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    John Eastman, Former Trump Election Lawyer, Should Be Disbarred, Judge Finds

    The decision was only the latest effort by bar officials to seek accountability against a group of lawyers who sought to help President Donald J. Trump stay in office despite his election loss.A judge in California recommended on Wednesday that the lawyer John Eastman be stripped of his law license, finding he had violated rules of professional ethics by persistently lying in his efforts to help former President Donald J. Trump maintain his grip on power after losing the 2020 election.In a 128-page ruling, the judge, Yvette Roland, said Mr. Eastman had willfully misrepresented facts in lawsuits he helped file challenging the election results and acted dishonestly in promoting a “wild theory” that Mr. Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, could unilaterally declare him the victor during a certification proceeding at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.“In sum, Eastman exhibited gross negligence by making false statements about the 2020 election without conducting any meaningful investigation or verification of the information he was relying upon,” Judge Roland found, adding that he had breached “his ethical duty as an attorney to prioritize honesty and integrity.”The ruling said Mr. Eastman would lose his license within three days of the decision being issued. While he can appeal the finding, the ruling makes his license “inactive,” meaning that he cannot practice law in California while a review is taking place.The decision was only the latest effort by bar officials across the country to seek accountability against a group of lawyers who pushed false claims of election fraud and sought to help Mr. Trump stay in office.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How One Hour Encapsulated the Chaos of Trump’s Coming Trial

    One court offered Donald J. Trump a financial lifeline. Another set him on a path to prosecution. It was a taste of what America will experience until the November election.At 11 a.m. Monday, a New York appeals court made Donald J. Trump’s day, rescuing him from financial devastation in a civil fraud case.By noon, the New York judge overseeing his criminal case had nearly ruined it, setting Mr. Trump’s trial for next month and all but ensuring he will hold the dubious distinction of becoming the first former American president to be criminally prosecuted.The contrasting outcomes of Mr. Trump’s twin New York legal crises — a triumph in the civil case and a setback in the criminal one — set the former president on a winding path as he seeks to navigate around an array of legal troubles to recapture the White House.Unfolding in rapid succession in his hometown courts, the day’s events captured the disorienting reality of having a candidate who is also a defendant. And they showed that nothing about the months until Election Day will be easy, linear or normal — for Mr. Trump or the nation.Rather than mount a traditional cross-country campaign in the lead-up to the Republican National Convention in July, Mr. Trump, the presumptive nominee, is preparing to work around the criminal trial that will begin April 15 and last for at least six weeks.His schedule will be built around the four days each week that the trial is expected to take place in court, with Wednesdays expected to be an off day. One person familiar with his preliminary plans described weekend events held in strategically important states near New York, like Pennsylvania, or in hospitable areas outside Manhattan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Big Republican Donor Jeff Yass Owned Shares in Trump Media Merger Partner

    The billionaire Wall Street financier is also a major investor in ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, which faces a possible ban in the United States.Jeff Yass, the billionaire Wall Street financier and Republican megadonor who is a major investor in the parent company of TikTok, was also the biggest institutional shareholder of the shell company that recently merged with former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company.A December regulatory filing showed that Mr. Yass’s trading firm, Susquehanna International Group, owned about 2 percent of Digital World Acquisition Corp., which merged with Trump Media & Technology Group on Friday. That stake, of about 605,000 shares, was worth about $22 million based on Digital World’s last closing share price.It’s unclear if Susquehanna still owns those shares, because big investors disclose their holdings to regulators only periodically. But if it did retain its stake, Mr. Yass’s firm would become one of Trump Media’s larger institutional shareholders when it begins trading this week following the merger. Shares of Digital World have surged about 140 percent this year as the merger with the parent company of Truth Social, Mr. Trump’s social media platform, drew closer and Mr. Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee for president.“Susquehanna is a market maker and has zero economic interest in Trump Media,” said the company in a statement. “The firm’s long position is offset by short positions of the same size.”Regulatory filings show the firm used offsetting securities to try to minimize its gains or losses in the stock.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Lisa Murkowski Says She Won’t Vote for Trump

    Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said in an interview released on Sunday that she would not vote for former President Donald J. Trump. She also did not rule out the possibility of leaving the Republican Party.In the interview, which Ms. Murkowski gave to CNN, she said that she would “absolutely” not support Mr. Trump in the general election in November. She said that she wished Republicans had nominated someone whom she could vote for, but that she “certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”Asked whether she might leave the party and become an independent, she said that she considered herself “very independent-minded” and added, “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.” But she did not give a yes-or-no answer, saying: “I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.”If Ms. Murkowski left the Republican Party, it would be welcome news for Democrats facing a brutally difficult map in the Senate elections in November. Three of their current seats are up for election in red states, and several more are up for election in swing states. There are almost no opportunities to pick up seats currently held by Republicans, and there’s no room for error, given their very narrow majority.Ms. Murkowski, who has served in the Senate for more than 20 years, has long been more moderate than many Republicans. Among other positions that are rare in her party, she supports abortion rights, and she has long been critical of Mr. Trump, including in voting to convict him in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.But most elected Republicans, even those who denounced Mr. Trump after Jan. 6, have fallen back in line behind him as it has become clear that he will be the party’s nominee for president.Ms. Murkowski’s declaration that she will not vote for Mr. Trump puts her in the company of a small number of prominent anti-Trump Republicans, among them Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.“No, no, no, absolutely not,” Mr. Romney said last month when asked by CNN whether he would vote for Mr. Trump. More

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    In Fund-Raising Blitz, Trump Warns Democrats: Hands Off Trump Tower

    Former President Donald J. Trump, with a deadline fast approaching to secure a roughly half-billion-dollar bond in his civil fraud case in New York or risk seizure of his assets and flagship properties, sent an email on Saturday morning to his campaign’s supporters.The subject line — “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower” — was repeated at the start of the email in bold, italics and all caps, even as the message was clearly intended not for his backers but for New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the case.Mr. Trump told his supporters that Ms. James “wants to SEIZE my properties in New York,” adding, “THIS INCLUDES THE ICONIC TRUMP TOWER!” He then exhorted them to donate money to his presidential campaign as a show of strength against the web of legal troubles he faces, which he has broadly cast as a political witch hunt.With the deadline for Mr. Trump to post an appeals bond on Monday, the Trump campaign has sent at least 10 similar fund-raising solicitations since Wednesday accusing Ms. James and Democrats of trying to seize Mr. Trump’s marquee property, Trump Tower.Last month, a New York judge imposed a $454 million penalty on Mr. Trump in the civil fraud case after concluding that the former president had fraudulently inflated the value of his company’s properties and his net worth to obtain favorable loans and other benefits from banks.Mr. Trump has appealed the judgment, and was given until Monday to either write a check to the state court system for the full amount or obtain an appeal bond. But his lawyers said last week that he had been unable to secure the bond, raising the prospect that Ms. James could move to collect the money and try to seize some of the properties involved in the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Insurance Companies and the Prior Authorization Maze

    More from our inbox:Elect the U.S. Attorney GeneralFriendship MemoriesA Leadership GapInsurance companies have weaponized a seemingly benign process to protect their profits, and it’s putting patients at risk.To the Editor:Re “‘What’s My Life Worth?’ The Big Business of Denying Medical Care,” by Alexander Stockton (Opinion video, March 14), about prior authorization:Mr. Stockton’s video captures a current snapshot of an important truth about medical insurance in our country and in doing so does a service to all citizens by making them aware of this threat to themselves and their families.The immediate truth is that medical insurance companies are inadequately regulated, monitored and punished for their greed. In their current iteration they are bastions of greed, power and money. They need to be reined in.But there are other truths as well. Some physicians, just like some pharmaceutical companies, are unable to contain their greed and allow avarice to cloud their judgment, compromise their ethics and in some cases cross the line to Medicare fraud or other illegal activity.Medical care in our country is very big business involving billions of dollars. Without proper controls, regulation and monitoring, malfeasance follows. The challenge in such a complex and multifaceted context is how to implement such controls and monitoring without making things worse.Ross A. AbramsJerusalemThe writer, a retired radiation oncologist, is professor emeritus at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.To the Editor:The Times’s video exploits tragic outcomes and does not mention basic important facts about the limited yet key role of prior authorization in ensuring that patients receive evidence-based, affordable care.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More