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    Judge Declines to Hold Prosecutors in Contempt in Trump Election Case

    Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued her order after prosecutors continued to file court papers in the former president’s election interference case even though she had put the proceeding on hold.It was one of the odder tit-for-tat battles to have emerged so far in the federal case accusing former President Donald J. Trump of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.Even though the proceeding was put on hold by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan while Mr. Trump seeks to have the charges tossed out with broad claims of immunity, prosecutors, trying to nudge it forward, have continued filing motions and turning over evidence. The former president’s lawyers have angrily accused them of violating the judge’s order and were eventually annoyed enough to ask that the prosecutors be held in contempt.After simmering for a month, the dispute was resolved on Thursday when Judge Chutkan, who is handling the case in Federal District Court in Washington, issued an order saying she would not punish anyone with a finding of contempt.Still, in what felt like an attempt to soothe the tensions between the defense and prosecution, the judge told both sides that they should not file any more “substantive” motions without first asking for permission.From the outset, the quarrel over the filings and disclosures seemed to be the sort of petulant but ultimately harmless one-upmanship that often arises in prominent criminal cases. But it was also a reflection of a much more consequential fight over the timing of the case and whether it will go to trial as scheduled in March.It all began last month when prosecutors working for the special counsel, Jack Smith, sent Mr. Trump’s legal team a draft list of exhibits and a modest batch of discovery material even though Judge Chutkan had ordered all deadlines in the case put on hold only days before.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?  More

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    History Argues for Disqualifying Trump

    One of the most difficult things to ask a judge to do is issue a ruling that he or she believes is actually dangerous. Even if you can make a strong case that the letter of the law is on your side, judges are tempted to narrow the reach of disfavored laws or sometimes virtually rewrite them in order to avoid outcomes that are deemed too radical or disruptive.Thus, it’s incumbent on good lawyers to argue not merely in favor of the letter of the law but also for the underlying merit of the law itself. My newsletter two weeks ago focused mainly on the legal argument for disqualifying Donald Trump from the presidency on the basis of the text and history of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I made the case that the plain language of the amendment should disqualify Trump regardless of the consequences, which many observers — including some strongly opposed to Trump — believe would be dire and violent.Today, by contrast, I will make the case that even the consequences argue for Trump’s disqualification. Or, put more directly, that the consequences of not disqualifying the former president are likely to be worse than those of disqualifying him. This is the lesson of history both recent — the Trump era and Jan. 6, 2021 — and more distant. The profound mistakes of the Reconstruction-era Congress, just years after the Civil War and the ratification of the 14th Amendment, teach us about the high cost of welcoming insurrectionists back into high office.I addressed these points briefly in a short post for our new Opinion blog, but they deserve more attention. Critics of applying Section 3 to Trump have correctly and eloquently argued that removing him from the race could trigger a convulsive and potentially violent backlash in the American body politic. Millions of Americans would feel as if their choice was taken from them and that scheming elites were destroying American democracy.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?  More

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    Judge Denies Effort to Remove Trump From the Ballot in Washington State

    A judge in Washington State said on Thursday that former President Donald J. Trump’s name could remain on the state’s primary ballot. The ruling was the latest in a series of battles nationwide over whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat make him ineligible to hold the presidency again.A group of voters had filed a legal challenge asking state officials in Washington to leave Mr. Trump off the Republican primary ballot. But Judge Mary Sue Wilson said that Washington’s secretary of state had acted “consistent with his duties” by including Mr. Trump.Formal challenges to Mr. Trump’s candidacy have been filed in at least 35 states, according to a New York Times review of court records and other documents. So far, he has been disqualified in only two states: Colorado, by an appeals court ruling, and Maine, by the secretary of state.The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Mr. Trump’s appeal of the Colorado decision on Feb. 8. The case could determine his eligibility for the ballot nationally.Tracking Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 BallotSee which states have challenges seeking to bar Donald J. Trump from the presidential primary ballot.As in other states, the voters in Washington argued that Mr. Trump’s actions related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol made him ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment. Steve Hobbs, the secretary of state and Washington’s top election official, has said he does not believe that he has the power to remove Mr. Trump from the primary ballot on his own.But Mr. Hobbs has said that court rulings could change his decision. A lawyer representing his office asked Judge Wilson on Thursday for a prompt ruling on the challenge to Mr. Trump’s eligibility, because ballots would be going out later this month to voters in the military and overseas.A lawyer representing the state Republican Party argued that the case brought by voters was flawed for technical reasons, and also because federal courts had not convicted Mr. Trump of any criminal conduct that would disqualify him.The issue could return after the primary, depending on Mr. Trump’s legal fortunes. Washington State law allows a voter to seek the removal of a candidate from the general election ballot if that candidate has been convicted of a felony, and Mr. Trump faces 91 felony charges as part of various criminal cases against him.In her ruling, Judge Wilson declined, for now, to rule on Mr. Trump’s eligibility for the general election in November.Lazaro Gamio More

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    Nikki Haley Is Chasing Independents. They Have a Mind of Their Own.

    Her chance to beat Donald J. Trump in New Hampshire depends on her ability to win over its famously freethinking voters. Her challenge is that they come in all stripes.Nikki Haley’s presidential aspirations may hang on a victory in the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday, powered by her sway with people who do not belong to a political party. It’s not a bad bet in a state where about 40 percent of voters call themselves independents.The problem with her plan: Those voters come in all shapes and stripes, and many of them aren’t open to her.Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has won over plenty of voters in the middle in New Hampshire. They include moderate, conservative-leaning independents chased from the Republican Party by former President Donald J. Trump. And about 4,000 Democrats have re-registered as Republicans or independents to vote in the G.O.P. primary, in some cases to thwart Mr. Trump’s steady march to the nomination.But New Hampshire’s potentially crucial primary will also include many other types of voters who have chosen to keep their distance from both parties:Independents on the left who are loyal to their next-door senator, Bernie Sanders.Independents on the right who plan to vote in the Democratic primary against President Biden.True swing voters who are up for grabs in every election.And working-class Trump supporters who don’t want to belong to a Republican Party long associated with the rich — but who are very much in the former president’s camp.“Our country was thriving when he was in last time, so I’m going to go with what I know,” said Stacy Kolofoles of Laconia, who is a longtime independent but nonetheless “can’t see myself ever voting for a Democrat.”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?  More

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    Iowa abre el camino para la tercera nominación de Trump

    Debido a sus múltiples problemas legales y electorales, el exmandatario parece destinado a ser omnipresente en este 2024.Hasta hace poco, muchas personas que vivieron, con hastío y horror, la presidencia de Donald Trump casi podían convencerse de que el hombre se había ido.En apariencia, era el líder de un movimiento en el exilio que se estaba cociendo a fuego lento en Florida y cuyas desbocadas mentiras electorales habían quedado confinadas en monólogos privados y plataformas modestas. Ya no aparecía en Fox News, el órgano mediático más poderoso de la derecha. Sus diatribas publicadas en Truth Social no impactaron con la fuerza de sus predecesoras publicadas en X, cuando esa plataforma aún se llamaba Twitter. Incluso como candidato presidencial declarado durante los últimos 14 meses, Trump a menudo les cedió la ruta de campaña a sus rivales (quienes en su mayoría luchaban entre sí, en vez de contra él), no asistía a debates y tan solo aparecía de manera episódica en compromisos públicos que no fueran asuntos relacionados con los tribunales.Sin embargo, con su aplastante victoria en Iowa, que codifica su control sobre amplias franjas del electorado republicano, hubo dos conclusiones ineludibles el martes por la mañana.Trump ha vuelto a convertirse en la figura dominante de la vida política estadounidense y está destinado a ser omnipresente, con sus entrelazados dramas legales y electorales que podrían ensombrecer el año más importante de la nación.Además, en realidad, nunca se fue.Después de un mandato en la Casa Blanca que a menudo consumía la psique nacional hora tras hora —agitando a sus simpatizantes y aterrorizando a sus detractores con cada publicación caprichosa e impulso que rompía las normas, lo cual culminó en el ataque de una turba contra el Capitolio el 6 de enero de 2021—, algunos miembros de ambos partidos y de la prensa política que estaban fatigados con Trump a veces parecían desear su desaparición, como si el oxígeno mediático por sí solo lo hubiera alimentado los últimos ocho años.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?  More

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    17 Trump Cabinet-Level Appointees Criticizing Trump

    A president’scabinet is full of great character witnesses. The president chose them.They said yes. They worked togetherclosely. A president’s cabinet is fullof great character witnesses.The president chose them. They said yes. They worked together closely. These cabinet-level appointeessaw Donald Trump up close. And theydecided they couldn’t stand by him. These cabinet-level appointees saw Donald Trump […] More

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    Eyeing Super Tuesday, Trump Is Eager to Dispatch Rivals Sooner Than Later

    The former president is looking to lock up the nomination by Super Tuesday on March 5, but Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis insist they plan to compete deep into March.With five days left until the New Hampshire primary, Donald J. Trump and his allies are stepping up their efforts to muscle Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis out of the Republican presidential race by casting Mr. Trump’s nomination as inevitable.The strategy reflects an urgent desire to end the race quickly and avoid an extended and expensive battle for delegates heading into Super Tuesday on March 5.Mr. Trump is facing 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions, as well as two costly civil trials, where he has used voluntary appearances at New York courthouses this month as public relations and fund-raising vehicles. But February offers him few such opportunities, meaning he would need to rely on his political strength alone to generate momentum for Super Tuesday, when voters in 16 states and territories will cast ballots for the nomination.In New Hampshire, Mr. Trump began attacking Ms. Haley with paid advertising weeks ago, and intensified the onslaught more recently with sharper personal criticisms and campaign statements portraying her as a China-loving globalist. On Tuesday, he went after Ms. Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, on his social media website, using her birth name — Nimarata, which he misspelled as “Nimrada” — as a dog whistle, much like his exaggerated enunciation of former President Barack Obama’s middle name, “Hussein.”And he has grown more aggressive on the campaign trail. In Portsmouth, N.H., on Wednesday night, he said of Ms. Haley, “I don’t know that she’s a Democrat, but she’s very close. She’s far too close for you.”Mr. Trump is facing 91 criminal charges in four jurisdictions, as well as two costly civil trials, which he has turned into public relations and fund-raising vehicles.Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut his team is looking ahead to the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24 as a “Waterloo” for his primary rivals, according to one Trump adviser, likening the state to the battlefield where Napoleon met his final defeat. Their aim is to humiliate her in her home state.“South Carolina is where Nikki Haley’s dreams go to die,” another senior Trump adviser, Chris LaCivita, said in a brief interview.Mr. Trump has been privately courting Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, hoping to win his endorsement before the primary. Trump allies who have relationships with Mr. Scott, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have been assisting the effort.Republicans across the country, including senators who were previously skeptical of Mr. Trump, are assisting his strategy by consolidating their support, rushing to declare the race over, rolling out endorsements and demanding that his rivals quit immediately to “unify” the party against President Biden.Their efforts are being aided by the conservative news media, which has turned sharply against Mr. DeSantis after giving his candidacy favorable coverage early on.The inevitability strategy also appears to be bearing fruit within the business community. On Wednesday morning, one of Wall Street’s most powerful chief executives, Jamie Dimon, the head of JPMorgan Chase — who as recently as November urged donors to “help Nikki Haley” — praised aspects of Mr. Trump’s record and scolded Democrats for vilifying the former president’s Make America Great Again movement.Ms. Haley and Mr. DeSantis both insist their campaigns are alive and well, with plans to compete deep into March. But the reality is that a comeback victory would represent one of the greatest upsets in modern American political history. That would be especially true if Mr. Trump wins New Hampshire, since no Republican who has won two of the first three traditional early states — Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — has ever lost the party’s nomination.Ms. Haley finished a disappointing third in Monday’s Iowa caucuses but is facing what polls suggest is more favorable terrain in New Hampshire, where unaffiliated voters can cast ballots in the primary and where her allies argue even a close second could provide a rationale to stay in the race. Even there, however, she needs a large turnout of unaffiliated voters to overcome Mr. Trump’s overwhelming backing from Republicans.“She basically has to turn the Republican primary into the unaffiliated primary,” Mr. LaCivita, the senior Trump adviser, said of the state.Nikki Haley campaigned on Wednesday night in Rochester, N.H. She is expected to fare better in New Hampshire than she did in Iowa.Sophie Park for The New York TimesMs. Haley’s path to a competitive race seems more visible than Mr. DeSantis’s, but only barely: She must win the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday or come in a very close second, and ride a wave of media momentum for a month before tackling Mr. Trump head-on in the state she used to govern, South Carolina, where he has a huge lead and endorsements from powerful politicians there, including the governor.In New Hampshire, the Trump campaign is trying to engage what one adviser called a “pincer” — squeezing Ms. Haley from both ends of the ideological spectrum. An advertising campaign began lacing into her on immigration (hitting her from the right) before criticizing her for wanting to raise the retirement age for Social Security (hitting her from the left).Ms. Haley is trying to portray Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden as two of the same: Disliked elderly politicians who are exacerbating chaos and division in America. It’s a message tailored for independent voters who have tired of Mr. Trump, but the message will most likely have far less purchase among Republican voters.While Ms. Haley is courting independent voters in New Hampshire, it’s harder to see how a Republican candidate can win a Republican nomination without much stronger support from Republicans.On Wednesday, Ms. Haley’s campaign manager, Betsy Ankney, rejected the notion that Ms. Haley’s strategy was to rely on independent and crossover Democratic voters to make up for softer support among Republicans.Ms. Ankney said the strategy has always been to do well in New Hampshire, roll out with momentum into South Carolina and then go head-to-head against Mr. Trump on Super Tuesday, when independents have historically made a difference in open or semi-open primaries, including in 2016 for Mr. Trump.Polls showing Mr. Trump far ahead in Texas and other Super Tuesday states should not be taken seriously, Ms. Ankney insisted, because “people have not started to pay attention” in those states and “there has been zero advertising.” The Haley campaign is optimistic that she can perform especially strongly in March states that have larger populations of college-educated voters, including Virginia.Mr. Trump’s team is far less worried about Mr. DeSantis, who finished in second place in Iowa just two points ahead of Ms. Haley, but who is far behind in New Hampshire. The Trump team suspects Mr. DeSantis will struggle to keep his candidacy financially afloat long enough to compete seriously on Super Tuesday.Ron DeSantis at a campaign event in Hampton, N.H., on Wednesday. He is largely leaving the state to focus on South Carolina.John Tully for The New York TimesThe DeSantis path beyond February is murky — a fact reflected by the pro-DeSantis super PAC’s decision on Wednesday to lay off staff in some of its March 5 states. But the DeSantis team insists the candidate has no plans to drop out before South Carolina.“There is no mathematical pathway for Nikki Haley to win the nomination,” said David Polyansky, the DeSantis deputy campaign manager. “And even if she makes it to South Carolina, no amount of Wall Street money will bail her out from losing her home state, and then it will be a two-person race between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.”A majority of Mr. DeSantis’s staff is moving to South Carolina, and he will mostly stop campaigning in New Hampshire after his events on Wednesday, according to a person familiar with his plans, who insisted on anonymity.The fact that South Carolina was his first stop after Iowa was described as an intentional signal about his electoral calculations.On a staff call after Iowa, Mr. DeSantis’s campaign manager, James Uthmeier, described Mr. DeSantis’s view: The caucuses showed that Mr. Trump doesn’t have the standing he once did after getting just over 50 percent, and that Republicans want an alternative, according to people familiar with what was said.Mr. DeSantis’s advisers remain furious at the Haley camp’s decision to spend more than $20 million attacking Mr. DeSantis on television ads before Iowa, which a top aide publicly described as “greed” ahead of the caucuses and insisted was meant to help Mr. Trump. The DeSantis team has openly accused Ms. Haley of campaigning to become Mr. Trump’s running mate and not to win, a claim that she has denied.In a late November phone call, days before the political network founded by the billionaire Koch brothers endorsed Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis had warned a Koch network operative that any money they spent aiding Ms. Haley and attacking Mr. DeSantis would only help Mr. Trump, according to two people familiar with the conversation. That’s because many DeSantis voters still liked the former president and would sooner peel off and support him than back Ms. Haley, who is viewed as more moderate. Mr. DeSantis told the operative that the money should be spent going after Mr. Trump, the people familiar with the call said.The Koch network went ahead with its endorsement of Ms. Haley and put its expensive ground operation into her service, sweeping out across Iowa and New Hampshire in a last-minute sprint of door knocking.Another element of Mr. Trump’s inevitability messaging is his growing discussion of possible personnel for a second term. Mr. Trump, who out of superstition has long avoided discussing who might serve in his administration, has begun indulging discussions of who might serve alongside him.At his Iowa victory party on Monday night, Mr. Trump brought onstage Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, who had ended his own presidential campaign and endorsed the front-runner. Mr. Trump told the audience that he had Mr. Burgum pegged for an important role in his administration.A Trump supporter near his rally in Portsmouth, N.H., on Wednesday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnother former rival, Vivek Ramaswamy, immediately dropped out after the caucuses, endorsed Mr. Trump and urged all other candidates to do the same. As he appeared onstage with Mr. Trump at a rally in Atkinson, N.H., on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump grinned broadly as the crowd chanted, “V.P., V.P., V.P.”“He’ll be working with us for a long time,” said Mr. Trump. It was a whiplash reversal that’s typical of Mr. Trump. Two days earlier, he had attacked Mr. Ramaswamy as “not MAGA.”Such rapid consolidation of the party behind Mr. Trump has visibly frustrated Mr. DeSantis and his allies, given that less than a year ago there was a moment when it seemed as if Republicans might be ready to move on and coalesce around the Florida governor.No defection was more emblematic of the shift than that of Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Mr. Lee was an early booster of Mr. DeSantis’s presidential run and had met with the governor to discuss policy, according to a person with direct knowledge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private meetings.Mr. Lee did not give Mr. DeSantis a heads up before he announced that he was endorsing Mr. Trump just three days before the Iowa caucuses, that person said. The DeSantis team saw the timing as a knife in the back.Dan Hauser, a campaign adviser to Mr. Lee, said in a statement that the senator didn’t call any candidate in the race before he endorsed Mr. Trump.In another personal twist, Mr. Lee’s wife, Sharon, had worked for the DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down. She left the group “a couple of months ago on her own terms,” according to Mr. Hauser.Michael Gold More

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    Iowa Caucus Recap: Trump’s Win, the Weather, and a Look Toward New Hampshire

    Listen to and follow ‘The Run-Up’Apple Podcasts | Spotify | AmazonAnna Foley and Lanny Van Daele casting his presidential preference vote in Coralville, Iowa, on Monday.Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette, via Associated PressGoing into the Iowa caucuses, there were a handful of key things we were watching for: Would the frigid weather hamper turnout? Would his overwhelming dominance in the polls translate to a decisive victory for Donald Trump? And finally, could the other candidates muster enough of a showing to keep the race alive?Today: Through conversations with Iowa caucus goers — especially those who preferred another candidate to Trump — we get answers to our questions. And we check in with our colleague Nick Corasaniti in New Hampshire about how the state’s independents are approaching the primary next week — and how confident Trump is of a second early state victory.About ‘The Run-Up’“The Run-Up” is your guide to understanding the 2024 election. Through on-the-ground reporting and conversations with colleagues from The New York Times, newsmakers and voters across the country, our host, Astead W. Herndon, takes us beyond the horse race to explore how we came to this unprecedented moment in American politics. New episodes on Thursdays.Credits“The Run-Up” is hosted by More