Trump, Donald J

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Christie Lashes Trump in New Hampshire, to Republicans Open to It

      by

      Missing from Chris Christie’s campaign stop: Republicans who are leaning toward Donald J. Trump but open to an alternative.Chris Christie brought his Talking Truth to Donald Trump performance back to New Hampshire on Wednesday evening, aiming a fresh quiver of poison darts at the former president. His talk pleased a small Trump-skeptical crowd, but raised the big question about Mr. Christie’s candidacy: Where are all the other Republican voters?For the most part, Mr. Christie was preaching to the choir. Submitting to more than 90 minutes of questions in a town hall format, he heard from an audience member who identified as a member of an extinct species, a “Rockefeller Republican”; from another who said he used to work for a Republican senator but hasn’t voted Republican since 2016; and from a woman who introduced herself by saying, “I’m a Democrat, and you intrigue me.”At times the linoleum-floored room in a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Derry, with its circle of white folding chairs, took on the feeling of a therapy session for Republicans homeless in their party. “What in your opinion,” asked one man, “happened to the Republican Party? We know that Trump lied about the election, but why did so many of our fellow citizens believe that?”Since announcing his campaign two weeks ago, Mr. Christie has had a modest lift in early public polls of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, nudging into third place, though still far behind Mr. Trump, the front-runner. At the same time, Mr. Christie, who has positioned himself as Mr. Trump’s most direct critic, tops the list of 2024 candidates that Republicans say they will never consider.Mr. Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who was an early and eager Trump endorser in 2016 and stuck with him in 2020, presented himself on Wednesday as the lone truth-teller in the G.O.P. field — criticizing Mr. Trump as unfit for office, while mocking other primary rivals as too cowed to even challenge the former president’s lies about the 2020 election.“You want to beat the incumbent?” Mr. Christie said, meaning Mr. Trump. “Then you have to beat the incumbent.”Ticking off a list of others in the race — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Asa Hutchinson among them — Mr. Christie said: “They can’t win if they’re not going to make the case against him.”He told voters to demand of every candidate, “Why are you defending the big lie that the election was stolen?”Referring to a Fox News interview with Mr. Trump this week, Mr. Christie said, in so many words, that it presented an emperor devoid of clothing. He said “the most disturbing thing” was Mr. Trump’s answer to why he didn’t return classified documents after receiving a subpoena in a case that led to his federal indictment.“His answer was I was too busy to go through all the boxes to comply with the grand jury subpoena,” said Mr. Christie, a former federal prosecutor. “I can guarantee that interview will be Exhibit 1 in the trial on the classified documents, because he essentially admitted to willful obstruction of justice.”Mr. Trump “just sat there and told his lawyer to lie,” Mr. Christie continued. “This is not the résumé of somebody you need behind the desk in the Oval Office again, and our party can do better.”There were about 50 people present, and about the same number of unfilled seats. A livestream of the town hall event never seemed to have more than about 125 viewers. A press contingent of about a dozen people spoke to the outsize interest in Mr. Christie’s campaign from the news media and pundits, because of the phenomenon of a mainstream candidate’s taking on a former president of his own party so bluntly.Missing from the room, however, was the core of the Republican Party: voters leaning toward Mr. Trump who have propelled his rise in recent months, but who are still open to an alternative. Nearly all the voters present seemed to have turned their backs on Mr. Trump — a narrow slice of the primary electorate.Mr. Christie took the fact in stride.“I’ve been in this race for two weeks — two weeks — and I went from zero in New Hampshire to 9 percent, four points behind Ron DeSantis,” he said, citing a survey last week for NH Journal, a Republican-leaning news site. The poll also found that Mr. Christie topped the “no way” list for the state’s Republican electorate.On the way out, Kerry MacDonald, a real estate title agent from Litchfield, acknowledged, “I will say openly that I was a Trump supporter” in 2020. “I realize that campaign is in absolute chaos.”“I just don’t think he’s capable of unifying the party,” he said of the former president. “Governor Christie, on the other hand, he’s very well-spoken, he’s a direct candidate. I like the fact he’s worked both sides of the aisle as a governor. I’m feeling very strongly as I walk out tonight.” More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Special Counsel Who Hunted for a Deep-State Conspiracy Presents Muted Findings

      by

      John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel, criticized the F.B.I. during a six-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who for four years pursued a politically fraught investigation into the Russia inquiry, told lawmakers on Wednesday that F.B.I. officials had exhibited confirmation bias — even as he defended his work against Democratic accusations that he became a partisan tool.In a nearly six-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Durham rarely offered new information, repeatedly saying he did not want to go beyond his report. That approach echoed an appearance in 2019 before the same committee by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.The hearing may be the final — official, at least — chapter in the complex saga of the Russia investigation and former President Donald J. Trump’s repeated efforts to reframe it as a deep-state plot, which has been a source of turbulence in American political life for more than six years. Mr. Durham retired after completing his report last month, and Senate Democrats have not invited him to testify.For years, Mr. Trump and his allies stoked expectations that Mr. Durham would find a conspiracy lurking in the origins of the Russia investigation and would prosecute high-level officials. But Mr. Durham developed only two peripheral cases, both of which ended in acquittals, while citing flaws in the F.B.I.’s early investigative steps he attributed to confirmation bias.“There were identified, documented, significant failures of a highly sensitive, unique investigation that was undertaken by the F.B.I.,” Mr. Durham said. “The investigation clearly reveals that decisions that were made were made in one direction. If there was something that was inconsistent with the notion that Trump was involved in a well-coordinated conspiracy with the Russians, that information was largely discarded or ignored.”The hearing was largely a predicable display of partisanship, with each party trading claims about the merits of the underlying investigation into Russia’s attempt to manipulate the 2016 election in Mr. Trump’s favor. Mr. Mueller documented myriad links between Russia and Trump campaign officials, but did not charge any Trump associate with a criminal conspiracy with Russia.Republicans railed against the Russia investigation as unjustified and portrayed it as politically motivated and corrupt, focusing on flawed wiretap applications and text messages in which F.B.I. officials expressed animus toward Mr. Trump.Democrats defended it as legitimate and necessary by turning to the substance of Mr. Mueller’s work. Not only did he indict numerous Russians — and win convictions of multiple Trump associates on other crimes — but he also uncovered how the Trump campaign’s chairman had shared internal polling and strategy with a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant the government says is a Russian intelligence agent, among other things.For large portions of the hearing, Mr. Durham served as a foil for both purposes, as lawmakers on each side asked questions intended to affirm whatever facts or claims they wanted to emphasize.President Donald J. Trump, Attorney General William P. Barr and their allies in Congress stoked expectations that Mr. Durham would find a “deep state” conspiracy.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesMuch of his own critique of the investigation was familiar territory. The most factually grounded portions — especially errors and omissions in a set of wiretap applications that relied in part on claims in the so-called Steele dossier, a dubious compendium of what turned out to be opposition research indirectly funded by the Clinton campaign — echoed a December 2019 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general. Mr. Durham repeated those findings, but offered no concrete new suggestions for reforms.Other parts were more ephemeral. After Mr. Durham’s initial effort to find intelligence abuses at the heart of the Russia investigation came up empty, he shifted to hunting for a basis to blame the Clinton campaign. He used court filings and his report to insinuate that the campaign set out to defraud the F.B.I. and frame Mr. Trump, although he never charged any such conspiracy. Some Republicans, however, treated that idea as established fact.“What role did the Clinton campaign play in this hoax?” asked Representative Tom McClintock, Republican of California, adding, “Exactly what was the ‘Clinton Plan?’”But some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest supporters expressed disappointment that Mr. Durham did not live up to the grander expectations that he would put high-level officials in prison and prove a deep-state conspiracy.For example, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, insisted that suspicions about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia emerged because of an operation by Western intelligence agencies — a conspiracy theory that Mr. Durham set out to prove but failed to find evidence to support. Mr. Gaetz said Mr. Durham had let the country down, and compared the special counsel’s inquiry to the Washington Generals, the basketball team whose job is to lose in exhibition games against the Harlem Globetrotters.“When you are part of the cover-up, Mr. Durham, then it makes our job harder,” Mr. Gaetz said.Mr. Durham replied that Mr. Gaetz’s comments were “offensive.”Representative Matt Gaetz suggested that Mr. Durham was part of a cover-up.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesBut while most of the Republicans on the committee gave Mr. Durham a warmer welcome, he did not always say things that supported their position. Mr. Durham called Mr. Mueller a “patriot” and did not contradict any of his findings. He said that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election — and characterized that intelligence operation as a “significant threat.”Pushed by Representative Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, to go beyond his report’s conclusion that F.B.I. agents had acted with “confirmation bias” and accuse them in his testimony of having taken steps motivated by political favoritism, Mr. Durham demurred, saying that “it’s difficult to get into somebody else’s head.”And he said that the F.B.I. had “an affirmative duty” to open some kind of investigation into the allegation that served as the Russia investigation’s basis — an Australian diplomat said that a Trump campaign adviser had made a comment suggesting that the campaign had advance knowledge that Russia would anonymously dump out hacked Democratic emails.Still, he also testified that “in my view,” that information did not amount to “a legitimate basis to open as a full investigation” and that the bureau ought to have opened it as a lower-tier inquiry, like an “assessment” or a “preliminary” investigation. That went slightly beyond his report, which had argued that opening the inquiry at a lower level would have been better.The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, concluded in 2019 that the same information was a sufficient basis to open a “full” counterintelligence inquiry.Throughout the hearing, Democrats pressed Mr. Durham to acknowledge or explain certain findings from a New York Times article in January examining how his inquiry became roiled by internal dissent and ethical disputes.Mr. Durham rarely offered new information, repeatedly saying he did not want to go beyond his report. Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesThey asked him, for example, why his longtime deputy, Nora R. Dannehy, resigned from his team in September 2020. The Times reported that she did so in protest after disputes over prosecutorial ethics, including the drafting of a potential interim report before the 2020 election.Mr. Durham spoke highly of Ms. Dannehy but declined to say why she had resigned. He called the Times article “unsourced” but did not deny its findings, adding, “To the extent The New York Times wrote an article suggesting certain things, it is what it is.”Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, asked Mr. Durham whether it was true, as the Times also reported, that when he and Attorney General William P. Barr traveled to Italy to pursue a certain pro-Trump conspiracy theory, Italian officials denied it but passed on a tip about unrelated financial crimes linked to Mr. Trump.Mr. Barr decided the allegation, whose details remain unclear, was too serious to ignore but had Mr. Durham control an investigation into it, and he filed no charges, The Times reported.“The question’s outside the scope of what I think I’m authorized to talk about — it’s not part of the report,” Mr. Durham replied, but added: “I can tell you this. That investigative steps were taken, grand jury subpoenas were issued and it came to nothing.” More

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Mailbag: Does Trump Represent Half the Country?

      by

      Settling a marital dispute, and a question that gets at a tension within today’s conservatism — in this month’s reader mailbag.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressHelp settle a disputeNate, help me settle a marital dispute. My wife contends that 50 percent of the country are Trump supporters, while I believe the number is closer to 35-40 percent. Knowing that there is not a definitive answer — are we talking about all people, registered voters, etc. — who do you think is closer to being right? — Phil StevensonWhenever possible, it’s important for both partners to feel good with the settlement of a marital dispute. So let me suggest that the answer depends on your preferred definition of a “Trump supporter.”If a Trump supporter is someone who voted for Donald J. Trump or, alternately, someone who will vote for him over President Biden in the next election, I think the answer is closer to your wife’s 50 percent tally. After all, Mr. Trump won 47 percent of voters in 2020 and 46 percent in 2016. I’m open-minded about what he could win in 2024, but if the election were held today it’s reasonable to think he’d win something closer to 50 percent than 37.5 percent, the midway point of your 35-40 percent range.But if being a Trump supporter requires something more than merely preferring him over Mr. Biden, the number of Trump supporters is probably closer to your 35-40 percent range. To take one simple measure: Mr. Trump has around a 40 percent national favorability rating. Another option: Only 35 percent said they wanted him to run for president in an NBC poll taken in April.A.I. and pollingI am curious to know if you think A.I. has a place in the future of polling. — Brian BakerAt the moment, I’m more concerned that A.I. might claim an unintended place in the present of polling: by making it even easier for bots to contaminate online panels. I’m not sure that common data quality measures — like open-ended responses — will work for long.A boost for Haley?Does DeSantis’s decline offer any hope to Nikki Haley— David NewbergerThis is like asking whether the decline of the Mets — one of baseball’s best teams last year — gives any hope to the Washington Nationals (currently the National League’s worst team, but now just 6.5 games behind the Mets!). I suppose it must be good news for the Nats at some level, but the Mets weren’t really their problem. At the moment, Ms. Haley is not plainly outpacing the likes of Tim Scott, Chris Christie or Mike Pence. Ron DeSantis isn’t really her problem.What about Asa?Would love to hear your thoughts on the way Asa Hutchinson’s candidacy may play out. — Merideth TomlinsonWho? I’m joking of course (he’s the former Arkansas governor), but he’ll need to find a way to break out of obscurity in a big field. I would guess he’ll need to dazzle in the debates to even earn a look from most voters. I’m not sure you should count on it, but you never know.Books by candidatesI previously mentioned that I don’t read books by aspiring presidential candidates. Is that always a good idea?I was interested in your description of how you prepare yourself when evaluating candidates. What you do clearly makes sense, EXCEPT you immediately reminded me how I decided to support Barack Obama in 2008. I thought he was not a strong candidate, but he was an interesting person, so I read “Dreams From My Father” … and became a big Obama fan! I imagine I am not the only voter who had this experience. Of course, someone is unlikely to read a book by a candidate unless they are somewhat interested in that person. — Angie BoyterWhen I wrote that I don’t read a presidential candidate’s book, I was mainly thinking about the genre of political books written by someone just about to run for president. These books often weave biographical detail, policy proposals and a political message into a preview of a coming campaign. They largely go unread, but they offer an excuse for TV producers to book a presidential hopeful on their shows. Mr. Obama’s 2006 book, “The Audacity of Hope,” falls into this category.Why don’t I want to read a book like this? I want to know the message a candidate emphasizes in speeches, advertisements and interviews, not the one that makes it into a 100,000-word book.Your experience with “Dreams From My Father” — a literary autobiography — is quite different. The book was widely read, and the content was distinct from what Mr. Obama talked about on the campaign trail. This is pretty unusual; J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” is the only recent example that comes to mind of something like it. Perhaps that’s a case where there’s a better argument for reading the book.On DeSantis and freedomThis isn’t really a question, but it’s an interesting observation that gets at a tension within conservatism nowadays:He’s been popular with Democrats and Republicans alike in Florida for his freedoms, not restrictions. Limiting people’s freedoms, regardless of the topic, will definitely harm him. — John FahrenwaldMr. DeSantis rose to prominence by fighting for freedom from coronavirus restrictions, and this remains an important part of his brand. His budget is branded as a “Framework for Freedom.” His book — which by now you may have guessed I have not read — is titled “The Courage to Be Free.”But as Mr. DeSantis’s fight for freedom has transitioned to a fight against “woke,” his orientation toward “freedom” has become a bit more complicated. He signed a six-week abortion ban. He’s used his authority as governor to crack down on “woke” corporations, and he’s expressed skepticism about giving tax breaks to companies who go on to advance the left’s values. This is emblematic of a broader turn on the intellectual right in which many want to use the power of the government to defend what they say are traditional values and fight the influence of the left in academia, the media and corporate America.This is sometimes called “post-liberal” conservatism. Here, liberal is meant in the classical sense of supporting liberty, free markets and limited government (as it is still used in Europe), not the American sense of liberal: a regulated market economy with a welfare state. In this context, the Republican Party has represented a liberal conservatism for most of the last half-century. The post-liberal conservatives prioritize conserving traditional values over conserving liberty.This post-liberal turn among a segment of conservative intellectual elites may reflect genuine fears of the threat posed by the left to traditional values, but it’s hard to see a political winner here. America is fundamentally a liberal country — again, in the classical, lower-case-l sense. It’s hard to think of anything more deeply embedded in traditional American values than individual liberty and freedom. It is not Hungary. I would guess that the constituency for an explicitly post-liberal conservatism is pretty small; perhaps that’s why Mr. DeSantis continues to brand himself as someone fighting for freedom, even as he increasingly supports measures that arguably restrict it. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Chris Christie Is Doing Something Very, Very Important

      by

      Chris Christie made a complete fool of himself back in 2016, fan-dancing obsequiously around Donald Trump, angling for a crucial role in his administration, nattering on about their friendship, pretending or possibly even convincing himself that Trump could restrain his ego, check his nastiness, suspend his grift and, well, serve America. But then Christie, the former two-term governor of New Jersey, had plenty of company. And he never did style himself as some saint.It’s all water under the George Washington Bridge now. The Chris Christie of the current moment is magnificent. I don’t mean magnificent as in, he’s going to win the Republican presidential nomination. I don’t mean I’m rooting for a Christie presidency and regard him as the country’s possible salvation.But what he’s doing in this Republican primary is very, very important. It also couldn’t be more emotionally gratifying to behold. He’s telling the unvarnished truth about Trump, and he’s the only candidate doing that. A former prosecutor, he’s artfully, aggressively and comprehensively making the case against Trump, knocking down all the rationalizations Trump has mustered and all the diversions he has contrived since his 37-count federal indictment.None of the other candidates comes close. They’ve for the most part gagged themselves or decided to play laughable word games about who Trump is, what he has done and what he may yet do.It’s as if they’re looking at this wild and repugnant hyena, it has democracy in its jaws, and they know they should call it what it is and acknowledge what it’s poised to devour, but they’ve decided that merely hinting at that is candor and courage enough: “I think it might be nice if we Republicans gave an herbivore a crack at the presidency”; “Let’s think about what a post-scavenger era for the Republican Party would look like.”Then there’s Christie: “That’s one nasty, second-rate carnivore with no place on our savanna.” Never has a statement of the bestially obvious been so revolutionary.In a poll released on Friday by The New Hampshire Journal, Christie had pulled into third place among Republicans in the state, far behind Trump, who had 47 percent of the vote, but not far behind Ron DeSantis, who had just 13. Christie had 9, followed by Mike Pence with 5. That partly reflects Christie’s decision to make his initial stand, so to speak, in New Hampshire. But it also reflects something else: He’s excellent at this.Christie is to DeSantis what a Roman candle is to a scented votive. He explodes in a riot of color. DeSantis, on his best days, flickers.My enchantment with Christie’s fireworks makes me a cliché. In an observant and witty analysis in The Atlantic on Monday with the headline “Chris Christie, Liberal Hero,” David Graham inventoried the adoring media coverage Christie has garnered, noting that while there’s zero evidence that Christie could actually win the contest he has entered, “pundits are swooning.”But the swoon isn’t about Christie’s prospects. It’s about the hugely valuable contrast to other Republican presidential candidates that he’s providing. And about this: The health of American democracy hinges on a reckoning within the Republican Party, and that won’t come from Democrats saying the kinds of things that Christie is now. They’ve been doing that for years. It’ll come — if it even can — from the words and warnings of longtime Republicans who know how to get and use the spotlight.Did you see Christie’s CNN town hall last week? Have you watched or listened to any of his interviews? He’s funny. He’s lively. He’s crisp. And he’s right. Over the past few weeks, he has described Trump’s behavior as “vanity run amok.” Trump himself is “a petulant child.”At the town hall: “He is voluntarily putting our country through this. If at any point before the search in August of ’22 he had just done what anyone, I suspect, in this audience would have done, which is said, ‘All right, you’re serious? You’re serving a grand jury subpoena? Let me just give the documents back,’ he wouldn’t have been charged. Wouldn’t have been charged with anything even though he had kept them for almost a year and a half.”Other candidates, who prefer not to talk about the charges against Trump, are reportedly worried that his indictment will mean ceaseless chatter about him and extra difficulty promoting their own (muted and muddled) messages. Josh Barro, on his Substack newsletter Very Serious, nailed the absurdity of that, pointing out that Trump’s front-runner status and enormous lead over all of them guarantee that he’ll always monopolize the conversation, indictment or no indictment.“The Republican nomination campaign cannot — and will not — be about anything but Donald Trump, and the media is not going to invite them on TV to talk about topics other than Donald Trump,” Barro wrote. “So, since they are going to talk about Donald Trump all the time, they had better talk about why he should not be nominated.” Christie is getting invitations and attention because he is doing precisely that. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will take note and wise up.To the conundrum of what, if Christie qualifies for the Republican primary debates, he’ll do about the required pledge that he support whoever winds up getting the party’s nomination, he has apparently found a solution that’s suited to Republicans’ willful and nihilistic captivity to Trump, the stupidity of the pledge and the stakes of the race: He’ll sign what he must and later act as he pleases.“I will do what I need to do to be up on that stage to try to save my party and save my country,” he told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning.Chris Christie, superhero? He has his own supersize vanity. He is arguably playing the only part in the crowded primary field available to him. And those dynamics may have as much to do with his assault on Trump as moral indignation does. Even so, saving his party and country agrees with him.DeSantis, Pence, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley and other Republican presidential candidates are clearly telling themselves that they can’t do any good down the road if at this intersection they provoke Trump and run afoul of his supporters. Where have we heard that before? It’s a version of what Christie said to himself in 2016. He now sees the folly of that fable.For the Love of SentencesLaurence Olivier in the 1948 movie version of “Hamlet.”Everett CollectionSeveral Shakespeare-conscious, pest-minded lines in Maureen Dowd’s “To Jail or Not to Jail” column in The Times constituted perhaps the most-nominated passage of writing in this newsletter feature’s history: “We can’t shuffle off the mortal coil of Trump. He has burrowed, tick-like, into the national bloodstream, causing all kinds of septic responses.” (Thanks to Phyllis Wolf of Albuquerque, N.M., and Avon Crawford of Norwalk, Iowa, among many, many others, for shining a spotlight on that.)In The Globe and Mail of Toronto, Andrew Coyne assessed the current Trumpian crossroads: “So we come to the present pass, with the world’s most powerful nation, with all of its magnificent history and intricate constitutional architecture, at the mercy of a pathological narcissist, trembling at the thought of bringing him to justice — as if it were the act of applying the law to him, and not his brazen defiance of it, that were the anomaly.” Coyne also commented on how Trump, in the wake of his federal indictment, is trying “to bring the whole U.S. justice system down around him.” “This is not the reaction of a normal person,” he continued. “It is not even the reaction of a mob boss. It is the reaction of a Batman villain.” (Stella Deacon, Toronto, and Julie Fleming, Toronto)In The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland wrote: “The three tenors of showman populism, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Silvio Berlusconi, reached the top through a combination of telegenic clownishness, ‘I alone can fix it’ braggadocio and a shared strain of narcissistic nationalism — and now one faces the judgment of the courts, another has fled the judgment of his peers, while the third contemplates the judgment of the heavens.” (Harriette Royer, Rochester, N.Y.)Let’s pivot from Trump and Trump analogues to Trump sycophants. In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols described how J.D. Vance, who once spoke with such disparaging and devastating accuracy about Trump, did a self-serving about-face in his 2022 Senate race in Ohio and, reprogrammed by that victory, never looked back: “What he once wore as electoral camouflage is now tattooed all over him, in yet another fulfillment of the late Kurt Vonnegut’s warning that, eventually, ‘we are what we pretend to be.’” (Debbie Landis, Garrison, N.Y.)On to books! John Williams noted in The Washington Post that most of the novels of Cormac McCarthy, who died last week, were “quite Old Testament in spirit — the purpose of evil is none of your business, keep suffering — until, arguably, ‘The Road,’ a story of a father and son at the end of the world with increasingly loud echoes of Christian symbology. ‘All the Pretty Horses’ made McCarthy literary famous; ‘The Road’ made him Oprah Winfrey famous.” (Jim Osteen, Washington, D.C.)Also in The Post, in a review of Lorrie Moore’s new novel, “I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home,” Ron Charles explained that for Moore, the hospice is “a mordant metaphor for human existence, a place where laughter isn’t the best medicine, it’s the only medicine: All we’ve got left is a collection of bedpans and deadpans.” (John Jacoby, Cambridge, Mass.)In The Salt Lake Tribune, Courtney Tanner fashioned a clever start to her article about one of the more unexpected recent examples of book banning: “In the beginning, a parent filed a challenge to have the Bible removed from Davis School District libraries, citing passages describing sex and violence. The district said let there be a review of the book. And it was so.” (Yoram Bauman, Salt Lake City)In The Times, Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell wrote: “Teenagers suffer for many reasons. One is being fragile and in formation — a human construction site.” (Virginia Wise, Woodstock, Vt.)And Amy Nicholson reviewed the new movie “Elemental,” calling it “the latest Pixar premise to feel like someone laced the cafeteria’s kombucha keg with ayahuasca.” (Abigail Kent, Alameda, Calif.)To nominate favorite bits of recent writing from The Times or other publications to be mentioned in “For the Love of Sentences,” please email me here and include your name and place of residence.On a Personal NoteGetty ImagesI’ve never been one for watching movies on planes, at least not on one of those shrunken screens embedded in the back of the seat in front of me. (My iPad is a different matter.) The picture quality is awful. The audio is mush. Together they’re barely an approximation of the director’s and the cast members’ intents. It’s like reading an aggressively abridged novel in which every adjective has been deleted and blackberry jam smudged across parts of every other page. You get the gist, but in a soulless, messy fashion.I am, however, a fervent guesser of movies on planes: I half-watch the movies chosen by passengers in seats near me, trying to figure out what’s going on, filling in the blanks with assumptions and imagination, doing a bit of amateur lip-reading, doing a lot of detective work.What might Drew Barrymore be telling Adam Sandler? Across several flights, I’ve seen disconnected, out-of-order scenes from their rom-com “50 First Dates,” so I have some ideas about the movie and of course an opinion of it without knowing whether either is remotely on the mark. I sort of like the nebulousness and irresolution of that. They match the dull images and fuzzy sound. I’m not doing a disservice to the experience of the movie in a proper setting. I’m turning it into something entirely different, part Rorschach, part game.Ben Affleck is preternaturally grave in “The Accountant,” which seems like great, tense fun. While I’ve assembled probably 60 percent of “50 First Dates” from the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of my oblique angle, soundless perusals of it, I’ve put together at least 80 percent of Affleck’s thriller. I mean, I’m confident it’s a thriller. There are firearms, chases, ominous shots of important rooms and august buildings in Washington, D.C.When you half-watch a movie this way, without the soundtrack nudging you or the plot points lucidly laid out, you develop a new appreciation for the different editing rhythms, visual compositions and palettes of different genres. You know the emotional key in which the movie is being played even if you deduce little else about it. For a true movie lover, that’s a peculiar delight.Hey, we all have our viewing quirks. It turns out that a big fraction of Americans watch everything with the subtitles turned on, and by everything I’m including and principally mean movies and shows in English. It’s not translation they’re looking for. It’s — I don’t know — reassurance, extra clarity. Devin Gordon explored and explained that phenomenon in a terrifically engaging recent article in The Atlantic, and I’m happy to report that he was as baffled and unsettled as I am.What I do on planes is the opposite of that. Instead of beating back confusion, I embrace it. Or, really, take advantage of it. That line that Drew just delivered must have been hilarious. That encounter Ben just had was surely terrifying. Half-watched, quarter-understood movies are like trailers: They’re all promise and no letdown, which is a welcome inversion of much of life. More

    • 113 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Few of Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Defend Justice Dept. Independence

      by

      The evolution of the Republican Party under the influence of former President Donald J. Trump calls into question a post-Watergate norm.Donald J. Trump has promised that if he wins back the presidency he will appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” President Biden and his family.But he’s not the only Republican running for president who appears to be abandoning a long-established norm in Washington — presidents keeping their hands out of specific Justice Department investigations and prosecutions.Mr. Trump, who leads the G.O.P. field by around 30 percentage points in public national polls, wields such powerful influence that only a few of his Republican rivals are willing to clearly say presidents should not interfere in such Justice Department decisions.After Mr. Trump’s vow to direct the Justice Department to appoint a “real” prosecutor to investigate the Bidens, The New York Times asked each of his Republican rivals questions aimed at laying out what limits, if any, they believed presidents must or should respect when it comes to White House interference with federal law enforcement decisions.Their responses reveal a party that has turned so hard against federal law enforcement that it is no longer widely considered good politics to clearly answer in the negative a question that was once uncontroversial: Do you believe presidents should get involved in the investigations and prosecutions of individuals?Mr. Trump’s closest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, has flatly said he does not believe the Justice Department is independent from the White House as a matter of law, while leaving it ambiguous where he stands on the issue of presidents getting involved in investigation decisions.Mr. DeSantis’s spokesman, Bryan Griffin, wrote in an email that comments the governor made on a recent policy call “should be instructive to your reporting.”Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said the president can lawfully exert more direct control over the Justice Department and F.B.I. than has traditionally been the case.Jason Henry for The New York TimesIn the comments, Mr. DeSantis says that “the fundamental insight” he gleans from the Constitution is that the Justice Department and F.B.I. are not “independent” from the White House and that the president can lawfully exert more direct control over them than traditionally has been the case.“I think presidents have bought into this canard that they’re independent, and that’s one of the reasons why they’ve accumulated so much power over the years,” Mr. DeSantis said. “We will use the lawful authority that we have.”But the context of Mr. DeSantis’s remarks was mostly about a president firing political appointees and bureaucrats at the Justice Department and the F.B.I., not about a president ordering them to target specific people with investigations and prosecutions. Mr. Griffin did not respond when asked in a follow-up on this point.Mr. Trump has portrayed his legal troubles as stemming from politicization, although there is no evidence Mr. Biden directed Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Mr. Trump. Under Mr. Garland, Trump-appointed prosecutors are already investigating Mr. Biden’s handling of classified documents and on Tuesday secured a guilty plea from Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, on tax charges.Especially since Watergate, there has been an institutional tradition of Justice Department independence from White House control. The idea is that while a president can set broad policies — directing the Justice Department to put greater resources and emphasis on particular types of crimes, for example — he or she should not get involved in specific criminal case decisions except in rare cases affecting foreign policy.This is particularly seen as true for cases involving a president’s personal or political interests, such as an investigation into himself or his political opponents.But even in his first term, Mr. Trump increasingly pressed against that notion.William P. Barr, left, Mr. Trump’s attorney general, refused Mr. Trump’s baseless demand that he say the 2020 election had been corrupt.Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesIn the spring of 2018, Mr. Trump told his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, that he wanted to order the Justice Department to investigate his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, and James B. Comey Jr., the former head of the F.B.I. Mr. McGahn rebuffed him, saying the president had no authority to order an investigation, according to two people familiar with the conversation.Later in 2018, Mr. Trump publicly demanded that the Justice Department open an investigation into officials involved in the Russia investigation. The following year, Attorney General William P. Barr indeed assigned a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, John Durham, to investigate the investigators — styling it as an administrative review because there was no factual predicate to open a formal criminal investigation.Mr. Trump also said in 2018 and 2019 that John F. Kerry, the Obama-era secretary of state, should be prosecuted for illegally interfering with American diplomacy by seeking to preserve a nuclear accord with Iran. Geoffrey S. Berman, a former U.S. attorney in Manhattan whom Mr. Trump fired in 2020, later wrote in his memoir that the Trump Justice Department pressured him to find a way to charge Mr. Kerry, but he closed the investigation after about a year without bringing any charges.And as the 2020 election neared, Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham to file charges against high-level former officials even though the prosecutor had not found a factual basis to justify any. In his own memoir, Mr. Barr wrote that the Durham investigation’s “failure to deliver scalps in time for the election” eroded their relationship even before Mr. Barr refused Mr. Trump’s baseless demand that he say the 2020 election had been corrupt.Where Mr. Trump’s first-term efforts were scattered and haphazard, key allies — including Jeffrey B. Clark, a former Justice Department official who helped Mr. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election — have been developing a blueprint to make the department in any second Trump term more systematically subject to direct White House control.Against that backdrop, Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the long-shot G.O.P. challengers, has pledged to pardon Mr. Trump if Mr. Ramaswamy wins the presidency. He said that as a constitutional matter, he thinks a president does have the power to direct prosecutors to open or close specific criminal investigations. But he added that “the president must exercise this judgment with prudence in a manner that respects the rule of law in the country.”Vivek Ramaswamy said he would respect the post-Watergate norm regarding Justice Department independence.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesAsked if he would pledge, regardless of his views on what the law may technically allow presidents to do, to obey the post-Watergate norm, Mr. Ramaswamy replied: “As a general norm, yes.”Two Republican candidates who are both former U.S. attorneys unequivocally stated that presidents should not direct the investigations or prosecutions of individuals. Tellingly, both are chasing votes from anti-Trump moderate Republicans.Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor who was a U.S. attorney in the George W. Bush administration, said he knew “just how important it is to keep prosecutors independent and let them do their jobs.”“No president should be meddling in Department of Justice investigations or cases in any way,” Mr. Christie added. “The best way to keep that from happening is with a strong attorney general who can lead without fear or favor.”And Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor and congressman who served as a U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration, said that “preserving an independent and politically impartial Department of Justice in terms of specific investigations is essential for the rule of law and paramount in rebuilding trust with the American people.”A spokesman for former Vice President Mike Pence, Devin O’Malley, was terse. He said a president could remove senior law enforcement officials and expressed some support for Justice Department independence. But he declined to add further comment when pressed.“Mike Pence believes that the president of the United States has the ability to hire and fire the attorney general, the F.B.I. director, and other D.O.J. officials — and has, in fact, pledged to do so if elected — but also believes the D.O.J. has a certain level of independence with regard to prosecutorial matters,” Mr. O’Malley said.Mr. Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, through a spokesman, expressed some support for Justice Department independence.John Tully for The New York TimesMost other candidates running against Mr. Trump landed in what they apparently deemed to be a politically safer space of blending general comments about how justice should be administered impartially with vague accusations that the Biden-era Justice Department had targeted Republicans for political reasons.Many did not specifically point to a basis for those accusations. Among a broad swath of conservatives, it is taken as a given that the F.B.I. and Justice Department must be politically motivated against them on a variety of fronts, including the scrutiny over the 2016 Trump campaign’s links to Russia, the prosecution of people who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and the Trump documents case.Matt Gorman, a senior communications adviser for Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, declined to say whether or not Mr. Scott believed presidents should interfere in specific investigations. He pointed only to Mr. Scott’s comments on the most recent “Fox News Sunday” appearance.In those remarks, Mr. Scott said: “We have to clean out the political appointments in the Department of Justice to restore confidence and integrity in the D.O.J. Today, we want to know that in our justice system, Lady Justice wears a blindfold and that all Americans will be treated fairly by Lady Justice. But today, this D.O.J. continues to hunt Republicans while they protect Democrats.”Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, also provided an ambiguous answer through her spokeswoman, Chaney Denton. She pointed to two specific conservative grievances with law enforcement: Seven years ago, Hillary Clinton was not charged over using a private email server while secretary of state, and the Trump-era special counsel, Mr. Durham, wrote a report this year criticizing the Russia inquiry.“The Department of Justice should be impartial, but unfortunately it is not today,” Ms. Denton said. “The Durham Report, the non-prosecution of Hillary Clinton, and other actions make it clear that a partisan double standard is being applied. The answer is not to have both parties weaponize the Justice Department; it’s to have neither side do it.”“The Department of Justice should be impartial,” a spokeswoman for Nikki Haley said, without getting into specifics.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesWhen specifically pressed, Ms. Denton declined to say whether Ms. Haley believes presidents should get involved in prosecutions or investigations of individuals.One recent entrant to the race, Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, disavowed the post-Watergate norm, putting forward a premise that law enforcement officials are currently politically biased and so his White House interference would be to correct that purported state of affairs.“I certainly would not promise that I would allow a biased department operate independently,” he said in part of a statement. “I believe it is the president’s responsibility to insist that justice is delivered fairly without bias or political influence.”A spokesman for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, Lance Trover, was even more vague.“Gov. Burgum believes that citizens’ faith in our institutions is the foundation of a free and just society and will not allow them to be a political enforcement extension of the party in power as we have seen in failed countries,” he said. “If Americans have distrust in the Justice Department when he takes office, he will do what it takes to restore the American people’s faith in the Department of Justice and other bedrocks of our democracy.” More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      The Life and Courage of Daniel Ellsberg, ‘a True American Hero’

      by

      More from our inbox:Setbacks in the Fight Against Maternal MortalityA Trump Victory in 2024 Would Be ‘a Dark Day for Us All’‘A Small Slice of Hope’Diversity in OrchestrasDaniel Ellsberg and his wife, Patricia. His disclosure in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers and its fallout left a stamp on history that defined the bulk of his life.Donal F. Holway/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Daniel Ellsberg, 1931-2023: Whistleblower Who Unveiled U.S. Deceit in Pentagon Papers” (obituary, front page, June 17):Thank you for the excellent obituary recounting the life, career and legacy of Daniel Ellsberg.I had the pleasure and honor of meeting Mr. Ellsberg in 2010 during one of the Portland, Ore., screenings of the documentary film about him, “The Most Dangerous Man in America.”After the Q. and A., I approached him and began to thank him, but even as I was about to tell him that I was born in Saigon during the Tet offensive of 1968, I began to lose my composure and eventually broke down in front of the entire crowd.Through my tears, gasps for air and apologies, I tried to convey my gratitude for a life that might have been drastically altered if it were not for his acts of courage, which I believe helped bring about the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. With a patient smile, one palm gently placed on my shoulder, and the other still engaged in our handshake, he whispered his response, “Thank you.”It’s impossible to know where I would have ended up as the half-American child of a U.S. soldier if the U.S. had not gotten out of Vietnam a couple of years after the Pentagon Papers were released.Where would my mother and I have found ourselves, as well as those thousands of U.S. service personnel and millions of refugees and noncombatants whose destinies were tethered to the clandestine decisions of bureaucrats, politicians and war planners?It’s really hard to calculate, but fortunately in part because of Mr. Ellsberg, I’ll never have to do the math.Mien YockmannVancouver, Wash.To the Editor:The obituary of Daniel Ellsberg is a heroic story of courage, character and determination, when those virtues are sorely missing on the current American political scene. His efforts leaked the story of government deception and led to a Supreme Court decision in favor of a free, uncensored press, and to the Watergate crimes and the fall of President Richard Nixon.What a difference between Mr. Ellsberg’s unauthorized possession of classified documents and that of our ex-president, who did not risk his freedom for the American people, but for his vulgar self-interest.Robert S. AprilNew YorkTo the Editor:Thanks for your excellent obituary of Daniel Ellsberg. His speaking truth to power has been a powerful gift to humanity!I was a good friend of Dan’s and had the privilege of being arrested and going to jail with him for protesting nuclear weapons and the wars in Central America, Iraq and Afghanistan. He devoted his life to speaking out and acting to prevent and stop wars and the suicidal nuclear arms race.Preparing for and threatening nuclear war is unconscionable. Inspired by Dan’s life, we need to step up to the plate and work to stop this crime against humanity before it is too late. Hopefully others will be inspired by Dan’s courage to become whistleblowers and speak truth in the face of the lies and half-truths by politicians and the mass media.Thanks, Dan, for inspiring us to continue the good work you had been doing.David HartsoughSan FranciscoThe writer is a co-founder of World Beyond War and Nonviolent Peaceforce.To the Editor:As I read about Daniel Ellsberg, my first reaction was gratitude. A man willing to speak truth to power, whatever cost he might personally pay. A true American hero. One can only wish there were more like him today.Lisa DickiesonWashingtonSetbacks in the Fight Against Maternal MortalityYeabu Kargbo, 19, rests post-delivery at a rural health center in northern Sierra Leone.Photographs by Malin Fezehai for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Sierra Leone Is Giving Me Hope,” by Nicholas Kristof (column, June 4):Mr. Kristof is right to highlight the achievements in improving maternal and child health and reducing extreme poverty. Too much “doom and gloom” can mask all the good we have achieved and can drive donor fatigue and complacency.Yet even as we celebrate those achievements, the combination of Covid-19, humanitarian crises, climate change and the rising cost of living have been rolling back progress. The decline in maternal deaths by an average of 2.7 percent per year between 2000 and 2015 has paused: Maternal mortality did not decline globally between 2016 and 2020.Donor aid for reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, which shot up by 10 percent from 2016 to 2017, has been on a downward trend, with a 2.3 percent decline between 2019 and 2021.And still today, seven of every 10 maternal deaths are in Africa, and Black women in America are almost three times more likely to die in childbirth than non-Hispanic white women.We can be proud of progress earlier this century, but a series of crises has shown us how fragile that was. We need new commitments, action and strong advocacy to reverse the recent negative trends.Helen ClarkAuckland, New ZealandThe writer is a former prime minister of New Zealand and the chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.A Trump Victory in 2024 Would Be ‘a Dark Day for Us All’ Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Allies Plan to Stifle Justice Dept.” (front page, June 16):For me, the scariest thing about the former president’s candidacy is not Donald Trump himself — there have always been demagogues in American politics. Nor is it the craven politicians who enable his anti-American views for their own gain, or even the tens of millions of Americans who fervently support these views. The scariest thing is the quiet preparation in the Republican Party to take actions based on these views if Mr. Trump becomes president again.Last time, Mr. Trump chose underlings like Jeff Sessions and William Barr — well-known figures who possessed at least a shred of honor, and who refused his most extreme demands. He won’t make that mistake if elected a second time.Mr. Trump has always brought out the worst in people, and he has bent and twisted the Republican Party into something unrecognizable. A Trump victory in 2024 would allow him similarly to twist all of America into something nightmarish. It would be a dark day for us all.Tim ShawCambridge, Mass.‘A Small Slice of Hope’A photograph taken with a prism lens of a television image of Donald Trump after his federal court arraignment. Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “I Won’t Let Trump Invade My Brain,” by David Brooks (column, June 16):It is difficult to retain a sense of optimism about the future these days when surrounded by the narcissism of our politicians, the angry voices of our fellow citizens and our decaying planet.Mr. Brooks’s column brought me some comfort and a small slice of hope that maybe there are still enough of us who believe in ethical behavior and a real commitment to the common good that there is some hope for our planet and our collective future.Chris HarringtonPortland, Ore.Diversity in OrchestrasSaul Martinez for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Diversity Improves, but Not for All” (Arts, June 17):So orchestras are now eager to find more Black players? For generations, while these orchestras were using cronyistic and outright discriminatory hiring practices, Black musicians found greater meaning and commercial success in their own traditions, from the blues and jazz to soul and hip-hop.If orchestras are now truly intent on supporting Black Americans, rather than simply making their own enterprises appear more visibly inclusive, perhaps they could consider programming more Black music.Ben GivanSaratoga Springs, N.Y.The writer is an associate professor of music at Skidmore College. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      What Happens if a Presidential Candidate Is Convicted?

      by

      The Constitution and American law have clear answers for only some of the questions that would arise. Others would bring the country into truly uncharted territory.Not since Eugene V. Debs campaigned from a prison cell more than a century ago has the United States experienced what might now happen: a prominent candidate with a felony conviction running for president. And never before has that candidate been someone with a real chance of winning.Former President Donald J. Trump faces no campaign restrictions. Though he has been charged with dozens of felonies across two cases, one federal and one in New York, verdicts are a long way off. And there are many uncertainties, including whether the proceedings will hinder Mr. Trump’s campaign in practical ways or begin to hurt him in the polls in a way they have not so far.But if he is convicted on any of the felony counts, things get more complicated — and the Constitution and American law have clear answers for only some of the questions that would arise.Others would bring the country into truly uncharted territory, with huge decisions resting in the hands of federal judges.Here is what we know, and what we don’t know.Can Trump run if he is convicted?This is the simplest question of the bunch. The answer is yes.The Constitution sets very few eligibility requirements for presidents. They must be at least 35 years old, be “natural born” citizens and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.There are no limitations based on character or criminal record. (While some states prohibit felons from running for state and local office, these laws do not apply to federal offices.) Would his campaign be restricted?To offer an obvious understatement, it would be logistically difficult to run for president from prison. No major-party candidate has ever done it. Mr. Debs ran for the Socialist Party in 1920 and received about 3 percent of the vote.But Mr. Trump’s campaign staff could handle fund-raising and other campaign activities in his absence, and it is very unlikely that Mr. Trump could be disqualified from appearing on ballots.The Republican and Democratic Parties have guaranteed spots on general-election ballots in every state, and the parties tell election officials whose name to put in their spot. States could, in theory, try to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot by passing legislation requiring a clean criminal record, but this would be on legally shaky ground.“We let states set the time, place and manner” of elections, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School who specializes in election law, “but I think the best reading of our Constitution is you don’t let the state add new substantive requirements.”While that view is not universal among legal experts, it won in court in 2019, when California tried to require candidates to release their tax returns in order to appear on primary ballots. A federal district judge blocked the rule, saying it was most likely unconstitutional. The California Supreme Court also unanimously blocked it as a violation of the state constitution, and the case never reached the U.S. Supreme Court.Could he vote?Probably not.Mr. Trump is registered to vote in Florida, and he would be disenfranchised there if convicted of a felony.Most felons in Florida regain voting rights after completing their full sentence, including parole or probation, and paying all fines and fees. But it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump, if convicted, would have time to complete his sentence before Election Day.Since Mr. Trump also has a residence in New York, he could switch his voter registration there to take advantage of its more permissive approach: Felons in New York can vote while on parole or probation. But, as in Florida and almost every other state, they are still disenfranchised while in prison.So if Mr. Trump is imprisoned, he will be in the extraordinary position of being deemed fit to be voted for, but unfit to vote.What happens if he is elected from prison?No one knows.“We’re so far removed from anything that’s ever happened,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s just guessing.”Legally, Mr. Trump would remain eligible to be president even if he were imprisoned. The Constitution says nothing to the contrary. “I don’t think that the framers ever thought we were going to be in this situation,” Professor Levinson said.In practice, the election of an incarcerated president would create a legal crisis that would almost certainly need to be resolved by the courts.In theory, Mr. Trump could be stripped of his authority under the 25th Amendment, which provides a process to transfer authority to the vice president if the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” But that would require the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare Mr. Trump unable to fulfill his duties, a remote prospect given that these would be loyalists appointed by Mr. Trump himself.More likely, Mr. Trump could sue to be released on the basis that his imprisonment was preventing him from fulfilling his constitutional obligations as president. Such a case would probably focus on the separation of powers, with Mr. Trump’s lawyers arguing that keeping a duly elected president in prison would be an infringement by the judicial branch on the operations of the executive branch.He could also try to pardon himself — or to commute his sentence, leaving his conviction in place but ending his imprisonment. Either action would be an extraordinary assertion of presidential power, and the Supreme Court would be the final arbiter of whether a “self pardon” was constitutional.Or President Biden, on his way out the door, could pardon Mr. Trump on the basis that “the people have spoken and I need to pardon him so he can govern,” Professor Chemerinsky said.What if he’s elected with a case still in progress?Again, no one knows. But a likely outcome would be that a Trump-appointed attorney general would withdraw the charges and end the case.The Justice Department does not indict sitting presidents, a policy outlined in a 1973 memo, during the Nixon era. It has never had reason to develop a policy on what to do with an incoming president who has already been indicted. But the rationale for not indicting sitting presidents — that it would interfere with their ability to perform their duties — applies just as well in this hypothetical scenario.“The reasons why we wouldn’t want to indict a sitting president are the reasons we wouldn’t want to prosecute a sitting president,” said Professor Chemerinsky, who has disagreed with the department’s reasoning. “My guess is, if the Trump prosecution were still ongoing in some way and Trump were elected, the Justice Department — which would be the Trump Justice Department — would say, ‘We’re following the 1973 memo.’”Like so much else here, this would be legally untested, and it is impossible to say what the Supreme Court would do if the question reached it.In its Clinton v. Jones ruling in 1997, the court allowed a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton to proceed. But that case was civil, not criminal, and it was filed by a private citizen, not by the government itself.Charlie Savage More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Judge in Trump Documents Case Sets Tentative Trial Date as Soon as August

      by

      The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, set an aggressive schedule for moving the case forward, though the proceedings are likely to be delayed by pretrial clashes.The federal judge presiding over the prosecution of former President Donald J. Trump in the classified documents case set an aggressive schedule on Tuesday, ordering a trial to begin as soon as Aug. 14.While the timeline set by the judge, Aileen M. Cannon, is likely to be delayed by extensive pretrial litigation — including over how to handle classified material — its brisk pace suggests that she is seeking to avoid any criticism for dragging her feet or for slow-walking the proceeding. In each of four other criminal trials she has overseen that were identified in a New York Times review, she has initially set a relatively quick trial date and later pushed it back.The early moves by Judge Cannon, a relatively inexperienced jurist who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, are being particularly closely watched. She disrupted the documents investigation last year with several rulings favorable to the former president before a conservative appeals court overturned her, saying that she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene. Brandon L. Van Grack, a former federal prosecutor who has worked on complex criminal matters involving national security, said the trial date was “unlikely to hold” considering that the process of turning over classified evidence to the defense in discovery had not yet begun. Still, he said, Judge Cannon appeared to be showing that she intended to do what she could to push the case to trial quickly.“It signals that the court is at least trying to do everything it can to move the case along and that it’s important that the case proceed quickly,” Mr. Van Grack said. “Even though it’s unlikely to hold, it’s at least a positive signal — positive in the sense that all parties and the public should want this case to proceed as quickly as possible.”But it is not clear that the defense wants the case to proceed quickly. Mr. Trump’s strategy in legal matters has long been to delay them, and the federal case against him is unlikely to be an exception. If a trial drags past the 2024 election and Mr. Trump wins the race, he could, in theory, try to pardon himself — or he could direct his attorney general to drop the charges and wipe out the case.In public remarks after the indictment against Mr. Trump and one of his aides, Walt Nauta, was filed two weeks ago in Federal District Court in Miami, the special counsel, Jack Smith, who oversaw the investigation, said he wanted a speedy trial.The schedule that Judge Cannon set forth in her order on Tuesday clearly does that, requesting that all pretrial motions be filed by July 24.She also ruled that the trial — and all the hearings in the case — will be held at her home courthouse in Fort Pierce, Fla., a small town in the northern portion of the Southern District of Florida. Mr. Trump’s arraignment was held in the federal courthouse in Miami.Pretrial proceedings in the case are highly unlikely to be done by August. Legal experts have identified a series of complicated matters that Judge Cannon, the defense and the prosecution will have to work through before the matter is ready to go in front of a jury.For one thing, following Judge Cannon’s orders, Mr. Trump’s lawyers started the process of obtaining the security clearances needed to deal with the significant classified evidence issues in the case only last week. The background check process to obtain the clearances can take months.Mr. Trump’s legal team is also still in flux. Mr. Nauta’s lawyer, Stanley Woodward Jr., is still interviewing Florida-based lawyers to assist him with the case. He expects to have someone in place when Mr. Nauta is arraigned next week.Beyond the array of legal tactics that Mr. Trump’s lawyers may use to attack the validity of the charges against him, the parties in the case will also have to engage in significant closed-door litigation over how to handle the classified evidence at the heart of the government’s prosecution. Mr. Trump has been accused of illegally holding on to 31 individual national defense documents, many of which were marked as top secret.Much of the secret litigation will take place under the aegis of the Classified Information Procedures Act. If the government does not agree with any of Judge Cannon’s rulings involving the act, it can pause pretrial proceedings and appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. (The defense would have to wait until after any conviction to appeal an evidentiary issue under the act.)Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to file a battery of pretrial motions, including one claiming that he is being selectively prosecuted while other public officials investigated for mishandling classified material — chief among them, Hillary Clinton — did not face charges.The former president’s legal team may also file motions accusing prosecutors of various types of misconduct or seeking to suppress audio notes by one of his lawyers, which the government obtained before the indictment and was filed by piercing the traditional protections of attorney-client privilege.Depending on how seriously Judge Cannon considers the claims made in those filings, she could order additional briefs, attestations and hearings, further slowing down the process.The preliminary court calendar underscores how Mr. Trump’s decision to press ahead with his political campaign, now a key part of his defense, could affect the broader presidential primary race. The first Republican debate is scheduled for Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. Mr. Trump has not said whether he is attending and has signaled he might skip the first two debates.The second debate is scheduled for September, and there is expected to be one each month through the end of the year. Depending on the court calendar, Mr. Trump’s political plans could again coincide with court dates.What’s more, this is not Mr. Trump’s only court proceeding. His trial in a Manhattan state court, on charges stemming from hush money payments to a porn actress during the 2016 presidential campaign, is set to begin in March. A second defamation trial, brought by a New York writer who claimed Mr. Trump raped her decades ago, is set to begin in January.The former president is also facing the prospect of at least one more indictment. Prosecutors in Fulton County, Ga., may bring charges in connection with his efforts to stay in office. Mr. Smith, the special counsel, is also still investigating issues related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power after losing the 2020 election. More