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    Trump Plans Rally in Waco During Anniversary of Branch Davidian Standoff

    In the chapel at Mount Carmel, the longtime home of the Branch Davidian sect outside Waco, Tex., the pastor preaches about the coming apocalypse, as the sect’s doomed charismatic leader David Koresh did three decades ago.But the prophecies offered by the pastor, Charles Pace, are different from Mr. Koresh’s. For one thing, they involve Donald J. Trump.“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” Mr. Pace said in an interview. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”Mr. Trump, embattled by multiple investigations and publicly predicting an imminent indictment in one, announced last week that he would hold the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign on Saturday at the regional airport in Waco.The date falls in the middle of the 30th anniversary of the weekslong standoff involving federal agents and followers of Mr. Koresh that left 82 Branch Davidians and four agents dead at Mount Carmel, the group’s compound east of the city.More than 80 Branch Davidians died during the standoff at their compound outside Waco.Tim Roberts/AFP via Getty ImagesMr. Trump has not linked his Waco visit to the anniversary. Asked whether the rally — the former president’s first in the city of 140,000 — was an intentional nod to the most infamous episode in Waco’s history, Steven Cheung, the campaign’s spokesman, replied via email that the Waco site was chosen “because it is centrally located and close to all four of Texas’ biggest metropolitan areas — Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio — while providing the necessary infrastructure to hold a rally of this magnitude.”But the rally comes amid a spate of increasingly aggressive statements by Mr. Trump claiming his persecution at the hands of prosecutors, and the historical resonance has not been lost on some of his most ardent followers.“Waco was an overreach of the government, and today the New York district attorney is practicing an overreach of the government again,” said Sharon Anderson, a retiree from Etowah, Tenn., who is traveling to Waco for Saturday’s event, her 33rd Trump rally.Mr. Pace said he believed it was “a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren’t really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him.”“I’m going to the rally, for sure,” he added.The attention to Mr. Trump’s choice of locale highlights the long political afterlife of the Waco standoff. A polarizing episode in its own time, the deadly raid was invoked in the 1990s by right-wing extremists including Timothy McVeigh, often to the dismay of the surviving Branch Davidians. It has remained a cause for contemporary far-right groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys.“Donald Trump is the anointed of God,” said Charles Pace, a pastor who preaches about the coming apocalypse. “He is the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.”Christopher Lee for The New York TimesAlex Jones, the conspiracy-theorist broadcaster who helped draw crowds of Trump loyalists to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, rose to prominence promoting wild claims about the Waco standoff. The longtime Trump associate and former campaign adviser Roger Stone dedicated his 2015 book, “The Clintons’ War on Women,” to the Branch Davidians who died at Mount Carmel.“Waco is a touchstone for the far right,” said Stuart Wright, a professor of sociology at Lamar University in Beaumont, Tex., and an authority on the standoff.He said Mr. Trump’s decision to begin his campaign there, if intentional in its nod to the siege, would echo Ronald Reagan’s August 1980 speech affirming his support of “states’ rights” at a county fair near Philadelphia, Miss., a town known for the murder of three civil rights activists 16 years earlier.“There’s some deep symbolism,” Mr. Wright said.Mr. Trump has a long history of statements that feed the far right, even as he claims that was not his intent. That list includes his equivocating response to the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that left one woman dead; his message to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in a presidential debate; and his exhortations to supporters in Washington just before many stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn his defeat.As state and federal investigations have drawn closer to him in recent months, he has often portrayed himself in embattled or even apocalyptic terms. When F.B.I. agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort in August looking for classified documents, he issued a statement declaring himself “currently under siege.”.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 a speech at the Conservative Political Action Coalition conference this month, he described the 2024 presidential election as “the final battle” and vowed “retribution.” As word circulated this month of a possible indictment from a New York grand jury investigating Mr. Trump’s role in payments made to a porn star during the 2016 presidential campaign, he posted a message to supporters in all-caps to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”Early Friday, still awaiting the grand jury’s action, Mr. Trump posted that the “potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country.”Newt Gingrich, a prominent critic of the federal government’s handling of the standoff during his time as House speaker, noted a major theme of Mr. Trump’s campaign: “the degree to which the federal government is corrupt and incompetent.”Whether or not the historical resonance of his Waco rally was intentional, Mr. Gingrich said, “It would certainly fit as a symbol of federal overreach and a symbol of a Justice Department run amok.”Parnell McNamara, the sheriff of McLennan County, home to Waco, said he did not believe there were security concerns beyond the ordinary preparations for a presidential campaign rally.“Him coming here, to me, is just a totally different situation, and really has nothing to do with that,” he said in reference to the 1993 raid, for which he was present as a U.S. marshal. “I have not heard anybody even bring that up.”Visitors to Mount Carmel. The standoff at the Branch Davidian compound has inspired pilgrimages and conspiracy theorists.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesOn Feb. 28, 1993, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms mounted a raid to serve a search and arrest warrant at the compound belonging to the Branch Davidians, a splinter sect of Seventh-day Adventists then under the leadership of Mr. Koresh. Federal investigators suspected Mr. Koresh of possessing illegal weapons. A gunfight erupted, four A.T.F. agents and six Branch Davidians were killed, and a 51-day standoff began.It ended on April 19, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke off negotiations with Mr. Koresh and advanced with tanks. Mr. Koresh and 75 of his followers, many of them children, were killed as a fire consumed the compound.The Branch Davidians mostly eschewed politics. But the siege was overseen by the administration of a Democratic president and set off by an investigation of a Christian sect over a weapons charge, at a time when the National Rifle Association had begun stoking fears about the federal government seizing Americans’ guns, factors that help make it a cause on the right.An independent inquiry completed in 2000, led by the former Republican senator John Danforth, faulted federal agencies for their lack of transparency regarding the standoff, while also seeking to dispel many of the most lurid conspiracy theories.But by then, the Branch Davidians had already been embraced as martyrs by the far-right extremists of the era, including many members of a rapidly expanding “patriot” or militia movement and Mr. McVeigh, who visited Waco during the siege of Mount Carmel and bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on the second anniversary of the burning of the compound.David Thibodeau, a survivor of the siege who came from a “very Democratic liberal family,” found the embrace odd.“David and the people at Mount Carmel weren’t political at all,” he said. But he said he appreciated the attention of the right-wing groups when the survivors were struggling to make sense of their experience and were treated as pariahs in other political circles.“Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say except for people on the right,” Mr. Thibodeau said.Funds for the construction of the chapel at Mount Carmel were raised by Mr. Jones, whose obsession with Waco conspiracy theories led to his firing in 1999 from the Austin radio station KJFK and the start of his own media empire, Infowars.Invocations of Waco persisted into the next generation of militias and other extremists that emerged in response to Barack Obama’s presidency and supported Mr. Trump’s. In 2009, the founder of the Three Percenters movement warned of “No More Free Wacos” in an open letter to then-attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. The Oath Keepers issued a statement warning that the Bundy family could be “Waco’d” in their standoff with the federal government in 2014.Waco will host Donald Trump’s first campaign rally of the 2024 race on Saturday. A Trump flag flew at the site of the former Branch Davidian compound on Thursday.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesAccording to Newsweek, in 2021, Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys and a onetime F.B.I. informant, denounced the agency as the “enemy of the people” in a Parler post, writing: “Remember Waco? Are your eyes opened yet?”A Texas Proud Boys chapter made a pilgrimage to the Mount Carmel chapel on the anniversary of the raid last year, according to Mr. Pace, whose politicized, QAnon-inflected theology is rejected by some other Branch Davidians. “They come out and pay their respects, and find out what really happened here,” Mr. Pace said.Mr. Danforth, a Republican, lamented the changes in his party in the Trump years that had brought the conspiracy theories that his report had aimed to dispel into the political mainstream. “It’s the prevailing view of Republicans today that no matter what the facts show, the system is broken, our election system doesn’t work, we shouldn’t have confidence in elections, there’s no finality, it’s all a steal,” he said.Asked whether his Waco report would be widely accepted today, he said, “No. It’s just a very different time.” More

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    Trump Could Stand in the Middle of Fifth Avenue and Not Lose Mike Pence

    Mike Pence wants to have it both ways.He wants to be the conservative hero of Jan. 6: the steadfast Republican patriot who resisted the MAGA mob and defended the institutions of American democracy. “Make no mistake about it,” Pence said at the Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington, D.C., this month. “What happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way. President Donald Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day.”But Mike Pence also wants to be president. And he can’t fully repudiate the previous Republican president if he hopes to win the Republican presidential nomination, especially when that president is still on the stage, with a commanding role in Republican politics.The result is that Mike Pence has to talk out of both sides of his mouth. With one breath, he takes a righteous stand against the worst dysfunction of the Trump years. “We have to resist the politics of personality, the lure of populism unmoored by timeless conservative values,” Pence said last week while speaking to an audience of Republican donors in Keene, N.H.With his next breath, however, Pence rejects any effort to hold Trump accountable, especially when it asks him to do something more than give the occasional sound bite. Asked to testify about the events surrounding Jan. 6, Pence says no. Faced with a grand jury subpoena forcing him to testify, Pence says he’ll challenge it, under the highly dubious theory that as president of the Senate he was a legislative officer who, like other lawmakers, was covered by the “speech or debate” clause of the Constitution and thus free of any obligation to testify.When asked this past weekend about potential criminal charges against the former president — possibly for falsifying records of a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, a porn star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — Pence deflected, telling ABC News, “At the time when there’s a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan D.A. thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority I think just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left.”Who will hold Trump accountable, according to Pence? No one living. “History will hold Donald Trump accountable,” he said, as if “history” has agency separate from the people who make or write it.In fairness to Pence, he’s not the only Republican hedging his bets. None of Trump’s rivals — or anyone else who hopes to have a future in Republican politics — views either the investigation into his behavior or the potential charges against him as legitimate.“Here we go again — an outrageous abuse of power by a radical D.A. who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump,” tweeted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.“I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions,” he added, without irony.“The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor. And so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” said the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, the pot calling the kettle black.Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and current presidential aspirant, has been silent on the matter, and the long-shot candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist, condemned the potential Trump indictment as a “disastrously politicized prosecution.”Whether or not you think it is a good idea to indict Trump in this particular case, it is striking to see how Republicans commit to the former president when asked to speak to his alleged crimes.But it speaks to a larger point, beyond the double-talk of Pence or the deflection and avoidance of other Republican politicians. Trump may not be as strong as he was as president. He may have been wounded by the long investigations into Jan. 6 and diminished by the failure of many of his handpicked MAGA candidates in the midterm elections. And yet, Trump is still the dominant figure in Republican politics. He still occupies the commanding heights of the Republican Party. And there’s no one — not DeSantis or Haley or any other potential contender — ready to challenge Trump for control of the party.There was hope, after the 2020 presidential election, that after his defeat Trump would somehow fade away. He didn’t. There was hope, after his failed putsch, that his time in the spotlight was over. It wasn’t. And there was hope, after the 2022 elections, that MAGA had run its course and Trump along with it. Wrong again.The only way to remove Trump from the board — to neutralize his influence in the Republican Party and to keep him out of power — is for Republicans to move against him with as much force as they can muster. It was true in 2015, when Republican elites could have coordinated themselves against him when he was still a curiosity and not the leading candidate for the nomination; it was true in 2019 and 2021 when he was impeached by the House, and it’s true now.Republicans can’t avoid conflict if they want to be free of Trump. They have no choice but to condemn him, reject his influence and refuse to defend his criminality.We can see, of course, in this instance and so many others that they won’t. Among Republicans with an ambition to lead, there’s no one who will take that step. Which tells us all we need to know about the state of the Republican Party. It was Trump’s when he was president, it is Trump’s while he’s still a private citizen, and it will be Trump’s next year, when the presidential race starts in earnest.Put differently, if there’s no voter Trump could lose if he stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot somebody, as Trump famously said, there are probably no leading Republican politicians who would leave his camp, either. Hell, they might even say the victim deserved it.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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    Dissecting Charges That Could Arise From the Trump Investigations

    Prosecutors in New York, Georgia and the Justice Department face complex choices about what crimes to charge if they decide to indict Donald Trump.WASHINGTON — Prosecutors like to say that they investigate crimes, not people. The looming decision by the Manhattan district attorney about whether to indict former President Donald J. Trump on charges related to an alleged hush money payment to a porn actress is highlighting the complexity of the legal calculations being made by prosecutors in New York, Georgia and the Justice Department as they examine Mr. Trump’s conduct on a number of fronts.The investigations — which also focus on Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents after leaving office — are confronting prosecutors with tough choices. They must decide whether and how to charge not just Mr. Trump, but also associates who could face jeopardy for actions to which he was not a direct party, like mail or wire fraud for communications that he did not participate in.The publicly known understanding of the evidence is incomplete. It is not clear, for example, in several instances what facts investigators have been able to gather about Mr. Trump’s personal knowledge, directions and intentions related to several of the matters.Here is a look at some of the criminal laws that different prosecutors appear to be weighing and how they might apply to Mr. Trump’s actions.Stormy Daniels was paid $130,000.Markus Schreiber/Associated PressThe Stormy Daniels Hush Money PaymentOverviewAlvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, appears to be nearing a decision about whether to charge Mr. Trump with a crime related to his $130,000 hush money payment just before the 2016 election to the pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, who has said they had an extramarital affair. Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, sent the money to Ms. Daniels, and the Trump Organization reimbursed him over the course of 2017, according to a 2018 federal court filing in Mr. Cohen’s case. Mr. Trump’s business concealed the true purpose of the payments, the filing said, by recording them as having been for a legal retainer that did not exist.Potential charge: Bookkeeping fraudThe New York Times has reported that the case may include a potential charge of falsifying business records under Article 175 of the New York Penal Law. A conviction for a felony version of bookkeeping fraud carries a sentence of up to four years.To prove that Mr. Trump committed that offense, prosecutors would seemingly need evidence showing that he had knowingly caused subordinates to make a false entry in his company’s records “with intent to defraud.” For the action to be a felony rather than a misdemeanor, prosecutors would also need to show that Mr. Trump falsified the business records with the intention of committing, aiding or concealing a second crime.The public understanding of Mr. Bragg’s theory of the case remains murky and incomplete. The district attorney’s office has reportedly weighed invoking alleged campaign-finance violations as that intended second crime, which could raise complications. Among other things, presidential elections are governed by federal law, and it is not clear whether Mr. Bragg has found a theory by which a state campaign law covered Mr. Trump’s actions, or if a state prosecutor can cite a law over which he lacks jurisdiction. It remains possible that Mr. Bragg has obtained nonpublic evidence of some other intended offense, like if there was any initial intention to deduct the payments as a business expense on state tax returns.Bookkeeping fraud has a two-year statute of limitations as a misdemeanor and a five-year one as a felony, both of which would normally have expired for payments made to Mr. Cohen in 2017. But New York law extends those limits to cover periods when a defendant was continuously out of state, as when Mr. Trump was while living in the White House or at his home in Florida. In addition, during the pandemic, New York’s statute of limitations was extended by more than a year.Mr. Trump has claimed — without evidence — that he declassified all the files taken to Mar-a-Lago.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe Mar-a-Lago DocumentsOverviewJack Smith, a special counsel for the federal Justice Department, is investigating matters related to Mr. Trump’s handling of several hundred documents marked as classified that he kept at his Florida club and home, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving office, and how Mr. Trump resisted efforts by the government to retrieve all of those files. After the Justice Department obtained a subpoena for all remaining files marked as classified, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, M. Evan Corcoran, turned over some while helping to draft a statement falsely saying those were all that remained. In August, the F.B.I. executed a search warrant and found 103 more, including in Mr. Trump’s desk.Prosecutors last week persuaded a federal judge that Mr. Corcoran should be compelled to answer more questions from a grand jury investigating the documents matter, notwithstanding attorney-client privilege. That means the judge agreed with prosecutors that the situation met the threshold for an exception for lawyer communications or work that apparently helped further a crime.Potential charge: Unauthorized retention of national security documentsOne of the charges the F.B.I. listed in its affidavit for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant was Section 793(e) of Title 18, a provision of the Espionage Act. Prosecutors would have to show that Mr. Trump knew he was still in possession of the documents after leaving the White House and failed to comply when the government asked him to return them and then subpoenaed him. The theoretical penalty is up to 10 years per such document.Prosecutors would also have to show that the documents related to the national defense, that they were closely held and that their disclosure could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary. Although Mr. Trump has claimed — without evidence — that he declassified all the files taken to Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors would not need to prove that they were still classified because the Espionage Act predates the classification system and does not refer to it as an element..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.Potential charge: ObstructionAnother charge in the F.B.I. affidavit was Section 1519 of Title 18, which makes it a crime to conceal records to obstruct an official effort. Prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump knew he still had files that were responsive to the National Archives’ efforts to take custody of presidential records and the Justice Department’s subpoena for files marked as classified, and that he intentionally caused his subordinates to fail to turn them all over while leading officials to believe they had complied. The penalty is up to 20 years per offense.Potential charge: Mishandling official documentsA third charge in the affidavit was Section 2071 of Title 18, which criminalizes the concealment or destruction of official documents, whether or not they were related to national security. Among other things, former aides to Mr. Trump have recounted how he sometimes ripped up official documents, and the National Archives has said that some of the Trump White House paper records transferred to it had been torn up — some of which were taped back together and some of which were not reconstructed. The penalty is up to three years per offense plus a ban on holding federal office, although the latter is most likely unconstitutional, legal experts say.Potential charge: Contempt of courtSection 402 of Title 18 makes it a crime to willfully disobey a court order, like the grand jury subpoena Mr. Trump received in May 2022 requiring him to turn over all documents with classification markings remaining in his possession. It carries a penalty of a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison. To bring this charge, prosecutors would need evidence showing he knew that he was still holding onto other files with classification markings during and after his representatives purported to comply with the subpoena.Potential charge: Conspiracy to make a false statementSection 1001 of Title 18 makes it a crime to make a false statement to a law enforcement officer about a fact material to the officer’s investigation, and Section 371 makes it a crime to conspire with another person to break that or any other law. It carries a penalty of up to five years. Prosecutors would need to be able to show that Mr. Trump and Mr. Corcoran knew and agreed that the lawyer should lie to the Justice Department about there being no further documents responsive to the subpoena.Ballots being recounted in Atlanta, which is part of Fulton County, in 2020.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesThe Georgia Election Law InvestigationOverviewFani T. Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., is investigating events related to Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn President Biden’s narrow victory in that state in the 2020 election. Among other things, in a phone call that was recorded and leaked, Mr. Trump called Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and pressured him to “find” enough additional votes for him to flip the outcome.Ms. Willis is also investigating Trump associates’ efforts to get 16 of his supporters to falsely declare themselves to be an alternative slate of electors from Georgia, which helped lay the groundwork for Mr. Trump’s push to get Vice President Mike Pence to reject the true results when Congress met to certify the election on Jan. 6, 2021.Potential charges: Election code violationsMost elections offenses in Georgia’s code are misdemeanors, but there are several felony charges that Ms. Willis may be considering, based on the same basic set of facts. These include Section 21-2-603, which makes it a crime to conspire with another person to violate a provision of the election code, and Section 21-2-604, which makes it a crime to solicit another person to commit election fraud.To bring such a charge against Mr. Trump, prosecutors would need to cite another election law whose violation was his alleged goal. It is possible, for example, that they might be considering contending that Mr. Trump’s pushing Mr. Raffensperger to “find” additional votes amounted to implicitly asking him to violate a provision that makes it a felony for the secretary of state to alter official election records, but Mr. Trump’s language was not explicit.Potential charge: RacketeeringMs. Willis has indicated that she is considering bringing charges under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. So-called RICO laws are tools that were developed to make it easier to go after organized criminal enterprises, and can be used against members of any group that engaged in a pattern of criminal activities with a common purpose. A conviction would carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.To convict Mr. Trump under Georgia’s RICO law, Section 16-14-4, prosecutors would need to show that as part of his efforts with associates to overturn Georgia’s election results, he conspired with others or engaged in two or more offenses from a list of several dozen offenses, most of which are violent crimes but which include things like solicitation, forgery and making materially false statements to state officials.The House Jan. 6 committee made a criminal referral of Mr. Trump and others to the Justice Department.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesThe 2020 Election and Jan. 6OverviewMr. Smith, the special counsel, is also conducting a broader federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and the events of Jan. 6. The House committee that carried out the investigation into the riot last year made a criminal referral of Mr. Trump and others to the Justice Department. While that was of largely symbolic value — the department already had an investigation open and Congress has no authority to prosecute — the analysis in the panel’s final report sets out possible charges that Mr. Smith could also consider.Potential charge: Obstruction of an official proceedingOne criminal accusation the Jan. 6 committee leveled against Mr. Trump was the attempted corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, under Section 1512(c) of Title 18. It is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors have used this law to charge about 300 ordinary Jan. 6 defendants — people who rioted — and an appeals court is currently weighing whether that charge has been appropriately applied in those cases. But even if the judiciary upholds use of the charge, such a case against Mr. Trump would be very different since he did not physically participate in the riot.The Jan. 6 committee argued that he could be charged with it based on two sets of actions. First, it argued that his summoning of supporters to Washington and urging them to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” violated that law. Mr. Trump’s defense team would surely seek to raise doubt about whether he intended for his supporters to riot, including because he also told them to protest “peacefully.”Second, the committee portrayed as criminal obstruction the scheme to recruit so-called fake electors from various states and pressuring Mr. Pence to cite their existence 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 proved his intentions were corrupt. Among other things, Mr. Trump’s defense team would surely argue that because a lawyer, John Eastman, advised him to take those steps, there is no proof he understood that doing so was illegal.Potential charge: Conspiracy to defraud the United StatesA second criminal accusation leveled by the Jan. 6 committee was 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 panel cited an array of evidence about Mr. Trump’s interactions with various lawyers and aides in pursuit of his effort to prevent the certification of Mr. Biden’s electoral victory. The committee also argued that prosecutors could prove Mr. Trump intended to be deceitful via evidence that he was repeatedly told that his allegations of widespread voter fraud were baseless.Potential charge: Conspiracy to make a false statementThe Jan. 6 committee highlighted the efforts to submit slates of fake electors to Congress and to the National Archives. As with other such potential charges, a key challenge for prosecutors would be proving Mr. Trump’s intentions and understanding beyond a reasonable doubt.Potential charge: InsurrectionThe committee also pointed to Section 2383 of Title 18, which makes it a crime to incite, assist or “aid and comfort” an insurrection against the authority and laws of the federal government. The panel emphasized in particular how Mr. Trump refused for hours to take steps to call off the rioters despite being implored by aides to do so, and an inflammatory tweet he sent about Mr. Pence in the midst of the violence.While the committee said the events of Jan. 6 met the standard for an insurrection, it is notable that prosecutors have not accused any of the Jan. 6 defendants to date of that offense — even those they charged with seditious conspiracy. More

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    YouTube Restores Donald Trump’s Account Privileges

    The Google-owned video platform became the latest of the big social networks to reverse the former president’s account restrictions.YouTube suspended former President Donald J. Trump’s account on the platform six days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The video platform said it was concerned that Mr. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election could lead to more real-world violence.YouTube, which is owned by Google, reversed that decision on Friday, permitting Mr. Trump to once again upload videos to the popular site. The move came after similar decisions by Twitter and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.“We carefully evaluated the continued risk of real-world violence, while balancing the chance for voters to hear equally from major national candidates in the run up to an election,” YouTube said on Twitter on Friday. Mr. Trump’s account will have to comply with the site’s content rules like any other account, YouTube added.After false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen circulated online and helped stoke the Jan. 6 attack, social media giants suspended Mr. Trump’s account privileges. Two years later, the platforms have started to soften their content rules. Under Elon Musk’s ownership, Twitter has unwound many of its content moderation efforts. YouTube recently laid off members of its trust and safety team, leaving one person in charge of setting political misinformation policies.Mr. Trump announced in November that he was seeking a second term as president, setting off deliberations at social media companies over whether to allow him back on their platforms. Days later, Mr. Musk polled Twitter users on whether he should reinstate Mr. Trump, and 52 percent of respondents said yes. Like YouTube, Meta said in January that it was important that people hear what political candidates are saying ahead of an election.The former president’s reinstatement is one of the first significant content decisions that YouTube has taken under its new chief executive, Neal Mohan, who got the top job last month. YouTube also recently loosened its profanity rules so that creators who used swear words at the start of a video could still make money from the content.YouTube’s announcement on Friday echoes a pattern of the company and its parent Google making polarizing content decisions after a competitor has already taken the same action. YouTube followed Meta and Twitter in suspending Mr. Trump after the Capitol attack, and in reversing the bans.Since losing his bid for re-election in 2020, Mr. Trump has sought to make a success of his own social media service, Truth Social, which is known for its loose content moderation rules.Mr. Trump on Friday posted on his Facebook page for the first time since his reinstatement. “I’M BACK!” Mr. Trump wrote, alongside a video in which he said, “Sorry to keep you waiting. Complicated business. Complicated.”Despite his Twitter reinstatement, Mr. Trump has not returned to posting from that account.In his last tweet, dated Jan. 8, 2021, he said he would not attend the coming inauguration, held at the Capitol. More

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    Princeton Student Charged With Attacking Officers During Jan. 6 Riot

    Larry Giberson was part of a mob that fought with the police and he cheered on others who used weapons and pepper spray against officers, prosecutors said.A Princeton University student was charged on Tuesday with being part of a violent mob that assaulted law enforcement officers during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, federal prosecutors said.The student, Larry F. Giberson Jr., was among a group of rioters who pushed against a phalanx of officers defending the Capitol at a tunnel entrance, according to an affidavit filed by a federal agent. With Mr. Giberson at the front of the crowd as the confrontation unfolded, one officer was briefly crushed between the rioters and the tunnel doors, the affidavit says.Mr. Giberson, 21, waved other rioters into the tunnel and joined a second round of shoving against the officers, the affidavit says. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to start a chant of “Drag them out!” and cheered on others as they used weapons and pepper spray to attack the police guarding the tunnel, the affidavit says.Mr. Giberson was charged in a criminal complaint filed in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., with civil disorder, a felony, and several misdemeanors, including engaging in physical violence in a restricted building. He was arrested in Washington and released with conditions after an initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge.A Princeton University spokesman confirmed that Mr. Giberson, of Manahawkin, N.J., was enrolled as a member of this year’s graduating class.A university website lists Mr. Giberson as a James Madison Program undergraduate fellow for the 2022-23 academic year. The program, the website says, provides “a unique opportunity” for students to “pursue, outside of the classroom, academic interests related to politics, history, law and political thought.” Mr. Giberson could not be reached for comment. A lawyer representing him did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Giberson is among about 1,000 people to be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, and one of more than 320 to be accused of assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers as supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol in a bid to disrupt the certification of President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.Mr. Giberson can be seen in publicly available video footage wearing a blue “Make America Great Again” cap on his head and a Trump flag around his neck and climbing toward the tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace shortly after 3 p.m. the day of the riot, the affidavit says.Once inside the tunnel, prosecutors said, Mr. Giberson and others tried to force their way in with a coordinated “heave-ho” pushing effort that left one officer crushed between a door and a rioter’s shield.Officers eventually gained temporary control of the tunnel and pushed out rioters, including Mr. Giberson, prosecutors said. As the mob continued its attack, Mr. Giberson stood by and watched as one officer was dragged into the crowd, assaulted and injured, they said.Federal investigators matched a photo of Mr. Giberson from the day of the riot with images posted on Instagram and the Princeton website, as well as with photos from his high school, the affidavit says.He was subsequently interviewed at the Princeton Police Department, where he acknowledged being the person seen in videos and photos from the scene of the riot, the affidavit says.The Daily Princetonian, a student newspaper, reported on Tuesday that Mr. Giberson publicly opposed the university’s decision in June 2020 to remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public policy school and one of its residential colleges because of what Princeton leaders said were Mr. Wilson’s “racist thinking and policies.”“If our university can be intimidated by the transient impulses of the mob mentality to disregard their own esteemed standards,” Mr. Giberson wrote in an essay in The Princeton Tory, “what guarantee is there that the university will stand firm against those who would seek to undermine the nation, or indeed, humanity itself?”Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. More

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    The Vice President Question: The Stakes Are High

    More from our inbox:Mike Pence, It’s Time ‘to Do the Right Thing’What Chris Rock Gets to BeStains Left on a Rare TextFamily Values? We Need to Talk About School Shootings. Illustration by Zisiga Mukulu/The New York Times; photograph by Leigh Vogel/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Voters Should Pick the Vice President,” by Greg Craig (Opinion guest essay, March 5):Mr. Craig’s article raises a larger question. The vice-presidential nominees of the two major parties are too often chosen largely or entirely because of their perceived ability to help elect their presidential running mate, rather than an apparent ability to act as president if needed.Considering the stakes, the main or sole criterion in selecting a vice-presidential nominee should be that person’s capacity to immediately and competently step into the president’s shoes, if required.Just in the last century, Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan all labored under the specters of age, infirmity or both. This clearly demonstrates the national interest in vice-presidential nominees having the qualifications, experience, health and ability to competently represent the country as a whole.If a vice-presidential nominee is also a plausible national candidate in her or his own right, all the better, and having a nominee of such stature should benefit his or her party and the ticket.Over the last 50 years, some vice presidents, such as Spiro Agnew (crook), Dan Quayle (lightweight) and Dick Cheney (unelectable) were unqualified, and Mike Pence seems marginal. Lyndon B. Johnson, Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George H.W. Bush, Al Gore and Joe Biden were clearly qualified, reflecting positively on those who chose them.The question for whoever chooses vice-presidential nominees should always be “Can this person competently lead the country?” — not “Will this person help our party get elected?”Anders I. OuromVancouver, British ColumbiaTo the Editor:I’m very grateful for “Voters Should Pick the Vice President.” Greg Craig has raised perhaps the most significant and worrying issue, however delicate, of the Biden candidacy.Given the entirely realistic concerns over President Biden’s age and chances of dying in office in a second term (and I write as an 87-year-old in decent health), the choice of a running mate shouldn’t be a reflexive decision.It should be one requiring a great deal of thought, consultation and polling about who could handle the most demanding of offices in these difficult and perilous times — and whom a wide spectrum of Democratic voters see as the most convincing possibility as their next president.Barbara QuartNew YorkTo the Editor:As our octogenarian president ponders another presidential run, he needs to consider replacing his 2020 running mate. It’s a delicate subject, sure to arouse fierce opposition within the Democratic Party (however it’s accomplished).Forget loyalty, tradition or popularity. In 2024, the top priority for selecting the second-highest elected official in the country should be proven foreign policy experience.President Biden has an age problem that he can’t control. It will be a major campaign issue that will only place greater emphasis on who would be next in line for the presidency.Continued support for Ukraine (including maintaining the broad coalition of European and NATO nations forged by President Biden) and other brewing major-power standoffs demand a vice president with longstanding, first-rate diplomatic skills.Replace Kamala Harris with Susan Rice, the longtime diplomat and policy adviser. It’s time to dispel conventional wisdom and go bold.Carl R. RameyGainesville, Fla.Mike Pence, It’s Time ‘to Do the Right Thing’ Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Asks Judge to Block Pence’s Testimony to Grand Jury” (news article, nytimes.com, March 4):There is no doubt that former Vice President Mike Pence did the right thing (and his constitutional duty) by certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Joe Biden.Now is the time for Mr. Pence to do the right thing by honoring the Justice Department’s subpoena to testify about his knowledge of the events before and after Jan. 6. Mr. Pence says he will fight the subpoena, citing specious legal arguments. But why?Mr. Pence, you know what former President Donald Trump did and did not do. Tell us. It is your duty as a citizen, and it is the right thing to do.William D. ZabelNew YorkThe writer is a lawyer, the chairman of Immigrant Justice Corps and the chairman emeritus of Human Rights First.To the Editor:Re “Pence Says That History Will Judge Trump” (news article, March 13):The shortcoming of former Vice President Mike Pence’s pronouncement that “history will hold Donald Trump accountable” for the former president’s lead in fomenting the violent Capitol insurrection is obvious.History’s verdict takes a long while, and it is rarely unanimous and subject to revisionism.Mr. Trump and his minions must pay the price now, and Mr. Pence should render an unequivocal verdict to that end, instead of punting into history.Justice delayed is justice denied, especially in this case.Lawrence FreemanAlameda, Calif.What Chris Rock Gets to Be Illustration by Shoshana Schultz/The New York Times; photograph by Kirill Bichutsky, via Netflix, via Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Chris Rock Looks Very Small Right Now,” by Roxane Gay (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, March 11):Chris Rock’s recent Netflix special certainly deserves critique, but Ms. Gay’s article gets one thing very wrong. As the target of another man’s violence, Mr. Rock is not responsible for entertaining us with his response to that attack, nor redeeming himself with the right joke.He gets to just be angry.Catherine HodesFlorence, Mass.Stains Left on a Rare TextTo glove, or not to glove? For rare book librarians, there’s no question. The best option is (almost) always clean, dry hands.Chris Ratcliffe/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:“For Rare Book Librarians, It’s Gloves Off. Seriously” (Arts, March 11) notes that stains left on a rare book tell us something about who has used it in the past.I was once privileged to see the original Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest extant Passover Haggadahs. It dates to the 14th century.I was deeply moved to see this ancient text. But what I remember best were the wine stains on some of the pages. Clearly, long before this book had become a priceless object listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World register, someone had used it at a Seder and had, as still happens in the 21st century, spilled their wine on it.Deborah E. LipstadtWashingtonThe writer is the professor of Holocaust history, currently on leave from Emory University.Family Values? We Need to Talk About School Shootings. Illustration by The New York Times; Photographs by Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “The Party of Family Values Should Truly Value Families,” by Patrick T. Brown (Opinion guest essay, March 9):The idea of a political “parents’ party” may be a good one, but the total absence of any discussion regarding school shootings is glaring. Republicans won’t be much of a parents’ party if they can’t figure out how to deal with an issue that parents and their children think about every day.Jeff WelchLivingston, Mont. More

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    ‘History Will Hold Donald Trump Accountable’ for Jan. 6, Pence Says

    At a Washington dinner event, Mike Pence criticized the president he served under as well as Republicans who are minimizing the Capitol riot.Former Vice President Mike Pence, delivering his strongest public rebuke yet to the president who made him his running mate, said on Saturday night “that history will hold Donald Trump accountable” for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which he called “a disgrace.”The annual Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington is usually a venue for lighthearted ribbing between political figures, government officials and the district’s media veterans, but Mr. Pence used the occasion on Saturday to dig into Mr. Trump at a moment when conservative media commentators and some Republicans in Congress have again tried to dismiss the seriousness of the Capitol riot.“Tourists don’t injure 140 police officers by sightseeing,” Mr. Pence said, according to media reports from the event, an implicit rebuke of the Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other conservatives who have used selective security camera footage to reframe the riot as a largely peaceful demonstration. Thousands of hours of that footage was released to Mr. Carlson by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California. “Tourists don’t break down doors to get to the speaker of the House or voice threats against public officials.”And Mr. Pence made his reprimand of Mr. Trump personal when he said, “President Trump was wrong; I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. And I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”The timing of the remarks was significant. Mr. Trump and his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, are the only two major, declared candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, but other potential challengers are edging closer. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is on a swing through early primary and caucus states, including Iowa and Nevada. Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, is on a “listening tour” in the same states. Mr. Pence is considering a run as well.But until Saturday, any rival jabs at the former president and presumed front-runner for the nomination have been implicit. Mr. Pence called him out by name, setting a new bar for other Republicans hoping to replace Mr. Trump as the party’s leader.Early this month, a group of men imprisoned for their participation in the Capitol attack released a song titled “Justice for All” — the national anthem interspersed with Mr. Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance — and House Republicans on the party’s right flank have started what they are calling an investigation into the treatment of such “political prisoners.”Mr. Pence was unsparing in his condemnation of such efforts, as well as the selective editing of thousands of hours of security footage.“The American people have a right to know what took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6,” he said. “But make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way.”He also jokingly hinted at his presidential ambitions.“I will wholeheartedly, unreservedly support the Republican nominee for president in 2024,” he said. “If it’s me.” More

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    Former N.Y.P.D. Officer Is Convicted of Taking Part in Capitol Riot

    Sara Carpenter yelled at, pushed against and slapped the arms of police officers, all while wielding a tambourine, prosecutors said.A former New York City police officer was convicted this week of several crimes for her role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, during which, prosecutors said, she pushed against and slapped the arms of police officers, all while yelling and wielding a tambourine.A federal jury in Washington, D.C., found the retired officer, Sara Carpenter, guilty Thursday on seven felony and misdemeanor charges that included civil disorder, obstruction of official proceeding and entering or remaining in a restricted building or ground, according to court records.Ms. Carpenter, 53, is among about 1,000 people to be charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, prosecutors said. She and other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol that day in a bid to disrupt the certification of President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election. The first person to be convicted, Guy Wesley Reffitt, was found guilty last March of obstructing Congress’s certification of the election results and other crimes.Security footage captured Ms. Carpenter, left, wielding a tambourine inside the Capitol. Department of JusticeMs. Carpenter was charged after security cameras captured her confronting a phalanx of officers as they guarded a hallway leading to the U.S. Senate chambers, prosecutors said. Despite having been told to leave the premises, she stayed for a half-hour, prosecutors said.At one point, prosecutors said, she could be heard yelling at the officers, “I’m an animal,” with a common vulgarity added for emphasis.When she finally left the building, prosecutors said, she was recorded on video saying: “The breach was made. It needs to calm down now. Congress needs to come out. They need to certify Trump as president. This is our house.”A lawyer for Ms. Carpenter, Michelle Gelernt, declined to comment on Friday. The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Ms. Carpenter’s service as an officer. Ms. Carpenter is to be sentenced on July 14.About a day after the attack on the Capitol, the F.B.I. received an anonymous tip that Ms. Carpenter had called a relative and told that person that she had made it inside the Capitol and had been hit with tear gas, according to a criminal complaint. She was interviewed by federal officers about a week and a half later, on Jan. 18, the complaint says.Ms. Carpenter told investigators that she had left her home in New York and driven to Washington “on or about” the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, the complaint says. An E-ZPass tag attached to her vehicle confirmed that she had made the trip between 12 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Jan. 6, the complaint says.Once she got to Washington, Ms. Carpenter told investigators, she monitored Mr. Trump’s tweets to find out where to meet for the rally he had scheduled for Jan. 6 and then joined a large crowd of his supporters as it descended on the Capitol.Ms. Carpenter said that “she observed police yelling for individuals to get out, then pushing and shoving the crowd,” according to the complaint. She also told investigators that she had been trampled and pepper-sprayed.Using video that Ms. Carpenter provided and security camera footage from the building, investigators were able to track her movements through the Capitol. She also voluntarily turned over the tambourine she said she had carried inside the Capitol, the complaint says.Another former New York City police officer, Thomas Webster, was convicted last May for his role in the riot on charges that included assault. In September, Mr. Webster, who swung a metal flagpole at a Washington officer during the riot, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. More