Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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      What if Every Moment Since Jan. 6 Was Just the Calm Before the Storm?

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      Richard Ringer, a 69-year-old Democratic state House candidate in Pennsylvania, is an early riser, and on Monday he was up before 5 a.m. when he heard someone at his garage door. He looked out the window, saw a man with a flashlight, and assumed it was the same person who had twice vandalized his house in the past month.Just a couple of weeks earlier, Ringer says, he found a message spray-painted on his garage door; though the rain partly rinsed it off, the words “Your Race” and “Dead” were visible. Then, last Thursday night, he says he came home to a brick thrown through his window.So when Ringer saw the intruder on Monday, he says, he ran outside and tackled him. But the man was quickly able to pin Ringer down, and beat him unconscious. Ringer doesn’t know for certain that the violence was political — the police are investigating — but given the graffiti, and the fact that his neighborhood in Fayette County, in southwestern Pennsylvania, is usually quiet and safe, he suspects it was. “I’m not really surprised that this is happening locally, and is happening to me, just because of what has been going on and the enthusiasm for Trump around here,” he told me.Ringer’s assault made the local news, but hasn’t been much of a story nationally. Perhaps that’s because it’s just a small detail in a growing tapestry of menace. All over this febrile country, intimations of mayhem are gathering. Vigilantes in Arizona, some armed and wearing tactical gear, have harassed and intimidated voters at the sites of ballot drop boxes, cheered on by Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for secretary of state. In Nevada, where a millionaire far-right Republican official named Robert Beadles has systemically targeted election workers, Reuters reported that the top election officials in 10 of the state’s 17 counties have resigned, retired or declined to run again.And, most notably, a MAGA fanatic named David DePape broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and assaulted her 82-year-old husband with a hammer, leaving him unconscious in a pool of his own blood. More shocking than the attack itself has been the response to it from the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party. Some officials spread lurid lies that Pelosi was attacked by a gay lover. Others jeered about it. “Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in D.C. — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection,” Kari Lake, Arizona’s Republican candidate for governor, said to laughter at a campaign event. Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a photo of underwear and a hammer with the caption, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.”It’s hard to feel sanguine about a society whose political class cannot muster the solidarity to universally condemn the terroristic bludgeoning of an old man. It’s why Joe Biden’s speech on Wednesday night, in which he spoke about the attack on Pelosi and the role that Trump’s big lie is playing in the midterms, was at once so necessary and so unpromising. He was trying to appeal to a patriotic consensus about democracy that simply no longer exists.“Disunion and chaos are not inevitable,” said Biden, standing at a podium in Union Station. “There’s been anger before in America. There’s been division before in America. But we’ve never given up on the American experiment. And we can’t do that now.”Biden wasn’t warning that America might spiral into either autocracy or low-level civil war. He was trying to offer hope that it might not. The very fact that he had to insist there’s an alternative to disunion and chaos is a sign of how bad things have gotten.Political violence is not exclusively perpetrated by conservatives. The recent beating in Florida of a Marco Rubio canvasser — a man who turned out to have ties to white supremacists — appears to have been motivated by anti-Republican animus. But, as my colleagues on the editorial board wrote on Thursday, the right is far more violent than the left, and Republicans wink at assaults committed by extremists in a way that Democrats do not.The message of all the chuckling about Paul Pelosi is clear: The right believes its enemies have no rights, and no longer sees the need to pretend otherwise. Donald Trump taught the Republican Party that it needn’t bother with hypocritical displays of decency, that it can revel in cruelty, transgression and the thrill of violence. Now it’s taking that lesson into the first post-Jan. 6 election. The tense calm of the last 20 months has often felt like being in the eye of a hurricane. Now the terrible weather is coming back.In a widely cited essay, the centrist pundit Josh Barro criticized Biden’s speech because it implied that voters concerned about democracy must vote for Democrats whatever their policy preferences. “The message is that there is only one party contesting this election that is committed to democracy — the Democrats — and therefore only one real choice available,” he wrote, adding, “This amounts to telling voters that they have already lost their democracy.” I find this argument bizarre. It is simply a fact that only one party tried to overturn the 2020 election, and only one party is trying to insulate itself from the will of voters in future elections. As the Wisconsin Republican candidate Tim Michels put it recently, “Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I’m elected governor.”It may be that Biden’s efforts to alert the country about what’s coming are doomed. In a recent CBS poll, 56 percent of likely voters said they believe that if Republicans win in the midterms, they will try to overturn Democratic election victories. The same poll showed that, if the election were held today, 47 percent plan to vote for Republicans, and only 45 percent for Democrats. Those who prioritize the preservation of democracy in America are probably already Democratic voters. Still, Biden had an obligation to try to focus our attention on a mounting threat.Though Republicans are likely to do well on Tuesday, many elections will probably remain unsettled. Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, wrote that because of a state law prohibiting the counting of mail-in ballots before Election Day, results there will probably take several days. Nevada will also take several days after the election to count mail-in ballots. Some Republicans, including Lake and Finchem, won’t commit to accepting the result if they lose. We can expect others to sow doubt about the process if they start falling behind as mail-in votes come in.As the Democratic strategist Michael Podhorzer put it, “When it comes to the postelection crisis, 2020 was like the beginning of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’ and 2022 will be more like the part where the walking mops multiply out of control.” We should be ready for what could soon be unleashed.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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      America Can Stop Violent Extremism

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      Americans are right to be nervous about the coming midterm elections, and not only about the results. It will be the first time that the nation’s electoral machinery will be tested after two years of lawsuits, conspiracy theories, “audits” and all manner of interference by believers in Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.I’m nervous for another reason as well: the embrace of violent extremists by a small but growing faction of the Republican Party. Today’s editorial, the first in a series on violent extremism, will explore this peril and what we can do about it.During the past five years, incidents of political violence have soared. Last month’s attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of the speaker of the House of Representatives, is just the most recent example, and federal officials are deeply worried about the threat of violence around the midterms.That’s why it is so alarming to read about far-right extremists and paramilitary and anti-government groups planning to act as poll watchers. Masked, armed people in military gear were spotted last month in a parking lot in Arizona where early voting has been underway. This kind of intimidation is illegal under the Voting Rights Act, but it appears extremist poll watchers are undeterred even as they face lawsuits and restraining orders.It’s an ill omen that it has become routine to see heavily armed extremists at political events or harassing librarians or poll workers or members of Congress. It is even more concerning that some Republican politicians, in their own coded and not so coded ways, are encouraging it.To be clear, the overwhelming number of incidents of political violence in recent years has come from the right. Most Republicans oppose it without reservation, and we have seen conservatives targeted. Yet one faction of Republicans is using the threat of violence not only against their opponents on the left, but also in their battle to win control of the G.O.P.There are things we can do to push this violent extremism offstage, as the arrest of more than 900 people for the attack on Jan. 6 shows. Every state, for instance, has laws banning private paramilitary groups — they just rarely use them, as the editorial explains.In the past few years, there have been plenty of points at which it feels as if the future of the nation hangs in the balance. Peaceful politics are all we have to manage our deeply divided democracy. Lose that and the country is headed for a dark place — that’s what this series of pieces on extremism is trying to help avoid. More

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      Oath Keepers Leader Sought to Get Message to Trump After Jan. 6

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      One of the government’s final witnesses in the seditious conspiracy trial of members of the far-right group described attempts by Stewart Rhodes to urge Donald J. Trump to keep his grip on power.Four days after the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, held a secret meeting in the parking lot of a Texas electronics store.Mr. Rhodes had gone to see a soldier-turned-I.T.-expert who, he had been told, could get an urgent message to President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Rhodes wanted to persuade Mr. Trump to maintain his grip on power despite the violence at the Capitol and offered to mobilize the members of his group to help him stay in office.“I’m here for you and so are all of my men,” Mr. Rhodes wrote to Mr. Trump, typing his words into a cellphone and handing it to the man in the belief that he would pass the message on to the president. “We will come help you if you need us. Military and police. And so will your millions of supporters.”A description of that cloak-and-dagger scene was offered to the jury on Wednesday at the trial of Mr. Rhodes and four of his subordinates, all of whom are facing charges of seditious conspiracy in connection with the attack on the Capitol. By the end of the day, prosecutors at the trial had all but reached the end of their evidence and were expected to rest their case on Thursday morning.When the government’s presentation concludes it will be a milestone in the trial, which is taking place in Federal District Court in Washington. It will also be an important step for the Justice Department’s broader investigation of the Capitol assault.The seditious conspiracy charges confronting Mr. Rhodes and his co-defendants — Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell — are among the most severe and politically significant to have been filed so far against any of the 900 people charged in connection with Jan. 6.The success or failure of the prosecution could influence how the storming of the Capitol is perceived by the public and affect another trial set for mid-December in which five members of another far-right group, the Proud Boys, also stand accused of seditious conspiracy.Some of the strongest evidence prosecutors have presented to the jury has come directly from the mouth of Mr. Rhodes.Jim Urquhart/ReutersAs one of their final witnesses, prosecutors called to the stand the man who met with Mr. Rhodes in Texas: Jason Alpers, a software designer who helped found a cybersecurity firm called Allied Security Operations Group. The company was instrumental in working with outside advisers to Mr. Trump — including the lawyer Sidney Powell — in promoting a conspiracy theory that voting machines had been used to cheat in the 2020 election.Mr. Alpers, a former Army psychological operations expert, told the jury that he met Mr. Rhodes and a lawyer, Kellye SoRelle, on Jan. 10, 2021, outside a Fry’s Electronics store near Dallas. He offered his phone to Mr. Rhodes as a means of conveying a message to Mr. Trump, but ultimately gave both the phone and a recording of the encounter to the F.B.I.In the recording, which was played on Wednesday for the jury, Mr. Rhodes can be heard telling Mr. Alpers that if Mr. Trump did not hold on to power, there would be “combat here on U.S. soil” and that thousands of Oath Keepers would most likely join the fray.When Mr. Alpers told Mr. Rhodes that he did not want civil war and did not condone the chaos at the Capitol, the Oath Keepers leader said that he had only one regret about that day.“We should have brought rifles,” Mr. Rhodes said, adding, “We could have fixed it right then and there.”Mr. Alpers said he was horrified by Mr. Rhodes’s remarks and had second thoughts about passing any messages to Mr. Trump or to people in his orbit.“Asking for civil war to be on American ground and, understanding as a person who has gone to war, that means blood is going to get shed on the streets where your family is,” he testified. “That’s not a distant land, that’s right there.”From the outset of the trial, some of the strongest evidence prosecutors have presented to the jury has come directly from the mouth of Mr. Rhodes, who has emerged as a man obsessed with supporting Mr. Trump and keeping Joseph R. Biden Jr. out of the White House. Recordings and text messages have shown Mr. Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper with a law degree from Yale, to have been in thrall to baseless fears that Mr. Biden was a “puppet” of the Chinese government bent on the destruction of the country he had just been chosen to lead.One former member of the group testified last month that he had called the authorities in November 2020 after sitting through a video meeting during which Mr. Rhodes urged his followers to “fight” on behalf of Mr. Trump.“The more I listened to the call,” the witness, Abdullah Rasheed, told the jury, “it sounded like we were going to war against the United States government.”Other former Oath Keepers have testified that they believed Mr. Rhodes’s language about using violence to support Mr. Trump and his personal attacks against Mr. Biden became increasingly extreme, even dangerous, in the months between the election and the final certification of the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6.One former member told the jury that he quit the organization in December 2020 after Mr. Rhodes posted a letter on the Oath Keepers’ website urging Mr. Trump to seize data from voting machines across the country that would purportedly prove the election had been rigged. In the letter, Mr. Rhodes also begged Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, a more than two-centuries-old law that he believed would give the president the power to call up militias like his own to suppress the “coup” that was seeking to unseat him.In the message Mr. Rhodes sought to pass through Mr. Alpers, he warned Mr. Trump that he and his family would be “imprisoned and killed” if Mr. Biden managed to take office, urging him to use “the power of the presidency” to stop his opponent.“Go down in history as a savior of the Republic,” Mr. Rhodes wrote, “not a man who surrendered it to deadly traitors and enemies who then enslaved and murdered millions of Americans.”Despite the efforts by prosecutors to depict Mr. Rhodes as a man prepared to derail the election, as one trial witness put it, “by any means necessary,” some government witnesses have admitted under questioning from the defense that they were not aware of any predetermined plan to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 and interfere with the certification process.To win a conviction on the seditious conspiracy charge, prosecutors need to convince the jury that Mr. Rhodes and his co-defendants entered into an agreement to use force to disrupt the execution of laws governing the transfer of presidential power.A video of Mr. Rhodes speaking during an interview with the House Jan. 6 committee was shown at a hearing in June.Andrew Harnik/Associated PressFor reasons that remain unclear, prosecutors decided not to call as witnesses any of the three former Oath Keepers who pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges and cooperated with the government’s investigation of Mr. Rhodes and his co-defendants.One of the cooperating witnesses, William Todd Wilson, told the government during his plea negotiations that on the evening of Jan. 6, Mr. Rhodes was still trying to persuade Mr. Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act. By Mr. Wilson’s account, Mr. Rhodes tried to get an intermediary to call the president from a hotel near the Capitol and have him mobilize the Oath Keepers to forcibly stop the transition of power.Another cooperating witness, Joshua James, was poised to testify that Mr. Rhodes at one point hatched a plan to have a group of Oath Keepers surround the White House and keep away anyone — including members of the National Guard — who tried to remove Mr. Trump from the building.Before the defense begins its case, lawyers for Mr. Rhodes and the others are likely to make arguments seeking to dismiss the charges, claiming a lack of evidence — a common maneuver in criminal trials.Mr. Rhodes, who has promised from the start that he will testify, could take the witness stand by the end of the week. More

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      Can Lee Zeldin Reinvent His Way to the NY Governor’s Mansion?

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      SHIRLEY, N.Y. — As a young U.S. Army lawyer of unmistakable ambition, Lee Zeldin could almost see his future unfurling before him. It was his first stint in Iraq, and he was already imagining the kind of distinguished career in uniform that would have laid the groundwork for one in politics.Then a Red Cross message arrived on the base where Mr. Zeldin was embedded as a captain with the 82nd Airborne Division. His girlfriend had gone into dangerously premature labor with twin girls. Doctors were not optimistic about the babies’ survival. His commanding officer sent him home to mourn.“This I vividly remember the emotion of,” Mr. Zeldin, now a conservative congressman, recalled in a recent interview. “My priorities became all about my daughters.”The girls survived after months in the hospital. But rather than returning to Iraq, Mr. Zeldin took a desk job back at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, got married and then was discharged. At just 27, he found that the life he had imagined had veered off course.It was not the first time, nor the last. As a high school senior here on the South Shore of Long Island, Mr. Zeldin sought a prestigious appointment to West Point, only to fall short. After leaving the Army in 2007, he almost immediately entered a race for Congress, hoping to jump-start his political career. He lost in a blowout.But in every case, Mr. Zeldin has shown aptitude for finding a quick path to reinvention that has helped fuel his political ascent. Now, at age 42, it has put him closer than any Republican since George E. Pataki two decades ago to one of the nation’s most influential political posts, the governorship of New York.A few hundred Zeldin supporters attended a rally on Monday in Westchester County, traditionally an area controlled by Democrats. Brittainy Newman for The New York TimesThough Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, remains the front-runner, Mr. Zeldin’s late surge in the polls has shocked even political strategists and sent Democrats scrambling to prop up their candidate. With Ms. Hochul’s huge war chest and a vast Democratic registration advantage, few expected Mr. Zeldin to come close to winning, and perhaps with good reason: He does not easily fit the profile of a New York power player.In a state shaped by wealthy business interests and often governed by larger-than-life personalities and family dynasties, Mr. Zeldin is an outlier. He grew up in law enforcement households of modest means. He can be introverted and awkward with voters. And in a state dominated by the political left, he is probably the most conservative serious contender for the governorship in modern memory — even voting to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.Yet a careful review of his public and private life, including two dozen interviews with family, friends, colleagues and critics, shows that Mr. Zeldin’s emergence as a political force stems from decades of meticulous planning, comfort with taking risks, well-timed alliances with more powerful Republicans and, above all, a knack honed from a young age for what allies call adaptation but his critics view as a more cynical political shape-shifting.Those qualities have been on full display in this fall’s campaign, as Mr. Zeldin moved swiftly to tap into two powerful currents of discontent that Democrats appear to have misjudged and that threaten to scramble the state’s usual political order: painful inflation eroding New Yorkers’ sense of financial well-being and fears about rising crime.“He’s grabbed the right issues and hasn’t let go,” said Rob Astorino, who lost to Mr. Zeldin in this year’s Republican primary.Mr. Zeldin, center, has heavily courted the Hasidic vote during his campaign stops in New York City, including a recent visit to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesBut his instincts have also been evident as he tries to execute another on-the-fly transformation, playing down hard-line positions that served him well while he climbed the Republican ranks in Albany and Washington but are now politically inconvenient, while offering scant details on some of his latest policy proposals.Who Is Lee Zeldin Up Against?Card 1 of 5Gov. Kathy Hochul’s rise to power. More

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      5 Takeaways From the Hochul-Zeldin Debate

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      In their only scheduled debate, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York and her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin, quarreled intensely on Tuesday over divisive issues such as rising crime and abortion access, while accusing each other of corruption and dangerous extremism.Mr. Zeldin, who has spent his campaign trying to appeal to voters’ dissatisfaction with the status quo, went on the attack from the get-go, frequently raising his voice as he channeled a sense of outrage, especially around crime. Ms. Hochul, a Buffalo-area Democrat vying for her first full term, took a more measured approach that fit her insistence that the state needs a steady hand to lead it.Scenes outside the debate.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesThere was no live audience, but some New Yorkers expressed their views.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesBeyond trading barbs, neither candidate appeared to have a major breakout moment or gaffe that could reshape the race, which, according to recent polls, may be tightening just two weeks before Election Day. But both staked out starkly different positions on substantive matters from crime to vaccine mandates and the migrant crisis ahead of the general election on Nov. 8.Here’s a recap of some of the most memorable moments.Zeldin repeatedly pivoted to crime.Mr. Zeldin, a Long Island congressman, has for months made crime the central focus of his campaign for governor, and Tuesday’s debate was no different. From the start, he attacked Ms. Hochul, charging that she was not doing enough to stem an increase in serious offenses in the state and especially New York City, and blamed her policies for fueling fears.New Yorkers, Mr. Zeldin said in his opening statement, were “less safe thanks to Kathy Hochul and extreme policies.”Mr. Zeldin largely stuck to tough-on-crime policy points that he honed during his primary campaign. He forcefully criticized Ms. Hochul for opposing further revisions to the state’s bail law and called for changes to laws that reformed the juvenile justice system and the parole system in the state.Mr. Zeldin also doubled down repeatedly on a vow that, if elected, he would immediately remove the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, from office, accusing Mr. Bragg of failing to enforce the state’s criminal code.Ms. Hochul sought to redirect attention to her efforts to stem the flow of illegal guns and noted that she had already tightened the bail reforms earlier this year. Those efforts, she said, had already proven fruitful.But Mr. Zeldin argued that the governor was overly focused on gun crime and had not focused enough on other offenses of concern to New Yorkers, including a rise in violent incidents in the subway system.Mr. Zeldin repeatedly turned the debate back to the topic of crime.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesIn New York City, the number of murders and shootings both dropped by about 14 percent through Sunday compared with the same time period last year, though other serious crimes, including robbery, rape and felony assault, have increased, according to police statistics. Though she largely kept her cool during the hourlong debate, Ms. Hochul appeared frustrated with Mr. Zeldin’s insistence on discussing crime when moderators were asking about other topics, something he did even during a discussion of abortion.Hochul says abortion is ‘on the ballot.’Throughout the debate, Ms. Hochul sought to criticize Mr. Zeldin’s anti-abortion stance, saying that he couldn’t run from his long record in Congress opposing access and funding for abortions.“You’re the only person standing on this stage whose name right now — not years past — that right now, is on a bill called ‘Life Begins at Conception,’” Ms. Hochul said.Ms. Hochul cast herself as a bulwark against a potential rollback of abortion protections in New York, warning that Mr. Zeldin, if elected, could appoint a health commissioner who is anti-choice — as he once pledged to do — and shut down health clinics that provide reproductive care.“That is a frightening spectacle,” said Ms. Hochul, the first female governor of New York. “Women need to know that that’s on the ballot this November as well.”Ms. Hochul said Mr. Zeldin could appoint a health commissioner who is opposed to abortion rights.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesReiterating a pledge from earlier this month, Mr. Zeldin vowed that he would not seek to unilaterally change the state’s already-strict abortion protections, which are enshrined in state law. Mr. Zeldin said that doing so would be politically unfeasible and that Ms. Hochul was being disingenuous by suggesting he would do so, given that Democrats control the State Legislature in Albany and are likely to retain control this election cycle.Mr. Zeldin, however, raised the prospects of potentially curbing funding for abortions for women traveling to New York from other states where abortions are banned.“I’ve actually heard from a number of people who consider themselves to be pro-choice, who are not happy here that their tax dollars are being used to fund abortions, many, many, many states away,” he said.Zeldin dances around his ties to Donald Trump.For months, Ms. Hochul has emphasized Mr. Zeldin’s close relationship with former President Donald J. Trump, focusing particularly on the congressman’s vote to overturn the results of the 2020 election hours after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.Though Mr. Zeldin has scoffed at Ms. Hochul’s focus on that day, when asked by debate moderators if he would repeat his vote, he stood by it.“The vote was on two states: Pennsylvania and Arizona,” he said. “And the issue still remains today.”Sarah Silbiger/ReutersMr. Zeldin walked a delicate line as he was questioned about his relationship to the former president. When asked if he wanted to see Mr. Trump run in 2024, he waved away the question as irrelevant. When Ms. Hochul asked if he thought Mr. Trump — who lost New York by 23 percentage points in 2020 — was “a great president,” he refused to give her a simple “yes or no” answer.Yet Mr. Zeldin did not denounce Mr. Trump, who remains popular with many of the Republicans that he needs to draw to the polls if he hopes to defeat Ms. Hochul. He said he was proud to have worked closely with the former president on a laundry list of issues ranging from local crime to international politics.Ms. Hochul appeared satisfied with the reply. “I’ll take that as a resounding yes,” she said. “And the voters of New York do not agree with you.”Questioning Hochul’s ethics.Mr. Zeldin wasted little time impugning Ms. Hochul’s fund-raising efforts, accusing her of orchestrating “pay-to-play” schemes because of the large sums she has raised from people with business before the state.In particular, Mr. Zeldin referenced a $637 million contract that the state awarded in December to Digital Gadgets, a New Jersey-based company, for 52 million at-home coronavirus tests. The founder of the company, Charlie Tebele, and his family have given more than $290,000 to Ms. Hochul’s campaign and hosted fund-raisers for the governor.The Times Union of Albany has reported that the company charged the state about $12.25 per test, similar to the retail price for many tests, and that the company did not go through a competitive bidding process.“So what New Yorkers want to know is what specific measures are you pledging to deal with the pay-to-play corruption that is plaguing you and your administration?” Mr. Zeldin asked.Ms. Hochul vehemently denied any connection between the campaign donations and the contract, saying the company helped the state obtain an extraordinary number of tests at a time of huge demand when tests were relatively scarce nationwide. The company has also previously said that it never communicated with Ms. Hochul or her campaign about any company business.“There is no pay-to-play corruption,” the governor said. “There has never been a quid pro quo, a policy change or decision made because of a contribution.”Thalia Juarez for The New York TimesMs. Hochul, clearly expecting the attack line, used the opportunity to underscore the millions of dollars that Ronald Lauder, the heir to the cosmetics fortune of Estée Lauder, has steered into super PACs supporting Mr. Zeldin’s campaign, saying, “What worries me is the fact that you have one billionaire donor who’s given you over $10 million.”Only a glancing focus on the economy.Despite public polls showing that inflation is a top-of-mind concern for voters, the economy and rising costs of living received less attention than anticipated during the debate.Mr. Zeldin promised to slash taxes across the board if elected, saying that “New York is going to be back open for business on January 1.” He also vowed to block the congestion-pricing plan that would charge drivers a toll for entering part of Manhattan, which he believes would burden middle-class New Yorkers during a precarious economic moment.Mr. Zeldin questioned what Ms. Hochul has done as governor to try and stem New York’s recent population loss. The state has lost 319,000 people since mid-2020, a decline of 1.58 percent that is higher than any other state, primarily as a result of residents moving away, according to an analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts.In response, Ms. Hochul turned to a turn of phrase she deployed several times during the debate, saying that Mr. Zeldin was more fixated on “sound bites” than “sound policy.” She challenged him to detail which social programs he would reduce spending on if he cut the state’s corporate and personal income tax rates, which are among the highest in the nation.And she highlighted her own record of economic investments. She mentioned the tax rebates she had enacted for the middle class, as well as a recent agreement to persuade Micron to build a semiconductor facility near Syracuse, a deal that the company said could generate more than 50,000 jobs. More

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      Justice Dept. Seeks to Force Trump White House Lawyers to Testify in Jan. 6 Inquiry

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      The move is part of an effort by prosecutors to punch through the claims of privilege the former president is using to hamper the investigation of his push to overturn the election.The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to force the two top lawyers in Donald J. Trump’s White House to provide additional grand jury testimony as prosecutors seek to break through the former president’s attempts to shield his efforts to overturn the 2020 election from investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter.Prosecutors filed a motion to compel testimony from the two lawyers, Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, last week. They told Beryl A. Howell, a judge in Federal District Court in Washington who oversees grand jury matters, that their need for the evidence the men could provide should overcome Mr. Trump’s claims that the information is protected by attorney-client and executive privilege, the people said.The filing was the latest skirmish in a behind-the-scenes legal struggle between the government and Mr. Trump’s lawyers to determine how much testimony witnesses close to the former president can provide to the grand jury, which is examining Mr. Trump’s role in numerous schemes to reverse his election defeat, culminating in the mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Mr. Cipollone, Mr. Trump’s former White House counsel, and Mr. Philbin, who served as his deputy, initially appeared before the grand jury last month after receiving subpoenas, but declined to answer some of the questions prosecutors had about advice they gave to Mr. Trump or interactions they had with him in the chaotic post-election period, one of the people familiar with the matter said.The government’s filing, which was reported earlier by CNN, asked Judge Howell to force the men to return to the grand jury and respond to at least some of the questions they had declined to answer.If compelled to testify fully, Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Philbin could provide the grand jury with firsthand accounts of the advice they gave Mr. Trump about his efforts to derail the results of the election with a variety of schemes, including one to create fake slates of pro-Trump electors in states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. They could also tell the grand jury about Mr. Trump’s activities and mind-set on Jan. 6 and the tumultuous weeks leading up to it.Judge Howell has already ruled in favor of the government in a similar privilege dispute concerning testimony from two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, Marc Short and Greg Jacob, according to several people familiar with the matter. Both Mr. Short and Mr. Jacob returned to the grand jury this month and answered questions that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had sought to block as being privileged during their original appearances.Prosecutors are also seeking to force Patrick F. Philbin, the former deputy White House counsel, to provide additional testimony.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe closed-door battle over how much evidence the grand jury should hear about Mr. Trump’s role in reversing his defeat and how much should be kept away as privileged is almost certain to continue as more witnesses close to the former president are called in for testimony.Last month, about 40 subpoenas were issued to a large group of former Trump aides — among them, Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s final chief of staff; Dan Scavino, his onetime deputy chief of staff for communications; and Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s top speechwriter and a senior policy adviser.It is likely that Mr. Trump will try to assert some form of privilege over the testimony of each of those potential witnesses in a bid to narrow what the grand jury can hear about him.Even as the Justice Department presses forward in seeking evidence about Mr. Trump’s involvement in the events leading up to the Capitol attack, the House committee investigating Jan. 6 is also continuing to hear from witnesses.On Tuesday, Hope Hicks, a former top aide to Mr. Trump, testified for about four hours in front of the panel, according to two people familiar with the matter.The interview of Ms. Hicks, which was conducted virtually, came late in the committee’s 16-month investigation and after it has most likely concluded holding public hearings. Still, the members of the panel have kept pushing for more information about Mr. Trump’s state of mind in the final weeks of his administration and how often he was told there was no evidence of a stolen election.During a meeting with Mr. Trump, Ms. Hicks told the former president that she had seen no evidence of widespread fraud that could overturn the results of the election, according to the book “Confidence Man” by Maggie Haberman, a reporter for The New York Times.“You’re wrong,” Mr. Trump replied, hoping to scare others out of agreeing with her.Throughout August, the panel interviewed top administration officials, including Robert O’Brien, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser; Elaine Chao, the former transportation secretary; and Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state. Investigators asked questions regarding reports of discussions about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office, among other topics.Ms. Hicks served as the White House communications director in 2017 and 2018 and then returned to the White House as a counselor to Mr. Trump during his final 10 months in office.It was not immediately clear exactly what Ms. Hicks told the committee, but investigators went over certain text messages with her, according to a person familiar with the matter.A spokesman for the committee and a lawyer for Ms. Hicks declined to comment.Maggie Haberman More

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      Election Deniers Running for Office

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      More from our inbox:The Trump Subpoena Is a MistakeAbduction of Ukrainian Children: An ‘Insidious’ Russian PlaybookBerlusconi’s Affection for Putin‘Stop Eating Animals’ The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “2020 Election Skeptics Crowd the Republican Ticket Nationwide” (front page, Oct. 15):It is inevitable that many Republican election deniers running for office in November will be elected, especially in red states and districts, but I am just as worried about the election deniers who will lose.Will they accept their losses or, like Donald Trump, refuse to concede and charge that their election was rigged? Even worse, and again emulating Mr. Trump, will they incite their supporters to storm the offices where votes are being tabulated and/or where elections are being certified? This could be especially problematic in districts and states that take a long time to count absentee and mail-in ballots.Democracy requires that losers accept their losses. Unfortunately, 2020 election deniers care more about winning at any price than they do about democracy. I envision violence breaking out at county election boards and state offices from Maine to California. I just hope that local police departments are better prepared than the Capitol Police were on Jan. 6.Richard KaveshNyack, N.Y.The writer is a former mayor of Nyack.To the Editor:The number of election skeptics running should not come as a surprise to anyone. When we allow partisan politicians to gerrymander their states into electorally “safe” districts, the real voting occurs in the primaries. Extremists tend to win in the primaries, so this system almost guarantees that extremists, from both ends of the political spectrum, will be elected.When we send extremists of the left and the right to Washington, no one should be surprised that the process of compromise, so essential for good government, is impossible for them.Until the Supreme Court bars partisans from the electoral mapping process, America will remain stuck in a political quagmire of its own making. In recent times partisans have been barred from this process in countries such as Canada, Britain and Australia. Why can’t we take the same step in America?James TysonTrenton, N.J.To the Editor:In the midst of Covid, America significantly relaxed its voting formalities for 2020, with unrequested mail-in ballots; unsupervised, 24-hour drop boxes; and no-excuse-needed absentee voting. When the G.O.P. suggests that lax voting procedures harmed electoral integrity, they are charged with threatening American democracy. Yet when the G.O.P. attempts to restore pre-Covid voting formalities, the Democrats histrionically scream that American democracy is being threatened by Jim Crow voter suppression.The Times not only fails to challenge this specious Democratic assertion, but also joins the charge.Mike KueberSan AntonioTo the Editor:It seems that there has been one essential question left unasked in this challenging time period for our republic. I would suggest directing it to each and every election-denying Republican who was “elected” on that very same 2020 ballot:If the 2020 election was ripe with fraud, as you claim, and Donald Trump was cheated at the polls, then please explain how your election to office on the very same ballot managed to avoid being tainted as well.I expect the silence to be deafening.Adam StolerBronxTo the Editor:I object to The Times’s use of the term “skeptics” to describe Republican candidates who claim that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. Please leave “skeptic” to its proper uses. No one would say a politician who claimed that 2 + 2 = 13 million is a “math skeptic.” There are plenty of suitable words in the dictionary, including “liar” and “loon.”William Avery HudsonNew YorkThe Trump Subpoena Is a MistakeFormer President Donald J. Trump’s legal team could also invoke executive privilege in an attempt to ward off the subpoena.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Is Subpoenaed, Setting Up Likely Fight Over His Role on Jan. 6” (front page, Oct. 22):The decision by the House Jan. 6 committee to subpoena former President Donald Trump to testify is a mistake.Even if he agrees to appear before the committee, Mr. Trump’s behavior is predictable. Based on his inability to accept defeat, and his view of disagreement as something personal that warrants lashing out at the other party, we can expect him to approach the committee as an enemy, deserving nothing but contempt.Based on his past and continuing behavior, we can expect him to be nasty, offensive and obnoxious. Attempting to belittle the committee members individually and as a group, he would make a mockery of the proceedings. Nothing of substance would be accomplished, except to place his personality on public display, which continues to delight his supporters.So the committee should avoid the futile effort and potential embarrassment, and refrain from trying to have Mr. Trump appear before it.Ken LefkowitzMedford, N.J.Abduction of Ukrainian Children: An ‘Insidious’ Russian PlaybookA broken window at a hospital in March in Mariupol, Ukraine. Russian officials have made clear that their goal is to replace any childhood attachment to home with a love for Russia.Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Taken by Russia, Children Become the Spoils of War” (front page, Oct. 23):The abduction of Ukrainian children into Russian families is more than “a propaganda campaign presenting Russia as a charitable savior.” It follows an insidious playbook used by Soviet leaders after their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan.Thousands of Afghan children were abducted to the Soviet Union to be given a Communist education, so that a new generation of Afghans would be trained to lead a Soviet-sponsored Afghanistan. In 1989, however, Soviet troops were forced from Afghanistan, unable to prevail against Afghans fiercely defending their homeland.Vladimir Putin may very well be repeating past practices, hoping to brainwash Ukrainian children into a love for Russia, and thus preparing them to lead a Russian-dominated Ukraine.But he should learn other lessons from the past instead: that people defending their country are not easily defeated, and that the Soviet failure in Afghanistan upended the Soviet leadership and, ultimately, the Soviet Union itself.Jeri LaberNew YorkThe writer is a founder of Human Rights Watch and the former director of its Europe and Central Asia division.Berlusconi’s Affection for Putin Vladimir Rodionov/SputnikTo the Editor:Re “Berlusconi, Caught on Tape Gushing Over Putin, Heightens Concerns” (news article, Oct. 21):Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s talk of “sweet” letters and affection for Vladimir Putin, the barbaric Russian president, is as troubling as the right-wing political party that has ascended to power in Italy, a party in which Mr. Berlusconi has a patriarchal, deeply influential role.But Mr. Berlusconi’s defense of Mr. Putin’s savage invasion of Ukraine is even more sickening and chilling. Woe to Europe and the world if we see any significant scaling back or ultimately an abandonment of financial and military support for Ukraine.Mr. Putin may send Mr. Berlusconi bottles of fine vodka, but the Russian leader’s main exports to the real world are terror, autocracy and death.Cody LyonBrooklyn‘Stop Eating Animals’Lily and Lizzie after being rescued.Direct Action EverywhereTo the Editor:Re “I Took 2 Piglets That Weren’t Mine, and a Jury Said That Was OK,” by Wayne Hsiung (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 21):Mr. Hsiung’s powerful essay reveals the horror of animals being raised for meat. Meat production creates catastrophic global warming and tortures sentient beings. Stop eating animals.Ann BradleyLos Angeles More