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      Trump Appeals Decision Forcing Pence to Testify to Jan. 6 Grand Jury

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      The appeal seeks to narrow the scope of testimony that former Vice President Mike Pence can provide the grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in power.Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a federal appeals court on Monday to narrow the scope of the testimony that former Vice President Mike Pence has to give a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.The request to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a lower court’s decision ordering Mr. Pence to testify was the latest attempt by Mr. Trump’s legal team to keep witnesses close to him from divulging information to prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith.Mr. Pence has always been a potentially important witness in the election inquiry into Mr. Trump because of the conversations he took part in at the White House in the weeks preceding the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During that time, Mr. Trump repeatedly pressed him to use his ceremonial role overseeing the congressional count of Electoral College votes to block or delay certification of his defeat.Prosecutors have been trying to get Mr. Pence to talk about Mr. Trump’s demands for months — first in requests by the Justice Department for an interview and then through a grand jury subpoena issued by Mr. Smith, who inherited the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power.Should Mr. Pence end up testifying, it would be a turning point in a monthslong behind-the-scenes battle waged by Mr. Trump and several witnesses close to him to block the disclosure of details about plans to overturn the election..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Last month, in a pair of sealed rulings, Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of Federal District Court in Washington, ordered Mr. Pence to appear before the grand jury, striking down two separate challenges that would have kept Mr. Pence from answering certain questions.In one of those challenges, Mr. Pence sought to limit his testimony by arguing that his role as the president of the Senate on Jan. 6, when Mr. Trump’s defeat was certified by Congress, meant he was protected from legal scrutiny by the executive branch — including the Justice Department. That argument was based on the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution, which is intended to protect the separation of powers.Judge Boasberg ruled that while Mr. Pence could claim some protections against testimony under the “speech or debate” clause, he would have to answer questions about any potentially illegal acts committed by Mr. Trump. Last week, Mr. Pence announced that he did not intend to appeal the decision.Mr. Trump’s lawyers have now taken the opposite path, asking the appeals court to reverse Judge Boasberg’s ruling on their own attempts to narrow the scope of the questions that Mr. Pence would have to answer. Mr. Trump’s team based its arguments on the concept of executive privilege, which protects certain communications between the president and some members of his administration.Like all matters involving the grand jury, Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed their appeal under seal. A coalition of news media organizations has asked Judge Boasberg to unseal some of the proceedings, though he has not yet made a decision in the case.Since last summer, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — asked judges to keep information from the grand jury by asserting both executive privilege and attorney-client privilege for an array of witnesses. The witnesses have included some of Mr. Pence’s chief aides, two of the top lawyers in the White House and advisers to Mr. Trump like Mark Meadows, his former chief of staff. More

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      Fact-Checking Trump’s Speech After His Arraignment

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      Hours after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of filing false business records, former President Donald J. Trump maintained his innocence before a crowd of supporters in Florida. Here’s a fact-check.WASHINGTON — Hours after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of filing false business records in a courtroom in Lower Manhattan, former President Donald J. Trump maintained his innocence on Tuesday before a crowd of supporters at Mar-a-Lago, his estate and private club in Florida.He repeated a host of familiar and inaccurate attacks on his opponents. Here’s a fact-check of his remarks.What WAS Said“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign, remember that? They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine impeachment hoax No. 1, impeachment hoax No. 2, the illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago right here.”This is misleading. This list covers five years’ worth of grievances that Mr. Trump long harbored and largely misconstrues the various investigations into his campaign, administration and conduct.Mr. Trump has complained for years that the counterintelligence investigation the F.B.I. opened in July 2016 about Russia’s interference in the presidential election was an attack on his campaign.He was first impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for soliciting election assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was withholding a White House meeting and nearly $400 million in vital military assistance for the country.He was impeached again in 2021, one week before he left office, for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, after he lost the 2020 presidential election.The F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago in August for classified documents that Mr. Trump was thought to have improperly removed from the White House. The search was not illegal and occurred after the Justice Department obtained a warrant.What WAS Said”And now this massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country, beginning with the radical left George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg of New York.”This needs context. The links between Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who has brought the case against Mr. Trump, and George Soros, the financier and Democratic megadonor, are real but overstated. (Attacks that portray Mr. Soros as a “globalist” mastermind often veer into antisemitic tropes.)In reality, Mr. Soros donated to a liberal group that endorses progressive prosecutors and supports efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system — in line with causes that he has publicly supported for years. That group used a significant portion of the money, but not all of it, to support Mr. Bragg in his 2021 campaign.A spokesman for Mr. Soros said that the two men had never met and that Mr. Soros had not given money directly to Mr. Bragg’s campaign.What WAS Said“That has absolutely nothing to do with openly taking boxes of documents and mostly clothing and other things to my home, which President Obama has done.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.False. Mr. Trump has repeatedly and wrongly compared his handling of classified documents to that of his predecessor.After his presidency, Mr. Trump took a trove of classified documents — including 18 marked as top secret — to Mar-a-Lago.In contrast, the National Archives and Records Administration, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, has said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law.The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.What WAS Said“In fact, they seem to have forgotten about his documents entirely, so many, thousands and thousands. It’s OK with him. They like to say that I’m obstructing, which I’m not, because I was working with NARA very nicely until the raid on my home. Biden is obstructing by making it impossible to get the 1,850 boxes.”False. Mr. Trump is again drawing an inaccurate comparison between his and President Biden’s improper handling of classified documents.The Justice Department appointed a special counsel to investigate Mr. Biden’s handling of documents in January, two months after the initial discovery of classified material at an office he had used at a Washington think tank. So clearly the matter was not “forgotten,” nor was Mr. Biden given an “OK.”Officials at the National Archives and Records Administration might also disagree with Mr. Trump’s assertion that he was cooperating “very nicely” with archivists responsible for storing and accounting for his presidential records. NARA asked Mr. Trump to return documents in spring 2021 once it had discovered files were missing and received them only after months of asking.As for Mr. Biden’s 1,850 boxes, that was referring to a collection of documents he had donated to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential documents, which must be released to NARA once a president leaves office, documents from members of Congress are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. It is not uncommon for senators and representatives to give such items to research or historical facilities.The university agreed to not give the public access to Mr. Biden’s documents from his time as senator until two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the collection in February as part of the special counsel investigation and in cooperation with Mr. Biden’s legal team. The New York Times reported at the time that the material was still being analyzed but did not appear to contain any classified documents.What WAS Said“I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.”This needs context. Loren Merchan, the daughter of the judge presiding over the case, is the president and a partner at a digital campaign strategy agency that has done work for many prominent Democrats, including the 2020 campaigns of Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris. Earlier on Tuesday, Mr. Trump argued that Justice Juan M. Merchan should recuse himself because of her work, but experts in judicial ethics agreed that this was not adequate grounds for recusal.Under New York State rules on judicial conduct, a judge should disqualify himself or herself from a case if a relative within the sixth degree had “an interest that would be substantially affected by the proceeding.” Ms. Merchan’s work on Democratic campaigns does not give her enough of an interest that would qualify, experts said.“Political interests are widely shared and thus diffused,” said Arthur D. Hellman, a professor emeritus of law at the University of Pittsburgh. “If this kind of work by a relative within the sixth degree were enough to require recusal, it would be hard to find any judge who could hear the case.” More

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      Defendant Trump Has the G.O.P. Just Where He Wants It

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      It was perhaps inevitable that, with Donald Trump’s historic arraignment taking place in the run-up to Easter Sunday, one of his most zealous disciples, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, would aim to drag Jesus into this mess.The former president “is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested,” the MAGA chaos agent blathered to a conservative news outlet just hours before Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts related to a hush-money deal with a porn star. “Jesus! Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government!” proclaimed Ms. Greene.As a lapsed Southern Baptist, I’ll leave it to the more devout to debate whether this comparison qualifies as outright blasphemy or is merely idiotic. Regardless, it was a perfect distillation of Mr. Trump’s longstanding political refrain and current legal defense: He is the faultless victim of political persecution — a righteous martyr beset on all sides by America-hating, baby-eating Democrats and Deep Staters. In the Gospel According to the Donald, any bad thing he is ever accused of is just more proof that the forces of evil are out to get the MAGA messiah.It’s a great story if you can sustain it. Unless you’re a Republican presidential hopeful not named Donald Trump, in which case being required to shovel this grade of malarkey to please the base is increasingly awkward — at least for anyone hoping to retain a shred of credibility beyond the hard-core MAGAverse.This uncomfortable reality is actually something for every member of the G.O.P. to think about. Again. Because, if Mr. Trump’s prime-time, post-arraignment remarks on Tuesday were any indication, this is going to be a central theme of his third presidential run — one that promises to relegate everyone else in the party, including those considering a 2024 run themselves, to being minor players in this latest, tawdriest season of “The Trump Show.”Tuesday night was Mr. Trump’s first chance to address the criminal charges against him — his first real opportunity to counterpunch — since the New York indictment came down. Safely back in the gilded cocoon of Mar-a-Lago, surrounded by American flags and supporters sporting red hats and campaign signs, he delivered a half-hour battle cry that was painfully on brand: a greatest hits of his witch-hunt grievances interwoven with his dark take on how the country is “going to hell” without him. As he tells it, “all-out nuclear World War III” is just around the corner. “It can happen! We’re not very far away from it!” He also suggested that the investigation into his squirreling away sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago could somehow lead to his being executed.Precisely the kind of responsible rhetoric one likes to hear from a political leader.It was not one of Mr. Trump’s more compelling speeches. The Mar-a-Lago crowd, while friendly, wasn’t the kind of roaring mass of fans from which Mr. Trump draws energy, and the former president sounded heavily scripted. Even so, the address was impressively offensive in its attacks on the justice system in general and the individuals leading the investigations of Mr. Trump in particular — as well as their families. (Seriously, what was with all the wife bashing?) He sniped about the “racist in reverse” officials out to get him. He went on a bizarre riff about how President Biden had hidden a bunch of documents in Chinatown. And his repeated attacks on the “lunatic” Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal investigations of Mr. Trump, suggest that whole business is really chafing the former president’s backside.Get ready for more of this magic. As Mr. Trump’s legal troubles heat up, with possibly more indictments to come, these investigations are going to eat at him and distract him. A hefty chunk of his campaign is likely to be an extended whine about his ongoing martyrdom, constantly putting other Republicans in the awkward position of having to defend him. And they won’t really have any choice as he whips his devoted followers into a frenzy over his persecution — and, of course, by extension, theirs.That is certainly what we have seen happening. Republicans have been lining up to trash the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg. It was in no way surprising to see Representative Lauren Boebert comparing the indictment of Mr. Trump to the actions of Mussolini and, yes, Hitler. But one might have expected slightly more from Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely regarded as the biggest threat to Mr. Trump’s 2024 ambitions, than his pathetic vow to refuse to assist any effort to extradite Mr. Trump to New York. Weak, Ron. Very weak.A long-shot candidate or two, like Asa Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, may try to distinguish themselves by not smooching Mr. Trump’s backside so sloppily. But this is a risky path that few contenders seem inclined to tread. Having bowed to Mr. Trump so low and for so long, the party has left itself few, if any, good options for dealing with him now.Anyone looking to lead the G.O.P. beyond its Trump era was already at a disadvantage before the charges. Be it Nikki Haley or Mike Pence or Mr. DeSantis, the political world is busy assessing potential 2024 contenders in Trump terms, obsessing over where they fall on the MAGA spectrum and how delicately they are or are not handling the former president.Team Trump, meanwhile, is happy to play the martyr card for all it’s worth. They have been boasting about using the former president’s legal troubles to fund-raise and sign up volunteers.Any day now, look for the campaign to start hawking bracelets asking: WWDTD? (What would Donald Trump do?) Ms. Greene will surely snap up several. What classier, more tasteful Easter present for the MAGA faithful in one’s life?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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      Former Trump Officials Must Testify in 2020 Election Inquiry, Judge Says

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      The ruling paves the way for testimony from Mark Meadows and others. Separately, a Trump lawyer appeared before a grand jury looking into the former president’s handling of classified documents.A federal judge has ruled that a number of former officials from President Donald J. Trump’s administration — including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows — cannot invoke executive privilege to avoid testifying to a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The recent ruling by Judge Beryl A. Howell paves the way for the former White House officials to answer questions from federal prosecutors, according to two people briefed on the matter.Judge Howell ruled on the matter in a closed-door proceeding in her role as chief judge of the Federal District Court in Washington, a job in which she oversaw the grand juries taking testimony in the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump. Judge Howell’s term as chief judge ended last week.The existence of the sealed ruling was first reported by ABC News.Mr. Trump’s lawyers had tried to rebuff the grand jury subpoenas issued to more than a half-dozen former administration officials in connection with the former president’s efforts to remain in office after his defeat at the polls. The lawyers argued that Mr. Trump’s interactions with the officials would be covered by executive privilege.Prosecutors are likely to be especially eager to hear from Mr. Meadows, who refused to be interviewed by the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Mr. Meadows was a central player in various efforts to help Mr. Trump reverse the election outcome in a number of contested states.Before he stopped cooperating with the committee, Mr. Meadows provided House investigators with thousands of text messages that gave them a road map of events and people to interview. He has also appeared before a fact-finding grand jury in Fulton County, Ga., investigating the efforts to overturn the election, according to the grand jury’s forewoman, who described him as not very forthcoming.Mr. Meadows’s lawyer, George Terwilliger, did not respond to a phone call on Friday seeking comment.Other officials whose grand jury testimony Judge Howell compelled in her order vary in significance to the investigation, and in seniority. They include John McEntee, who served as Mr. Trump’s personnel chief and personal aide; Nick Luna, another personal aide; Robert C. O’Brien, who was national security adviser; Dan Scavino, who was a deputy chief of staff and social media director in the White House; John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence; Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s speechwriter and adviser; and Ken Cuccinelli, who served as acting deputy secretary of homeland security.Word of the ruling came as the Justice Department pressed ahead in its parallel investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office and whether he obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them. The twin federal investigations are being led by Jack Smith, the special counsel who was appointed after Mr. Trump announced his latest candidacy in November.In the documents case, one of the central witnesses, M. Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who represented Mr. Trump in the inquiry, appeared before a grand jury on Friday after both Judge Howell and a federal appeals court in Washington rejected his attempts to avoid answering questions by asserting attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mr. Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.In making her ruling last week to force Mr. Corcoran to testify, Judge Howell upheld the government’s request to invoke the crime-fraud exception, a provision of the law that allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege if they have reason to believe that legal advice or services were used to further a crime. The judge also said that Mr. Corcoran would have to turn over some documents related to his representation of Mr. Trump.Judge Howell’s order exposed the continuing legal peril confronting Mr. Trump, as it noted that Mr. Smith’s team had made “a prima facie showing that the former president committed criminal violations,” according to people familiar with the decision.Her order made clear that prosecutors have questions not just about what Mr. Trump told Mr. Corcoran as he prepared to respond to a grand jury subpoena seeking any remaining classified material in Mr. Trump’s possession, but who else may have influenced what Mr. Corcoran told Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the ruling.In December, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, Timothy Parlatore, also appeared in front of the grand jury, to answer questions about a subpoena prosecutors had issued in May seeking all classified material in the possession of the custodian of records for Mr. Trump’s presidential office.Mr. Parlatore said on Friday that he had gone in front of the grand jury because at that point Mr. Trump’s office no longer had a custodian of records. He also said that he had been involved in several efforts to comply with the subpoena in the weeks and months after the F.B.I., acting on a search warrant in August, hauled away hundreds of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida.Among the things that Mr. Parlatore said he discussed with the grand jury were additional searches he oversaw at the end of last year, of other properties belonging to Mr. Trump, including Trump Tower in New York; Mr. Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J.; and a storage site in West Palm Beach, Fla.During the search of the storage site, investigators found at least two more documents with classified markings.During his grand jury testimony, Mr. Parlatore said he also mentioned an empty folder bearing the words “classified evening summary” that had remained on Mr. Trump’s bedroom night stand even after the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago.He said prosecutors immediately drew up a subpoena for the folder, demanding its return.“The D.O.J. is continuously stepping far outside the standard norms in attempting to destroy the long-accepted, long-held, constitutionally based standards of attorney-client privilege and executive privilege,” a Trump spokesman said in a statement, saying the cases are political and that “there is no factual or legal basis or substance to any case against President Trump.”Prosecutors in Mr. Smith’s office have also been pressing forward with seeking grand jury testimony in a separate investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office. More

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      Mike Pence Should Drop His Grand Jury Subpoena Gambit

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      Former Vice President Mike Pence recently announced he would challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena for him to appear before a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the related Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Pence claimed that “the Biden D.O.J. subpoena” was “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented.” He added, “For me, this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand, and I stand on the Constitution of the United States.” Mr. Pence vowed to take his fight all the way to the Supreme Court.A politician should be careful what he wishes for — no more so than when he’s a possible presidential candidate who would have the Supreme Court decide a constitutional case that could undermine his viability in an upcoming campaign.The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when he’s starting his campaign for the presidency; recall the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the fatally damning Oval Office tapes. That has to be an uncomfortable prospect for Mr. Pence, not to mention a potentially damaging one for a man who — at least as of today — is considered by many of us across the political spectrum to be a profile in courage for his refusal to join in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the face of Donald Trump’s demands. And to be clear, Mr. Pence’s decision to brand the Department of Justice’s perfectly legitimate subpoena as unconstitutional is a far cry from the constitutionally hallowed ground he stood on Jan. 6.Injecting campaign-style politics into the criminal investigatory process with his rhetorical characterization of Mr. Smith’s subpoena as a “Biden D.O.J. subpoena,” Mr. Pence is trying to score points with voters who want to see President Biden unseated in 2024. Well enough. That’s what politicians do. But Jack Smith’s subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Biden’s political hand in 2024. Thus the jarring dissonance between the subpoena and Mr. Pence’s characterization of it. It is Mr. Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the D.O.J.As to the merits of his claim, The New York Times and other news media have reported that Mr. Pence plans to argue that when he presided over the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 as president of the Senate, he was effectively a legislator and therefore entitled to the privileges and protections of the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. That clause is intended to protect members of Congress from questioning and testifying about official legislative acts. Should the courts support his claim, Mr. Pence would not be required to comply with Mr. Smith’s subpoena. Mr. Pence may also be under the impression that the legal fight over his claim will confound the courts, consuming months, if not longer, before he receives the verdict — but it’s unclear what he hopes to gain from the delay. One would have thought Mr. Pence would have seized the propitious opportunity afforded him by Mr. Smith, most likely weeks or months before he even decides whether he will run for the presidency.If Mr. Pence’s lawyers or advisers have told him that it will take the federal courts months and months or longer to decide his claim and that he will never have to testify before the grand jury, they are mistaken. We can expect the federal courts to make short shrift of this “Hail Mary” claim, and Mr. Pence doesn’t have a chance in the world of winning his case in any federal court and avoiding testifying before the grand jury.Inasmuch as Mr. Pence’s claim is novel and an unsettled question in constitutional law, it is only novel and unsettled because there has never been a time in our country’s history where it was thought imperative for someone in a vice president’s position, or his lawyer, to conjure the argument. In other words, Mr. Pence’s claim is the proverbial invention of the mother of necessity if ever there was one.Any protections the former vice president is entitled to under the “speech and debate” clause will be few in number and limited in scope. There are relatively few circumstances in which a former vice president would be entitled to constitutional protection for his conversations related to his ceremonial and ministerial roles of presiding over the electoral vote count. What Mr. Smith wants to know about are Mr. Pence’s communications and interactions with Mr. Trump before, and perhaps during, the vote count, which are entirely fair game for a grand jury investigating possible crimes against the United States.Whatever the courts may or may not find the scope of any protection to be, they will unquestionably hold that Mr. Pence is nonetheless required to testify in response to Mr. Smith’s subpoena. Even if a vice president has “speech or debate” clause protections, they will yield to a federal subpoena to appear before the grand jury. This is especially true where, as here, a vice president seeks to protect his conversations with a president who himself is under federal criminal investigation for obstructing the very official proceedings in which the special counsel is interested.Mr. Pence and his inner circle should be under no illusion that the lower federal courts will take their time dispensing with this claim. The courts quickly disposed of Senator Lindsey Graham’s “speech or debate” clause claim, requiring him to testify before the grand jury empaneled in Fulton County, Ga. — and his claim was far stronger than Mr. Pence’s. In the unlikely event that Mr. Pence’s claim were to make it to the Supreme Court, it, too, could be expected to take swift action.Mr. Pence undoubtedly has some of the finest lawyers in the country helping him navigate this treacherous path forward, and they will certainly earn their hefty fees. But in cases like this, the best lawyers earn their pay less when they advise and argue their clients’ cases in public than when they elegantly choreograph the perfect exit in private — before their clients get the day in court they wished for.Mr. Pence’s lawyers would be well advised to have Jack Smith’s phone number on speed dial and call him before he calls them. The special counsel will be waiting, though not nearly as long as Mr. Pence’s lawyers may be thinking. No prosecutor, least of all Mr. Smith, will abide this political gambit for long. And Mr. Pence shouldn’t let this dangerous gambit play out for long. If he does, it will be more than he wished for.It is a time-tested axiom in the law never to ask questions you don’t know the answer to. This should apply to politicians in spades. But the die has been cast by the former vice president. The only question now is not whether he will have to testify before the grand jury, but how soon. The special counsel is in the driver’s seat, and the timing of Mr. Pence’s appearance before the grand jury is largely in his hands. Mr. Smith will bide his time for only so long.J. Michael Luttig, a former judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, provided advice to then-Vice President Mike Pence on the run-up to the Electoral College count on Jan. 6, 2021.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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      Special Counsel Seeks to Force Pence to Testify Before Jan. 6 Grand Jury

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      Prosecutors have asked a federal judge to set aside any claims of executive privilege that former Vice President Mike Pence might raise to avoid answering questions.The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to force former Vice President Mike Pence to testify fully in front of a grand jury investigating former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, seeking to cut short any attempt by Mr. Trump to use executive privilege to shield Mr. Pence from answering questions, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.The request — amounting to a pre-emptive motion to compel Mr. Pence’s testimony — came before the former vice president had even appeared in front of the grand jury, and before any privilege claims had actually been raised in court.The sealed motion, filed in recent days in Federal District Court in Washington, is the latest step in a long-running behind-the-scenes struggle, first by the Justice Department and now by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, to cut through the various assertions of privilege that witnesses close to Mr. Trump have repeatedly raised in an effort to avoid answering questions.The privilege disputes have been handled by Judge Beryl A. Howell, the chief federal judge in Washington, who oversees all of the district’s grand jury matters, which as a rule are conducted in secret. Judge Howell is expected to step down from her position next month and be replaced by another chief judge.Also on Thursday, Judge Howell rejected a request by reporters at The New York Times and Politico to unseal her rulings and associated filings about legal fights ancillary to the material presented to the Jan. 6 grand jury itself, such as hidden wrangling over whether Mr. Trump’s former aides could lawfully decline to answer questions based on executive privilege.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.Last week, people close to Mr. Pence previewed his attempt to fight the grand jury subpoena by saying that the former vice president planned to argue that his role as the president of the Senate meant he was protected from legal scrutiny by the executive branch — including the Justice Department — under the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause. That provision is intended to protect the separation of powers.Such an approach would be a departure from the more traditional argument that a vice president’s interactions with a president would be subject to executive privilege, a power asserted by presidents to shield certain internal executive branch deliberations, especially confidential communications involving the president or among his top aides..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.But the special counsel’s motion to compel Mr. Pence’s testimony — reported earlier by CBS News — did not address his expected arguments about the “speech or debate” clause, the two people familiar with the matter said. Rather, it focused on the issue of executive privilege and advanced the proactive argument that Mr. Pence should not be permitted to avoid answering questions by invoking it on Mr. Trump’s behalf, the people said.A spokesman for Mr. Pence declined to comment. Joshua Stueve, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, also declined to comment.In the fall, two former aides to Mr. Pence, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, asserted claims of both executive and attorney-client privilege in a bid to limit their own testimony in front of the grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s role in overturning the election. The Justice Department filed a sealed motion at the time seeking to compel their testimony, and both men ultimately answered questions.Not long after, Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, the two top lawyers in Mr. Trump’s White House, tried a similar gambit. Again, the Justice Department prevailed, at least in part, and both men were made to answer questions in front of the grand jury.Witnesses close to Mr. Trump have also raised claims of privilege in an effort to avoid answering questions in a separate grand jury investigation: one that is examining Mr. Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents that he took with him after leaving office to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla.This month, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers in that case, M. Evan Corcoran, invoked attorney-client privilege after being subpoenaed to answer questions in front of the grand jury. The special counsel’s office responded by filing a motion to Judge Howell, asking her to set aside the privilege claims under what is known as the crime-fraud exception.The crime-fraud exception allows prosecutors to work around attorney-client privilege if they can convince a judge that there is reason to believe that legal advice or legal services have been used in furthering a crime.This week, lawyers for Mr. Trump filed a response saying the crime-fraud exception did not apply to Mr. Corcoran.Charlie Savage More

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      Here’s the Status of the Four Criminal Investigations Into Donald Trump

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      The revelations from grand jury proceedings in Georgia are the latest signs that federal and local inquiries into the former president could reach key decision points in coming months.When the forewoman of a Georgia grand jury investigating allegations of election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his advisers gave a series of highly public — and highly unusual — interviews this week, she suggested that the case might soon be headed toward indictment.Three other criminal inquiries involving Mr. Trump have also been progressing relatively quickly — if not quite as fast — in recent months, with the Justice Department pressing forward in Washington and a local prosecutor moving ahead in New York.No former president has ever confronted the barrage of legal threats that Mr. Trump now faces, all of which appear to be heading toward decision points by the authorities in coming months. Heightening the stakes, the inquiries have intensified just as Mr. Trump has started ramping up his third campaign for the White House.Beyond the Georgia case, Mr. Trump is under investigation by a special counsel in Washington for his role in seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election and for his potential mishandling of classified documents. At the same time, local authorities in New York are looking into whether Mr. Trump authorized and was involved in falsely accounting for hush money payments to a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with him.Even though much about the inquiries seems straightforward — “It’s not rocket science,” the forewoman in Georgia, Emily Kohrs, told The New York Times — each of the cases is layered with its own array of legal complexities that make predicting an outcome difficult. And that is to say nothing about the potential complications of bringing charges in the midst of a presidential campaign against a pugnacious figure like Mr. Trump, who has long assailed attempts by the authorities to hold him accountable as hoaxes and politically motivated witch hunts.Here is a look at the status of each of the criminal investigations confronting Mr. Trump.In Georgia, the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, is looking at a variety of possible charges related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in the state.Lynsey Weatherspoon for The New York TimesGeorgia: Election InterferenceThe Georgia investigation presents two areas of exposure for Mr. Trump.One is his direct involvement in recruiting a slate of alternate presidential electors, even after Georgia’s results were recertified by the state’s Republican leadership. “We definitely talked about the alternate electors a fair amount,” Ms. Kohrs said. The other centers on phone calls Mr. Trump made to pressure state officials after the election, including one in which he told Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, that he needed to “find” 11,780 votes — one more than Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s margin of victory in the state.The decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump will ultimately be made by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, who has been investigating the case for the last two years. Ms. Willis’s office has said it is considering everything from conspiracy and racketeering to narrower charges, such as criminal solicitation to commit election fraud.The special grand jury that Ms. Kohrs served on produced a report last month after hearing testimony since last June, but most of the report has been kept secret. In an interview this week, Ms. Kohrs said the grand jurors had recommended that several people be indicted on a range of charges, but declined to provide names before the full report was released.Understand the Events on Jan. 6Timeline: On Jan. 6, 2021, 64 days after Election Day 2020, a mob of supporters of President Donald J. Trump raided the Capitol. Here is a close look at how the attack unfolded.A Day of Rage: Using thousands of videos and police radio communications, a Times investigation reconstructed in detail what happened — and why.Lost Lives: A bipartisan Senate report found that at least seven people died in connection with the attack.Jan. 6 Attendees: To many of those who attended the Trump rally but never breached the Capitol, that date wasn’t a dark day for the nation. It was a new start.In the small portion of the report that was released, the jurors said they saw potential evidence of perjury by “one or more” witnesses. But Ms. Kohrs said the jurors appended eight pages of criminal code citations to their report, hinting at its breadth.A number of legal experts have said Mr. Trump faces significant jeopardy in the Georgia inquiry.“His risk of being charged was already substantial even before the grand jury report excerpts,” said Norman Eisen, a lawyer who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial. “The foreperson’s comments make that virtually certain.”Special Counsel: Overturning the ElectionThe Justice Department has been asking questions for more than a year about Mr. Trump’s sprawling efforts to overturn the election and whether he committed any crimes in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The investigation — one of two inherited in November by the special counsel, Jack Smith — has used a variety of methods and has gathered an enormous amount of information.Federal agents have seized cellphones and other devices from pro-Trump lawyers like John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark — as well as from one of Mr. Trump’s chief congressional allies, Representative Scott Perry, Republican of Pennsylvania.Prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to several state Republican officials and to dozens of Trump administration lawyers and officials. Those include people like Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s onetime chief of staff, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who presumably have knowledge of the former president’s thoughts and behavior in weeks leading up to Jan. 6. In the most recent sign the investigation is continuing apace, Mr. Smith has issued subpoenas to Mr. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Investigators have also been poring over thousands of pages of interviews conducted by the House select committee investigating Jan. 6, which recommended that Mr. Trump be prosecuted for crimes including inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and the obstruction of a proceeding before Congress.One of the chief strands of the inquiry has focused on the plan to create false slates of pro-Trump electors in swing states actually won by Mr. Biden, mirroring one element of the Georgia investigation. Federal investigators have also been scrutinizing the broad claims by Mr. Trump and his allies that the election was marred by fraud, and a series of payments made by Save America PAC, Mr. Trump’s chief postelection fund-raising vehicle.Mr. Smith’s office has been tight-lipped about his plans, although several people familiar with the investigation have said that prosecutors could complete their work by spring or early summer. The process has often been slowed by time-consuming litigation as witnesses like Mr. Pence have sought to avoid or limit their grand jury testimony with various legal arguments.It remains unclear if Mr. Smith will ultimately indict Mr. Trump. But several legal experts — including Timothy J. Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney who led the House’s Jan. 6 investigation — have said that the key to bringing charges is obtaining clear-cut evidence that Mr. Trump intended to break the law.“When we started to see intentional conduct, specific steps that appear to be designed to disrupt the joint session of Congress, that’s where it starts to sound criminal,” Mr. Heaphy told The Times this week. “The whole key for the special counsel is intent.”Last August, the F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence, and found more than 100 classified documents, after one of his lawyers had attested that no more were there.Marco Bello/ReutersSpecial Counsel: Classified DocumentsThe investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents began in earnest last May with a subpoena. It sought the return of any classified material still in his possession, after he had voluntarily handed over an initial batch of records that turned out to include almost 200 classified documents.Within a month, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, M. Evan Corcoran, gave investigators more than 30 additional documents in response to the subpoena. Around the same time, another lawyer, Christina Bobb, asserted that a “diligent search” had been conducted at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, assuring prosecutors there were no more documents with classification markings.But the inquiry took a dramatic turn in August when acting on a search warrant, the F.B.I. descended on Mar-a-Lago and discovered more than 100 additional classified documents. The affidavit submitted by the Justice Department in seeking the search warrant said that investigators had “probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction” would be discovered.Mr. Pence and President Biden have also faced scrutiny for having classified materials in their possession — in Mr. Biden’s case, a separate special counsel investigation is underway. In the case of Mr. Trump, prosecutors have focused on a few key questions: Did Mr. Trump knowingly remove the sensitive records from the White House and did he willfully hold on to them in violation of the Espionage Act? Moreover, did he try to hinder investigators from figuring out why or where he kept them?To answer those questions, prosecutors have interviewed several junior aides to Mr. Trump and compelled grand jury testimony from more senior aides like Kash Patel.They have also sought to force Mr. Corcoran to testify fully in front of the grand jury. Mr. Corcoran tried to avoid answering questions by asserting attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mr. Trump. But the prosecutors have sought to pierce that privilege with the so-called crime-fraud exception, which can be invoked when there is evidence that legal advice or services have been used in furthering a crime.It remains unclear whether Mr. Smith will bring charges in this inquiry either. While no evidence exists at this point that Mr. Biden or Mr. Pence have sought to obstruct investigations into their own handling of documents — both brought their possession of the documents to the attention of the Justice Department — the parallel probes have complicated the political landscape and could give Mr. Trump a reason to cry foul if he is charged and the others are not.Manhattan District Attorney: Stormy DanielsThe investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in paying hush money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels has spanned five years, two Manhattan district attorneys and multiple grand juries.But recently, prosecutors under the current district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, appear to have moved closer than ever to indicting the former president. Last month, they began presenting evidence to a newly seated grand jury, which has heard from several witnesses as the office lays the groundwork for potential charges against Mr. Trump.The case would likely center on whether Mr. Trump and his company falsified business records to hide the payments to Ms. Daniels in the days before the 2016 election. But an indictment — let alone a conviction — is hardly assured.Any prosecution of the case would rely on testimony from Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, who made the payment to Ms. Daniels and who pleaded guilty himself in 2018 to federal charges. Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the $130,000 he paid out, and according to court papers in Mr. Cohen’s case, Mr. Trump’s company falsely identified the reimbursements as legal expenses.In New York, it is a misdemeanor to falsify business records. To make it a felony, prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the records to help commit or conceal a second crime — in this case, violating New York State election law, a legal theory that has not been tested. Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and lashed out at the prosecutors for leading what he calls a partisan witch hunt against him. He has also denied having an affair with Ms. Daniels.Under Mr. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the district attorney’s office had begun presenting evidence to an earlier grand jury about a far broader case focused on Mr. Trump’s business practices, including whether he fraudulently inflated the value of his assets by billions of dollars to secure favorable loans and other benefits.But in the early weeks of his tenure last year, Mr. Bragg developed concerns about the strength of that case and halted the grand jury presentation, prompting the resignations of two senior prosecutors leading the investigation.Jonah E. Bromwich More

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      Barr and Durham Made a Mockery of the Rules I Wrote

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      The recent revelations about Special Counsel John H. Durham’s investigation of the origins of Robert Mueller’s Russia inquiry paint a bleak picture — one that’s thoroughly at odds with governing law. Those rules, called the Special Counsel Regulations, contemplate someone independent of the attorney general who can reassure the public that justice is being done.I drafted those guidelines as a young Justice Department official, and there is zero chance that anyone involved in the process, as it was reported on by The New York Times, would think that former Attorney General William Barr or Mr. Durham acted appropriately.According to the report, Mr. Barr granted Mr. Durham special counsel status to dig into a theory that the Russia investigation likely emerged from a conspiracy by intelligence or law enforcement agencies. That investigation took almost four years (longer than Mr. Mueller’s inquiry) and appears to be ending soon without any hint of a deep state plot against Mr. Trump.Furthermore, the reporting suggests that the Durham inquiry suffered from internal dissent and ethical disputes as it lurched from one unsuccessful path to another, even as Americans heard a misleading narrative of its progress.But now Merrick Garland, not Mr. Barr, is the attorney general, and the regulations give him the power to require Mr. Durham to explain himself — and to discipline and fire Mr. Durham if the explanation is not adequate. Right now, there are a plethora of investigations in Washington — in addition to Mr. Durham’s, two special counsels are looking into presidential handling of classified documents, the new Republican House of Representatives has created a “weaponization” of government committee and the new House Oversight Committee is ramping up as well.At this moment, it is critical for Mr. Garland to use the supervisory powers under the Special Counsel Regulations that govern Mr. Durham to remind Americans of what actual justice, and independent investigations and decision making, look like.The special counsel regulations say that a special counsel must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking” and that, once appointed, the counsel “shall not be subject to the day-to-day supervision” of the attorney general or any other Justice Department official.The point of the regulations was to create a strong degree of independence, especially in highly fraught political investigations where the attorney general’s status as a presidential appointee might cause the public to question the appearance of partiality. The appointment of Robert Hur, a former Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, to examine President Biden’s handling of classified documents is a perfect illustration. The special counsel is supposed to be someone who cannot be reasonably accused of laundering an attorney general’s dirty work.In light of the new reporting, it is hard to view Mr. Durham as anything else. Indeed, no one involved in developing these regulations thought that a prosecutor who has regular scotch-sipping sessions with the attorney general would ever be remotely fit for the job. Yet that was the relationship reportedly developed by Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr, who jetted off to Italy as a team, where they learned of a lead about President Trump and potential criminal acts. Mr. Barr gave that investigation, too, to Mr. Durham, where it appears to have died.The regulations were set up to avoid a headless fourth branch of government, and so gave the attorney general the power to discipline or fire a special counsel. The Justice Department inspector general, too, should immediately begin an investigation, as members of Congress have recently requested.The regulations also require Mr. Durham to write a final report outlining his actions. Mr. Garland should call for that report immediately, and if Mr. Durham claims he has some ongoing work to do, he should be told to submit an interim report for Mr. Garland.That report should go into detail about the Italy-focused investigation of Mr. Trump and what the investigators found. And Mr. Garland should scrutinize that report closely, because it certainly appears that we can’t trust Mr. Durham’s prosecutorial judgment. Mr. Barr has said that the Italian tip “was not directly about Trump” and that it “turned out to be a complete nonissue,” but given his and Mr. Durham’s many failures and obfuscations, there is a need for more than Mr. Barr’s word.Remember, Mr. Durham tried to prosecute Michael Sussmann, a former lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign, but the jury acquitted him. He then tried to prosecute Igor Danchenko about the Steele Dossier, but that prosecution led to an acquittal, too.As many lawyers will tell you, a federal prosecutor almost has to go out of his way to be 0-2 in federal jury trials. Mr. Durham managed to do it. (His only measly conviction was a minor plea for a low-level F.B.I. lawyer.) Still, Mr. Durham’s failures in court do not show a violation of the special counsel regulations. They just show bad judgment.Attorney General William Barr with Donald Trump in front of the Capitol building in 2019.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Garland knows all this, so he should demand a report — though this would not be the sort of report that should be automatically made public. It may very well be that the investigation into Mr. Trump off the Italian lead fizzled because there was nothing to the allegations. If so, Mr. Garland can say that he is refusing to make the report public, but that he has looked into the matter and is satisfied by Mr. Durham’s resolution of it.That, too, is something the special counsel regulations contemplated — they were drafted after the Starr Report and its gratuitous tarnishing of individuals, and so they made clear the special counsel’s report need not be public. (More recently, James Comey tarnished Hillary Clinton in a similar way, underscoring the need for the Justice Department to speak through indictments, not public attacks.)Unfortunately, Mr. Durham and Mr. Barr allowed a misleading narrative to gain traction in public. When news organizations began to report in October 2019 that Mr. Durham’s investigation had morphed from an administrative inquiry into a criminal investigation, creating the misimpression that there might have been criminal wrongdoing by those involved in the Russia investigation, neither man corrected the narrative, even though the real investigation involved Mr. Trump.The Trump administration dealt an awful blow to the notion of a fair investigation. Mr. Trump’s playbook was to relentlessly attack the investigators. Yet foundational to our government is the notion that no one is above the law.Assuming the reporting is accurate, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham behaved in a way that betrayed this bedrock principle. The question of who guards the guardians has plagued democracies since Juvenal. If Mr. Durham were not acting with the independence required for the position, it corrodes the rule of law and opens the door to the perception, if not the reality, of special treatment for the politically powerful.Mr. Garland has the power now to examine the accuracy of the reporting and to take the corrective action necessary to ensure that no adverse precedent is set for future investigations into high-level wrongdoing.Neal K. Katyal is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and a co-author, with Sam Koppelman, of “Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump.” He was an acting solicitor general in the Obama administration.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