaign and who made baseless claims about a cabal of foreign actors hacking into voting machines to steal the election from Mr. Trump, the person said.Ms. Powell, who was sanctioned by a federal judge for promoting conspiracy theories about the voting machines, also took part in a meeting in the Oval Office in December 2020 during which Mr. Trump was presented with a brazen plan — opposed by Mr. Giuliani — to use the military to seize control of voting machines and rerun the election.The person said that prosecutors further asked Mr. Giuliani about the scene at the Willard Hotel days before the attack on the Capitol. Mr. Giuliani and a group of close Trump advisers — among them, Mr. Eastman, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon and Mr. Trump’s current adviser Boris Epshteyn — had gathered at the hotel, near the White House, to discuss strategies before a violent mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, disrupting the certification of Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump.Shortly before Mr. Smith was appointed to his job as special counsel, the Justice Department issued a subpoena to Mr. Giuliani.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe proffer session with Mr. Giuliani, elements of which were reported earlier by CNN, came as Mr. Smith’s team pressed ahead with its election interference inquiry of Mr. Trump even as it prepares for the former president’s trial on separate charges of putting national security secrets at risk and obstructing government efforts to recover classified documents.The prosecutors have been bringing witnesses before a grand jury and conducting separate interviews of others as they seek to assemble a fuller picture of the various ways in which Mr. Trump and his allies were promoting baseless claims that the election had been stolen from him and seeking to reverse his electoral defeat.In some cases, they appear to be gauging whether they can elicit useful information without necessarily agreeing to formal cooperation deals.Last week, The New York Times reported that prosecutors were in negotiations to reach a proffer agreement with Michael Roman, the former director of Election Day operations for Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign. Mr. Roman was also instrumental in helping put together the so-called fake elector plan.The push to assemble slates of pro-Trump electors from swing states won by Mr. Biden is one of a number of components of Mr. Smith’s investigation. Prosecutors have also scrutinized whether Mr. Trump and his allies bilked donors by raising money through false claims of election fraud, examined efforts to use the Justice Department to give credence to election-fraud claims and sought to piece together a detailed picture of the role played by Mr. Trump in inciting the attack on the Capitol and the disruption of the congressional certification of his loss.It remains unclear whether Mr. Giuliani will face charges in the special counsel’s investigation. He is also under scrutiny on many of the same subjects by the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who is pursuing a wide-ranging investigation into Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse his election loss in that swing state.As part of Mr. Smith’s inquiry, prosecutors questioned Mr. Roman’s deputy, Gary Michael Brown, last week in front of a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington that has been investigating the attempts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the election. Federal prosecutors on Wednesday are also scheduled to interview Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia, who took a call from Mr. Trump in early January 2021 during which the former president asked him to “find” sufficient votes that would put him over the top in the election in that state.A longtime ally of Mr. Trump who served two terms as New York City’s mayor, Mr. Giuliani effectively led the former president’s attempts to overturn his defeat in the last presidential race and has for months been a chief focus of the Justice Department’s broad investigation into the postelection period. His name has appeared on several subpoenas sent to former aides to Mr. Trump and to a host of Republican state officials involved in the plan to create fake slates of electors.Last year, shortly before Mr. Smith was appointed to his job as special counsel, the Justice Department issued a subpoena to Mr. Giuliani for records related to his representation of Mr. Trump, including those that detailed any payments he had received. A group of federal prosecutors including Thomas Windom had been pursuing various strands of the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in power before Mr. Smith’s appointment and they continue to play key roles in the investigation.Among the things that prosecutors have been examining are the inner workings of Mr. Trump’s fund-raising vehicle, Save America PAC. The records subpoenaed from Mr. Giuliani could include some related to payments made by the PAC, according to a person familiar with the matter.More recently, prosecutors have been asking questions about Mr. Trump’s false claims that his defeat in the election was caused by widespread fraud, and how he aggressively raised money off those claims. The prosecutors have drilled down on the issue of whether people around Mr. Trump knew that he had lost the race, but continued raising money off the fraud claims anyway.The session with Mr. Giuliani came as Mr. Smith’s team pressed ahead with its election interference inquiry of Mr. Trump.John Tully for The New York TimesThe House select committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 first raised questions publicly about Mr. Trump’s fund-raising, and the special counsel’s team has picked up on that thread. Among other questions they have asked witnesses is whether their lawyers are being paid for by the political action committee that became a repository for money raised off Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud.Investigators have walked through a timeline with various witnesses, including asking people about election night and what Mr. Giuliani may have been telling Mr. Trump before his defiant speech declaring he had won the election, as well as about Jan. 6 and Mr. Trump’s actions that day.The special counsel’s office has focused on Mr. Trump’s mind-set and who was telling him he lost, according to people familiar with the questions. Among the questions has been whether there were concerns raised among people working with the campaign as to the language used in television ads about fraud in December 2020, and who signed off on the ad copy.Prosecutors also subpoenaed former Vice President Mike Pence, who was a key focus of Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in power as Mr. Trump tried to pressure him to use his ceremonial role overseeing congressional certification to block Mr. Biden from being certified. More

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      Worrying About the Judge and the Jury for Trump’s Trial

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      More from our inbox:The Revolt in RussiaMigrants and New York’s SuburbsClimate Education: New Jersey’s ExampleThe special counsel, Jack Smith, released an indictment of former President Donald J. Trump this month.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Don’t do it, liberal America! Don’t get caught up in the melodrama of the Florida trial! The former president craves attention. The news media collude by granting him free publicity. Why give this despicable man what he wants?And the trial outcome? Yes, it seems that Jack Smith has an open-and-shut case. Yet there is a reasonable likelihood that we have a shut-and-shut-down judge. This is the bad luck of the draw.Judge Aileen M. Cannon has myriad tactics at her disposal to delay, disrupt and derail the proceedings. She can influence jury selection, undercutting chances of a unanimous guilty verdict. Even if the jury reaches that conclusion, it is the judge who sets the sentence. This could be a slap on the wrist.Why not assume that the chances of conviction and a serious sentence are small and turn your attention to other matters of national significance?If you must follow the legal adventures of the former president, it’s better to focus on the likely trial in Georgia and Mr. Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation.David B. AbernethyPortola Valley, Calif.The writer is professor emeritus of political science at Stanford University.To the Editor:Re “Trial Judge Puts Documents Case on Speedy Path” (front page, June 21):So Judge Aileen M. Cannon has set a trial date for August. I’m suspicious. She will have total power over the sentence as well as the ability to dismiss the case. Is she helping Donald Trump by getting the whole matter resolved quickly in order for it to be done before the election?How dare she ignore calls to recuse herself, given her record? She must be removed.Sandy MileySherrill, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Leaving Trump’s Fate to 12 Ordinary Citizens Is Genius,” by Deborah Pearlstein (Opinion guest essay, June 16):In ordinary times Professor Pearlstein’s belief in the wisdom of the jury system in trying Donald Trump would be warranted, but these are not ordinary times. Mr. Trump has primed his followers to threaten and intimidate anyone who might oppose him.No matter the strength of the case, I believe that at least some jurors will vote to acquit because they justifiably fear for their safety.David LigareCarmel Valley, Calif.To the Editor:Central to the case against Donald Trump are the details about the highly classified documents he took. And the key problem is that the defense’s right to see the government’s evidence conflicts with the absolute need to keep that material secret.There is then the possibility that the judge might agree to suppress such crucial evidence. Could people with the highest security clearance review the documents and present affidavits and witnesses in court supporting the government’s assertions?This might provide a litmus test for the integrity of the judicial process.Arnold MitchellScarsdale, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Judge’s Record in Trump Case Raises Concern” (front page, June 15):While I understand that any judge presiding over an unprecedented and historic case like this will receive scrutiny, I am appalled at how easily a Latina woman is denigrated for her inexperience and for bristling when she is questioned.Such descriptions hold no weight for this 49-year-old working mother and small-business owner. I’ve heard it all before ad nauseam.Speaking as a liberal, I hope that Judge Aileen M. Cannon proves all of her naysayers wrong and goes down in history as an amazing jurist.Would a male judge have had the same questions raised about him at the same stage of his career? I highly doubt it. So much of this article reads like water cooler talk about the new female boss.Shantha Krishnamurthy SmithSan Jose, Calif.To the Editor:It was not the Watergate break-in that brought Richard Nixon down; it was the cover-up and obstruction of justice. Similarly, it was not the taking or storage of classified documents that resulted in Donald Trump’s indictment; it was the lying to the F.B.I. and D.O.J. and obstruction of justice.Mike Pence and Joe Biden stored government documents, but promptly cooperated with the government and returned the documents. It’s not complicated.Alan M. GoldbergBrooklynTo the Editor:I already know how I would vote if I were on the jury of the Trump trial.Good luck finding 12 Americans who don’t.Eliot RiskinRiverside, Conn.The Revolt in Russia Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “How Revolt Undermines Putin’s Grip” (news analysis, front page, June 26):An autocrat must always appear strong. An act of treason and rebellion was committed against Russia, and Vladimir Putin blinked. His mentor Stalin is turning over in his grave.A severe crack has now developed in Mr. Putin’s power structure that he may not have enough cement to repair.Ed HoulihanRidgewood, N.J.To the Editor:What kind of world have we come to when we’re rooting for the mercenaries?Elliot ShoenmanLos AngelesMigrants and New York’s SuburbsEd Day, the Rockland County executive, is one of many county leaders who have taken legal steps to try to stop New York City from sending migrants their way.Gregg Vigliotti for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“New York City and Suburbs: A Rift Widens” (front page, June 18) highlighted the opposition of Ed Day, the Rockland County executive, to migrants being housed in hotels in the suburbs.Although some suburban residents oppose migrants coming to our communities, there are others who want to give migrants a chance to have a better life. I have met many Westchester residents who want to donate food and clothing to migrants.And — if the federal government would make it easier for the migrants to work legally — we could try matching employers who can’t find employees to work in their industry with migrants who would like to work legally in the suburbs.Churches and synagogues in the suburbs would welcome the opportunity to have congregants “adopt” individual migrants and to provide them with personal attention and help so they could live a better life.Ed Day does not speak for the suburbs.Paul FeinerGreenburgh, N.Y.The writer is the Greenburgh town supervisor.Climate Education: New Jersey’s Example Desiree Rios for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Schools Encourage 7-Year-Olds to Fix Climate Change, Not Fear It” (front page, June 17):Three cheers to my former home state, New Jersey, for having the guts and the smarts to take on climate change in its education system. The effects of our climate’s unsettling behavior will continue to be felt by all, whether you agree that it’s happening or deny it.The youngest of us will experience its effects longer than my generation of grandparents, so of course it is totally logical to begin with them in their early education years.The great purpose of education is to prepare all ages to live meaningfully in the world as it is and as it changes. Surely, teaching the young how to bend with the arc of change and sway with its seasons could not be more relevant today.I wish New Jerseyans well with this, but even more I wish them insight into what they are doing so they can become ambassadors to the other states and, yes, the federal Department of Education as well.Well done, New Jersey!Bill HoadleySanta Fe, N.M. More

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      Former Trump Campaign Official in Talks to Cooperate in Jan. 6 Inquiry

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      The office of the special counsel is negotiating with Michael Roman, who was closely involved in the efforts to create slates of pro-Trump electors in states won in 2020 by Joseph R. Biden Jr.Michael Roman, a top official in former President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 campaign, is in discussions with the office of the special counsel Jack Smith that could soon lead to Mr. Roman voluntarily answering questions about a plan to create slates of pro-Trump electors in key swing states that were won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., according to a person familiar with the matter.If Mr. Roman ends up giving the interview — known as a proffer — to prosecutors working for Mr. Smith, it would be the first known instance of cooperation by someone with direct knowledge of the so-called fake elector plan. That plan has long been at the center of Mr. Smith’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The talks with Mr. Roman, who served as Mr. Trump’s director of Election Day operations, were the latest indication that Mr. Smith is actively pressing forward with his election interference investigation even as attention has been focused on the other case in his portfolio: the recent indictment of Mr. Trump in Florida on charges of illegally keeping hold of classified documents and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.In the past few weeks, several witnesses with connections to the fake elector plan have appeared in front of a grand jury in Federal District Court in Washington that is investigating the ways in which Mr. Trump and his allies sought to reverse his defeat to Mr. Biden. Among them was Gary Michael Brown, Mr. Roman’s onetime deputy, who was questioned in front of the grand jury on Thursday.Mr. Roman did much of the legwork in putting together the fake elector plan and in finding ways to challenge Mr. Trump’s losses in several key battleground states, according to emails reviewed last summer by The New York Times. Mr. Roman, the emails show, coordinated with several other lawyers and aides to Mr. Trump in seeking to assemble support to create the false slates of electors in states like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada.Among those with whom Mr. Roman worked closely, the emails showed, were Boris Epshteyn, a lawyer and political adviser on the campaign who has since served as something like Mr. Trump in-house counsel, and Jenna Ellis, another lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after his defeat to Mr. Biden on how to challenge the election results.In March, as part of a disciplinary proceeding by bar officials in her home state of Colorado, Ms. Ellis admitted that she had knowingly misrepresented facts in several of her public claims that widespread voting fraud had led to Mr. Trump’s defeat.The emails reviewed by The Times showed Mr. Roman and others discussing options to try to prevent Mr. Biden from being certified as the winner of the election. He reported details of their activities to Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, who championed Mr. Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud.The fake-elector strategy was arguably the longest-running and most expansive of the multiple efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. It involved a sprawling cast of pro-Trump lawyers, state Republican officials and White House aides in an effort that began before some states had even finished counting their ballots.The plan culminated in a campaign by Mr. Trump and others to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the false slates to subvert congressional certification of the outcome of the election in front of a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. That proceeding was interrupted when a violent mob of Mr. Trump’s followers stormed the Capitol and chased lawmakers away.Even some of those connected to efforts to keep Mr. Trump in office appeared to acknowledge the electors plan was legally dubious.“We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who was helping to organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, wrote in a December 2020 email to Mr. Epshteyn.In a follow-up email, Mr. Wilenchik wrote that calling them “alternate” electors was probably better than “fake” electors, adding a smiley face emoji.The F.B.I. formally opened an investigation into the fake elector plan in April 2022, according to people familiar with the matter, and federal prosecutors issued a flurry of grand jury subpoenas to Republican officials in states like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Nevada two months later.Two top Republican officials from Nevada who were involved in the plan — Jim DeGraffenreid and Michael McDonald — gave testimony to the grand jury in Washington two weeks ago, on the same day that Mr. Trump was arraigned in Miami in the classified documents case.Throughout the winter and into the spring, a steady stream of witnesses — some of them exceptionally close to Mr. Trump — were subpoenaed to appear in front of the grand jury and answer questions about the fake-elector plan and other efforts by the former president to cling to power after losing the election.Among those who were forced to show up were Pat A. Cipollone, Mr. Trump’s former White House counsel; Mark Meadows, his onetime chief of staff; and former Vice President Mike Pence. Most of these witnesses sought to limit the scope of their testimony by asserting various forms of privilege in a long-running, closed-door legal battle that ultimately failed.In a separate avenue of inquiry, the Justice Department seized the cellphones of a handful of lawyers connected to the fake elector scheme in June 2022. Those included John Eastman, a California law professor who advised Mr. Trump on the plan, and Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who was nearly installed as acting attorney general and who helped to draft a letter to state officials in Georgia recommending that they create a slate of pro-Trump electors.By last July, the Justice Department had created a team of prosecutors — working under the code name Project Coconut — to sort through the various communications seized from Mr. Eastman, Mr. Clark and another former Justice Department lawyer, Ken Klukowski, for any that were potentially protected by attorney-client or executive privilege, according to a person familiar with the matter.This so-called filter team grew in size and scope, the person said, as investigators obtained more data from other subjects of the inquiry, including Mr. Meadows; Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who recruited Mr. Eastman to work on the fake-elector plan; and Mr. Epshteyn.Adam Goldman More