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      Analysis: Durham Report Failed to Deliver After Years of Political Hype

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      A dysfunctional investigation led by a Trump-era special counsel illustrates a dilemma about prosecutorial independence and accountability in politically sensitive matters.The limping conclusion to John H. Durham’s four-year investigation of the Russia inquiry underscores a recurring dilemma in American government: how to shield sensitive law enforcement investigations from politics without creating prosecutors who can run amok, never to be held to account.At a time when special counsels are proliferating — there have been four since 2017, two of whom are still at work — the much-hyped investigation by Mr. Durham, a special counsel, into the Russia inquiry ended with a whimper that stood in contrast to the countless hours of political furor that spun off from it.Mr. Durham delivered a report that scolded the F.B.I. but failed to live up to the expectations of supporters of Donald J. Trump that he would uncover a politically motivated “deep state” conspiracy. He charged no high-level F.B.I. or intelligence official with a crime and acknowledged in a footnote that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign did nothing prosecutable, either.Predictably, the report’s actual content — it contained no major new revelations, and it accused the F.B.I. of “confirmation bias” rather than making a more explosive conclusion of political bias — made scant difference in parts of the political arena. Mr. Trump and many of his loyalists issued statements treating it as vindication of their claims that the Russia inquiry involved far more extravagant wrongdoing.“The Durham Report spells out in great detail the Democrat Hoax that was perpetrated upon me and the American people,” Mr. Trump insisted on social media. “This is 2020 Presidential Election Fraud, just like ‘stuffing’ the ballot boxes, only more so. This totally illegal act had a huge impact on the Election.”Mr. Trump’s comparison was unintentionally striking. Just as his and his supporters’ wild and invented claims of election fraud floundered in court (Fox News also agreed to pay a $787.5 million settlement for amplifying lies about Dominion Voting Systems), the political noise surrounding Mr. Durham’s efforts ultimately ran up against reality.In that sense, it was less that Mr. Durham failed to deliver and more that Attorney General William P. Barr set him up to fail the moment he assigned Mr. Durham to find evidence proving Mr. Trump’s claims about the Russia investigation.There were real-world flaws with the Russia investigation, especially how the F.B.I. botched applications to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser. But the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, found those problems, leaving Mr. Durham with depleted hunting grounds.Indeed, credit for Mr. Durham’s only courtroom success, a guilty plea by an F.B.I. lawyer who doctored an email during preparations for a wiretap renewal, belongs to Mr. Horowitz, who uncovered the misconduct.At the same time, Mr. Horowitz kneecapped Mr. Durham’s investigation by finding no evidence that F.B.I. actions were politically motivated. He also concluded that the basis of the Russia inquiry — an Australian diplomat’s tip related to the release of Democratic emails hacked by Russia — was sufficient to open a full investigation.Before Mr. Horowitz released his December 2019 report, Mr. Durham lobbied him to drop that finding, arguing the F.B.I. should have instead opened a preliminary inquiry. When Mr. Horowitz declined, Mr. Durham issued an extraordinary statement saying he disagreed based on “evidence collected to date” in his inquiry.But even as Mr. Durham’s report questioned whether the F.B.I. should have opened it as a lower-level investigation, he stopped short of stating that opening a full one violated any rule.Mr. Durham also used court filings in those cases to insinuate that the Clinton campaign framed former President Donald J. Trump for collusion.Sophie Park for The New York TimesA remaining rationale for the Durham investigation was that Mr. Horowitz lacked jurisdiction to scrutinize spy agencies. But by the spring of 2020, according to officials familiar with the inquiry, Mr. Durham’s effort to find intelligence abuses in the origins of the Russia investigation had come up empty.Instead of wrapping up, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham shifted to a different rationale, hunting for a basis to blame the Clinton campaign for suspicions surrounding myriad links Trump campaign associates had to Russia.By keeping the investigation going, Mr. Barr initially appeased Mr. Trump, who, as Mr. Barr recounted in his memoir, was angry about the lack of charges as the 2020 election neared.But Mr. Barr’s public statements about Mr. Durham’s investigation also helped foster perceptions that he had found something big. In April 2020, for example, he suggested in a Fox News interview that officials could be prosecuted and said: “The evidence shows that we are not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There is something far more troubling here.”Mr. Trump and some of his allies in the news media went further, stoking expectations among his supporters that Mr. Durham would imprison high-level officials. Those include the former directors of the F.B.I. and C.I.A., James B. Comey and John O. Brennan, and Democratic leaders like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr.In fact, Mr. Durham only ever developed charges against two outsiders involved in efforts to scrutinize links between Mr. Trump and Russia, accusing them both of making false statements to the F.B.I. and treating the bureau as a victim, not a perpetrator.While in office, Mr. Barr worked closely with Mr. Durham, regularly meeting with him, sharing Scotch and accompanying him to Europe. When it became clear that Mr. Durham had found no one to charge before the election, Mr. Barr pushed him to draft a potential interim report, prompting Mr. Durham’s No. 2, Nora R. Dannehy, to resign in protest over ethics, The New York Times has reported.Against that backdrop, the first phase of Mr. Durham’s investigation — when he was a U.S. attorney appointed by Mr. Trump, not a special counsel — illustrates why there is a recurring public policy interest in shielding prosecutors pursuing politically sensitive matters from political appointees.But the second phase — after Mr. Barr made him a special counsel, entrenching him to remain under the Biden administration with some independence from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — illustrates how prosecutorial independence itself risks a different kind of dysfunction.The regulations empowered Mr. Garland to block Mr. Durham from an action, but only if it was “so inappropriate or unwarranted under established departmental practices that it should not be pursued” and required him to tell Congress. Mr. Garland gave Mr. Durham free rein, avoiding Republican accusations of a cover-up.Mr. Durham continued for another two and a half years, spending millions of dollars to bring the two demonstrably weak cases involving accusations of false statements; in each instance, a jury of 12 unanimously rejected the charges. One of Mr. Durham’s handpicked prosecutors resigned from his team in protest of the first of those indictments, The Times has reported.But Mr. Durham’s use of his law enforcement powers did achieve something else. He used court filings to insinuate a theory he never found evidence to charge: that the Clinton campaign conspired to frame Mr. Trump for collusion. Those filings provided endless fodder for conservative news media.Even after Mr. Durham’s cases collapsed, some Trump supporters held out hope that his final report would deliver a bombshell. But it largely consisted of recycled material, interlaced with conclusions like Mr. Durham’s accusation that the F.B.I. had displayed a “lack of analytical rigor.”Attorney General William P. Barr bestowed Mr. Durham with special counsel status.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Durham’s own analytical rigor was subject to scrutiny. At one point he wrote that he had found “no evidence” that the F.B.I. ever considered whether Clinton campaign efforts to tie Mr. Trump to Russia might affect its investigation.Yet the same page cited messages by a top F.B.I. official, Peter Strzok, cautioning colleagues about the Steele dossier, a compendium of claims about the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia that, it later became clear, were Clinton campaign-funded opposition research. He wrote that it “should be viewed as intended to influence as well as to inform” and whoever commissioned it was “presumed to be connected to the campaign in some way.”As Mr. Horowitz uncovered and criticized, the F.B.I. later cited the Steele dossier in wiretap applications, despite learning a reason to doubt its credibility. But Trump supporters often go further, falsely claiming that the F.B.I. opened the entire Russia investigation based on the dossier.Mr. Durham’s report appeared to nod to that false claim, saying that “information received from politically affiliated persons and entities” in part had “triggered” the inquiry. Yet elsewhere, his report acknowledged that the officials who opened the investigation in July 2016 had not yet seen the dossier, and it was prompted by the Australian diplomat’s tip. He also conceded that there was “no question the F.B.I. had an affirmative obligation to closely examine” that lead.Tom Fitton, a Trump ally and the leader of the conservative group Judicial Watch, expressed disappointment in the Durham investigation in a statement this week, while insisting that there had been a “conspiracy by Obama, Biden, Clinton and their Deep State allies.”“Durham let down the American people with few and failed prosecutions,” Mr. Fitton declared. “Never in American history has so much government corruption faced so little accountability.”But Aitan Goelman, a lawyer for Mr. Strzok, said that while the special counsel accused the F.B.I. of “confirmation bias,” it was Mr. Durham who spent four years trying to find support for a preformed belief about the Russia investigation.“In fact, it is Mr. Durham’s investigation that was politically motivated, a direct consequence of former President Trump’s weaponization of the Department of Justice, an effort that unanimous juries in each of Mr. Durham’s trials soundly rejected,” he said.Adam Goldman More

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      Durham Report Finds Fault With FBI Over Trump-Russia Investigation

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      The special counsel’s final report nevertheless did not produce blockbuster revelations of politically motivated misconduct, as Donald J. Trump and his allies had suggested it would.John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who for four years has pursued a politically fraught investigation into the Russia inquiry, accused the F.B.I. of having “discounted or willfully ignored material information” that countered the narrative of collusion between Donald J. Trump and Russia in a final report made public on Monday.Mr. Durham’s 306-page report revealed little substantial new information about the inquiry, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations accusing the bureau of politically motivated misconduct that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies suggested Mr. Durham would uncover.Instead, the report — released without substantive comment or any redactions by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — largely recounted previously exposed flaws in the inquiry, while concluding that the F.B.I. suffered from confirmation bias and a “lack of analytical rigor” as it pursued leads about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.“An objective and honest assessment of these strands of information should have caused the F.B.I. to question not only the predication for Crossfire Hurricane, but also to reflect on whether the F.B.I. was being manipulated for political or other purposes,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, it did not.”Mr. Durham said he was not recommending any “wholesale changes” to F.B.I. rules for politically sensitive investigations and for national-security wiretaps, which have already been tightened in recent years. He did recommend that the Justice Department consider assigning an official to internally challenge steps taken in politically sensitive investigations.The report amounted, in part, to a defense and justification of a lengthy investigation that developed only two criminal cases, both of which ended in acquittal.Mr. Durham repeated his own insinuations, presented in court filings, that information developed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign had helped fuel the Russia investigation, which shadowed nearly two years of Mr. Trump’s presidency and was eventually overseen by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.He also repeated criticisms made in 2019 by an inspector general who uncovered how the F.B.I. botched wiretap applications used in the inquiry.In a statement, the F.B.I. emphasized its numerous overhauls since the 2019 report.“The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current F.B.I. leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time,” it said.Mr. Durham went beyond criticizing the wiretap applications, writing: “Our investigation also revealed that senior F.B.I. personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor toward the information that they received, especially information received from politically affiliated persons and entities. This information in part triggered and sustained Crossfire Hurricane and contributed to the subsequent need for Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation.”But in using the word “triggered,” Mr. Durham’s report echoed a conspiracy theory pushed by supporters of Mr. Trump that the F.B.I. opened the investigation in July 2016 based on the so-called Steele dossier, opposition research indirectly funded by the Clinton campaign that was later discredited.In fact, as Mr. Durham acknowledged elsewhere in the report, the dossier did not reach those investigators until mid-September. The F.B.I. instead opened the investigation based on a tip from an Australian diplomat, after WikiLeaks published hacked Democratic emails, that a Trump campaign aide seemed to have advance knowledge that Russia would release information damaging to the Clinton campaign.The special prosecutor’s findings were sent to Mr. Garland on Friday, a department spokeswoman said.Mr. Durham’s team submitted a draft report to the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. in March so those agencies could flag classified and other sensitive information, according to people familiar with the matter. A career Justice Department employee also inspected the draft for information that could raise privacy issues for government employees.The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a close Trump ally, Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said on Twitter that he would invite Mr. Durham to testify next week.Other Republicans seized on the report as confirmation that the Russia investigation had been tainted by partisanship, suggesting that Mr. Durham’s report would continue to fuel accusations that the Justice Department had been deployed against the former president.“The Durham Report confirmed what we already knew: weaponized federal agencies manufactured a false conspiracy theory about Trump-Russia collusion,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Twitter.Mr. Durham’s investigation traces back to early 2019, when Mr. Mueller delivered a final report that detailed “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.” It established how Moscow had worked to help Mr. Trump win and how his campaign had expected to benefit from the foreign interference, but Mr. Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to charge any Trump campaign associate with a criminal conspiracy with Russia.Seizing on the findings, Mr. Trump portrayed that report as vindication that the Russia investigation was based on a hoax, as he had insisted.The next month, Attorney General William P. Barr assigned Mr. Durham, then the U.S. attorney for Connecticut, to scour the Russia investigation for any wrongdoing. Mr. Barr later bestowed special counsel status on Mr. Durham, allowing him to stay in place after Mr. Trump left office.The Durham report has been long awaited by supporters of Mr. Trump, who once hoped that the special counsel would prove Mr. Trump’s theory that the Russia investigation had been a “deep state” conspiracy to sabotage him for political reasons. Mr. Trump would put high-level political or national security officials in prison, they insisted.But over an investigation that lasted about four years — far longer than the Russia investigation — Mr. Durham never fulfilled those expectations.Critics have argued his investigation was superfluous: An inspector general for the Justice Department, Michael E. Horowitz, was already scrutinizing the Russia investigation for evidence of misconduct or bias, and he released a report on the matter in December 2019.Mr. Horowitz did not find evidence that the F.B.I. had taken any investigative steps based on improper political reasons. And he concluded that the investigation’s basis — the Australian diplomat’s tip — had been sufficient to lawfully open the full counterintelligence inquiry.In his report, Mr. Durham also criticized the F.B.I. for relying on the Australian diplomat’s tip without asking more questions about the credibility of what the Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, had said. But Mr. Durham also acknowledged there was “no question the F.B.I. had an affirmative obligation to closely examine” what the Australians had provided, striking a contradictory tone. Aitan Goelman, a lawyer for Peter Strzok, the former F.B.I. agent who opened the Russia investigation and interviewed the Australians, defended the inquiry and noted that the inspector general had said it was properly predicated.“When the F.B.I. received credible information from a senior official of a close American ally that the government of Russia was interfering in the upcoming presidential election on behalf of the Trump campaign, the bureau could not ignore that information,” he said in a statement.Mr. Durham also broached the Steele dossier, building on extensive findings by Mr. Horowitz.In his December 2019 report, Mr. Horowitz pointed to multiple ways in which the F.B.I. had botched wiretap applications used to target a former Trump campaign adviser with links to Russia, Carter Page. That included relying on allegations in the dossier in renewal applications after the F.B.I. had reason to doubt its credibility.Mr. Horowitz also developed a criminal referral against an F.B.I. lawyer who had doctored an email used in preparation for a renewal application.Picking up that referral, Mr. Durham negotiated a guilty plea with that lawyer, which resulted in no prison time. The only two cases Mr. Durham himself developed, both cases of false statements against people involved in outside efforts that raised suspicions over Mr. Trump’s possible ties to Russia, ended in acquittal.Some Trump supporters grew disillusioned as Mr. Durham did not indict high-level officials leading up to the 2020 election. In March 2021, Mr. Trump issued a sarcastic statement, asking: “Where’s Durham? Is he a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report?”After Mr. Durham had spent a year fruitlessly hunting for evidence to support Mr. Barr’s theory that intelligence abuses lurked in the origins of the Russia inquiry, he and his prosecutors shifted gears to look for a basis to blame Mrs. Clinton’s campaign for the fact that Mr. Trump came under suspicion of colluding with Russia.The two cases Mr. Durham brought were against Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with Democratic ties who had passed on a tip to the F.B.I. about odd internet data linking servers for the Trump Organization and a Russian bank, and Igor Danchenko, a primary researcher for the Steele dossier.Mr. Durham’s court filings in both cases extensively implied that the Clinton campaign had essentially set out to frame Mr. Trump for collusion. Although he charged no conspiracy, his insinuation that there might have been one provided fodder to right-wing media.Mr. Durham returned to a Clinton theme in his report.The F.B.I.’s “apparent confirmation bias, and an overwillingness to rely on information from individuals connected to political opponents caused investigators to fail to adequately consider alternative hypotheses and to act without appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. political campaign a foreign power,” Mr. Durham wrote.Mr. Durham also compared the F.B.I.’s aggression in investigating potential links between Mr. Trump and Russia with what he described as its greater caution toward several investigations involving allegations related to Mrs. Clinton.Still, Mr. Durham’s report added a new detail about the F.B.I.’s investigation of a foreign donor who apparently sought to buy influence with the Clinton campaign.In January 2016, Mr. Durham revealed, a confidential informant attended a Clinton fund-raiser with the F.B.I.’s approval. The F.B.I. later told the informant to stay away from Clinton campaign events.The F.B.I. eventually gave Mrs. Clinton’s campaign a so-called defensive briefing about the effort. Mr. Durham criticized the F.B.I. for giving Mrs. Clinton’s campaign the briefing but not supplying one to Mr. Trump about the Russia suspicions, and for not following up on a suggestion that the informant may have been illegally reimbursed by the foreign donor for a $2,700 donation to the Clinton campaign.In January, a report by The New York Times, based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former officials, showed how Mr. Durham’s inquiry became roiled by internal dissent over prosecutorial ethics, leading two prosecutors on his staff to resign in protest.The article also described how Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos — suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the liberal philanthropist who is a target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham shifted to using grand jury powers to obtain the information after a judge twice rejected his request for an order as legally insufficient.The article also revealed that in the fall of 2019, Italian officials unexpectedly gave Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham a tip about suspected financial crimes linked to Mr. Trump. While the tip was unrelated to the Russia investigation, Mr. Barr had Mr. Durham investigate the matter rather than referring it to another prosecutor. Mr. Durham brought no charges.Mr. Durham’s report did not mention any of those matters.Maggie Astor More

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      Trump Can’t Stop Pence From Testifying to Jan. 6 Grand Jury, Court Rules

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      The ruling by an appeals court paved the way for the former vice president to appear before a federal grand jury as early as this week.A federal appeals court rejected on Wednesday night an emergency attempt by former President Donald J. Trump to stop former Vice President Mike Pence from testifying in front of a grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The 11th-hour ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia paved the way for Mr. Pence to appear before the federal grand jury as early as this week.Mr. Pence has always been a potentially important witness in the inquiry because of conversations he took part in at the White House in the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During that time, Mr. Trump repeatedly pressed Mr. Pence 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 several months — first in requests by the Justice Department for an interview and then through a grand jury subpoena issued by the special counsel Jack Smith, who inherited the inquiry into Mr. Trump’s attempts to stay in power.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 him from answering certain questions.In one of those challenges, Mr. Pence sought on his own 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 clause, he would have to answer questions about any potentially illegal acts committed by Mr. Trump. This month, Mr. Pence announced that he did not intend to appeal the decision.Two weeks ago, Mr. Trump’s lawyers took the opposite path, asking the appeals court to reverse Judge Boasberg’s ruling on their own attempts to narrow the scope of the questions Mr. Pence would have to answer. Mr. Trump’s legal team based its arguments on the concept of executive privilege, which protects certain communications between the president and some members of his administration.The appeals court’s sealed ruling on Wednesday night came in response to an emergency request — it was also sealed — to temporarily stop Mr. Pence from answering questions in front of the grand jury as the broader appeal is being considered.When Mr. Pence ends up testifying, it will mark a significant turning point in the 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. More

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      Witness Testimony Helps Prosecutors Advance Trump Election Case

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      The Justice Department’s success in compelling top aides to former President Donald Trump to testify to a grand jury moves the special counsel closer to a decision on seeking indictments.Without fanfare, the Justice Department’s investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election is approaching an important milestone.After nearly nine months of behind-the-scenes clashes, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have largely lost their battle to limit testimony from some of his closest aides to a federal grand jury. The decisions, in a string of related cases, represent an almost total failure by Mr. Trump to constrain the reach of the inquiry and have strengthened the position of Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the investigation, as he builds an accounting of the former president’s efforts to retain power after his defeat at the polls.Having lost their challenges to grand jury subpoenas and largely failed to limit the scope of their testimony with assertions of executive and attorney-client privilege, a last group of aides is now being forced to answer questions.On Tuesday, it was Stephen Miller, an adviser and top speechwriter for Mr. Trump, who showed up in Federal District Court in Washington and spent several hours in front of the grand jury. On Thursday, it was John Ratcliffe, the former director of national intelligence. The process could culminate near the end of this month with an appearance by former Vice President Mike Pence.While questions linger over pending appeals and potential efforts by some of the witnesses to delay things further by invoking the Fifth Amendment, the developments suggest that Mr. Smith is close to finishing the fact-finding phase of his work and is moving closer to a decision about seeking charges against Mr. Trump and others.There are no clear indications about when Mr. Smith might decide about charges in the case, but he faces pressure on several fronts to keep the process moving.The political season could be a consideration: The 2024 presidential race is heating up, with Mr. Trump still regarded as the front-runner for the Republican nomination, and the first debate of the G.O.P. primary season has been scheduled for August.On the legal front, the looming decision by a district attorney in Georgia, Fani T. Willis, on whether to seek indictment of Mr. Trump on charges related to his efforts to overturn his election loss has placed added pressure on Mr. Smith, who must decide whether allowing another prosecutor to go first with similar charges could complicate any prosecution he pursues.Former Vice President Mike Pence may testify before a grand jury by the end of this month.Winnie Au for The New York Times“The speed of the Georgia state investigation increases the pressure on Jack Smith to move with alacrity and to get his witnesses before the federal grand jury now,” said John P. Fishwick Jr., an Obama appointee who served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 2015 to 2017. “Once the state indictment comes down, it can really bog down the D.O.J. investigation.”Among those who have worked with him, Mr. Smith is seen as a diligent manager bent on collecting the information needed to make a decision while remaining cognizant of the time pressures and the highly partisan atmosphere in which he is operating.In his first and only public comments — a statement emailed to reporters shortly after his appointment in November — he vowed that the pace of his Trump investigations would “not pause or flag,” noting that he would “move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”Mr. Smith is also overseeing the parallel investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified information after leaving office and whether the former president obstructed government efforts to reclaim the materials..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.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who will ultimately make the decision on whether to indict Mr. Trump, has told associates that he will not overrule Mr. Smith’s judgment, whatever it turns out to be, unless he believes the special counsel has deviated from departmental standards and procedures.Mr. Garland, and his top deputy Lisa O. Monaco, have publicly projected an air of detachment from the case, but they have been following developments in the privilege fights that have been playing out in the federal courthouse that sits just a few blocks from their office. They have been receiving regular briefings from aides who are getting updates from members of Mr. Smith’s team, according to two people familiar with the situation.The legal battles over privilege began well before Mr. Smith was appointed to the special counsel post and have pitted two powerful forces against each other.Jack Smith has been leading the inquiry since his appointment in November.Pool photo by Peter DejongIn the course of the investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, federal prosecutors have subpoenaed an army of Mr. Trump’s former aides in an effort to have the grand jury hear as many firsthand accounts as possible of his behavior in the White House in the days leading up to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Trump’s lawyers have countered by asserting that any adviser close to the former president should not have to answer certain questions in front of the grand jury because of attorney-client privilege, which protects communications between lawyers and those they represent, and executive privilege, which shields some communications between the president and members of his administration.Among the first people to engage in this debate were Marc Short and Greg Jacob, two of Mr. Pence’s top aides, who went into the grand jury in July and asserted privilege in response to certain questions, prompting prosecutors to file motions compelling their full testimony. Setting a pattern for the months that followed, Mr. Trump’s lawyers fought those motions but ultimately lost their case in front of Beryl A. Howell, then the chief federal judge in Washington, and subsequently in front of a federal appeals court.With the privilege waived, Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob testified for a second time in October. They were followed two months later by Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, the two top lawyers in Mr. Trump’s White House, who went through the same process.The fight dragged on into this year as another round of aides — including Mr. Miller; Dan Scavino, a onetime deputy chief of staff; and Mr. Scavino’s boss, Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff — all tried, and failed, to assert forms of privileges. The last skirmish took place just a couple of weeks ago when a new chief judge, James E. Boasberg, turned down efforts to limit Mr. Pence’s testimony.While getting these witnesses in front of the grand jury has been challenging and time consuming, the accounts they have given — or will eventually give — are only a fraction of the total body of evidence that Mr. Smith and his predecessors have gathered.Well before Mr. Smith arrived, another prosecutor, Thomas P. Windom, obtained grand jury testimony from pro-Trump figures like Ali Alexander, who organized several prominent “Stop the Steal” events, and from a wide array of state officials involved in a plan to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in swing states that were actually won by President Biden.Mr. Windom, who now works with Mr. Smith, also oversaw the seizure of phones from lawyers close to Mr. Trump, including John Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Boris Epshteyn. Mike Roman, a campaign strategist who was the director of Election Day operations for the Trump campaign in 2020, also had his phone seized under Mr. Windom’s watch.Other prosecutors who now work with the special counsel began an inquiry before Mr. Smith arrived into Save America PAC, a fund-raising operation that Mr. Trump created after his loss in the election. As part of that investigation, dozens of subpoenas have been issued to companies that have received money from the PAC, including some law firms.Danny Hakim More

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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