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      Jan. 6 Prosecutors Gather More Evidence as Trump Indictment Decision Looms

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      The special counsel, Jack Smith, continues to push ahead on several fronts as he assembles evidence about former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to retain power after the 2020 election.Even as the special counsel, Jack Smith, appears to be edging closer toward bringing charges against former President Donald J. Trump in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, prosecutors have been continuing to investigate multiple strands of the case.In recent weeks, Mr. Smith’s team has pushed forward in collecting new evidence and in arranging new interviews with witnesses who could shed light on Mr. Trump’s mind-set in the chaotic postelection period or on other subjects important to the inquiry. At the same time, word has emerged of previously undisclosed investigative efforts, hinting at the breadth and scope of the issues prosecutors are examining.In the past few days, a lawyer for Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who worked closely after the election with Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, gave hundreds of pages of documents to prosecutors working with Mr. Smith.The documents detailed efforts by Mr. Kerik and Mr. Giuliani to identify and investigate allegations of fraud in the election — an issue that is likely to be front and center as prosecutors seek to understand what Mr. Trump may have been thinking when he set in motion various efforts to maintain his grip on power.While it remains unclear precisely when Mr. Smith may seek an indictment of the former president, the clearest signal yet that one was in the offing came last week from Mr. Trump, who announced on social media that he had received a so-called target letter from prosecutors alluding to at least three charges he might face.Those charges included conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding and a Reconstruction-era civil rights statute that makes it a crime for people to conspire to threaten or intimidate others from exercising rights provided to them by federal law or the Constitution.It is not uncommon for prosecutors to keep investigating a criminal case up to the moment an indictment is returned. They can even press forward after charges are filed. But prosecutors are not supposed to use a grand jury of the sort that has been used to investigate Mr. Trump to gather fresh evidence after charges are brought — unless they intend to use the information to seek additional charges.The production of documents by Mr. Kerik, who was convicted of tax fraud but pardoned by Mr. Trump, came even as his lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, was arranging for Mr. Kerik to sit down with Mr. Smith’s prosecutors for a voluntary interview next month. Mr. Giuliani did a similar interview with Mr. Smith’s team in June.Among the previously unknown steps taken by Mr. Smith’s team was an interview conducted about three months ago with Richard P. Donoghue, a former top official in the Justice Department at the end of Mr. Trump’s time in office. NBC News reported on the interview on Monday night, and Mr. Donoghue confirmed on Tuesday that it took place. But he declined to comment on what he discussed with Mr. Smith’s prosecutors.Mr. Smith’s team conducted an interview with Richard Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, who appeared before the House select committee investigating Jan. 6.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesIn late 2021, Mr. Donoghue, who served as the acting deputy attorney general under Mr. Trump, told the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 that he and Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general at the time, repeatedly sought to rebuff Mr. Trump’s claims that the election had been marred by widespread fraud. At one point, Mr. Donoghue testified, Mr. Trump urged him and Mr. Rosen to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”Mr. Donoghue also told the committee that in the waning days of his presidency, Mr. Trump wanted to replace Mr. Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a loyalist within the Justice Department. Mr. Clark, whose home was searched as part of the election interference inquiry into Mr. Trump, had helped to a draft a letter suggesting that fraud had affected the election results and urging Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, to call for the creation of a fake slate of electors to the Electoral College declaring that Mr. Trump had won that state, not Joseph R. Biden Jr.Mr. Smith’s team has also reached out to Mr. Kemp seeking an interview, Garrison Douglas, a spokesman for Mr. Kemp, said on Tuesday. But Mr. Douglas declined to say whether the interview, which was reported by The Washington Post, had been merely scheduled or had already taken place.Georgia was a key location in Mr. Trump’s campaign to pressure local officials to throw him the election in their states. Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, recorded Mr. Trump on a phone call in early January 2021, asking him to “find” sufficient votes for him to win the state.Mr. Smith’s prosecutors have also shown interest in a different line of inquiry in recent months, asking questions about a meeting that Mr. Trump held in February 2020 with officials who briefed him about election security for the upcoming race. The special counsel’s interest in the meeting, where Mr. Trump praised what officials told him were improvements in election security, was reported earlier by CNN.During the meeting, Mr. Trump attacked Joseph Maguire, who was then serving as acting director of national intelligence, for having days earlier given a briefing on Russian interference in the 2016 election to Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and other members of the panel, according to people familiar with the events.Mr. Trump viewed Mr. Schiff as an enemy after he focused extensively on whether Mr. Trump’s campaign had conspired with Russia during his 2016 campaign and he played an instrumental role in his first impeachment.At the meeting, officials from the F.B.I. and other agencies also told Mr. Trump about their preparations to secure the election from interference. Mr. Trump was so taken by what he heard that he wanted to hold a news conference to tout the security of the election, according to a person with knowledge of the talks.Mr. Trump’s apparent excitement at the meeting could shed light on his state of mind and what factual knowledge he had as he spread baseless lies about election fraud months later.In a related line of inquiry, prosecutors under Mr. Smith have asked questions as to when and how federal officials went about securing the election, and how they coordinated those efforts with secretaries of state in various states, according to a person familiar with the matter. Prosecutors have also sought to determine how regularly the White House was briefed on election security measures.Richard Fausset More

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      Trump’s Trial Dates Collide With His 2024 Campaign Calendar

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      The Republican front-runner is facing a growing tangle of criminal and civil trials that will overlap with next year’s presidential primaries.As former President Donald J. Trump campaigns for the White House while multiple criminal prosecutions against him play out, at least one thing is clear: Under the laws of physics, he cannot be in two places at once.Generally, criminal defendants must be present in the courtroom during their trials. Not only will that force Mr. Trump to step away from the campaign trail, possibly for weeks at a time, but the judges overseeing his trials must also jostle for position in sequencing dates. The collision course is raising extraordinary — and unprecedented — questions about the logistical, legal and political challenges of various trials unfolding against the backdrop of a presidential campaign.“The courts will have to decide how to balance the public interest in having expeditious trials against Trump’s interest and the public interest in his being able to campaign so that the democratic process works,” said Bruce Green, a Fordham University professor and former prosecutor. “That’s a type of complexity that courts have never had to deal with before.”More broadly, the complications make plain another reality: Mr. Trump’s troubles are entangling the campaign with the courts to a degree the nation has never experienced before and raising tensions around the ideal of keeping the justice system separate from politics.Mr. Trump and his allies have signaled that they intend to try to turn his overlapping legal woes into a referendum on the criminal justice system, by seeking to cast it as a politically weaponized tool of Democrats.Already, Mr. Trump is facing a state trial on civil fraud accusations in New York in October. Another trial on whether he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll is set to open on Jan. 15 — the same day as the Iowa caucuses. On Jan. 29, a trial begins in yet another lawsuit, this one accusing Mr. Trump, his company and three of his children of using the family name to entice vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.Because those cases are civil, Mr. Trump could choose not to attend the trials, just as he shunned an earlier lawsuit by Ms. Carroll, in which a jury found him liable for sexual abuse.But he will not have that option in a criminal case on charges in New York that he falsified business records as part of covering up a sex scandal shortly before the 2016 election. The opening date for that trial, which will most likely last several weeks, is in late March, about three weeks after Super Tuesday, when over a dozen states vote on March 5.Jack Smith, the special counsel leading two federal investigations into Mr. Trump, has asked the judge overseeing the indictment in the criminal inquiry into Mr. Trump’s hoarding of sensitive documents to set a trial date for late 2023.But on Tuesday — the same day Mr. Trump disclosed that federal prosecutors may charge him in the investigation into the events that culminated in the Capitol riot — his defense lawyers argued to Judge Aileen M. Cannon that she ought to put off any trial in the documents case until after the 2024 election. The intense publicity of the campaign calendar, they said, would impair his rights.Mr. Trump has long pursued a strategy of delay in legal matters, seeking to run out the clock. If he can push his federal trial — or trials, if he is ultimately indicted in the Jan. 6 inquiry — beyond the 2024 election, it is possible that he or another Republican would win the presidency and order the Justice Department to drop the cases.A president lacks the authority to quash state cases, but even if Mr. Trump were to be convicted, any inevitable appeals would most likely still be pending by Inauguration Day in 2025. If he is back in office by then, the Justice Department could also raise constitutional challenges to try to defer any additional legal proceedings, like a prison sentence, while he is the sitting president.In making the case for delaying the trial until after the election, Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers contended on Tuesday that Mr. Trump was effectively squaring off in court against his 2024 rival, President Biden.“We don’t know what’s going to happen in the primaries, of course, but right now, he’s the leading candidate,” said Todd Blanche, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. “And if all things go as we expect, the person he is running against — his administration is prosecuting him.”But David Harbach, a prosector on Mr. Smith’s team, said Mr. Trump was “no different from any other busy important person who has been indicted.” He called the claim of political influence “flat-out false,” seemingly more intended for “the court of public opinion” than a court of law.“The attorney general appointed the special counsel to remove this investigation from political influence, and there has been none — none,” he said.Judge Cannon, who has not yet made a decision about the eventual trial date, indicated that in considering delay, she believed the focus should be not on the campaign but on legal issues, like the volume and complexity of classified evidence.Setting a trial date for the documents case is the first and most basic logistical issue. But the possibility of indictments from two inquiries into Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election, the federal investigation led by Mr. Smith and a state investigation overseen by Fani T. Willis, a district attorney in Georgia who has signaled that charges could come in August, may soon bump up against that.There is no overriding authority that acts as an air traffic controller when multiple judges are deciding dates that could conflict. Nor are there rules that give federal or state cases precedence or that say that any case that was charged first should go to trial first.Brandon L. Van Grack, a former prosecutor who worked on the Russia investigation led by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, pointed to that inquiry as an example. Prosecutors brought charges against Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in two jurisdictions, first in the District of Columbia and then in the Eastern District of Virginia, but the trials took place in reverse order.“There was sensitivity to hearing dates, and it was incumbent on counsel to educate both judges on the scheduling and conflicts, but there wasn’t a rule that said the District of Columbia matter was charged first and therefore went to trial first,” he said. “It’s judicial discretion.”As an informal practice, Mr. Green said that judges overseeing potentially conflicting matters sometimes call each other and work out a calendar. No procedural rule authorizes such conversations, he said, but it is considered appropriate.Looming over Mr. Trump’s legal peril is an unwritten Justice Department norm known as the 60-day rule. As a primary or general election nears, prosecutors should not take overt actions that could improperly influence voting.It is not clear, however, how that principle applies to matters that are already public and so less likely to alter a candidate’s image. Notably, Raymond Hulser, a veteran prosecutor who has been consulted for years about how to apply the 60-day rule, is a member of Mr. Smith’s team.Further complicating matters, Mr. Trump has hired some of the same defense lawyers to handle multiple investigations against him, leaving them stretched for time.Christopher Kise, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, cited the former president’s crowded legal calendar at the hearing on Tuesday. Not only did Mr. Kise indicate that he would need to prepare for the fraud-related trials in October and January, but he also pointed to Mr. Blanche’s role in the criminal trial in March involving falsified business records in New York.“So these are the same lawyers dealing with the same client trying to prepare for the same sort of exercises, and so I think that’s highly relevant,” Mr. Kise said.Several legal experts said that while people have a Sixth Amendment right to choose their legal representation, it is not absolute. They noted that judges could tell defendants that, if their chosen lawyers are too busy to take on additional matters in a timely manner, they must hire others.Such an order would give Mr. Trump something more to complain about to an appeals court, said Professor Green, who added, “I think it’s probably a losing argument.”Alan Feuer More

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      A Looming Indictment

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      Three big questions about a potential indictment of Trump in the special counsel investigation.With a third indictment of Donald Trump now seeming quite likely — this one involving his attempts to remain in power after losing the 2020 election — today’s newsletter will cover three big questions about the case.One, what would be the specifics of such an indictment? Two, would an indictment include significant new evidence, or focus on information that’s already known? Three, what are the chances that Trump may one day face prison time?1. The specificsYesterday, Trump said he received a letter confirming he was a target in the federal investigation into his attempts to stay in power after the 2020 election, including any role in inciting the Jan. 6 attacks. Such a letter is typically a sign of an imminent indictment, my colleague Charlie Savage wrote. Any charges will require months to work through the legal system.On what grounds could Trump be charged? Several possibilities exist: his attempts to obstruct Congress’s Jan. 6, 2021, proceedings; possible fraud related to fund-raising; and efforts to recruit so-called fake electors from states he narrowly lost. (Hours after Trump revealed the letter, Michigan authorities charged 16 people in the fake elector scheme.)We know only a little about where prosecutors are focusing, and that information comes from the letter to Trump. It cited statutes that could be applied in a prosecution, including a potential charge of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and a broad charge related to a violation of rights.2. New information?Crowds at Trump’s speech on Jan. 6, 2021, before the Capitol attacks.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesWithout seeing the evidence, experts are unsure how strong the case against Trump is. In the classified documents inquiry, investigators uncovered new evidence, including photos of documents in a bathroom at Trump’s Florida home and Trump suggesting in a recording that he knew he wasn’t supposed to have the papers. So far, the public evidence around Trump’s attempts to cling to power is less explicit.Consider Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 riots: He made suggestive comments, including earlier that day at a rally in Washington. But none of them were explicit orders for an attack, and he eventually encouraged his supporters who had breached the Capitol to disperse.Trump “is often both all over the place and yet somewhat careful not to cross certain lines,” my colleague Maggie Haberman, who covers Trump, has said. “At his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, he told people to go ‘peacefully and patriotically’ but also directed them to the Capitol with apocalyptic language about the election. Frequently, people around him understand the implications of words, even when he’s not being direct.”(He also has tried to recast Jan. 6 in a more positive light, Maggie explained.)If investigators do have evidence that more directly links Trump to any potential charges, we will find out in the coming days or weeks, if an indictment is filed and made public.3. The prison possibilityIn addition to this case, Trump already faces state charges in New York of falsifying business records to cover up potential sex scandals before the 2016 election as well as federal charges in the classified documents case. And Trump may face separate state charges in Georgia over his attempts to stay in power; a local prosecutor is expected to announce an indictment decision soon.Any of these cases could lead to a conviction and prison time. Or Trump could beat the charges in court.There is one other possibility that his advisers have raised: He could win the 2024 election, potentially making it too difficult to imprison him or allowing him to use the powers of the presidency to drop the federal investigations and charges.“When he was indicted in the documents investigation, his advisers were blunt that in their view, he needs to win the election as a defense against possible jail time,” Maggie wrote yesterday. “That only increases with an indictment related to Jan. 6 at the federal level.”The circumstances put Trump’s presidential campaign in a different light. He is not running, as politicians typically do, solely to push a policy agenda, establish his legacy or gain power. He is running for self-preservation, too.The U.S. has never confronted this scenario. Experts are divided over whether and how Trump could act as president if he were sentenced to prison. No one knows for certain how America’s political and criminal justice systems would handle that outcome. As Jessica Levinson, an election law expert, told The Times, “I don’t think that the Framers ever thought we were going to be in this situation.”More on TrumpA few Republican presidential candidates were more critical of Trump than they were in the face of his earlier legal problems. “We can’t keep dealing with this drama,” Nikki Haley said.Other primary rivals stayed more muted. Ron DeSantis said Trump “should have come out more forcefully” against Jan. 6 rioters, but added, “I hope he doesn’t get charged.”The judge overseeing the classified documents case expressed skepticism about prosecutors’ request for the trial to start as soon as December and about Trump’s desire to put it off until after the presidential election.THE LATEST NEWSWeatherPhoenixMatt York/Associated PressThe temperature in Phoenix topped 110 degrees for a record 19th straight day. Cities across the U.S. face dangerous levels of heat for the next week.Smoke from Canada’s wildfires reached as far south as North Carolina and Georgia.Much of the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing extreme summer weather. Firefighters battled wildfires in Greece, while China sweltered in sauna-like conditions.To stave off droughts, Spaniards are excavating thousand-year-old irrigation canals called acequias.Al Gore, who raised alarms about climate change almost two decades ago, says he remains hopeful. “We know how to fix this,” he said.InternationalHenry Kissinger, the 100-year-old former secretary of state, made a surprise visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese leaders.Data briefly posted by one Chinese province suggested that it may have had as many Covid deaths this year as the government has admitted across the mainland during the entire pandemic.A U.S. soldier facing assault charges in South Korea dashed into North Korea, which took him into custody.An Australian man was rescued with his dog after three months lost at sea. He said he survived on raw tuna and rainwater.War in UkraineRussia bombarded the Ukrainian port city of Odesa for a second night. The Kremlin called it retribution for an attack on a vital Crimean bridge.Ukrainian troops are finding World War II remnants, including skeletons and a carved swastika, on the battlefield.United KingdomConsumer prices in Britain rose at their slowest pace in more than a year, but inflation remains high. Economic woes could sink the re-election hopes of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.King Charles, the country’s most famous landlord, has made about $34 million from rising rents this year.Other Big StoriesMultiple women accused a powerful Mississippi sheriff of using his position to coerce them into sex, a Times investigation found.Investigators identified the suspect in the Gilgo Beach killings on Long Island partly through stray strands of his wife’s hair.OpinionsThe F.D.A.’s approval of over-the-counter birth control is a promising sign for other medical advances that could help offset state abortion bans, Dr. Daniel Grossman writes.Housecleaning in the Russian military after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny will only worsen its campaign in Ukraine, Dara Massicot writes.Here’s a column by Carlos Lozada on competing views of U.S.-China relations.MORNING READSParty report: Zucchini and celebrities in Gwyneth Paltrow’s yard in the Hamptons.Wherever I go, there you are: Young people use apps like Find My Friends to affectionately keep tabs on each other.A language haven: Descendants of Holocaust survivors in Australia are trying to preserve Yiddish.Lives Lived: Angelo Mozilo led Countrywide Financial as it grew into one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders and then crashed in the 2008 financial crisis. He died at 84.SPORTS NEWSMajor stakes: Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are among the golfers facing the most pressure this week at the British Open.Another Northwestern lawsuit: A former Wildcats football player accused the former head coach Pat Fitzgerald of negligence in the school’s hazing scandal.Ligament curse: Some of soccer’s biggest stars will miss the Women’s World Cup because of a rash of knee injuries.ARTS AND IDEAS Johnny Nunez/GettyVoices of hip-hop: Fifty years after the birth of hip-hop, The Times asked 50 artists to recount their time in the genre — how they discovered rap, began their careers and carved out places in its history. Together, they form a family tree of hip-hip that connects old-school figures like DMC and Kool Moe Dee to modern stars like Ice Spice and Lil Baby.More on cultureAs a movie about a product, “Barbie” can push only so far — but has moments of something like enlightenment, Manohla Dargis writes. Read her review.Country Music Television pulled a video for Jason Aldean’s song “Try That in a Small Town” that was filmed at the site of a lynching.The police searched a Nevada home in connection with the unsolved 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Kerri Brewer for The New York TimesPerfect your cacio e pepe with help from Rome.Play one of Wirecutter’s picks for family games under $35.Consider keeping a multi-tool in your pocket.Watch the season finale of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” where Dennis tries to have a relaxing beach day.Book a cruise, and join other first-time passengers looking for a deal.GAMESHere are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangram was extinction. (Yesterday’s newsletter included the wrong pangram for Monday’s Spelling Bee. The correct pangram was acridity.)And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — GermanCorrection: A chart in Monday’s newsletter comparing the excess death rate across countries was mislabeled. It showed an estimate of the daily rate, not the weekly rate.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com. More

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      Trump’s Conspirators Are Facing the Music, Finally

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      We’ve reached a turning point in the effort to ensure there are consequences for those who deliberately attempt to undermine our democracy: Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, charged 16 Republican leaders in her state on Tuesday for their role as fake electors working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The charges, coming on the heels of news that the special counsel Jack Smith has informed Donald Trump that he’s a target of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Capitol riot, mean we are witnessing a new and necessary phase in this quest for accountability, one in which the federal and state wheels of justice work to hold people accountable not only for the violence on Jan. 6, but also for what got us there: the alleged scheme to interfere with the transfer of power.The charges in Michigan will surely meet criticism on all sides. Some will say the case is not broad or bold enough, that Mr. Trump and the other alleged national ringleaders should have been charged as well. Others will say Ms. Nessel cast too wide a net, pulling in low-level party functionaries who did not know better. We think those critiques are misconceived. Ms. Nessel got it just right, prosecuting crimes firmly within her jurisdiction, while opening the way for federal authorities to net even bigger fish.Ms. Nessel brought the same eight counts against all 16 defendants. The offenses include conspiracy to commit forgery, since the defendants are accused of signing documents stating they were the qualified electors (they were not), and publishing forged documents by circulating these materials to federal and state authorities. On paper, the penalties for the offenses range from five to 14 years, but sentencing in this case would presumably be lower than that maximum.Until now there have been no charges centered on the fake electors plot. For that reason alone, Michigan’s action brings a sense of needed accountability for those who fanned the rioters’ passions leading up to Jan. 6 by spinning a false narrative about a stolen election.Michigan saw some of the most outrageous fake electoral certificates to emerge during the period leading up to the Capitol riot. Unlike the fake certificates in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, the Michigan documents did not include a disclaimer that they were to be used only in the case of litigation. What’s more, the documents contained more outright false statements than simply declaring that the signers were the lawful electors of the winning candidate.For example, they state that the electors “convened and organized in the State Capitol,” when, according to the attorney general, they were hidden away in the basement of the state Republican headquarters. (It seems likely that the fake electors included this lie because Michigan law requires presidential electors to meet in the Capitol — a requirement and legal problem that a Trump campaign legal adviser, Kenneth Chesebro, had flagged in his confidential memorandum setting out the scheme.)In proving these cases, establishing intent will be key. Here, there are several indicators that the defendants may have been aware of the illicit nature of their gathering. According to congressional testimony from the state Republican Party’s chairwoman at the time, Laura Cox, the group originally planned to meet inside the Capitol and hide overnight, so they could vote in the building the following day. Ms. Cox said she told a lawyer working with the Trump campaign and supposedly organizing the fake electors “in no uncertain terms that that was insane and inappropriate,” and “a very, very bad idea and potentially illegal.”As she put it, Ms. Cox was “very uncomfortable” with facilitating a meeting of the fake elector group, and said so at the time in accord with her lawyers’ opinion. Ms. Cox even urged the group to draft a significantly more measured document simply “stating that if perhaps something were to happen in the courts, they were willing and able to serve as electors from Michigan for Donald Trump.” Her advice was not followed.At the time the fake electors met to allegedly forge their documents, they should have been aware that state officials had certified the election results for Joe Biden — it was national and state news. By that point, there was no prospect of changing that outcome through either litigation or legislative action. On the day prosecutors say the fake electors met, two of the most powerful Republicans in the state acknowledged as much. Mike Shirkey, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Lee Chatfield, the House speaker, both issued statements declaring the presidential race over. Mr. Shirkey said that Michigan’s “Democratic slate of electors should be able to proceed with their duty” without the threat of harassment or violence.The fake electors were told they were not allowed to bring their phones into the meeting at the Republican headquarters that day, according to testimony one of them gave congressional investigators. They were instructed to maintain secrecy and not to share any details about what was occurring. That secrecy suggests that they knew what they were doing was wrong.Michigan’s former secretary of state, Terri Lynn Land, who had been designated a Trump elector, declined to participate in the proceedings, saying, according to Ms. Cox’s testimony, she was not comfortable doing so.With these facts, it would have been unthinkable for the state attorney general to choose not to prosecute the Michigan 16. Ms. Nessel’s office has regularly brought prosecutions, some of them against her fellow Democrats, centered on false documents in connection with elections. The case of the fake electors is far more egregious than most of those other cases: The defendants here were politically engaged individuals who should have been aware of the election results, as well as the flat rejection by the courts and Michigan Legislature of the Trump campaign’s claims of voter fraud.To be sure, some critics of the case may still think that the Michigan attorney general should have gone after Mr. Trump and his top lieutenants, who helped organize the false electors. But prosecutors have a responsibility first to pursue those individuals within their jurisdiction. By focusing solely on the figures who undertook their acts in Michigan, Ms. Nessel is wisely insulating her case against charges that she overreached, exceeding her jurisdiction.Of course, broader prosecutions may still be justified. Reporting indicates that the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., Fani Willis, may be considering a different kind of wide-ranging case, involving state RICO crimes. Unlike the Michigan prosecution, her case may focus on Mr. Trump’s direct efforts to pressure state election officials — efforts that were caught on tape — and Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to provide false statements of election fraud to state officials.If broad-based indictments ultimately emerge out of Georgia, and are supported by the facts and appropriate law, then we would welcome it. That is part of the genius of American democracy: The states, which are responsible for running our elections, are laboratories of both democracy and of accountability.Ms. Nessel’s case also leaves a clear lane for Mr. Smith, the special counsel. She has avoided charging high-level national individuals whom Mr. Smith is apparently investigating. If anything, her case provides greater foundation for Mr. Smith to act, and he now seems to be following through. If Ms. Nessel can move against these individuals in Michigan, Mr. Smith can and should do the same against the ringleaders. Together, they can hold both the foot soldiers and their organizers accountable for their actions leading up to the Capitol riot.Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump. Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, is a co-editor in chief of the Just Security website.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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      Target Letter to Trump Raises Possibility of Obstruction and Fraud Charges

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      In the two and a half years since a mob laid siege to the Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, a wealth of evidence has emerged about Donald J. Trump’s bid to stay in power after the 2020 election.Mr. Trump and his allies peddled spurious claims of voter fraud, pressured officials in states he narrowly lost and recruited false slates of electors in those states. He urged Vice President Mike Pence to delay certification of Mr. Biden’s win. And he called on a huge crowd of his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell.”Now, Mr. Trump appears almost certain to face criminal charges for some of his efforts to remain in office. On Tuesday, he disclosed on social media that federal prosecutors had sent him a so-called target letter, suggesting that he could soon be indicted in the investigation into the events that culminated in the riot.Mr. Trump did not say what criminal charges, if any, the special counsel, Jack Smith, had specified in issuing the letter.But since the Capitol attack — in part because of revelations by a House committee investigation and news reports — many legal specialists and commentators have converged on several charges that are particularly likely, especially obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the government.A person briefed on the matter said the target letter cited three statutes that could be applied in a prosecution of Mr. Trump by the special counsel, Jack Smith, including a potential charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States.Norman Eisen, who worked for the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment and contributed to a prosecution memo modeling potential Jan. 6-related charges, said that the target letter suggested the special counsel “has more than enough evidence” to bring a case against the former president.“By leading the effort to procure fraudulent electoral certificates across the nation, Trump helmed a conspiracy to defraud the U.S.,” Mr. Eisen said. “And by using those false documents to press Mike Pence to disrupt the Jan. 6 meeting of Congress, Trump attempted to obstruct an official proceeding.”There have also been signs that prosecutors have explored potential charges involving wire or mail fraud related to Mr. Trump’s fund-raising efforts in the name of overturning the election results.Any charges in the District of Columbia — where federal grand juries have been hearing evidence — would raise additional legal peril for Mr. Trump. Already, the Justice Department has won guilty pleas or convictions in hundreds of cases related to the riot, suggesting that a pool of jurors may be less receptive toward him than in Palm Beach County, Fla., where he faces charges over his hoarding of sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.These are some of the charges Mr. Trump could face in the Jan. 6 case.Corruptly Obstructing an Official ProceedingBoth the House committee that scrutinized Jan. 6 and a federal judge in California who intervened in its inquiry have said that there is evidence that Mr. Trump tried to corruptly obstruct Congress’s session to certify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory. Under Section 1512(c) of Title 18 of the United States Code, such a crime would be punishable by up to 20 years in prison.Prosecutors have already used that law to charge hundreds of ordinary defendants in Jan. 6 cases, and in April, a federal appeals court upheld the viability of applying that charge to the Capitol attack. Still, unlike ordinary rioters, Mr. Trump did not physically participate in the storming of the Capitol.The House committee investigating the Capitol riot at a hearing in December.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesIn issuing criminal referrals as it ended its investigation, the Jan. 6 committee argued that Mr. Trump should be charged under the statute based on two sets of actions. By summoning supporters to Washington and stoking them to march on the Capitol, lawmakers argued, Mr. Trump had violated that law. Mr. Trump’s lawyers would likely raise doubts over whether he intended for his supporters to riot in part because he also told them to protest “peacefully.”The committee also cited Mr. Trump’s participation in the fake electors scheme as a reason to issue charges, pointing to his effort to strong-arm Mr. Pence to cite the existence of slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in seven states that Mr. Biden had actually won as a basis to delay certifying the election. The panel stressed how Mr. Trump had been told that there was no truth to his claims of a stolen election, which it said showed his intentions were corrupt.Conspiring to Defraud the Government and to Make False StatementsBoth the federal judge in California and the Jan. 6 committee also said there was evidence that Mr. Trump violated Section 371 of Title 18, which makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conspire with another person to defraud the government.The basis for such a charge would be similar: Mr. Trump’s interactions with various lawyers and aides in his effort to block the certification of Mr. Biden’s electoral victory, even though Mr. Trump was repeatedly told that his allegations of widespread voter fraud were baseless.In his ruling last year in a civil lawsuit over whether the Jan. 6 committee could obtain the emails of John Eastman, a legal adviser to Mr. Trump in his fight to overturn the election results, Judge David O. Carter ruled that it was more likely than not that the communications involved crimes, so qualified for an exception to attorney-client privilege.“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” he wrote. “Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the vice president to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election.”A conspiracy to submit false electors to Congress could also implicate Section 1001, which makes false statements a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. In the documents case, Mr. Trump is charged under this statute, accused of having caused his lawyer to lie to the Justice Department.Wire and Mail FraudA constellation of other potential crimes has also surrounded the Jan. 6 investigation. One is wire fraud. Section 1343 of Title 18 makes it a crime, punishable by 20 years in prison, to cause money to be transferred by wire across state lines as part of a scheme to obtain money by means of false or fraudulent representations. A similar fraud statute, Section 1341, covers schemes that use the Postal Service.Subpoenas issued by Mr. Smith suggest that he has been scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s political action committee, Save America PAC. It raised as much as $250 million, telling donors the money was needed to fight election fraud even as Mr. Trump had been told repeatedly that there was no evidence to back up those claims.The House Jan. 6 committee had also suggested that Mr. Trump and his associates had defrauded his own supporters. It described how after the election, they appealed to donors as many as 25 times a day to help fight the results in court and contribute to a defense fund. But no such fund existed, and they used the money for other purposes, including spending more than $200,000 at Trump hotel properties.“Throughout the committee’s investigation, we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, said during one hearing. “So not only was there the big lie. There was the big rip-off.”The Jan. 6 committee and some legal commentators have also suggested Mr. Trump could be charged under Section 2383 of Title 18, which makes it a crime to incite, assist, “aid or comfort” an insurrection against the authority and laws of the federal government. That offense, however, is rarely charged and has not been leveled against any Jan. 6 defendant to date.In its final report, the committee singled out five of Mr. Trump’s other allies — Mark Meadows, his final chief of staff; and the lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Kenneth Chesebro — as potential co-conspirators with Mr. Trump in actions the committee said warranted Justice Department investigation.Luke Broadwater More

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      Trump Receives a Target Letter in Special Counsel’s Jan. 6 Investigation

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      Former President Donald J. Trump has been informed that he could soon face federal indictment for his efforts to hold onto power after his 2020 election loss, potentially adding to the remarkable array of criminal charges and other legal troubles facing him even as he campaigns to return to the White House.Mr. Trump was informed by his lawyers on Sunday that he had received a so-called target letter from Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating his attempts to reverse his defeat at the polls, Mr. Trump and other people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Prosecutors use target letters to tell potential defendants that investigators have evidence tying them to crimes and that they could be subject to indictment.“Deranged Jack Smith” sent Mr. Trump a letter on Sunday night informing him he was a “TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury” investigation, Mr. Trump said in a post on his social media platform.Such a letter “almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” wrote Mr. Trump, whose campaign is rooted in accusations of political persecution and a promise to purge the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation of personnel he sees as hostile to him and his agenda.Mr. Smith’s spokesman had no comment.An indictment of Mr. Trump would be the second brought by Mr. Smith, who is also prosecuting the former president for risking national security secrets by taking classified documents from the White House and for obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim the material.Mr. Trump is also under indictment in Manhattan on charges related to hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. And he faces the likelihood of charges from the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who has been conducting a wide-ranging inquiry into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss in that state.The target letter cited three statutes that could be applied in a prosecution of Mr. Trump by Mr. Smith’s team, a person briefed on the matter said. They include a potential charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States and a broad charge related to a violation of rights, the person said.Whether Mr. Smith and his prosecutors will choose to charge Mr. Trump on any or all of those statutes remained unclear, but they appear to have assembled evidence about an array of tactics that Mr. Trump and his allies used to try to stave off his election defeat.Those efforts included assembling slates of so-called fake electors from swing states that Mr. Trump lost; pressuring state officials to block or delay Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victories; seeking to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to impede congressional certification of the Electoral College outcome; raising money based on false claims of election fraud; and rallying supporters to come to Washington and march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.It also remains unknown whether others might be charged along with Mr. Trump. Several of his closest allies during his efforts to remain in office, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was serving as his personal lawyer, and John Eastman, who promoted the idea that Mr. Pence could keep Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory, said through their lawyers that they had not received target letters.Just hours after Mr. Trump disclosed his receipt of the target letter, the Michigan attorney general announced felony state charges against 16 people for their involvement in an attempt to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the state by convening a slate of pro-Trump electors.The news of another potential indictment of Mr. Trump underscored the stakes of an intensifying legal and political battle whose consequences are both incalculable and unpredictable.Mr. Trump remains a dominant front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, in spite of — or to some degree because of — the growing list of charges and potential charges against him.His campaign strategy has been to embrace the investigations as evidence of a plot by a Democratic administration to deny him and his supporters a victory in 2024, a message that continues to resonate among his followers. He was raising money off news of the target letter within hours of disclosing that he had received it.But for Mr. Trump, the stakes are deeply personal, given the serious threat that he could face prison time if convicted in one or more of the cases. In that sense, a winning campaign — and the power to make at least the federal cases go away by pardoning himself or directing his Justice Department to dismiss them — is also a battle for his liberty.At a Fox News town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday night, the host, Sean Hannity, asked Mr. Trump how he appeared unbothered by the investigations. But Mr. Trump pushed back.“It bothers me,” Mr. Trump said. He accused the Biden administration of trying to intimidate him but said, “They don’t frighten us.”Mr. Trump spent much of Tuesday promoting a scorched-earth political strategy, consulting with allies in Washington including Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and onetime critic who has become one of his staunchest defenders. Mr. Trump urged Ms. Stefanik to go “on offense” during a lengthy call from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., according to a person with knowledge of the conversation.His main rival at the moment for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, said Mr. Trump was a victim of the “politicization” of the Justice Department, continuing a pattern in which prominent figures in his party remain leery of criticizing him and drawing the ire of his supporters.At least two grand juries in Washington have been hearing matters related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office. A trial, if it comes to that, would likely be held in Federal District Court in Washington, where many of the Jan. 6 rioters and leaders of two far-right groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, have been prosecuted.Based on the outcomes of those trials, the jury pool in Washington would likely be less favorable to the former president than the one that would be empaneled from a largely pro-Trump region around Fort Pierce, Fla., where the classified documents trial is currently scheduled to take place.Two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Christopher M. Kise, briefly mentioned the new target letter at a pretrial hearing in Florida on Tuesday on the documents case. While Mr. Kise and Mr. Blanche gave no details about what the letter said, they used it to argue that Mr. Trump was essentially being besieged by prosecutors and that the trial in the classified documents case should be delayed until after the 2024 election.In disclosing that he had received the target letter, Mr. Trump said he was given four days to testify before a grand jury if he chooses. He is expected to decline. The timetable suggested by the letter suggests that he will not be charged this week, according to people familiar with the situation.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who has pressed ahead with her own investigation of Mr. Trump and his allies, could bring charges as early as next month. If she were to proceed first, that could complicate Mr. Smith’s case. Accounts of witnesses called to testify both cases could vary slightly, seeding doubts about their testimony, for instance — which might explain why Mr. Smith is moving fast, according to former federal prosecutors.Federal investigators were slow to begin investigating all the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, overwhelmed with prosecuting the hundreds of rioters who illegally entered the Capitol. The initial plan for investigating the attack’s planners, drafted by the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington and later adopted by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, did not include any explicit reference to the former president. The F.B.I. took a similar tack.However, in the months leading up to Mr. Smith’s appointment as a special counsel last fall, there were strong indications that federal prosecutors were pivoting to examine whether Mr. Trump and his allies may have committed crimes.The F.B.I.’s Washington field office opened an investigation in April 2022 into electors who pledged fealty to Mr. Trump in states he had lost. Earlier, the authorities had seized the cellphones of Mr. Eastman, a legal architect of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, and Jeffrey Clark, a lawyer whom Mr. Trump had tried to install as the acting attorney general.Among the crimes that prosecutors and agents intended to investigate were mail and wire fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress.By late last year, the various investigations were brought under Mr. Smith, who moved quickly with a flurry of activity, including subpoenas and witness interviews.Mr. Smith and his team do not appear to be done. A spokesman for former Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona said that Mr. Smith’s team reached out to him after The Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump had tasked Mr. Pence with pressuring Mr. Ducey to overturn Mr. Biden’s narrow victory there.The spokesman said that Mr. Ducey will do “the right thing” and that he had done so since the election. It was unclear whether the contact was to request a voluntary interview by Mr. Ducey or a grand jury appearance.Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, appeared before one of the grand juries in June, according to people familiar with his appearance. Mr. Giuliani had a recent interview with prosecutors.Ben Protess More

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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 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