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      Trump’s Conspirators Are Facing the Music, Finally

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      We’ve reached a turning point in the effort to ensure there are consequences for those who deliberately attempt to undermine our democracy: Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, charged 16 Republican leaders in her state on Tuesday for their role as fake electors working to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The charges, coming on the heels of news that the special counsel Jack Smith has informed Donald Trump that he’s a target of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the Capitol riot, mean we are witnessing a new and necessary phase in this quest for accountability, one in which the federal and state wheels of justice work to hold people accountable not only for the violence on Jan. 6, but also for what got us there: the alleged scheme to interfere with the transfer of power.The charges in Michigan will surely meet criticism on all sides. Some will say the case is not broad or bold enough, that Mr. Trump and the other alleged national ringleaders should have been charged as well. Others will say Ms. Nessel cast too wide a net, pulling in low-level party functionaries who did not know better. We think those critiques are misconceived. Ms. Nessel got it just right, prosecuting crimes firmly within her jurisdiction, while opening the way for federal authorities to net even bigger fish.Ms. Nessel brought the same eight counts against all 16 defendants. The offenses include conspiracy to commit forgery, since the defendants are accused of signing documents stating they were the qualified electors (they were not), and publishing forged documents by circulating these materials to federal and state authorities. On paper, the penalties for the offenses range from five to 14 years, but sentencing in this case would presumably be lower than that maximum.Until now there have been no charges centered on the fake electors plot. For that reason alone, Michigan’s action brings a sense of needed accountability for those who fanned the rioters’ passions leading up to Jan. 6 by spinning a false narrative about a stolen election.Michigan saw some of the most outrageous fake electoral certificates to emerge during the period leading up to the Capitol riot. Unlike the fake certificates in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, the Michigan documents did not include a disclaimer that they were to be used only in the case of litigation. What’s more, the documents contained more outright false statements than simply declaring that the signers were the lawful electors of the winning candidate.For example, they state that the electors “convened and organized in the State Capitol,” when, according to the attorney general, they were hidden away in the basement of the state Republican headquarters. (It seems likely that the fake electors included this lie because Michigan law requires presidential electors to meet in the Capitol — a requirement and legal problem that a Trump campaign legal adviser, Kenneth Chesebro, had flagged in his confidential memorandum setting out the scheme.)In proving these cases, establishing intent will be key. Here, there are several indicators that the defendants may have been aware of the illicit nature of their gathering. According to congressional testimony from the state Republican Party’s chairwoman at the time, Laura Cox, the group originally planned to meet inside the Capitol and hide overnight, so they could vote in the building the following day. Ms. Cox said she told a lawyer working with the Trump campaign and supposedly organizing the fake electors “in no uncertain terms that that was insane and inappropriate,” and “a very, very bad idea and potentially illegal.”As she put it, Ms. Cox was “very uncomfortable” with facilitating a meeting of the fake elector group, and said so at the time in accord with her lawyers’ opinion. Ms. Cox even urged the group to draft a significantly more measured document simply “stating that if perhaps something were to happen in the courts, they were willing and able to serve as electors from Michigan for Donald Trump.” Her advice was not followed.At the time the fake electors met to allegedly forge their documents, they should have been aware that state officials had certified the election results for Joe Biden — it was national and state news. By that point, there was no prospect of changing that outcome through either litigation or legislative action. On the day prosecutors say the fake electors met, two of the most powerful Republicans in the state acknowledged as much. Mike Shirkey, the majority leader in the State Senate, and Lee Chatfield, the House speaker, both issued statements declaring the presidential race over. Mr. Shirkey said that Michigan’s “Democratic slate of electors should be able to proceed with their duty” without the threat of harassment or violence.The fake electors were told they were not allowed to bring their phones into the meeting at the Republican headquarters that day, according to testimony one of them gave congressional investigators. They were instructed to maintain secrecy and not to share any details about what was occurring. That secrecy suggests that they knew what they were doing was wrong.Michigan’s former secretary of state, Terri Lynn Land, who had been designated a Trump elector, declined to participate in the proceedings, saying, according to Ms. Cox’s testimony, she was not comfortable doing so.With these facts, it would have been unthinkable for the state attorney general to choose not to prosecute the Michigan 16. Ms. Nessel’s office has regularly brought prosecutions, some of them against her fellow Democrats, centered on false documents in connection with elections. The case of the fake electors is far more egregious than most of those other cases: The defendants here were politically engaged individuals who should have been aware of the election results, as well as the flat rejection by the courts and Michigan Legislature of the Trump campaign’s claims of voter fraud.To be sure, some critics of the case may still think that the Michigan attorney general should have gone after Mr. Trump and his top lieutenants, who helped organize the false electors. But prosecutors have a responsibility first to pursue those individuals within their jurisdiction. By focusing solely on the figures who undertook their acts in Michigan, Ms. Nessel is wisely insulating her case against charges that she overreached, exceeding her jurisdiction.Of course, broader prosecutions may still be justified. Reporting indicates that the district attorney for Fulton County, Ga., Fani Willis, may be considering a different kind of wide-ranging case, involving state RICO crimes. Unlike the Michigan prosecution, her case may focus on Mr. Trump’s direct efforts to pressure state election officials — efforts that were caught on tape — and Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to provide false statements of election fraud to state officials.If broad-based indictments ultimately emerge out of Georgia, and are supported by the facts and appropriate law, then we would welcome it. That is part of the genius of American democracy: The states, which are responsible for running our elections, are laboratories of both democracy and of accountability.Ms. Nessel’s case also leaves a clear lane for Mr. Smith, the special counsel. She has avoided charging high-level national individuals whom Mr. Smith is apparently investigating. If anything, her case provides greater foundation for Mr. Smith to act, and he now seems to be following through. If Ms. Nessel can move against these individuals in Michigan, Mr. Smith can and should do the same against the ringleaders. Together, they can hold both the foot soldiers and their organizers accountable for their actions leading up to the Capitol riot.Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump. Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, is a co-editor in chief of the Just Security website.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Target Letter to Trump Raises Possibility of Obstruction and Fraud Charges

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      In the two and a half years since a mob laid siege to the Capitol in an effort to prevent Congress from certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory, a wealth of evidence has emerged about Donald J. Trump’s bid to stay in power after the 2020 election.Mr. Trump and his allies peddled spurious claims of voter fraud, pressured officials in states he narrowly lost and recruited false slates of electors in those states. He urged Vice President Mike Pence to delay certification of Mr. Biden’s win. And he called on a huge crowd of his supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell.”Now, Mr. Trump appears almost certain to face criminal charges for some of his efforts to remain in office. On Tuesday, he disclosed on social media that federal prosecutors had sent him a so-called target letter, suggesting that he could soon be indicted in the investigation into the events that culminated in the riot.Mr. Trump did not say what criminal charges, if any, the special counsel, Jack Smith, had specified in issuing the letter.But since the Capitol attack — in part because of revelations by a House committee investigation and news reports — many legal specialists and commentators have converged on several charges that are particularly likely, especially obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the government.A person briefed on the matter said the target letter cited three statutes that could be applied in a prosecution of Mr. Trump by the special counsel, Jack Smith, including a potential charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States.Norman Eisen, who worked for the House Judiciary Committee during Mr. Trump’s first impeachment and contributed to a prosecution memo modeling potential Jan. 6-related charges, said that the target letter suggested the special counsel “has more than enough evidence” to bring a case against the former president.“By leading the effort to procure fraudulent electoral certificates across the nation, Trump helmed a conspiracy to defraud the U.S.,” Mr. Eisen said. “And by using those false documents to press Mike Pence to disrupt the Jan. 6 meeting of Congress, Trump attempted to obstruct an official proceeding.”There have also been signs that prosecutors have explored potential charges involving wire or mail fraud related to Mr. Trump’s fund-raising efforts in the name of overturning the election results.Any charges in the District of Columbia — where federal grand juries have been hearing evidence — would raise additional legal peril for Mr. Trump. Already, the Justice Department has won guilty pleas or convictions in hundreds of cases related to the riot, suggesting that a pool of jurors may be less receptive toward him than in Palm Beach County, Fla., where he faces charges over his hoarding of sensitive government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.These are some of the charges Mr. Trump could face in the Jan. 6 case.Corruptly Obstructing an Official ProceedingBoth the House committee that scrutinized Jan. 6 and a federal judge in California who intervened in its inquiry have said that there is evidence that Mr. Trump tried to corruptly obstruct Congress’s session to certify Mr. Biden’s Electoral College victory. Under Section 1512(c) of Title 18 of the United States Code, such a crime would be punishable by up to 20 years in prison.Prosecutors have already used that law to charge hundreds of ordinary defendants in Jan. 6 cases, and in April, a federal appeals court upheld the viability of applying that charge to the Capitol attack. Still, unlike ordinary rioters, Mr. Trump did not physically participate in the storming of the Capitol.The House committee investigating the Capitol riot at a hearing in December.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesIn issuing criminal referrals as it ended its investigation, the Jan. 6 committee argued that Mr. Trump should be charged under the statute based on two sets of actions. By summoning supporters to Washington and stoking them to march on the Capitol, lawmakers argued, Mr. Trump had violated that law. Mr. Trump’s lawyers would likely raise doubts over whether he intended for his supporters to riot in part because he also told them to protest “peacefully.”The committee also cited Mr. Trump’s participation in the fake electors scheme as a reason to issue charges, pointing to his effort to strong-arm Mr. Pence to cite the existence of slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in seven states that Mr. Biden had actually won as a basis to delay certifying the election. The panel stressed how Mr. Trump had been told that there was no truth to his claims of a stolen election, which it said showed his intentions were corrupt.Conspiring to Defraud the Government and to Make False StatementsBoth the federal judge in California and the Jan. 6 committee also said there was evidence that Mr. Trump violated Section 371 of Title 18, which makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conspire with another person to defraud the government.The basis for such a charge would be similar: Mr. Trump’s interactions with various lawyers and aides in his effort to block the certification of Mr. Biden’s electoral victory, even though Mr. Trump was repeatedly told that his allegations of widespread voter fraud were baseless.In his ruling last year in a civil lawsuit over whether the Jan. 6 committee could obtain the emails of John Eastman, a legal adviser to Mr. Trump in his fight to overturn the election results, Judge David O. Carter ruled that it was more likely than not that the communications involved crimes, so qualified for an exception to attorney-client privilege.“The illegality of the plan was obvious,” he wrote. “Our nation was founded on the peaceful transition of power, epitomized by George Washington laying down his sword to make way for democratic elections. Ignoring this history, President Trump vigorously campaigned for the vice president to single-handedly determine the results of the 2020 election.”A conspiracy to submit false electors to Congress could also implicate Section 1001, which makes false statements a crime punishable by up to five years in prison. In the documents case, Mr. Trump is charged under this statute, accused of having caused his lawyer to lie to the Justice Department.Wire and Mail FraudA constellation of other potential crimes has also surrounded the Jan. 6 investigation. One is wire fraud. Section 1343 of Title 18 makes it a crime, punishable by 20 years in prison, to cause money to be transferred by wire across state lines as part of a scheme to obtain money by means of false or fraudulent representations. A similar fraud statute, Section 1341, covers schemes that use the Postal Service.Subpoenas issued by Mr. Smith suggest that he has been scrutinizing Mr. Trump’s political action committee, Save America PAC. It raised as much as $250 million, telling donors the money was needed to fight election fraud even as Mr. Trump had been told repeatedly that there was no evidence to back up those claims.The House Jan. 6 committee had also suggested that Mr. Trump and his associates had defrauded his own supporters. It described how after the election, they appealed to donors as many as 25 times a day to help fight the results in court and contribute to a defense fund. But no such fund existed, and they used the money for other purposes, including spending more than $200,000 at Trump hotel properties.“Throughout the committee’s investigation, we found evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California, said during one hearing. “So not only was there the big lie. There was the big rip-off.”The Jan. 6 committee and some legal commentators have also suggested Mr. Trump could be charged under Section 2383 of Title 18, which makes it a crime to incite, assist, “aid or comfort” an insurrection against the authority and laws of the federal government. That offense, however, is rarely charged and has not been leveled against any Jan. 6 defendant to date.In its final report, the committee singled out five of Mr. Trump’s other allies — Mark Meadows, his final chief of staff; and the lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Eastman, Jeffrey Clark and Kenneth Chesebro — as potential co-conspirators with Mr. Trump in actions the committee said warranted Justice Department investigation.Luke Broadwater More

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      Trump Receives a Target Letter in Special Counsel’s Jan. 6 Investigation

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      Former President Donald J. Trump has been informed that he could soon face federal indictment for his efforts to hold onto power after his 2020 election loss, potentially adding to the remarkable array of criminal charges and other legal troubles facing him even as he campaigns to return to the White House.Mr. Trump was informed by his lawyers on Sunday that he had received a so-called target letter from Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating his attempts to reverse his defeat at the polls, Mr. Trump and other people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. Prosecutors use target letters to tell potential defendants that investigators have evidence tying them to crimes and that they could be subject to indictment.“Deranged Jack Smith” sent Mr. Trump a letter on Sunday night informing him he was a “TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury” investigation, Mr. Trump said in a post on his social media platform.Such a letter “almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” wrote Mr. Trump, whose campaign is rooted in accusations of political persecution and a promise to purge the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation of personnel he sees as hostile to him and his agenda.Mr. Smith’s spokesman had no comment.An indictment of Mr. Trump would be the second brought by Mr. Smith, who is also prosecuting the former president for risking national security secrets by taking classified documents from the White House and for obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim the material.Mr. Trump is also under indictment in Manhattan on charges related to hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. And he faces the likelihood of charges from the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who has been conducting a wide-ranging inquiry into Mr. Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election loss in that state.The target letter cited three statutes that could be applied in a prosecution of Mr. Trump by Mr. Smith’s team, a person briefed on the matter said. They include a potential charge of conspiracy to defraud the United States and a broad charge related to a violation of rights, the person said.Whether Mr. Smith and his prosecutors will choose to charge Mr. Trump on any or all of those statutes remained unclear, but they appear to have assembled evidence about an array of tactics that Mr. Trump and his allies used to try to stave off his election defeat.Those efforts included assembling slates of so-called fake electors from swing states that Mr. Trump lost; pressuring state officials to block or delay Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victories; seeking to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to impede congressional certification of the Electoral College outcome; raising money based on false claims of election fraud; and rallying supporters to come to Washington and march on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.It also remains unknown whether others might be charged along with Mr. Trump. Several of his closest allies during his efforts to remain in office, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, who was serving as his personal lawyer, and John Eastman, who promoted the idea that Mr. Pence could keep Congress from certifying Mr. Biden’s victory, said through their lawyers that they had not received target letters.Just hours after Mr. Trump disclosed his receipt of the target letter, the Michigan attorney general announced felony state charges against 16 people for their involvement in an attempt to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory in the state by convening a slate of pro-Trump electors.The news of another potential indictment of Mr. Trump underscored the stakes of an intensifying legal and political battle whose consequences are both incalculable and unpredictable.Mr. Trump remains a dominant front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, in spite of — or to some degree because of — the growing list of charges and potential charges against him.His campaign strategy has been to embrace the investigations as evidence of a plot by a Democratic administration to deny him and his supporters a victory in 2024, a message that continues to resonate among his followers. He was raising money off news of the target letter within hours of disclosing that he had received it.But for Mr. Trump, the stakes are deeply personal, given the serious threat that he could face prison time if convicted in one or more of the cases. In that sense, a winning campaign — and the power to make at least the federal cases go away by pardoning himself or directing his Justice Department to dismiss them — is also a battle for his liberty.At a Fox News town hall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday night, the host, Sean Hannity, asked Mr. Trump how he appeared unbothered by the investigations. But Mr. Trump pushed back.“It bothers me,” Mr. Trump said. He accused the Biden administration of trying to intimidate him but said, “They don’t frighten us.”Mr. Trump spent much of Tuesday promoting a scorched-earth political strategy, consulting with allies in Washington including Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Representative Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican and onetime critic who has become one of his staunchest defenders. Mr. Trump urged Ms. Stefanik to go “on offense” during a lengthy call from his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., according to a person with knowledge of the conversation.His main rival at the moment for the Republican nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, said Mr. Trump was a victim of the “politicization” of the Justice Department, continuing a pattern in which prominent figures in his party remain leery of criticizing him and drawing the ire of his supporters.At least two grand juries in Washington have been hearing matters related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office. A trial, if it comes to that, would likely be held in Federal District Court in Washington, where many of the Jan. 6 rioters and leaders of two far-right groups, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, have been prosecuted.Based on the outcomes of those trials, the jury pool in Washington would likely be less favorable to the former president than the one that would be empaneled from a largely pro-Trump region around Fort Pierce, Fla., where the classified documents trial is currently scheduled to take place.Two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Christopher M. Kise, briefly mentioned the new target letter at a pretrial hearing in Florida on Tuesday on the documents case. While Mr. Kise and Mr. Blanche gave no details about what the letter said, they used it to argue that Mr. Trump was essentially being besieged by prosecutors and that the trial in the classified documents case should be delayed until after the 2024 election.In disclosing that he had received the target letter, Mr. Trump said he was given four days to testify before a grand jury if he chooses. He is expected to decline. The timetable suggested by the letter suggests that he will not be charged this week, according to people familiar with the situation.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who has pressed ahead with her own investigation of Mr. Trump and his allies, could bring charges as early as next month. If she were to proceed first, that could complicate Mr. Smith’s case. Accounts of witnesses called to testify both cases could vary slightly, seeding doubts about their testimony, for instance — which might explain why Mr. Smith is moving fast, according to former federal prosecutors.Federal investigators were slow to begin investigating all the efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, overwhelmed with prosecuting the hundreds of rioters who illegally entered the Capitol. The initial plan for investigating the attack’s planners, drafted by the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington and later adopted by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, did not include any explicit reference to the former president. The F.B.I. took a similar tack.However, in the months leading up to Mr. Smith’s appointment as a special counsel last fall, there were strong indications that federal prosecutors were pivoting to examine whether Mr. Trump and his allies may have committed crimes.The F.B.I.’s Washington field office opened an investigation in April 2022 into electors who pledged fealty to Mr. Trump in states he had lost. Earlier, the authorities had seized the cellphones of Mr. Eastman, a legal architect of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, and Jeffrey Clark, a lawyer whom Mr. Trump had tried to install as the acting attorney general.Among the crimes that prosecutors and agents intended to investigate were mail and wire fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding before Congress.By late last year, the various investigations were brought under Mr. Smith, who moved quickly with a flurry of activity, including subpoenas and witness interviews.Mr. Smith and his team do not appear to be done. A spokesman for former Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona said that Mr. Smith’s team reached out to him after The Washington Post reported that Mr. Trump had tasked Mr. Pence with pressuring Mr. Ducey to overturn Mr. Biden’s narrow victory there.The spokesman said that Mr. Ducey will do “the right thing” and that he had done so since the election. It was unclear whether the contact was to request a voluntary interview by Mr. Ducey or a grand jury appearance.Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, appeared before one of the grand juries in June, according to people familiar with his appearance. Mr. Giuliani had a recent interview with prosecutors.Ben Protess More

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      What Trump’s G.O.P. Rivals Are Saying About a Third Potential Indictment

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      As news broke Tuesday morning that former President Donald J. Trump was likely to be indicted in a third criminal case, the reaction from his rivals in the 2024 Republican primary was notably muted.Mr. Trump still had defenders — including his top competitor in polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — who cast him as a victim of “politicization” of the Justice Department. But the tenor was subtly different. Some candidates seemed visibly tired of having to continually respond to Mr. Trump’s legal troubles at the expense of talking about anything else, and some did not say anything at all.Nikki Haley, who served as United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump and is now running against him, sounded exasperated when asked on Fox News about the investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. She called it a “distraction” from important issues like foreign policy, border security and the national debt.“The rest of this primary election is going to be in reference to Trump: it’s going to be about lawsuits; it’s going to be about legal fees; it’s going to be about judges; and it’s just going to continue to be a further and further distraction,” Ms. Haley said. “And that’s why I am running, is because we need a new generational leader. We can’t keep dealing with this drama.”She notably did not repeat what she said when Mr. Trump was indicted last month for his retention of classified documents: that the charges were evidence of “prosecutorial overreach, double standards and vendetta politics.”Mr. DeSantis, for his part, said that any indictment would be part of “an attempt to criminalize politics and to try to criminalize differences,” while also saying that Mr. Trump should have “come out more forcefully” to stop his supporters from storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.And while Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, speaking before a campaign event in New Hampshire, denounced what he described as “the weaponization of the Department of Justice against political enemies,” he quickly turned to naming non-Trump-related examples. Pressed further on Mr. Trump, he said, “The voters will decide the next president of the United States.”In other corners, silence reigned. The campaigns of Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami and Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota did not respond to requests for comment. And a spokesman for former Vice President Mike Pence — who, by certifying the election results on Jan. 6, made an enemy of his former boss — said that Mr. Pence had nothing to say Tuesday morning.But, in a nod to the political inescapability of Mr. Trump’s legal troubles, the spokesman, Devin O’Malley, added that Mr. Pence would be making television appearances later in the day and would probably be asked about it then.The restraint was not universal.A candidate who has been one of Mr. Trump’s most forceful defenders, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, went so far last month as to urge every 2024 contender to pledge to pardon him if elected. On Tuesday, he initially took a less fiery tack, saying he “would have made very different judgments than President Trump did, but a bad judgment is not a crime.” But not long after, he issued a conspiratorial statement, suggesting without evidence that the possible indictment was part of a plot to disqualify Mr. Trump from office under the 14th Amendment.“It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its chief political rivals,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. He added that he had filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking evidence for his belief that President Biden ordered the Justice Department and the special counsel to indict Mr. Trump. He ended the statement by promoting an upcoming campaign event.Three other low-polling candidates who, unlike Mr. Ramaswamy, have sought out the anti- Trump lane of the primary field reacted predictably.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said on Twitter that he would not comment on the potential legal case until an indictment was released, but that Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 proved “he doesn’t care about our country & our Constitution.” And former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas reiterated his call for Mr. Trump to suspend his campaign.“I have said from the beginning that Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 should disqualify him from ever being president again,” Mr. Hutchinson said in a statement. He added, “Anyone who truly loves this country and is willing to put the country over themselves would suspend their campaign for president of the United States immediately.”The third candidate, former Representative Will Hurd of Texas, was scathing: “Losing to Joe Biden was so humiliating to Donald Trump that he was willing to let people die for his lies about a stolen election,” he said in a statement. He added, “Trump’s inaction then, and now being a target in the investigation, proves he’s not fit for office.” More

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      Michigan Charges 16 in False Elector Scheme to Overturn Trump’s 2020 Loss

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      The Michigan attorney general announced felony charges on Tuesday against 16 Republicans for falsely portraying themselves as electors from the state in an effort to overturn Donald J. Trump’s 2020 defeat there.Each of the defendants was charged with eight felony counts, including forgery and conspiracy to commit forgery, on accusation that they had signed documents attesting falsely that they were Michigan’s “duly elected and qualified electors” for president and vice president.“They weren’t the duly elected and qualified electors, and each of the defendants knew it,” Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in announcing the charges. “They carried out these actions with the hope and belief that the electoral votes of Michigan’s 2020 election would be awarded to the candidate of their choosing instead of the candidate that Michigan voters actually chose.”The charges, the first against false electors in a sprawling scheme to hand the electoral votes of swing states won by Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Mr. Trump, add to the rapidly developing legal peril for Mr. Trump and those who helped him try to overturn the results of the election. They came the same day that Mr. Trump said federal prosecutors had told him that he is a target of their investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and other schemes he and his allies used to try to maintain power.Those charged in Michigan included Meshawn Maddock, 55, who went on to serve for a time as the co-chair of the Michigan Republican Party. Ms. Maddock, who has close ties to former President Donald J. Trump and is married to Matt Maddock, a state representative, accused Ms. Nessel of “a personal vendetta.”“This is part of a national coordinated” effort to stop Mr. Trump, she added.Wright Blake, a lawyer representing Mayra Rodriguez, 64, another elector who is a lawyer, said in an interview: “I’m very disappointed in the attorney general’s office. This is all political, obviously. If they want to charge my client, how come they didn’t charge Trump and the Trump lawyers that he sent here to discuss with the delegates what to do?”While a similar investigation in Atlanta has pulled in witnesses from across the country and has led to legal battles with Mr. Trump himself, thus far the Michigan inquiry has focused on residents of the state. It is not clear whether that will remain the case.“This remains an ongoing investigation, and our department has not ruled out potential charges against additional defendants,” Ms. Nessel said Tuesday of her inquiry.Others among the electors who were charged included Kathy Berden, 70, a member of the Republican National Committee, and Marian Sheridan, 69, the state party’s grass-roots vice chair. Neither responded to requests for comment.Documents released Tuesday by Ms. Nessel’s office laid out a scheme in which many of the Trump electors convened at the Republican Party state headquarters on Dec. 14, 2020, after being turned away from the State Capitol. The real electors who were certified by the Board of State Canvassers did meet at the Capitol, as required by law. Yet the Republican group falsely claimed they were the rightful electors and had met at the Capitol.Michigan is one of three states, along with Georgia and Arizona, where there are ongoing investigations relating to the use of false electors by the Trump team in 2020. Another investigation in Michigan, being conducted by a special prosecutor, concerns a network of right-wing activists — including Matthew DePerno, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully against Ms. Nessel last year — who are suspected of breaching voting machines in search of evidence of election fraud.In total, allies of Mr. Trump pushed to convene slates of fake electors in seven swing states that Mr. Biden won. The plan was to create the illusion of a dispute over which slates — the fake Trump ones or the real Biden ones — were legitimate, and to have members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence certify the fake Trump slates, thus handing the election to Mr. Trump in defiance of the will of voters.Ms. Nessel began investigating the matter in early 2021, but referred it to the Justice Department in January 2022. She said at the time that while there were grounds to bring criminal charges, because there appeared to be “a coordinated effort between the Republican parties in various different states, we think this is a matter that is best investigated and potentially prosecuted by the feds.”A few months later, she posted on Twitter: “If we don’t hold the people involved in the alternate elector scheme accountable, there is literally nothing to stop them from doing this again because there will have been no repercussions for it.”But by January of this year, federal prosecutors had taken no apparent action. So Ms. Nessel announced that “we are reopening our investigation, because I don’t know what the federal government plans to do.”In recent weeks, investigators have collected evidence and interviewed witnesses who have been affiliated with the state party.Since Ms. Nessel reopened her investigation, federal prosecutors have become increasingly active in Michigan and appear to be treading similar ground. A number of elections officials and lawmakers — including the secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson — have reportedly been interviewed in recent months by federal prosecutors.Both the federal and Michigan investigations are part of a reckoning over the conspiracy theories Mr. Trump and his allies have promoted about the election. More

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      ‘The 2024 Issue: Democracy or Autocracy?’

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      More from our inbox:Trump as Target: Is Another Indictment Coming?The Israeli-Palestinian ConflictStudent Loans, and the Purpose of CollegeDonald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump and Allies Seeking Vast Increase of His Power” (front page, July 17):Donald Trump plans, if elected next year, to revamp the administrative state, also known to conservatives as the deep state, also known to Mr. Trump as the warmongers, the globalists, the “communists, Marxists and fascists,” “the political class that hates our country.”Once revamped, this new state would be much more under Mr. Trump’s control, without those pesky independent agencies that are beyond his reach.We had a state like that in the past, headed by King George III, and decided that we did not like it, which is why we have what are quaintly known as “checks and balances,” designed precisely to prevent the president from amassing too much power.Are we really ready to replace “Hail to the Chief” with “Hail to the King”?John T. DillonWest Caldwell, N.J.To the Editor:If someone told Donald Trump that he is merely a tool of the Republican Party, he would be livid. But tool he is, and also a tool of the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation and all the billionaires who stand to gain from longstanding Republican tenets, if implemented.Going back to the Nixon era, conservative Republicans would often say, “The best government is the least government.” During several Republican administrations there have been efforts to reduce the size and the role of government. They have sought a smaller I.R.S., so that earnings of wealthy people would not be audited, and reduced regulation by federal agencies, maximizing the profits of businesses that would otherwise be regulated, at the expense of the health and safety of American citizens.Mr. Trump is a useful tool to the Republicans, who hope he can normalize discussion about a reduced government in a strongman executive branch. Even if another Republican is elected president in 2024, he will follow the Republican blueprint for the executive branch, and we can kiss our seminal experiment in democracy goodbye.Ben MyersHarvard, Mass.To the Editor:Those supporters of broader powers for a re-elected President Donald Trump should keep in mind the proverb “what goes around comes around.”If Republicans are successful in broadening a president’s executive branch powers, those powers could just as easily be used, and abused, by a future liberal Democratic president.Bert ElyAlexandria, Va.To the Editor:This article about Donald Trump and his allies seeking a vast increase in power for the president almost makes this anti-Trumper want to vote for him. What the article suggests that Mr. Trump will do is long overdue. I just wish he’d shut up and quit social media.Tom BrownKansas City, Mo.To the Editor:Donald Trump has said, “I have an Article 2, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” This is as clear a statement of intent as Mussolini’s in 1936: “We do not argue with those who disagree with us, we destroy them.”The common goal is to establish an autocracy. With his militarized acolytes, media allies and anti-regulation donors, Mr. Trump presents a clear threat to democracy, rule of law and any hope for equity or equality.This is the 2024 issue: democracy or autocracy?Brian KellyRockville Centre, N.Y.To the Editor:If people weren’t scared before, they should be after reading this. How fascism comes to the United States.People of good conscience know what must be done. Save our democracy! Vote!Alison Goodwin SchiffNew YorkTrump as Target: Is Another Indictment Coming? Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Says He’s a Target in Special Counsel’s Capitol Attack Investigation” (news update, nytimes.com, July 18):Donald Trump announced that on Sunday he received a notice that he is a target in the ongoing federal investigation into the Jan. 6 uprising being conducted by the special counsel Jack Smith. Such notices are almost always followed by an actual indictment.This is huge news. It felt like a lock that the Justice Department would indict Mr. Trump for his flagrant mishandling of classified documents. But it was far from certain that the evidence would be deemed compelling enough to indict him on charges related to Jan. 6.In the past it has often seemed as if Mr. Trump was shrouded in an impenetrable Teflon coating and nothing could pierce that protective barrier. Perhaps this, an indictment on charges he helped to incite the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, will prove to be his final undoing.Whether the news affects his strong front-runner status in the Republican presidential race remains to be seen. But what does seem certain is that it will erode his support in the 2024 general election if he is the Republican nominee and help to ensure that this man never again resides in the White House.Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.The Israeli-Palestinian ConflictRepresentative Pramila Jayapal told a Netroots Nation conference over the weekend that some lawmakers “have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.” Kenny Holston for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Hysteria Over Jayapal’s ‘Racist State’ Gaffe,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, July 18):I write to thank Ms. Goldberg for calling attention to an important point: Israel’s defenders must face the reality that its policies are deeply destructive to the Palestinian people and ultimately to the state of Israel itself.It is impossible to choose to oppress a people without morally implicating oneself. This is true for a single human and true for any state in our complex and conflicted world.Unless Israel acknowledges the humanity of the Palestinian people and changes its policies, it is doomed to fail by its own hand.Marea Siris WexlerNorthampton, Mass.To the Editor:Michelle Goldberg’s thoughtful column does not mention the reason the Israeli people and government have turned rightward. The Palestinians refuse to recognize the right of the Israeli nation to exist and have been lax in preventing Palestinian attacks, including murders of Israeli citizens.Albert MarshakAtlantic Beach, N.Y.Student Loans, and the Purpose of CollegeAmerica’s Student Loans Were Never Going to Be RepaidDuring the pandemic, the U.S. paused regular payments for student loans. But repayment was dwindling for at least a decade before that.To the Editor:Re “Who Repays Student Loans?,” by Laura Beamer and Marshall Steinbaum (Opinion guest essay, July 16):Proposed policies to fund or defund public colleges based on students’ labor market outcomes will merely reinforce the notion that colleges are job-training institutions and will further damage liberal arts education at institutions serving minorities and the working class.Having students rack up more debt will ultimately damage the economy when those indebted former students cannot afford to buy cars or homes, marry or have children.We should revisit how the interest on student loans is compounded, which forces former students to pay two or three times the original amount of their loans as interest accrues over time.But in the larger sense, we must rethink the whole system of higher education to see it as a public good rather than a privilege reserved for those who can best afford it.Max HermanBloomfield, N.J.The writer is an associate professor of sociology at New Jersey City University. 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      DeSantis, Haley and Pence Attack Democrats in Speeches Supporting Israel

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      President Biden and progressive congresswomen were the focus of Republican presidential hopefuls’ criticism at the Christians United for Israel Summit.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday sharply criticized the Biden administration’s policies on Israel, calling them “disgraceful,” seeking to highlight his pro-Israel credentials as he goes head-to-head with former President Donald J. Trump for evangelical voters.In Washington at the Christians United for Israel Summit, an annual gathering of conservatives with ties to the Israeli right wing, Mr. DeSantis also vowed to never waver on Israel’s claim to Jerusalem and to forcefully oppose the boycott-Israel movement that he said promoted prejudice against Jewish people.Three Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. DeSantis, appeared at the event, which unfolded as President Biden on Monday invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to the White House and was set to meet in Washington later this week with Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president. The Netanyahu government has long cultivated its ties with evangelical Christians, whose beliefs that Israel is special to God has led many to hold hawkish views in support of the Jewish state.“You’re free as a person to have whatever views you want,” Mr. DeSantis told the crowd. “But when you concoct a movement that focuses all of your ire at the only Jewish state in this world, at the exclusion of all these other things,” he added, “that is antisemitism.”Mr. DeSantis never once mentioned the progressive Democrats who have said they will boycott a speech by Mr. Herzog to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. But he used his speech to emphasize his strong support for Israel and attack White House policies, as many conservatives have sought to portray Democrats who criticize Israel as anti-Zionist or even antisemitic.His Republican presidential rivals who also spoke at the event — Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and a United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration, and former Vice President Mike Pence — took direct aim at the progressive Democratic congresswomen who have pushed for a shift in thinking about the Mideast conflict, focusing the debate on human rights.Ms. Haley attacked Mr. Biden over how long it took to extend a White House invitation to Mr. Netanyahu after he re-entered office in December. In callbacks to the public fights between Mr. Trump and the “Squad,” she singled out Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who is planning to skip the Herzog speech, and said “the Democratic Party is the definition of extreme.” She added, “It’s time to censure the Squad and get antisemitism out of America for good.”Antisemitism has been on the rise in recent years. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-shot Democratic presidential candidate who has been invited by House Republicans to testify on Capitol Hill on censorship, falsely claimed recently that the Covid-19 virus was engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, prompting accusations of antisemitism and racism.And top House Democrats have been rushing to reject comments from Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who described Israel as “a racist state” at a progressive conference over the weekend.In a statement on Sunday, Ms. Jayapal, who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, sought to clarify her remarks. “I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist,” she said. “I do, however, believe that Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies and that there are extreme racists driving that policy within the leadership of the current government.”On Monday at the summit in Washington, Mr. Pence criticized Ms. Jayapal, Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota for using what he described as “antisemitic tropes” and “antisemitic remarks.”“The words by these congresswomen are a disgrace,” Mr. Pence said, adding that “they are beneath the dignity of the relationship” between the United States and Israel. “President Biden and every Democrat member of Congress should denounce them and denounce them today.”Ms. Omar in 2019 apologized for implying that American support for Israel was fueled by money from a pro-Israel lobbying group, remarks that drew swift condemnation from fellow Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Ms. Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to Congress, has also faced criticism from Republicans and pro-Israel Democrats for calling Israel an “apartheid regime.”Coming out in support of Ms. Jayapal on Monday, Ms. Tlaib said, “The Israeli government is committing the crime of apartheid.”“Apartheid is a racist system of oppression,” she added.On Monday, Mr. DeSantis, who received loud applause and a standing ovation, rejected a two-state solution establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel that has been at the basis of peace talks for decades but has proved difficult to achieve. And he denounced efforts that he argued used “the economy and business to impose a radical left-wing agenda” on Israeli policy.“The way they treat a strong ally like Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he said of the Biden administration, “what they’re trying to do to shoehorn Israel into bad policies has been disgraceful.” More

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      Georgia Supreme Court Rejects Trump Effort to Quash Investigation

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      With indictment decisions imminent, the court refused to scuttle an investigation into whether the former president and his allies interfered in the 2020 election.ATLANTA — In a ruling on Monday, the Georgia Supreme Court rejected a long-shot attempt by former President Donald J. Trump’s legal team to scuttle an investigation into election interference weeks before indictment decisions are expected.The pronouncement from the court was both unanimous and swift, coming just three days after Mr. Trump’s lawyers submitted their filing. They had sought a court order that would throw out the work of a special grand jury in Atlanta and disqualify Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, from the proceedings. She has been the prosecutor in charge of the investigation into whether Mr. Trump and his allies interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia.Most of the court’s nine justices were originally appointed by Republican governors; thus far, the case has played out in Superior Court in Atlanta.Mr. Trump’s lawyers had conceded in their filing that they were up against long odds and had identified “no case in 40 years” where the court had intervened in the way they were seeking. In their ruling, the justices said the Trump team had “not shown that this case presents one of those extremely rare circumstances in which this court’s original jurisdiction should be invoked, and therefore, the petition is dismissed.”They also said that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had not presented “either the facts or the law necessary to mandate Willis’s disqualification.”Mr. Trump’s lawyers had previously sought to scuttle the investigation with a motion, filed in March, to quash much of the evidence that Ms. Willis’s team had collected since the investigation began in early 2021 and to take Ms. Willis off it. But the Superior Court judge handling the case, Robert C.I. McBurney, has yet to rule.“Stranded between the supervising judge’s protected passivity and the district attorney’s looming indictment, petitioner has no meaningful option other than to seek this court’s intervention,” the lawyers wrote in their filing to the state’s high court on Friday.The lawyers could not be reached immediately on Monday; the district attorney’s office had no immediate comment.Ms. Willis has signaled that any indictments will come in the first half of August; she recently asked judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse not to schedule trials for part of that time as she prepares to bring charges. The investigation has examined whether the former president and his allies illegally interfered in the 2020 election in Georgia, where Mr. Trump lost narrowly to Joe Biden.The special grand jury heard evidence for roughly seven months and recommended indictments of more than a dozen people; its forewoman strongly hinted in an interview with The New York Times in February that Mr. Trump was among them. To bring any charges, Ms. Willis must now seek indictments from a regular grand jury. More