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      The Absurd Argument Against Making Trump Obey the Law

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      This article has been updated to include new information about a man who attempted to breach an F.B.I. field office.It took many accidents, catastrophes, misjudgments and mistakes for Donald Trump to win the presidency in 2016. Two particularly important errors came from James Comey, then the head of the F.B.I., who was excessively worried about what Trump’s supporters would think of the resolution of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.First, in July 2016, Comey broke protocol to give a news conference in which he criticized Clinton even while announcing that she’d committed no crime. He reportedly did this because he wanted to protect the reputation of the F.B.I. from inevitable right-wing claims that the investigation had been shut down for political reasons.Then, on Oct. 28, just days before the election, Comey broke protocol again, telling Congress that the Clinton investigation had been reopened because of emails found on the laptop of the former congressman Anthony Weiner. The Justice Department generally discourages filing charges or taking “overt investigative steps” close to an election if they might influence the result. Comey disregarded this because, once again, he dreaded a right-wing freakout once news of the reopened investigation emerged.“The prospect of oversight hearings, led by restive Republicans investigating an F.B.I. ‘cover-up,’ made everyone uneasy,” The New Yorker reported. In Comey’s memoir, he admitted fearing that concealing the new stage of the investigation — which ended up yielding nothing — would make Clinton, who he assumed would win, seem “illegitimate.” (He didn’t, of course, feel similarly compelled to make public the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia.)Comey’s attempts to pre-empt a conservative firestorm blew up in his face. He helped put Trump in the White House, where Trump did generational damage to the rule of law and led us to a place where prominent Republicans are calling for abolishing the F.B.I.This should be a lesson about the futility of shaping law enforcement decisions around the sensitivities of Trump’s base. Yet after the F.B.I. executed a search warrant at Trump’s beachfront estate this week, some intelligent people have questioned the wisdom of subjecting the former president to the normal operation of the law because of the effect it will have on his most febrile admirers.Andrew Yang, one of the founders of a new centrist third party, tweeted about the “millions of Americans who will see this as unjust persecution.” Damon Linker, usually one of the more sensible centrist thinkers, wrote, “Rather than healing the country’s civic wounds, the effort to punish Trump will only deepen them.”The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta described feeling “nauseous” watching coverage of the raid. “What we must acknowledge — even those of us who believe Trump has committed crimes, in some cases brazenly so, and deserves full prosecution under the law — is that bringing him to justice could have some awful consequences,” he wrote.In some sense, Alberta’s words are obviously true; Trumpists are already issuing death threats against the judge who signed off on the warrant, and a Shabbat service at his synagogue was reportedly canceled because of the security risk. On Thursday, an armed man tried to breach an F.B.I. field office in Ohio, and The New York Times reported that he appears to have attended a pro-Trump rally in Washington the night before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The former president relishes his ability to stir up a mob; it’s part of what makes him so dangerous.We already know, however, that the failure to bring Trump to justice — for his company’s alleged financial chicanery and his alleged sexual assault, for obstructing Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation and turning the presidency into a squalid influence-peddling operation, for trying to steal an election and encouraging an insurrection — has been disastrous.What has strengthened Trump has not been prosecution but impunity, an impunity that some of those who stormed the Capitol thought, erroneously, applied to them as well. Trump’s mystique is built on his defiance of rules that bind everyone else. He is reportedly motivated to run for president again in part because the office will protect him from prosecution. If we don’t want the presidency to license crime sprees, we should allow presidents to be indicted, not accept some dubious norm that ex-presidents shouldn’t be.We do not know the scope of the investigation that led a judge to authorize the search of Mar-a-Lago, though it reportedly involves classified documents that Trump failed to turn over to the government even after being subpoenaed. More could be revealed soon: Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Thursday that the Justice Department had filed a motion in court to unseal the search warrant.It should go without saying that Trump and his followers, who howled “Lock her up!” about Clinton, do not believe that it is wrong for the Justice Department to pursue a probe against a presidential contender over the improper handling of classified material. What they believe is that it is wrong to pursue a case against Trump, who bonds with his acolytes through a shared sense of aggrieved victimization.The question is how much deference the rest of us should give to this belief. No doubt, Trump’s most inflamed fans might act out in horrifying ways; many are heavily armed and speak lustily about civil war. To let this dictate the workings of justice is to accept an insurrectionists’ veto. The far right is constantly threatening violence if it doesn’t get its way. Does anyone truly believe that giving in to its blackmail will make it less aggressive?It was Trump himself who signed a law making the removal and retention of classified documents a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Those who think that it would be too socially disruptive to apply such a statute to him should specify which laws they believe the former president is and is not obliged to obey. And those in charge of enforcing our laws should remember that the caterwauling of the Trump camp is designed to intimidate them and such intimidation helped him become president in the first place.Trump shouldn’t be prosecuted because of politics, but he also shouldn’t be spared because of them. The only relevant question is whether he committed a crime, not what crimes his devotees might commit if he’s held to account.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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      Your Friday Briefing: U.S. to Unseal Trump Warrant

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      Plus Russia prepares for show trials and Taiwan does not rise to China’s provocations.Good morning. We’re covering moves by the U.S. to unseal the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, Russia’s preparation for possible show trials and Taiwan’s undeterred diplomacy.Attorney General Merrick Garland had come under pressure to provide more information about the search at former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence.Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesU.S. to unseal the Trump warrantMerrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, moved to unseal the warrant authorizing the F.B.I. search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s residence in Florida. Garland said he personally approved the decision to seek the warrant.Garland’s statement followed revelations that Trump received a subpoena for documents this spring, months before the F.B.I. search on Monday. It also came a day after Trump asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when he was questioned by New York’s attorney general in a civil case about his business practices.The subpoena suggests the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents, unannounced, to the former president’s doorstep. Here are live updates.Details: Officials think the former president improperly took documents with him after leaving office. The Justice Department has provided no information about the precise nature of the material it has been seeking to recover, but it has signaled that the material involved classified information of a sensitive nature.Analysis: Garland’s decision to make a public appearance came at an extraordinary moment in the department’s 152-year history, as the sprawling investigation of a former president who remains a powerful political force gains momentum. After coming under pressure, Garland said he decided to go public to serve the “public interest.”The Mariupol Chamber Philharmonic will be used for upcoming show trials of Ukrainian soldiers. Associated PressRussia readies for likely show trialsRussia has installed cages in a large Mariupol theater, an apparent preparation for show trials of captured Ukrainian soldiers on newly occupied soil. The trials could begin on Aug. 24, Ukrainian Independence Day.Some fear that the Kremlin plans to use the trappings of legal proceedings to reinforce its narrative about fighters who defended the southern Ukrainian city and spent weeks underneath a steel plant. Ukrainian officials have called for international intervention.Moscow may also use the trials to deflect responsibility for atrocities Russia committed as its forces laid siege to Mariupol. The Kremlin has a long and brutal history of using such trials to give a veneer of credibility to efforts to silence critics. Here are live updates.Our Coverage of the Russia-Ukraine WarOn the Ground: A series of explosions that Ukraine took credit for rocked a key Russian air base in Kremlin-occupied Crimea. Russia played down the extent of the damage, but the evidence available told a different story.Drones: To counter Russia’s advantage in artillery and tanks, Ukraine has seized on drone warfare and produced an array of inexpensive, plastic aircraft rigged to drop grenades or other munitions.Nuclear Shelter: The Russian military is using а nuclear power station in southern Ukraine as a fortress, stymying Ukrainian forces and unnerving locals, faced with intensifying fighting and the threat of a radiation leak.Starting Over: Ukrainians forced from their hometowns by Russia’s invasion find some solace, and success setting up businesses in new cities.Context: Concerns for prisoners’ safety have only grown since last month, when the Ukrainian authorities accused Moscow of orchestrating an explosion at a Russian prison camp that killed at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war.Other updates:Satellite images show that Russia lost at least eight warplanes in a Tuesday explosion at a Crimean air base.New shelling at a Russian-occupied nuclear plant in southern Ukraine added to concerns of possible disaster.Turkey needs Russian cash and gas ahead of an election. Russia needs friends to evade sanctions. The country’s leaders have a wary, mutually beneficial rapport.Taiwanese soldiers conducted a live-fire drill earlier this week. Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesChina’s drills did not deter TaiwanChina’s continuing military drills have not deterred Taiwan, my colleagues write in an analysis.In fact, the drills have hardened the self-ruled island’s belief in the value of its diplomatic, economic and military maneuverings to stake out a middle ground in the big-power standoff between Beijing and Washington.Under Tsai Ing-wen, the current president, Taiwanese officials have quietly courted the U.S., making gains with weapon sales and vows of support. They have also turned China’s bluster into a growing international awareness about the island’s plight.But Taiwan has held back from flaunting that success in an effort to avoid outbursts from China. When Beijing recently sent dozens of fighters across the water that separates China and Taiwan, the Taiwanese military said it would not escalate and took relatively soft countermeasures. Officials offered sober statements and welcomed support from the Group of 7 nations.What’s next: American officials have considered stockpiling arms in Taiwan out of concern that it might be tough to supply the island in the event of a Chinese military blockade.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaAn undated North Korean state media photograph showed Kim Jong-un attending a meeting about Covid-19.Korean Central News Agency, via ReutersKim Jong-un declared “victory” over North Korea’s coronavirus outbreak, despite a lack of vaccines, state news reported.Hong Kong suffered a record 1.6 percent population decline over the past 12 months, the South China Morning Post reports.A new animal-derived virus, Langya henipavirus, has infected at least 35 people in China’s eastern Shandong and Henan provinces, the BBC reports.Seoul announced a ban on underground homes after people drowned during recent flooding, The Korea Herald reports.The PacificOlivia Newton-John will receive a state memorial service in Australia, CNN reports.New Zealand’s tourism minister dismissed budget travelers and said the country planned to focus on attracting “high quality,” “big spender” visitors, The Guardian reports.World NewsAfter peaking in June, the lower price of gas is a welcome change for drivers.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesU.S. gas prices fell below $4 a gallon yesterday, back to where they were in March.The Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average, not the commonly reported two to three times, researchers said.The W.H.O. warned people to not blame monkeys for monkeypox after a report that animals were harmed in Brazil amid fear of transmission.Wildfires are again ripping through France, weeks after the last heat wave.A Morning ReadSo-called carbon farming has become a key element of New Zealand’s drive to be carbon neutral by 2050.Fiona Goodall/Getty ImagesNew Zealand put a growing price on greenhouse emissions. But the plan may be threatening its iconic farmland: Forestry investors are rushing to buy up pastures to plant carbon-sucking trees.ARTS AND IDEASSelling democracy to AfricaThe U.S. unveiled a new Africa policy this week that leaned on a familiar strategy, promoting democracy. The challenge will come in selling it to a changing continent.“Too often, African nations have been treated as instruments of other nations’ progress rather than the authors of their own,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said as he presented the new U.S. approach during a tour that included South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.The U.S. “will not dictate Africa’s choices,” he added, in an apparent response to criticism that America’s stance toward Africa can be patronizing, if not insulting. “I think, given history, the approach has to be somewhat different, and I would recommend a greater attention to tools that Africans have developed,” said Naledi Pandor, South Africa’s foreign minister.Along with their own tools and institutions, like the African Union, more African states are wealthier than they were a generation ago, Bob Wekesa, the deputy director of the African Center for the Study of the United States in Johannesburg, said.“They can afford to say, ‘We can choose who to deal with on certain issues,’” Wekesa said. Those new partnerships include not only U.S. rivals Russia and China, but also emerging powers like Turkey and India. Traditional U.S. allies like Botswana and Zambia are likely to embrace the American strategy, but strongman leaders in Uganda and even Rwanda are likely to be more resistant, he added.In Kigali yesterday, Blinken said that he had urged the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo to end their support for militias in eastern Congo. He also raised concerns about the detention of the U.S. resident who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda,” Paul Rusesabagina.But just hours before his meeting with Blinken, President Paul Kagame poured cold water over suggestions that he would be swayed on the Rusesabagina case. “No worries … there are things that just don’t work like that here!!” he said on Twitter. — Lynsey Chutel, Briefings writer based in Johannesburg.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookChristopher Testani for The New York TimesCaramelized brown sugar adds complexity to this berry upside-down cake.What to Watch“Inu-oh” is a visually sumptuous anime film about a 14th-century Japanese performer.TravelRetirees are taking on part-time work loading baggage at airports or passing out towels to make their way through Europe on the cheap.Now Time to PlayPlay today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: “Crucial” (three letters).Here are today’s Wordle and Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you next time. — AmeliaP.S. The Times will bring back its Food Festival for the first time since 2019. Mark your calendars: Oct. 8, in New York City.The latest episode of “The Daily” is on abortion in the U.S.You can reach Amelia and the team at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      Josh Hawley’s Manhood, Mike Pompeo’s Midriff and Other 2024 Indicators

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      Josh Hawley has a book about manhood coming out next year. Nikki Haley has a book about womanhood coming out in two months.Mike Pompeo has lost so much weight that he’s barely recognizable. Mike Pence has grown so much spine that he’s almost a vertebrate.Don’t tell them Donald Trump is the Republican Party’s inevitable 2024 presidential nominee. If that’s foreordained, then a whole lot of literary, cardiovascular and orthopedic effort has gone to waste.The news media is lousy of late with articles about the various Democrats potentially waiting in the wings if President Biden decides against a second term, to the point where he’s sometimes treated as more of a 2024 question mark than Trump is.Maybe that’s right. In a straw poll of Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, Trump was the top choice to run for president, winning 69 percent of the vote. Second place went to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, with just 24 percent, and third went to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, with a measly 2 percent.But Trump is no spring chicken, and by the looks of things, he pays much less heed to his health than Biden does. A year from now he could be unfit for office in more ways than he already is.He could be in handcuffs! OK, that’s probably just a happy fantasy. But maybe less of one since the F.B.I. raided Mar-a-Lago on Monday? He’s the subject of investigations civil and criminal, federal and state.Or he could finally wear out his Republican welcome. “It is a sign of weakness, not strength, that Team Trump has been reduced to touting straw-poll results from events that most Americans, and indeed the vast majority of Republicans, know nothing about,” Isaac Schorr wrote in National Review early this week, adding that CPAC had in fact “been repurposed into an appeal to the former president’s vanity.”The Republicans eager to take his place at the helm of the party know all that. And they don’t have to be quite as discreet and demure in their positioning as Democrats interested in standing in for Biden do. Trump’s not the incumbent president, at least not in the world beyond his and his supplicants’ delusions.That positioning, once you recognize it, is a hoot. Everyone’s after a kind of branding that rivals won’t copy, a moment in the spotlight that competitors can’t match, an angle, an edge.DeSantis’s action-figure approach to his role as governor of Florida is in part about the fact that Cruz, Hawley and others don’t have the executive authority that he does and can’t make things happen as unilaterally or as quickly. They’re would-be MAGA superheroes bereft of their red capes.So a week ago, DeSantis didn’t merely suspend the top Tampa Bay area prosecutor, who said that he would never consider abortion a crime. DeSantis also peacocked to that part of the state and, surrounded by a flock of law enforcement officials, crowed about his decision during a news conference.Cruz and Hawley were such hams during the confirmation hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson because, as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, they had a stage that DeSantis, Pence, Pompeo and others didn’t. Might as well pig out on the opportunity.Haley’s forthcoming book, “If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons From Bold Women,” is one that Cruz, Hawley, Pence and Pompeo would have an awkward time pulling off, and it beats voters over the head with the fact that she’s a trailblazer in ways that they can’t be.But does she or any other Republican love the Lord with Pence’s ardor? That’s a question he obviously wants to put in voters’ minds with his memoir, “So Help Me God,” to be released about a month after “If You Want Something Done.”Pompeo is doing a prep-for-the-presidency twofer. According to The New York Post, he shed 90 pounds in six months after his stint as Trump’s secretary of state was over. And he’s apparently putting the finishing touches on a memoir of his own, “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,” which Broadside Books is scheduled to publish in January.Its crowded company includes not only Haley’s and Pence’s books but also one by Cruz, “Justice Corrupted: How the Left Weaponized Our Legal System,” which is due in late October, and, of course, Hawley’s testosterone treatise, “Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs,” which has surely become a more risible sell in the wake of those images of him sprinting for the Capitol exit on Jan. 6, 2021.Here, for your delectation, is a snippet of the promotional copy for Hawley’s book: “No republic has ever survived without men of character to defend what is just and true. Starting with the wisdom of the ancients, from the Greek and Roman philosophers to Jesus of Nazareth, and drawing on the lessons of American history, Hawley identifies the defining strengths of men, including responsibility, bravery, fidelity and leadership.” I have goose bumps.Lest “Manhood” fail to persuade you of Hawley’s nonpareil virility, he summoned boundless courage last week to stand up to … Finland and Sweden. He was the only senator to vote against their admission to NATO.David Von Drehle sized it up correctly in a column in The Washington Post: “In search of a position that would set him apart from his rivals among the Senate’s young conservatives, Hawley arrived at the cockeyed notion that adding two robust military powers with vibrant economies would somehow increase NATO’s burden on U.S. resources.”Cockeyed? No! Cocksure — and undoubtedly weighing which fearsome and dastardly global actor he’ll unleash the full force of his manliness on next. The citizens of New Zealand tremble. The people of Andorra quiver.For the Love of SongsTracy ChapmanClayton Call/Redferns, via Getty ImagesI’m making a slight change to the title and tilt of this feature and putting the focus on songs instead of lyrics, because you can’t have the latter without the former and I don’t know anyone who listens repeatedly to a song if only the lyrics are appealing. Besides, the most poetic, truest and funniest lyrics don’t hit their marks unless their aural trappings complement them.The hundreds of unused nominations that you’ve sent in over time remain viable — you were always praising whole songs. And I’ll keep dipping into those nominations. I’m doing that today, with two very different but magnificent compositions that never lose their luster.“Fast Car,” written and performed by Tracy Chapman, is close to perfect. Scratch that: It is perfect. Released in 1988, it’s one of those ambitious songs, like Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle,” that tells a decades-spanning story and captures a life’s arc in just a few minutes, its lyrics a feat of economy and deftly chosen anecdotes and imagery:See, my old man’s got a problemHe lives with a bottle, that’s the way it isHe says his body’s too old for workingHis body’s too young to look like hisIt’s a song about a poor woman’s yearning and disillusionment, about how trapped she is, and the “fast car,” mentioned over and over, becomes both incantation and multipurpose metaphor, a means of escape, a vessel of delusion, a promise, a betrayal. The music works gorgeously with the words: During the verses it communicates the grind of her existence, but then it speeds up for the chorus, which captures the exhilaration of her dreams.When I went looking online for live performances of the song, the one I found had, below it, this comment from someone identified as Avila Dauvin: “How can someone write a song that breaks your heart and lifts your soul at the same time? Absolute legend.” I can’t say it any better.And I’m not surprised that “Fast Car” has been covered many times. Here’s a compendium of versions by Khalid, Birdy, Sam Smith and more. (Thanks to Carole Randolph Jurkash of Darien, Ill., and Deirdre Godfrey of Chicopee, Mass., for drawing my attention to “Fast Car” anew.)The other song I want to celebrate isn’t as lyrically epic or eloquent, but it’s gorgeous, and it lifts my soul even higher than “Fast Car” does. Please tell me that you’re familiar with Van Morrison’s “Sweet Thing,” which was released in 1968 and became a classic over the years. Please tell me that you smile at its start, when it playfully canters, and that you’re mesmerized two minutes in, when it reaches full gallop. And please tell me that its description of love’s spell — of how love puts stars in your eyes and the wind at your back — rings true to you:And I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rainAnd I will never, ever, ever, ever grow so old again“Sweet Thing” is a sublimely sweet thing, salted in just the right measure by Morrison’s voice. (Keith Krabbe, Princeton, N.J.)“For the Love of Songs” appears monthly(ish). To nominate a songwriter and song, please email me here, including your name and place of residence. “For the Love of Sentences” will return with the next newsletter; you can use the same link to suggest recent snippets of prose for it.What I’m ReadingMany Latino voters’ movement away from Democrats and toward Republicans is a fascinating and important political story, and Axios recently put together a broad-ranging but succinct examination of the shift.My belief that North Carolina is an instructive mirror of America, my attention to L.G.B.T.Q. issues and my worry about our ability to find common ground all fed my interest in this article by my Duke University colleague Barry Yeoman in The Assembly. It’s about a schism in the United Methodist Church, and it asks “how long the ‘United’ in their name will hold.” The question applies to the United States these days as well.Another Duke colleague of mine, David Schanzer, recently began a newsletter, Perilous Times, which provides commentary about political and policy-related news, especially developments that underscore threats to our democracy. He weighed in this week on the meaning of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s rapturous reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas.I’m a bit late to “American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears,” by my Opinion colleague Farah Stockman, but I’m very glad I finally got there. Published last October, Farah’s book chronicles the closing of a factory in Indiana that made ball bearings, and it’s both epic and intimate, with big thoughts about America and poignant details about the three people at the center of her meticulously reported narrative.On a Personal NoteXose Bouzas/Hans Lucas, via ReduxIf April is the cruelest month, August is the laziest. Businesses shutter. Beaches fill. From my observation, more people take weeklong or weekslong vacations around this time of year than any other, and if you’re one of them, and you’re away right now or will be heading off soon, I’m curious:Is your destination where you really want to be? Or is it where you want to say and show you’ve been?Did you choose it based on the tug of your heart? Or based on the tyranny of expectation?These questions came to mind as I read an excellent recent column in The Times by my colleague and friend Ginia Bellafante, who reflected on the crush of tourists using the Manhattan Bridge as a backdrop for selfies. She wondered, rightly, whether the look-at-it majesty of the landmark was being lost in the look-at-me mania for proof of having brushed up against it.I in turn wonder how much joy we lose — with travel as with so many other dimensions of life — by striking certain poses, honing certain images and fussing over how the world receives us rather than simply relishing our movement through it.The way so many people choose their vacation spots is a case in point. They collect places the way a Boy Scout or Girl Scout collects badges. Or they follow the crowd. They do what they think people like them are supposed to do — maybe because they lack the confidence to call their own shots, maybe because they lack the energy, maybe because they lack the imagination.They go to a given landmark because aren’t they supposed to? Don’t they want a record of the encounter? That record used to be a traditional photograph or maybe a silly souvenir. Now it’s a selfie, which is often as much an advertisement — an act of personal branding — as it is a keepsake.But there’s a difference between memorializing a vacation and enjoying it. I saw that less clearly in the past than I do now, and I do my flawed best to stay focused on it — to realize that my least ambitious, least photographed, most private breaks from work and escapes from routine are among my favorites. I’m not a big fan of precious portmanteaus, but I’m modestly fond of “staycation” — or, rather, the message of it: You needn’t necessarily set out for any coveted locale or impress anyone, including yourself, to lighten your load, free your thoughts, lift your spirit, find your bliss. More

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      Should Merrick Garland Reveal More About the Mar-a-Lago Search?

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      More from our inbox:Democrats’ TacticsThe Robot TherapistFamily PlanningFormer President Donald J. Trump could oppose the motion to release the warrant and inventory of items taken from his home, and some of his aides were said to be leaning toward doing so.Emil Lippe for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Attorney General Stays Quiet, as Critics Raise the Volume” (news article, Aug. 10):The Justice Department really needs to explain to the American people why the F.B.I. searched former President Donald Trump’s home, given the precedent-shattering nature of what happened. It should do so for three reasons.First, given that such an act has never occurred before in American history, the public deserves to know why a former president was sufficiently suspect that the F.B.I. felt it had no choice but to conduct a search of his living quarters.Second, the silence will be interpreted and misinterpreted on the basis of partisan biases. Already right-wing leaders have deemed this an act of war, while liberals perceive it as justified, given the president’s predilection to illegally hold onto classified materials. To correct misperceptions, the D.O.J. needs to explain its rationale.Third, there is precedent for this. In 2016, James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, sent a letter to Congress to explain why the bureau was investigating Anthony Weiner’s email messages, which bore on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.If a Justice Department official went public in a case like that, surely it should offer an explanation for a case this precedent-breaking and important.Richard M. PerloffClevelandThe writer is a professor of communication and political science at Cleveland State University.To the Editor:Like many other Americans, I’m curious to know more about the Justice Department’s investigation of Donald Trump. But I think Attorney General Merrick Garland is right to keep silent about the details at this point. Mr. Khardori cites “exceptions” to the prosecutorial rule about not commenting on ongoing investigations, but none of them apply particularly well here.We already know what it’s appropriate for us to know at this point, such as that the search of Mar-a-Lago had to have happened only after a federal judge agreed that evidence of a serious crime was likely to be found there.In due time, I suspect, we’ll know a lot more. For now, let’s be patient and let the Justice Department do its job. The list of reasons for it to avoid public comment at this stage is longer than the list of reasons for it to do the opposite.Jeff BurgerRidgewood, N.J.To the Editor:“He Wielded a Sword. Now He Claims a Shield” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 11) certainly gets it right when it notes that the current outrage of the former president and his supporters over the F.B.I.’s execution of a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago estate brings up echoes of his past behavior.After all, for Donald Trump, if he loses an election, someone else rigged it.If the U.S. Capitol is attacked, someone else incited it.Taking the Fifth Amendment is bad, as long as someone else does it.And, now, if the F.B.I. finds incriminating evidence at Mar-a-Lago, someone else planted it.So, as Donald Trump sees it, life is simply never, ever having to say you’re sorry.Chuck CutoloWestbury, N.Y.To the Editor:Representative Kevin McCarthy has said that should the Republicans take over the House in January, the Democrats should be prepared for a slew of investigations of just about everything and everyone including Hunter Biden (does anyone care?), Attorney General Merrick Garland and, most recently, the F.B.I.Such a threat is understandable, and Mr. Garland and the Democrats should be prepared to, quoting Mr. McCarthy, “preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”They should also be prepared to ignore invitations to testify, ignore subpoenas, claim victimhood, scream harassment, and overall thank the current cohort of Republicans for having created the template for avoidance, misdirection and dishonesty that have made a travesty of justice.David I. SommersKensington, Md.To the Editor:Donald Trump himself could not have better timed the raid on Mar-a-Lago. The Senate just passed a historic bill to save the environment, reduce inflation and get the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes. And all we hear about is … Donald Trump.Let’s hear about the good that the Biden administration is doing. That is the news the country needs to focus on. Let’s stop giving Donald Trump the spotlight.Laurel DurstChilmark, Mass.Democrats’ Tactics Ben KotheTo the Editor:Re “Why Are Democrats Helping the Far Right?,” by Brian Beutler (Sunday Opinion, July 24):I am not as sanguine as Mr. Beutler that all will be well if Democrats fight “from the high grounds of truth, ethics and fair play.” As the old saw says, “All politics is local.”Many issues facing voters such as inflation, Covid policies, abortion and gun control are largely out of direct control of the president, but false or misdirected blame will resonate locally when tagged to the Democrats or President Biden.Sadly, I don’t trust the electorate in general to recognize abstract ideas about threats to democracy and mortal dangers to our nation, when a costly gallon of gas is made out to be the Democrats’ fault. I hope I’m wrong.Gene ResnickNew YorkThe Robot TherapistDesdemona, a robot who performs in a band (but is probably not aware of that fact).Ian Allen for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A.I. Does Not Have Thoughts, No Matter What You Think” (Sunday Business, Aug. 7):In the mid-1980s, my daughters and I loved talking with the therapy chatbot Eliza on our Commodore 64. She often seemed to respond with understanding and compassion, and at times she got it hilariously wrong.We knew that Eliza was not a therapist, or even a human, but I see now that “she” was programmed to do something many humans have not mastered: to actively listen and reflect on what she heard so that the human in the conversation could dig deep and find his or her own answers. In the healing circles I’ve facilitated for women, we call that holding space.We would all do well to learn Eliza’s simple skills.This blackout poem that I created from the accompanying article, “A Conversation With Eliza,” encapsulates the process of digging deep, whether with a chatbot or a human:“Eliza”I thinkI am depressed.I needmy mother.Mary SchanuelWentzville, Mo.Family Planning Lauren DeCicca for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Promoting Condom Use in Thailand With Spectacle and Humor” (The Saturday Profile, Aug. 6):Many thanks for your piece about Mechai Viravaidya, Thailand’s “Captain Condom.” Mr. Mechai saw that there was an urgent population growth problem in Thailand, causing suffering for people and harm to the environment, and set about to solve it with humor, creativity and persistence.His vision of voluntary, free family planning as a powerful tool to advance gender equity, protect the environment and improve human well-being is one that we at Population Balance wish more world leaders would embrace. We hope that his story will inspire others to make family planning accessible and affordable to all, and to embrace condoms as a ticket to love with responsibility, freedom and joy.Kirsten StadeSilver Spring, Md.The writer is communications manager for Population Balance. More

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      Trump Hires ‘Billion Dollar Lawyer’

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      As top allies of Donald J. Trump are called to testify in Atlanta, he hires a high-profile local attorney best known for representing rappers.ATLANTA — Amid a deepening swirl of federal and state investigations, former President Donald J. Trump has hired a high-powered Atlanta lawyer to represent him in an inquiry into election interference in Georgia.The lawyer, Drew Findling, has represented an array of rap stars including Cardi B, Gucci Mane and Migos, and is known by the hashtag #BillionDollarLawyer.But he has not been a fan of Mr. Trump; in one 2018 post on Twitter, after Mr. Trump criticized LeBron James, Mr. Findling referred to Mr. Trump as “the racist architect of fraudulent Trump University.” In 2017, after Mr. Trump fired the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, Mr. Findling said on Twitter that it was “a sign of FEAR that he would aggressively investigate the stench hovering over this POTUS.”He has also called Mr. Trump’s history of harsh comments about the five Black and Latino men who as teenagers were wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park “racist, cruel, sick, unforgivable, and un-American!”Mr. Findling, who has been an advocate of criminal justice reform and a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.In addition to becoming a sort of celebrity among celebrities for his vigorous defense of famous hip-hop artists — with multiple appearances in Instagram photos alongside A-list rappers, often sporting dark sunglasses — Mr. Findling has done criminal defense work for a number of high-profile political clients in the Atlanta area.Among them was Mitzi Bickers, who once worked in the administration of former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, and who was convicted in March on nine federal corruption counts as part of a multimillion-dollar contracting and kickback scandal.Another client, Victor Hill, is the sheriff of Clayton County, a suburban area south of Atlanta. Mr. Hill, an African American with a tough-on-crime reputation, has been indicted on numerous federal civil rights charges for the alleged mistreatment of detainees at the local jail, and has been suspended from his position pending trial.The investigation into postelection meddling is being led by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta. To date, at least 17 people have been designated as targets who could face criminal charges. Mr. Trump is not among them, but evidence and testimony are still being taken in by a special grand jury, and Ms. Willis has said she is weighing a number of potential criminal charges, including racketeering and conspiracy.In a hearing on Tuesday, a state judge told lawyers for Mr. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, that their client needed to travel to Atlanta to testify next week. And in a hearing in federal court here Wednesday, lawyers for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina faced a skeptical reception from a judge on their efforts to quash a subpoena from Ms. Willis’s office seeking the senator’s testimony. More

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      Trump Claims He’s a Victim of Tactics He Once Deployed

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      Donald J. Trump’s efforts to politicize the law enforcement system have now become his shield as he tries to deflect accusations of wrongdoing.WASHINGTON — Two days after the 2020 election that Donald J. Trump refused to admit he lost, his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., made an urgent recommendation: “Fire Wray.”The younger Mr. Trump did not explain in the text he sent why it was necessary to oust Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director his father himself had appointed more than three years earlier. He did not have to. Everyone understood. Mr. Wray, in the view of the Trump family and its followers, was not personally loyal enough to the departing president.Throughout his four years in the White House, Mr. Trump tried to turn the nation’s law enforcement apparatus into an instrument of political power to carry out his wishes. Now as the F.B.I. under Mr. Wray has executed an unprecedented search warrant at the former president’s Florida home, Mr. Trump is accusing the nation’s justice system of being exactly what he tried to turn it into: a political weapon for a president, just not for him.There is, in fact, no evidence that President Biden has had any role in the investigation. Mr. Biden has not publicly demanded that the Justice Department lock up Mr. Trump the way Mr. Trump publicly demanded that the Justice Department lock up Mr. Biden and other Democrats. Nor has anyone knowledgeably contradicted the White House statement that it was not even informed about the search at Mar-a-Lago beforehand, much less involved in ordering it. But Mr. Trump has a long history of accusing adversaries of doing what he himself does or would do in the same situation.His efforts to politicize the law enforcement system have now become his shield to try to deflect accusations of wrongdoing. Just as he asserted on Monday that the F.B.I. search was political persecution, he made the same claim on Wednesday about the New York attorney general’s unrelated investigation of his business practices as he invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying because his answers could incriminate him.“Now to flip the script and falsely claim that he’s the victim of the exact same tactics that he once deployed is just the rankest hypocrisy,” said Norman L. Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. “But consistency, logic, evidence, truth — those are always the first to go by the board when a democracy comes under assault from within.”Mr. Trump’s Republican allies argue that he was not the one who undercut the apolitical tradition of the F.B.I. and law enforcement, or at least he was not the first to do so. Instead, they maintain, the system was corrupted by the bureau’s leadership and even members of the Obama administration when Mr. Trump and his campaign were investigated for possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, an inquiry that ended with no charges of conspiracy with Moscow.The former president’s camp has long pointed to text messages between a pair of F.B.I. officials that sharply criticized Mr. Trump during that campaign and to surveillance warrants obtained against an adviser to Mr. Trump that were later deemed unjustified. The Justice Department acknowledged the warrants were flawed, and an inspector general faulted the F.B.I. officials for their texts. But the inspector general found nothing to conclude that anyone had tried to harm Mr. Trump out of political bias.In a letter to Mr. Wray on Wednesday, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, alluded to the history of the F.B.I.’s previous investigation of Mr. Trump to cast doubt on the current inquiry that led to Monday’s search for classified documents that the former president may have improperly taken when he left office.Christopher A. Wray’s F.B.I. executed an unprecedented search warrant at the former president’s Florida home.Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times“The F.B.I.’s actions, less than three months from the upcoming elections, are doing more to erode public trust in our government institutions, the electoral process and the rule of law in the U.S. than the Russian Federation or any other foreign adversary,” Mr. Rubio said in the letter.The search was approved by a magistrate judge and high-level law enforcement officials required to meet a high level of proof of possible crimes. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, himself a former appeals court judge who was appointed by Mr. Biden with bipartisan support and whose caution in pursuing the former president until now had generated criticism from liberals, has offered no public explanation so far.The degree to which Mr. Trump has succeeded in promoting his view of a politicized law enforcement system was evident in the hours after the F.B.I. search on Monday when many Republicans, including Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House minority leader, wasted little time assailing the bureau’s action as partisan without waiting to find out what it was based on or what it turned up.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 7The Trump InvestigationsNumerous inquiries. More

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      F.B.I. Seizure of Scott Perry’s Phone Is Sign of Escalating Election Inquiry

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      Representative Scott Perry’s lawyer said he was told he is not a target of the Justice Department’s expanding inquiry into one element of the effort to keep Donald J. Trump in power after his loss in 2020.The F.B.I.’s seizure of Representative Scott Perry’s phone this week was at least the third major action in recent months taken in connection with an escalating federal investigation into efforts by several close allies of former President Donald J. Trump to overturn the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the matter.The inquiry, which was begun last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, has already ensnared Jeffrey Clark, a former department official whom Mr. Trump wanted to install atop the agency to help him press his baseless claims of election fraud, and John Eastman, an outside lawyer who advised Mr. Trump on brazen proposals to overturn the vote result.In June, federal agents acting on search warrants from the inspector general’s office seized phones and other electronic devices from Mr. Clark and Mr. Eastman. That same tactic was used on Tuesday to seize the phone of Mr. Perry, a Republican of Pennsylvania.While the inspector general’s office had initial jurisdiction in the probe because Mr. Clark was an employee of the department, there have been signs in recent days that the investigation is increasingly being run by prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. One of those prosecutors, Thomas P. Windom, is in charge of a broad investigation of a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to create fake slates of electors to the Electoral College in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr.It remains unclear exactly how — or even if — the inquiry into Mr. Perry, Mr. Clark and Mr. Eastman is entwined with the broader investigation. In that inquiry, prosecutors are seeking to determine whether a group of Mr. Trump’s lawyers and several of his allies in state legislatures and state Republican parties broke the law by creating pro-Trump slates of electors in states he did not win and later by using them to disrupt a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, where the final results of the election were certified.Mr. Clark, Mr. Eastman and Mr. Perry all played roles in the effort to keep Mr. Trump in office, according to extensive evidence gathered by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House select committee that is looking into the events of Jan. 6. The men also each had direct dealings with Mr. Trump, meaning the inquiry could ultimately lead to the former president.At a series of public hearings, the House committee showed, for instance, how Mr. Eastman, a constitutional scholar, was one of the chief architects of the fake elector plan, advising Mr. Trump on its viability and encouraging lawmakers in some key swing states to go along with it.Mr. Eastman also took part in a campaign to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use the fake slates of electors to disrupt or delay the normal counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6 in the effort to hand Mr. Trump the election.A video clip of John Eastman speaking at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, with Rudolph W. Giuliani. The House committee showed Mr. Eastman, a constitutional scholar, was one of the chief architects of the fake elector plan seeking to overturn the 2020 election.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThe Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Jan. 6 panel have further documented how, in December 2020, Mr. Clark helped to draft a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia falsely claiming that the Justice Department had evidence that the vote results in the state might have been marred by fraud. The letter, which was never sent, advised Mr. Kemp, a Republican, to rectify the problem by calling a special session of his state’s General Assembly to create “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump.”Mr. Perry was instrumental in pushing Mr. Trump to appoint Mr. Clark as his acting attorney general over the objections of several other top officials at the Justice Department. At one of its presentations, the House committee released text messages in which Mr. Perry repeatedly pressured Mark Meadows, then Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, to reach out to Mr. Clark.The House committee issued a subpoena to Mr. Perry in May, but he declined to comply with it. Mr. Clark and Mr. Eastman were also subpoenaed by the committee and repeatedly invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.On Wednesday, after Mr. Perry received his phone back from investigators, prosecutors told him that he was a witness in, not a subject of, their inquiry, according to one of his lawyers, John Irving. More