Storming of the US Capitol (Jan, 2021)

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      Biden to Focus on ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation’ in Prime-Time Speech

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      The president is set to return to his campaign theme of democracy in peril as his party fights to retain its hold on Congress in the midterm elections.WASHINGTON — President Biden will travel to Pennsylvania on Thursday to deliver a rare prime-time speech on what the White House called the “battle for the soul of the nation,” returning to the theme of democracy in peril that he used in the 2020 presidential campaign as his party fights to hold onto control of Congress in the looming midterm elections.Mr. Biden’s speech outside Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia will describe how democracy itself in America is at stake while most likely taking aim at a Republican Party he has increasingly criticized in recent weeks, according to a White House official. It is also expected to emphasize the reputation of the United States on the global stage.The speech will come as Mr. Biden has struck a more aggressive tone after spending most of the first year of his presidency preferring to emphasize unity in a divided nation over attacking Republicans, at times frustrating members of his own party. Just last week, the president condemned “ultra-MAGA Republicans” for a philosophy he described as “semifascism.”It also comes as former President Donald J. Trump and his norm-busting presidency have returned to the fore, amid investigations into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and an F.B.I. search of his Florida home that retrieved highly sensitive documents he took with him from the White House. As Republicans have rallied to his defense, many have defended his efforts to overturn the election or attacked basic institutions of government including the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.The timing of Mr. Biden’s speech on Thursday, less than three months before the November elections, is also another sign that the administration is leaning into a strategy outlined in a memo written by Jen O’Malley Dillon, a deputy White House chief of staff, and Anita Dunn, a top communications adviser. Mr. Biden is expected to trumpet legislative victories that “beat the special interests” and attack the extremism embraced by Mr. Trump and his allies, both strategies emphasized in the memo. More

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      Donald Trump Is Not Above the Law

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      Over the course of this summer, the nation has been transfixed by the House select committee’s hearings on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and how or whether Donald Trump might face accountability for what happened that day. The Justice Department remained largely silent about its investigations of the former president until this month, when the F.B.I. searched his home in Palm Beach, Fla., in a case related to his handling of classified documents. The spectacle of a former president facing criminal investigation raises profound questions about American democracy, and these questions demand answers.Mr. Trump’s unprecedented assault on the integrity of American democracy requires a criminal investigation. The disturbing details of his postelection misfeasance, meticulously assembled by the Jan. 6 committee, leaves little doubt that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the Constitution and overturn the will of the American people. The president, defeated at the polls in 2020, tried to enlist federal law enforcement authorities, state officials and administrators of the nation’s electoral system in a furious effort to remain in power. When all else failed, he roused an armed mob that stormed the Capitol and threatened lawmakers.The Justice Department is reportedly examining Mr. Trump’s conduct, including his role in trying to overturn the election and in taking home classified documents. If Attorney General Merrick Garland and his staff conclude that there is sufficient evidence to establish Mr. Trump’s guilt on a serious charge in a court of law, then they must indict him, too.This board is aware that in deciding how Mr. Trump should be held accountable under the law it is necessary to consider not just whether criminal prosecution would be warranted but whether it would be wise. No American president has ever been criminally prosecuted after leaving office. When President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, he ensured that Nixon would not be prosecuted for crimes committed during the Watergate scandal; Ford explained this decision with the warning that such a prosecution posed grave risks of rousing “ugly passions” and worsening political polarization.That warning is just as salient today. Pursuing prosecution of Mr. Trump could further entrench support for him and play into the conspiracy theories he has sought to stoke. It could inflame the bitter partisan divide, even to the point of civil unrest. A trial, if it is viewed as illegitimate, could also further undermine confidence in the rule of law, whatever the eventual outcome.The risks of political escalation are obvious. The Democratic and Republican parties are already in the thick of a cycle of retribution that could last generations. There is a substantial risk that, if the Justice Department does prosecute Mr. Trump, future presidents — whether Mr. Trump himself or someone of his ilk — could misuse the precedent to punish political rivals. If their party takes a majority in the House of Representatives after the midterm elections, some Republicans have already threatened to impeach President Biden.There is an even more immediate threat of further violence, and it is a possibility that Americans should, sadly, be prepared for. In the hours after federal agents began a court-approved search of Mr. Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, based on a warrant investigating possible violations of three federal laws, including one that governs the handling of defense information under the Espionage Act, his most fervent supporters escalated their rhetoric to the language of warfare. As The Times noted, “The aggressive, widespread response was arguably the clearest outburst of violent public rhetoric since the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.”Mr. Garland has been deliberate, methodical and scrupulous in his leadership of the Justice Department’s investigations of the Jan. 6 attack and the transfer of documents to Mr. Trump’s home. But no matter how careful he is or how measured the prosecution might be, there is a real and significant risk from those who believe that any criticism of Mr. Trump justifies an extreme response.Yet it is a far greater risk to do nothing when action is called for. Aside from letting Mr. Trump escape punishment, doing nothing to hold him accountable for his actions in the months leading up to Jan. 6 could set an irresistible precedent for future presidents. Why not attempt to stay in power by any means necessary or use the power of the office to enrich oneself or punish one’s enemies, knowing that the law does not apply to presidents in or out of office?More important, democratic government is an ideal that must constantly be made real. America is not sustained by a set of principles; it is sustained by resolute action to defend those principles.Immediately after the Jan. 6 insurrection, cabinet members reportedly debated privately whether to remove Mr. Trump from power under the authority of the 25th Amendment. A week after the attack, the House impeached Mr. Trump for the second time. This editorial board supported his impeachment and removal from office; we also suggested that the former president and lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6 plot could be permanently barred from holding office under a provision of the 14th Amendment that applies to any official who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or given “aid or comfort” to those who have done so. But most Republicans in the Senate refused to convict Mr. Trump, and Congress has yet to invoke that section of the 14th Amendment against him. As a result, the threat that Mr. Trump and his most ardent supporters pose to American democracy has metastasized.Even now, the former president continues to spread lies about the 2020 election and denounce his vice president, Mike Pence, for not breaking the law on his behalf. Meanwhile, dozens of people who believe Mr. Trump’s lies are running for state and national elected office. Many have already won, some of them elevated to positions that give them control over how elections are conducted. In June the Republican Party in Texas approved measures in its platform declaring that Mr. Biden’s election was illegitimate. And Mr. Trump appears prepared to start a bid for a second term as president.Mr. Trump’s actions as a public official, like no others since the Civil War, attacked the heart of our system of government. He used the power of his office to subvert the rule of law. If we hesitate to call those actions and their perpetrator criminal, then we are saying he is above the law and giving license to future presidents to do whatever they want.In addition to a federal investigation by the Justice Department, Mr. Trump is facing a swirl of civil and criminal liability in several other cases: a lawsuit by the attorney general for the District of Columbia over payments during his inauguration ceremonies; a criminal investigation in Westchester County, N.Y., over taxes on one of his golf courses; a criminal case in Fulton County, Ga., over interference in the 2020 election; a criminal case by the Manhattan district attorney over the valuation of Mr. Trump’s properties; and a civil inquiry by New York’s attorney general into Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization.The specific crimes the Justice Department could consider would likely involve Mr. Trump’s fraudulent efforts to get election officials in Georgia, Arizona and elsewhere to declare him the winner even though he lost their states; to get Mr. Pence, at the Jan. 6 congressional certification of the election, to throw out slates of electors from states he lost and replace them with electors loyal to Mr. Trump; and to enlist officials from the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Defense to persuade officials in certain states to swing the election to him and ultimately stir up a mob that attacked the Capitol. The government could also charge Mr. Trump with seditious conspiracy, a serious charge that federal prosecutors have already brought against leaders of far-right militia groups who participated in the Capitol invasion.The committee hearings make it clear: Mr. Trump must have known he was at the center of a frantic, sprawling and knowingly fraudulent effort that led directly to the Capitol siege. For hours, Mr. Trump refused to call off the mob.The testimony from hundreds of witnesses, many of them high-ranking Republican officials from his own administration, reveal Mr. Trump’s unrelenting efforts, beginning months before Election Day and continuing through Jan. 6, to sow doubt about the election, to refuse to accept the result of that election and then to pursue what he must have known were illegal and unconstitutional means to overturn it. Many participants sought pre-emptive pardons for their conduct — an indication they knew they were violating the law.Other evidence points to other crimes, like obstruction of Congress, defined as a corrupt obstruction of the “proper administration of the law.” The fake-elector scheme that Mr. Trump and his associates pushed before Jan. 6 appears to meet this definition. That may explain why at least three of Mr. Trump’s campaign lawyers were unwilling to participate in the plot. People involved in it were told it was not “legally sound” by White House lawyers, but they moved forward with it anyway.Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to Mr. Trump’s last chief of staff, Mark Meadows, provided powerful evidence that could be used to charge Mr. Trump with seditious conspiracy. In her public testimony at a Jan. 6 committee hearing, she said that Mr. Trump was informed that many in the throng of supporters waiting to hear him speak on the Ellipse that day were armed but that he demanded they be allowed to skip the metal detectors that had been installed for his security. “They’re not here to hurt me,” he said, according to Ms. Hutchinson. “Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.”If Mr. Garland decides to pursue prosecution, a message that the Justice Department must send early and often is that even if Mr. Trump genuinely believed, as he claimed, that the election had been marred by fraud, his schemes to interfere in the certification of the vote would still be crimes. And even though Mr. Trump’s efforts failed, these efforts would still be crimes. More than 850 other Americans have already been charged with crimes for their roles in the Capitol attack. Well-meaning intentions did not shield them from the consequences of their actions. It would be unjust if Mr. Trump, the man who inspired them, faced no consequences.No one should revel in the prospect of this or any former president facing criminal prosecution. Mr. Trump’s actions have brought shame on one of the world’s oldest democracies and destabilized its future. Even justice before the law will not erase that stain. Nor will prosecuting Mr. Trump fix the structural problems that led to the greatest crisis in American democracy since the Civil War. But it is a necessary first step toward doing so.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.

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      The Idea That Letting Trump Walk Will Heal America Is Ridiculous

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      The main argument against prosecuting Donald Trump — or investigating him with an eye toward criminal prosecution — is that it will worsen an already volatile fracture in American society between Republicans and Democrats. If, before an indictment, we could contain the forces of political chaos and social dissolution, the argument goes, then in the aftermath of such a move, we would be at their mercy. American democracy might not survive the stress.All of this might sound persuasive to a certain, risk-averse cast of mind. But it rests on two assumptions that can’t support the weight that’s been put on them.The first is the idea that American politics has, with Trump’s departure from the White House, returned to a kind of normalcy. Under this view, a prosecution would be an extreme and irrevocable blow to social peace. But the absence of open conflict is not the same as peace. Voters may have put a relic of the 1990s into the Oval Office, but the status quo of American politics is far from where it was before Trump.The most important of our new realities is the fact that much of the Republican Party has turned itself against electoral democracy. The Republican nominee for governor in Arizona — Kari Lake — is a 2020 presidential election denier. So, too, are the Republican nominees in Arizona for secretary of state, state attorney general and U.S. Senate. In Pennsylvania, Republican voters overwhelmingly chose the pro-insurrection Doug Mastriano to lead their party’s ticket in November. Overall, Republican voters have nominated election deniers in dozens of races across six swing states, including candidates for top offices in Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin.There is also something to learn from the much-obsessed-over fate of Liz Cheney, the arch-conservative representative from Wyoming, who lost her place on the Republican ticket on account of her opposition to the movement to “stop the steal” and her leadership on the House Jan. 6 committee investigating Trump’s attempt to overturn the presidential election to keep himself in office. Cheney is, on every other issue of substance, with the right wing of the Republican Party. But she opposed the insurrection and accepted the results of the 2020 presidential election. It was, for Wyoming voters, a bridge too far.All of this is to say that we are already in a place where a substantial portion of the country (although much less than half) has aligned itself against the basic principles of American democracy in favor of Trump. And these 2020 deniers aren’t sitting still, either; as these election results show, they are actively working to undermine democracy for the next time Trump is on the ballot.This fact, alone, makes a mockery of the idea that the ultimate remedy for Trump is to beat him at the ballot box a second time, as if the same supporters who rejected the last election will change course in the face of another defeat. It also makes clear the other weight-bearing problem with the argument against holding Trump accountable, which is that it treats inaction as an apolitical and stability-enhancing move — something that preserves the status quo as opposed to action, which upends it.But that’s not true. Inaction is as much a political choice as action is, and far from preserving the status quo — or securing some level of social peace — it sets in stone a new world of total impunity for any sufficiently popular politician or member of the political elite.Now, it is true that political elites in this country are already immune to most meaningful consequences for corruption and lawbreaking. But showing forbearance and magnanimity toward Trump and his allies would take a difficult problem and make it irreparable. If a president can get away with an attempted coup (as well as abscond with classified documents), then there’s nothing he can’t do. He is, for all intents and purposes, above the law.Among skeptics of prosecution, there appears to be a belief that restraint would create a stable equilibrium between the two parties; that if Democrats decline to pursue Trump, then Republicans will return the favor when they win office again. But this is foolish to the point of delusion. We don’t even have to look to the recent history of Republican politicians using the tools of office to investigate their political opponents. We only have to look to the consequences of giving Trump (or any of his would-be successors) a grant of nearly unaccountable power. Why would he restrain himself in 2025 or beyond? Why wouldn’t he and his allies use the tools of state to target the opposition?The arguments against prosecuting Trump don’t just ignore or discount the current state of the Republican Party and the actually existing status quo in the United States, they also ignore the crucial fact that this country has experience with exactly this kind of surrender in the face of political criminality.National politics in the 1870s was consumed with the question of how much to respond to vigilante lawlessness, discrimination and political violence in the postwar South. Northern opponents of federal and congressional intervention made familiar arguments.If Republicans, The New York Times argued in 1874, “set aside the necessity of direct authority from the Constitution” to pursue their aims in the South and elsewhere, could they then “expect the Democrats, if they should gain the power, to let the Constitution prevent them from helping their ancient and present friends?”The better approach, The Times said in an earlier editorial, was to let time do its work. “The law has clothed the colored man with all the attributes of citizenship. It has secured him equality before the law, and invested him with the ballot.” But here, wrote the editors, “the province of law will end. All else must be left to the operation of causes more potent than law, and wholly beyond its reach.” His old oppressors in the South, they added, “rest their only hope of party success upon their ability to obtain his goodwill.”To act affirmatively would create unrest. Instead, the country should let politics and time do their work. The problems would resolve themselves, and Americans would enjoy a measure of social peace as a result.Of course, that is not what happened. In the face of lawlessness, inaction led to impunity, and impunity led to a successful movement to turn back the clock on progress as far as possible, by any means possible.Our experience, as Americans, tells us that there is a clear point at which we must act in the face of corruption, lawlessness and contempt for the very foundations of democratic society. The only way out is through. Fear of what Trump and his supports might do cannot and should not stand in the way of what we must do to secure the Constitution from all its enemies, foreign and domestic.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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      Hundreds of Jan. 6 Cases

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      At the heart of the Jan. 6 investigation are the cases against the riot suspects.Nineteen months after the Jan. 6 attack, hundreds of criminal cases that stem from it are playing out in court. They have been getting less attention than the Justice Department’s scrutiny of Donald Trump, but my colleague Alan Feuer has spent hours and hours watching these trials. This morning, he offers you a glimpse of them.Ian: Who are the Jan. 6 defendants, and what are they charged with?Alan: It’s a wide range. People from all 50 states have been prosecuted. Most are white men from middle- or working-class backgrounds, but there are also women, Hispanic people, Black people. A lot have military backgrounds. There are also professional people, which is unusual for an event involving far-right extremism: doctors, a State Department aide, business owners, people who flew there on a private jet.Most have been charged with misdemeanors and have gotten little to no prison time. Others have been charged with assaulting police officers or damaging government property. And a few hundred people have been charged with obstructing Congress’ certification that day of the Electoral College vote. About 350 defendants have pleaded guilty, and more than 200 have been sentenced. About half a dozen have gotten four years or more, and two have gotten more than seven years.The government is still arresting people, and prosecutors estimate around 2,000 could ultimately face charges.The hearings open windows into defendants’ lives, many of which seem quite dysfunctional. You covered the trial of a defendant named Guy Reffitt, a Texas militia member whose own son turned him in to the F.B.I. and testified against him.If someone is being criminally prosecuted, there’s often some dysfunction in their past. But I’ve been struck by how trauma rests at the center of so many of the Jan. 6 defendants’ lives, whether it’s poverty, addiction or deep family dysfunction. You also see defendants say things to the judge like, I’ve lost everything because of what I did on Jan. 6. My job has been taken from me. My neighbors no longer talk to me. My church has essentially excommunicated me. Please don’t send me to prison as well.Hundreds of defendants are being prosecuted, all in federal court in Washington. How do you keep up?Covid restrictions enabled remote access, which lets me jump from courtroom to courtroom with the push of a button and listen to multiple hearings over the phone in a day.The big exception is trials. I’ve covered two in Washington in person — the Reffitt trial and the case against Dustin Thompson, an unemployed Ohio exterminator. Two seditious conspiracy cases — against members of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, two far-right groups — will likely go to trial later this year, and I’ll almost certainly be in the courtroom for those. I prefer the courtroom. You pick up on body language and facial expressions that aren’t available when you’re just listening in.How many Jan. 6 hearings have you listened to?Hundreds. It’s not really countable at this point.How did you become the reporter who covers these hearings?I’ve covered courts and crime for over 20 years: murders, mafia and police corruption trials and the trial of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo. I’ve also spent a lot of time covering far-right extremist groups. As I watched the Jan. 6 attack on TV, I actually recognized people in the crowd. As people started getting arrested, I did what I’ve always done: track documents and set up a database of the now 850-plus cases.Pro-Trump protesters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesHow are these cases different from other criminal proceedings?On one level, the process is the same: Defendants get charged. Some plead guilty, some go to trial. People are acquitted or convicted. But the context is very different. Jan. 6 was a political action that became a federal crime, and politics infuses these cases. Some defendants have argued that they’re being persecuted for their political beliefs. Thompson’s defense was that Trump authorized him to go into the Capitol that day and that he was merely following Trump’s orders. That did not fly in front of a jury. I’ve never covered anything that’s taken place in an atmosphere as polarized as this one.Trump seems to have motivated not only some Jan. 6 defendants to commit violence, but also people who have threatened the F.B.I. after agents searched his home, Mar-a-Lago, this month. Do you see parallels between the groups?The Ohio man who attacked the F.B.I. field office in Cincinnati this month was, in fact, outside the Capitol on Jan. 6. The F.B.I. investigated his role in the riot but never arrested him. In a larger sense, one researcher has found that 15 to 20 million Americans think violence would be justified to return Trump to office. We’ve seen this in the reaction to the Mar-a-Lago raid, but I’m also concerned about what a potential criminal prosecution of Trump could bring. What will the reaction be if Trump is indicted? What will happen on the day he appears in court? What will happen if he goes to trial and is convicted? There may be moments when the risk of violence in defense of Trump is high.As threats of violence become more widespread, it can create an atmosphere in which the threshold for committing actual violence is lowered. When violent rhetoric becomes pervasive, people willing to commit violence feel justified. They feel like there’s community support. It enables them. That’s a reality we all have to start grappling with.More about Alan: Before becoming a reporter, he worked for a private detective agency run by two former New York City police officers. He later spent three years as a stringer for The Times, covering fires, murders and other middle-of-the-night stories in New York before joining the staff in 1999. In 2020, he published a book about El Chapo.For moreIn his final days in office, Trump had done little to leave the White House — but he had packed papers instead of sending them to the National Archives.An associate sought a pardon for Rudolph Giuliani just after the Jan. 6 attack, but the request was intercepted before it reached Trump.NEWSInternationalDestroyed Russian armored vehicles were paraded yesterday in Kyiv.Jim Huylebroek for The New York TimesUkrainian attacks in Crimea, including a drone assault yesterday, appeared on Russian social media, putting domestic pressure on the Kremlin.Mexico’s former attorney general was arrested in connection with the abduction and likely massacre of 43 students in 2014.Two pilots for Africa’s largest airline fell asleep and missed their scheduled window to land in Ethiopia.Other Big StoriesAn influx of migrants has strained New York City’s social safety net.Republican candidates are invoking “the American dream” in a pessimistic tone.UPS drivers, whose trucks lack air conditioning, say heat waves are endangering them.The actor Gary Busey was charged with criminal sexual contact and harassment related to an encounter at a fan convention in New Jersey.FROM OPINIONIf the Justice Department goes after Trump, it can’t afford to miss, Ross Douthat says. Damon Linker thinks voters, not prosecutors, should take down Trump.The dream of a secular, liberal Indian democracy is receding, Maya Jasanoff argues.Let’s skip the “Game of Thrones” prequel, says Scott Woods.The Sunday question: How will Democrats’ legislative successes affect the midterm elections?Democrats’ achievements on climate and gun control could energize base voters and blunt the losses the president’s party typically suffers, New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore writes. But consumer confidence and Biden’s job approval remain low, and voters overall tend not to reward big policy victories, The Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter notes.MORNING READSJoyce Lee for The New York TimesWeed drinks: They’re becoming widely available, but doctors know little about the effects.Sunday routine: A wine writer plays folk music and visits wine bars.Pickleball: Its popularity is growing rapidly. So is the injury count.A Times classic: The best way to cool your space.Advice from Wirecutter: How to pick the right computer for your kid.BOOKSRead your way through Reykjavik: Iceland has a reputation for having more authors per capita than any country.By the Book: When Frances Mayes discovers that the author of a good book has written others, “that’s bliss.”Our editors’ picks: “Picasso’s War,” a narrative of how modern art came to be celebrated in the U.S., and 10 other books.Times best sellers: Rinker Buck shares his adventures on a wooden flatboat in “Life On The Mississippi,” a nonfiction best seller. See all our lists.THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINEPhilip Montgomery for The New York TimesOn the cover: Willie Nelson’s long encore.Recommendation: Write fan mail to artists you admire.Diagnosis: She couldn’t stand still without pain. What was wrong?Eat: Late summer tomatoes are perfect for Spaghetti al Pomodoro.Read the full issue.THE WEEK AHEADWhat to Watch ForA detective tied to the fatal Breonna Taylor raid is expected to enter a guilty plea on Monday. She would be the first officer convicted in the case.Florida and New York will hold primary elections on Tuesday.Senator Lindsey Graham was ordered to testify before a grand jury on Tuesday in a Georgia investigation into Republican efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s election loss.Wednesday marks six months since Russia invaded Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s Independence Day.New jobless claims will be announced on Thursday.So-called trigger bans on abortion in Idaho, Tennessee and Texas will go into effect on Thursday.The college football season kicks off on Saturday.What to Cook This WeekKarsten Moran for The New York TimesMussels seem luxurious, but they are among the most budget-friendly seafood options, Tanya Sichynsky writes. Her weeknight dinner recommendations include steamed mussels with garlic and parsley, sheet-pan gnocchi with mushrooms and spinach and linguine with lemon sauce.NOW TIME TO PLAYHere’s a clue from the Sunday crossword:72-Across: Pharmaceutical company whose Nasdaq symbol is MRNATake the news quiz to see how well you followed the week’s headlines.Here’s today’s Spelling Bee. Here’s today’s Wordle. After, use our bot to get better.Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times.Matthew Cullen, Claire Moses, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Giuliani Associate Sought Pardon for Him After Jan. 6, Book Says

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      The letter, which also requested that Rudolph W. Giuliani be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was intercepted before reaching President Donald J. Trump.An associate of Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, tried to pass a message to Mr. Trump asking him to grant Mr. Giuliani a “general pardon” and the Presidential Medal of Freedom just after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a new book.The associate, Maria Ryan, also pleaded for Mr. Giuliani to be paid for his services and sent a different note seeking tens of thousands of dollars for herself, according to the book, “Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor,” by Andrew Kirtzman, who had covered Mr. Giuliani as a journalist. The New York Times obtained an advance copy of the book, which is set to be released next month.Bernard B. Kerik, Mr. Giuliani’s close adviser and the New York City police commissioner for part of his time as mayor, stopped the letter from getting to Mr. Trump. And it is unclear if Mr. Giuliani, who helped lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election but has repeatedly insisted he did not seek a pardon shielding him from potential charges, was involved in the request.But the letter adds another layer to the complex picture now swirling around Mr. Giuliani as he faces legal fallout from his efforts to try to help Mr. Trump cling to power, including being notified that he is a target in at least one investigation.“Dear Mr. President,” Ms. Ryan wrote in the letter, dated Jan. 10, 2021, according to the book, “I tried to call you yesterday to talk about business. The honorable Rudy Giuliani has worked 24/7 on the voter fraud issues. He has led a team of lawyers, data analysts and investigators.”Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsCard 1 of 9Key Revelations From the Jan. 6 HearingsMaking a case against Trump. More

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      Doug Mastriano Gets Pennsylvania Republicans to Close Ranks Behind Him

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      STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Before Pennsylvania’s primary, much of the state’s Republican establishment agreed that Doug Mastriano would be a disaster as the nominee for governor.Andy Reilly, the state’s Republican national committeeman, had joined a stop-Mastriano effort by rival candidates, who feared that the far-right state senator and prolific spreader of election conspiracy theories would squander an otherwise winnable race.Yet on a warm evening last month, Mr. Reilly opened his suburban Philadelphia home for a backyard fund-raiser for Mr. Mastriano, who won his primary in May. Guests chipped in $150 for ribs and pulled pork and listened to Mr. Mastriano, fresh from an uproar over his presence on Gab, a social media site that is a haven for hate speech.Mr. Reilly later defended Mr. Mastriano as the better choice to lead Pennsylvania over his Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro. “The question is can Doug Mastriano keep the Republican Party base and all the factions together?” Mr. Reilly said.In one of the most closely watched governor’s races of the year, Pennsylvania Republican officials who had warned that Mr. Mastriano was unelectable have largely closed ranks behind him, after he proved to be the overwhelming choice of base Republicans. On Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida plans to headline a rally with Mr. Mastriano in Pittsburgh, a bearhug from one of the party’s most popular national figures.Mr. Shapiro, the state attorney general, has used a huge fund-raising advantage to batter Mr. Mastriano in TV attack ads as an extremist on abortion and on the 2020 election, opening a double-digit lead in polls. Still, Democrats remain anxious they could lose to Mr. Mastriano because of the free-floating anger of the electorate this year, with most voters worried primarily about the economy.Josh Shapiro, with supporters in Lock Haven, Pa., has battered Mr. Mastriano in TV attack ads as an extremist.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesWhether the recent run of Democratic successes nationally — including the climate and drug-pricing legislative package and the resounding defeat of an anti-abortion measure in Kansas — can shift the fundamental midterm equation remains unclear.“The environment that Joe Biden has created for Josh Shapiro makes this year probably the only year that a Mastriano-type candidate could win in a purple state like Pennsylvania,” said Matt Brouillette, the head of a conservative political group in the state that opposed Mr. Mastriano in the primary. “While the Democrats want to focus on Jan. 6 and Roe v. Wade, the electorate is focused on putting food on their table and filling up the tanks in their cars.”The Democratic anxiety was on display recently at a party picnic in liberal State College, the home of Pennsylvania State University. At Mr. Shapiro’s mention of Mr. Mastriano during a speech, a woman shouted, “You better win!”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid. But her mission to thwart Donald J. Trump presents challenges.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.There was nervous laughter. The worry reflects the alarm of Democrats that if Mr. Mastriano, 58, becomes governor, he would sign severe abortion restrictions and would have the power to subvert the 2024 presidential election in the swing state in favor of the G.O.P. nominee.A Shapiro campaign event in State College. Democrats in Pennsylvania are worried about Mr. Mastriano’s positions on abortion and voting.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York Times“I hear it every single day,” Mr. Shapiro told the crowd. “They’re worried about their rights being ripped away from them.”Mr. Mastriano, a retired Army officer who led Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Pennsylvania, marched on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, passing police barricades breached by other marchers. He has boasted that as governor, “I get to decertify any or all machines in the state.” He has called for compelling all nine million registered voters in the state to re-register, which experts say would violate federal law.“These are dangerous, extreme positions he’s taken, and these are things I know the people of Pennsylvania reject,” Mr. Shapiro, 49, said in an interview.Mr. Shapiro compared the unusually high turnout in deep-red Kansas in favor of abortion rights to how the issue is motivating his own supporters. “We have seen incredible intensity in our campaign post-Dobbs,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court decision leaving it to states to protect or deny abortion access.Many women who attended his events agreed, saying that abortion is their most important issue. “I was the generation that was young when Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land, and I’ve known women whose health was ruined because of an illegal abortion,” said Bonnie Hannis, 80, who came to hear Mr. Shapiro in rural Clinton County.“I’m excited to defend my reproductive rights,” said Gianna Renzo, 19, who grew up in the county and is now a student at Princeton. “I see women my age who are typically from Republican families, and they’re going to come over to the Democratic side” because of abortion.Mr. Mastriano, the sponsor in the State Legislature of a six-week abortion ban with no exceptions, has appeared to modulate that position lately, saying lawmakers will write whatever bill they choose and “my personal views are irrelevant.”But there are few signs that he has broadened his appeal to independent and swing voters, especially in the suburbs, who have played a pivotal role in recent Pennsylvania elections. He was supported by 82 percent of Republicans in a Fox News poll in late July, but independents preferred Mr. Shapiro by 28 points.It remains to be seen if Mr. Mastriano can broaden his appeal to independent and swing voters.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesMr. Mastriano declined to comment for this article.He has routinely snubbed the state’s TV news outlets and newspapers that might help him reach a broader audience. It is a purposeful strategy aimed at exciting conservatives who believe that Democrats have “the media in their pockets,” as he recently put it.This week, he said he would not participate in traditional debates run by independent news organizations because of what he called their “hidden partisan agenda.” He proposed debates in which each candidate names a moderator — a nonstarter for the Shapiro campaign, which called the idea an “obvious stunt.”Mr. Mastriano speaks almost exclusively to far-right podcasters like Stephen K. Bannon, conservative talk radio hosts and Fox News. On a recent swing through northwest Pennsylvania, he brushed off a Pittsburgh TV station that sought to interview him, and even the small-circulation Meadville Tribune.One result of that approach is that he seldom has to field tough questions. And his poor fund-raising — he ended the primary season with just $400,000 in his campaign account, compared with $13.4 million for Mr. Shapiro — has left him unable to run TV ads all summer to counter a barrage of attacks from his opponent.The Shapiro ads use Mr. Mastriano’s words to paint him as outside the mainstream, not just on abortion and election denial, but on gay marriage, which he has said should “absolutely not” be legal, and on global warming, which he called “fake science.”“You’ve basically got a one-person governor’s race right now in terms of voter contact,” said Christopher Nicholas, a Republican consultant in the state. “All the folks who listen to those far-right podcasts, I think he maxed out his vote potential. He has to move past his base.”At a recent appearance by Mr. Mastriano at the York County Fair, there were no signs on the sprawling fairgrounds directing potential voters his way. Outside the hall where he was to appear, a large crowd on bleachers at the appointed hour turned out to be waiting for the Hot Dog Pig Races.Mr. Mastriano showed up inside at the county Republican booth. He did not give a speech, but shook hands and posed for pictures with several dozen supporters.Donna VanDyne, an insurance agent, supported a no-exceptions abortion ban, claiming that victims of rape or incest who give birth adjust. “When they have their baby, they have each other and become support systems for one another,” she said.Dawn Smith, an aspiring teacher’s aide, repeated a debunked conspiracy theory Mr. Mastriano had spread about voting machines. “They switched President Trump’s votes to Joe Biden’s votes with the Dominion machines,” she claimed.Wayne Liek, a retired truck driver, recalling prayers he said in school in the 1960s, agreed with Mr. Mastriano that the Constitutional separation of church and state was, as Mr. Mastriano described it, “a myth.”A core of Mr. Mastriano’s popularity with Republicans is his embrace of views associated with Christian nationalism, the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, and often intertwined with far-right conspiratorial thinking.Mr. Mastriano, the sponsor in the legislature of a six-week abortion ban with no exceptions, has appeared to modulate that position lately.Dustin Franz for The New York TimesFew attendees seemed aware of the furor over Mr. Mastriano’s presence on Gab. His campaign had paid $5,000 to broaden his support with users of the social media site, which is known as a haven for white nationalists. A post by Mr. Mastriano in July criticizing Democratic policies drew dozens of replies that were antisemitic insults of Mr. Shapiro.Gab’s founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mr. Mastriano in videos laced with antisemitic vitriol. Mr. Mastriano distanced himself from Mr. Torba on July 28, saying that he rejected “antisemitism in any form.’’At a later appearance where he did give a speech, in Cochranton, Mr. Mastriano said: “It’s funny, they want to call us extremists. They’re the extremists.’’He attacked Mr. Shapiro for suing, as attorney general, to keep a mask mandate in schools and to uphold Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown of nonessential businesses early in the pandemic. Mr. Mastriano first gained a following for leading protests against restrictions to prevent the spread of Covid. Fury at those orders lingers for many conservatives.Asked about the suits, Mr. Shapiro said that he personally opposes mandates for masks and vaccines, but as the state’s top lawyer he was required to represent the governor and executive branch in litigation. He prevailed in both cases.Before he campaigned in State College, a blue island in a sea of red in central Pennsylvania, Mr. Shapiro had visited Lock Haven in nearby Clinton County.Mike Hanna Sr., a retired Democratic state lawmaker from the area, said Mr. Mastriano “has a strong base here, just like Trump.” But Mr. Hanna said the former president had lost support since inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol.“I hunt with a bunch of veterans, and they just shake their heads,” Mr. Hanna said. “Trump has done a lot to erode his standing with his base, and Mastriano’s participation in all that, and the extreme positions he’s taken, have done the same thing.”“It’d be a lot scarier for us,” Mr. Hanna said, “if the Republicans had selected a moderate.” More

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      After Loss, Liz Cheney Begins Difficult Mission of Thwarting Trump

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      JACKSON, Wyo. — Hours after her landslide loss, Representative Liz Cheney wasted no time Wednesday taking her first steps toward what she says is now her singular goal: blocking Donald J. Trump from returning to power.Ms. Cheney announced that her newly rebranded political organization, the Great Task, would be dedicated to mobilizing opposition to Mr. Trump. And in an early morning television interview, she for the first time acknowledged what many have suspected: She is “thinking” about running for president in 2024, she said on NBC’s “Today Show,” and would decide in the “coming months.”Despite the effort to shift quickly from her defeat to her future, Ms. Cheney and her advisers remained vague about precisely how the congresswoman, who lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger by 37 points in Wyoming on Tuesday, planned to build a movement that could thwart a figure with a strong hold on many of his party’s voters and a set of imposing advantages.Allies, advisers and Ms. Cheney herself insist there are no detailed plans prepared for her mission. Her focus remains on the panel investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, they said. (As if to underscore the point, Ms. Cheney on Wednesday jetted from Wyoming back to Washington, where Congress is in recess for the summer.)But Ms. Cheney’s every move will be watched closely by a pocket of the political class that has been increasingly agitating for a third party that they argue could not only block Mr. Trump, but ease the rising political polarization.“The amount of money that is available for Liz Cheney to continue her work to keep Trump from terrorizing us depends on how good her plans are,” said Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to several major Democratic donors, including Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn. “If she has really good plans, then the amount of money available to her is definitely in the double-digit millions.”For the moment, Ms. Cheney’s infrastructure is not much bigger than her family and a handful of aides in her congressional office. But she had over $7.4 million in the bank last month, money she can transfer to the new entity she’s forming.Ms. Cheney’s options may be obvious, but there’s no clear path ahead — and she faces the risk of inadvertently aiding Mr. Trump’s comeback.A policy wonk with no great enthusiasm for retail politics, she could build a political operation dedicated to defeating Republicans who endorse Mr. Trump’s false claims of winning the 2020 election. That would inevitably mean openly supporting Democrats, something she has yet to commit to. On Wednesday, when asked if she believes the country would be better off under Democratic control in Washington, she dodged.“I think we have to make sure that we are fighting against every single election denier,” she said. “The election deniers, right now, are Republicans. And I think that it shouldn’t matter what party you are. Nobody should be voting for those people, supporting them or backing them.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsLiz Cheney’s Lopsided Loss: The Republican congresswoman’s defeat in Wyoming exposed the degree to which former President Donald J. Trump still controls the party’s present — and its near future.2024 Hint: Hours after her loss, Ms. Cheney acknowledged that she was “thinking” about a White House bid, a prospect that would test the national viability of a conservative, anti-Trump platform.The ‘Impeachment 10’: With Ms. Cheney’s defeat, only two of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump remain.Alaska Races: Senator Lisa Murkowski and Sarah Palin appeared to be on divergent paths following contests that offered a glimpse at the state’s independent streak.Ms. Cheney also could focus on laying the groundwork for her own candidacy for president — either as a Republican or as an independent. The latter effort risks peeling away votes from Democrats and ultimately helping Mr. Trump win if he runs, as is widely expected.If she runs as an expressly anti-Trump candidate in the 2024 Republican primary, harnessing the media attention that would come with even a long-shot bid, it may only serve to fracture the share of the G.O.P. electorate eager for a Trump alternative. Ms. Cheney needs no reminding that the former president claimed the 2016 nomination with pluralities in many early nominating states, as he had no single, formidable opponent.Former Vice President Mike Pence, campaigning in New Hampshire on Wednesday for local Republicans, called on Donald Trump’s defenders to halt their attacks on the F.B.I.CJ Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockIt’s clear Ms. Cheney would have competition for the anybody-but-Trump vote in a Republican primary. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence was in first-in-the-nation New Hampshire, offering his critique of the former president and his most ardent defenders. Mr. Pence declared that Republicans’ “attacks on the F.B.I. must stop” and likened calls to defund the F.B.I. after the bureau’s recent search of Mr. Trump’s home to retrieve classified documents to left-wing calls to defund the police. More

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      Republicans Are America’s Problem

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      Tuesday’s primary in Wyoming delivered Liz Cheney a resounding defeat. She is one of the few Republicans in Congress willing to resist Donald Trump’s election lies, and Republican voters punished her for it.First, let me say, I have no intention of contributing to the hagiography of Liz Cheney. She is a rock-ribbed Republican who supported Trump’s legislative positions 93 percent of the time. It is on the insurrection and election lies where she diverged.In a way, she is the Elvis of politics: She took something — in this case a position — that others had held all along and made it cross over. She mainstreamed a political principle that many liberals had held all along.Excuse me if I temper my enthusiasm for a person who presents herself as a great champion of democracy but votes against the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.Situational morality is better than none, I suppose, but I see it for what it is, and I am minimally moved.However, her loss does crystallize something for us that many had already known: that the bar to clear in the modern Republican Party isn’t being sufficiently conservative but rather being sufficiently obedient to Donald Trump and his quest to deny and destroy democracy.We must stop thinking it hyperbolic to say that the Republican Party itself is now a threat to our democracy. I understand the queasiness about labeling many of our fellow Americans in that way. I understand that it sounds extreme and overreaching.But how else are we to describe what we are seeing?Of the 10 Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Donald Trump for his role in fomenting the insurrection, four didn’t seek re-election and four lost their primaries. Only two have advanced to the general election, and those two were running in states that allow voters to vote in any primary, regardless of their party affiliation.Polls have consistently shown that only a small fraction of Republicans believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected. He was, of course. (That fact apparently can’t be repeated often enough.)And in fact, according to a Washington Post analysis published this week, in battleground states, nearly two-thirds of the Republican nominees for the state and federal offices with sway over elections believe the last election was stolen.This is only getting worse. Last month, a CNN poll found that Republicans are now less likely to believe that democracy is under attack than they were earlier in the year, before the Jan. 6 committee began unveiling its explosive revelations. Thirty-three percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said the party should be very accepting of candidates who say the election was stolen; 39 percent more said the party should be somewhat accepting of those candidates.Furthermore, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll published in January found that the percentage of Republicans who say that violence against the government can sometimes be justified had climbed to 40 percent, compared with just 23 percent of Democrats. It should also be noted that 40 percent of white people said that violence could be justified compared with just 18 percent of Black people.We have to stop saying that all these people are duped and led astray, that they are somehow under the spell of Trump and programmed by Fox News.Propaganda and disinformation are real and insidious, but I believe that to a large degree, Republicans’ radicalization is willful.Republicans have searched for multiple election cycles for the right vehicle and packaging for their white nationalism, religious nationalism, nativism, craven capitalism and sexism.There was a time when they believed that it would need to be packaged in politeness — compassionate conservatism — and the party would eventually recommend a more moderate approach intended to branch out and broaden its appeal — in its autopsy after Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss.But Trump offered them an alternative, and they took it: Instead of running away from their bigotries, intolerances and oppression, they would run headlong into them. They would unapologetically embrace them.This, to many Republicans, felt good. They no longer needed to hide. They could live their truths, no matter how reprehensible. They could come out of the closet, wrapped in their cruelty.But the only way to make this strategy work and viable, since neither party dominates American life, was to back a strategy of minority rule and to disavow democracy.A Pew Research Center poll found that between 2018 and 2021, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents gradually came to support more voting restrictions.In a December NPR/Ipsos poll, a majority of Democrats, independents and Republicans all thought that American democracy, and America itself, was in crisis, but no group believed it more than Republicans.But this is a scenario in which different people look at the same issue from different directions and interpret it differently.Republicans are the threat to our democracy because their own preferred form of democracy — one that excludes and suppresses, giving Republicans a fighting chance of maintaining control — is in danger.For modern Republicans, democracy only works — and is only worth it — when and if they win.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More