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      Republicans Tap Mazi Melesa Pilip to Run for Santos’s Seat

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      Party leaders believe Mazi Melesa Pilip has the potential to be a breakout star. But she has little political experience and her policy views are largely unknown.Republicans battling to hold onto the New York House seat vacated by George Santos chose on Thursday another relatively unknown candidate with a remarkable biography but a thin political résumé to run in a special election next year.After extensive vetting, Republican leaders selected Mazi Melesa Pilip, a local legislator who was born in Ethiopia, served as a paratrooper in the Israel Defense Forces and first ran for office in 2021 vowing to fight antisemitism.It was a bold gamble by Long Island Republicans, a group better known for nominating older, white establishment figures. Republicans believe Ms. Pilip, a 44-year-old mother of seven, has the potential to become a breakout star before the Feb. 13 special election, particularly at a moment when Israel’s war with Hamas is reordering American politics.“She is the American success story,” said Peter King, a former New York Republican congressman involved in the nomination. “Some people have superstar capacity. She walks into the room, people notice her, they listen to her.”Ms. Pilip, however, lacks many of the credentials typically prized in a competitive congressional race. She has almost no experience raising money, lacks relationships with key party figures outside her affluent New York City suburb and has never faced the kind of scrutiny that comes with being a candidate for high office.In fact, beyond fierce advocacy for Israel and support for the police, she has taken no known public positions on major issues that have shaped recent House contests. That includes abortion rights, gun laws and the criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Attention! There’s Life Beyond the Digital.

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      More from our inbox:A Party Pooper’s View of the New Climate DealThe Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Shame?’The 1968 and 2024 ElectionsThe A.I. StakesVeterans’ Suicides by Firearm Harry WrightTo the Editor:Re “Fight the Powerful Forces Stealing Our Attention,” by D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):In 2010, frustrated that I had to admonish the students in my large sophomore lecture course to turn off their cellphones at the start of each class, only to see them return to them immediately at the end, I told them a story.When I went to college, I explained, there were no cellphones. After class, we thought about what we had just learned, often discussing it with our friends. Why not try an experiment: for one week, no cellphones for 10 minutes after every class? Only three of the 80 students accepted the challenge, and not surprisingly, they reported back that they were thrilled to find themselves learning more and enjoying it more thoroughly.So, hats off to the authors of this essay who are teaching attentiveness. I fear, though, that they are trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. Would that they prove me wrong.Richard EtlinNew YorkThe writer is distinguished university professor emeritus at the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation, University of Maryland, College Park.To the Editor:Of course, we have lost a good deal of our ability to focus and concentrate with the persistence of digital information gnawing at our attention spans. While this is not a new problem, it has been grossly intensified.The answer in the past, and the answer now, is libraries: places of quiet reading, contemplation, study, thinking, even daydreaming.To put away electronic media for a time and enjoy the silence of a library is a gift for personal balance and tranquillity.Bonnie CollierBranford, Conn.The writer is a retired associate director for administration, Yale Law Library.To the Editor:Some years ago I returned to the tiny Greek island my family left in 1910. “There’s nothing there,” everybody said. But the nothing that was there was the absolute antidote to most of the malaise of modern life, or, as my daughter calls it, “the digital hellscape.”The effect was immediate. No credit cards, no taxi apps, no alarm systems, none of it. Just the sounds of the goat bells on the hills and people drinking coffee and staring at the water and talking to each other. And it wasn’t boring at all.Jane WardenMalibu, Calif.A Party Pooper’s View of the New Climate Deal Fadel Dawod/Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “In Climate First, Pact Seeks Shift on Fossil Fuels” (front page, Dec. 14):I hate to be a climate summit party pooper, but the bottom line is that the new deal being celebrated is not legally binding and can’t, on its own, force any country to act. History has shown that if a country isn’t forced to act, it usually won’t.How do I know that? We just had the hottest year on record, with global fossil-fuel emissions soaring to record highs. We had agreed not to go there. Here we are.Douglas G. WilliamsMinneapolisThe Biden Impeachment Inquiry: ‘Republicans, Have You No Shame?’Representative James Comer, left, and Representative Jim Jordan have led the Republican impeachment inquiry.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Impeachment Inquiry Approved, Despite No Proof of Biden Crime” (front page, Dec. 14):This is a sad day for our country. Republicans voted to have an impeachment inquiry into President Biden without having any basis on which to proceed. Why did they take this unprecedented step? They were responding to the wishes of Donald Trump.The constitutional power of the House of Representatives to impeach is a solemn duty reserved for instances where a president has committed “high crimes or misdemeanors.” In this case, there is not a shred of evidence of any wrongdoing, only a father’s love for his surviving son.Republicans, have you no shame? You will rue the day you voted in such an unethical manner. To use impeachment as a political tool in the 2024 election is an embarrassment for the whole world to see.I am afraid that we have reached the point where retribution is one party’s focus instead of the myriad needs of the people of this nation.Ellen Silverman PopperQueensThe 1968 and 2024 Elections Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Reading about how President Biden is losing support among young pro-Palestinian college kids takes me back to my youth. I’m a baby boomer, and this reminds me of the 1968 presidential election between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.So many of my generation were so angry about the Vietnam War and how Vice President Humphrey had backed President Lyndon B. Johnson’s handling of the war that many of us refused to vote for Humphrey. Nixon was elected, and the war continued.As President Biden often says, an election is a choice. However, one can also choose not to vote. Those of us who refused to vote for Humphrey may well have tipped the election to Nixon, and with it all of the consequences that followed.It is a cliché that the perfect is the enemy of the good, but there is a lot of truth to it. I fervently hope we don’t make that mistake in 2024.Stuart MathNew YorkThe A.I. StakesTo the Editor:Re “How Money, Ego and Fear Lit A.I.’s Fuse” (“The A.I. Race” series, front page, Dec. 4):Although the history of artificial intelligence may read like a struggle between those favoring cautious development and those intent on advancing the technology rapidly with fewer restrictions, it was inevitable that the latter would come out on top.Given the resources required to scale the technology, it could be developed only with the support of parties with enormous computing power and very deep pockets (in other words, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta).And in return for their investments of billions of dollars, it is hardly surprising that those competing parties would demand rapid advancement with fewer restrictions in the hope of controlling the future of an industry that holds the promise of spectacular profit.In retrospect, the proponents of a cautious approach to the development of A.I. never stood a chance.Michael SilkLaguna Woods, Calif.Veterans’ Suicides by FirearmPhotos of people who died by suicide were displayed during an awareness event in Los Angeles last month.Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Rate of Suicide by Firearm Reaches Record Level, Report Says” (news article, Dec. 2):The increasing use of firearms in suicides is particularly concerning among veterans. Suicide rates among veterans are twice as high as among civilians, and veterans are twice as likely as civilians to use a firearm in a suicide attempt. Younger veterans are at especially high risk; those under the age of 55 have the highest rates of suicide by firearm.New data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers a glimmer of hope: New York State is bucking the trend. It saw a 13 percent decrease in firearm-related suicides by veterans in 2021. That conforms with research findings that states with stricter gun control policies experience fewer firearm-related suicides.Saving lives means reducing access to lethal means.Derek CoyNew YorkThe writer, an Iraq veteran, is senior program officer for veterans’ health at the New York Health Foundation. More

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      Liz Cheney’s Checkered History

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      Deep in her new book, “Oath and Honor,” Liz Cheney points out that the likeness of Clio, the Greek muse of history, is found in the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall. “Clio is depicted riding in the chariot of time, making notes in the book in her hand,” Cheney writes, “as a reminder that what we do in the Capitol Building is written in the pages of history.”Cheney’s book is likewise an attempt to write the history of our time, a history in which Cheney has become a protagonist. Her telling of this history, though vital, is unnecessarily partial. If this book is intended as both “a memoir and a warning,” as its subtitle declares, Cheney delivers on only half of that promise.The warning Cheney issues is clear and persuasive: A second presidential term for Donald Trump would pose great risks to the nation’s democratic practices and identity. A retribution-minded, Constitution-terminating leader buttressed by unscrupulous advisers and ethically impaired lawyers could, she argues, “dismantle our republic.” As both a witness and a target of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and as a leader of the House committee that investigated the attack, Cheney recognizes the power of the mob that Trump commands. She also understands the cowardice of his enablers in the Republican Party, the same kind of loyalists who would populate — or at least seek to justify — a second Trump administration.“The assumption that our institutions will protect themselves is purely wishful thinking by people who prefer to look the other way,” Cheney writes. And that was before Trump suggested that he would act dictatorially in his new term, if only on day one.As a memoir, however, Cheney’s book is overly narrow, and at times curiously uncurious. Yes, anyone interested in the author’s recollections from inside the House chamber on Jan. 6 will find plenty of material (when Jim Jordan of Ohio approached her to help “get the ladies” off the aisle, Cheney swatted his hand away, retorting, “Get away from me. You f — ing did this.”), and Cheney is unstinting in her contempt for Kevin McCarthy, then the Speaker of the House, whom she describes as unprincipled and unintelligent in roughly equal doses. (She even finds McCarthy less substantive and capable than Democratic leaders in the House, like Nancy Pelosi — a savage dig in G.O.P. world.)Yet, for all the insider detail Cheney offers, her memoir is truncated, treating the period between the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 attack as the beginning of history, or the only history that matters, as though no prior warnings about Trump had been warranted or even audible. Cheney once believed in the staying power of the country’s constitutional principles, she writes, “but all that had changed on January 6 of 2021.”Did nothing change for Cheney before Jan. 6? Not anything at all?Cheney, who has said elsewhere that she regrets voting for Trump in 2020, seems disinclined to revisit or reconsider in this book why she and so many others made their peace with earlier signs of Trump’s authoritarian, anti-constitutional impulses. Her explanation for voting against Trump’s first impeachment is thin; she wishes the Democrats had moved to subpoena John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, to gather additional evidence. It’s a grudging excuse from Cheney, who, as a former State Department official, no doubt can recognize when diplomacy is being manipulated for domestic political gain.Instead, she merely decries those who failed to pivot away from Trump after the 2020 election and Jan. 6, blaming their social-media silos and their exposure to pro-Trump news outlets like Fox News and Newsmax. A longtime Wyoming donor, for example, had “fallen for all the nonsense” about election fraud, Cheney writes, while a close family friend “fell for the lies, hook, line, and sinker.”I did not expect “Oath and Honor” to double as a mea culpa; in any case, Cheney does not seem the type to dabble much in remorse. Her courage in challenging her party over Trump’s election fantasies is hardly rendered meaningless by her prior support for Trump, and her leadership of the House Jan. 6 committee elevated patriotism over partisanship. But history did not in fact begin with that day of violence at the Capitol nearly three years ago. Trump’s unceasing deceit, his disdain for the norms of his office and his assault on the institutions of government spanned his presidency, not just its closing weeks. And his declarations of supposed electoral fraud against him far predated the 2020 presidential contest; his similar rants ahead of the 2016 election were rendered moot only by his unlikely victory.Whether they are elected officials, media personalities, lawyers, family friends or the mob itself, people don’t just swallow Trump’s lies hook, line and sinker all of a sudden. They are lured in, one speech, one deception, one promise at a time, until a lie becomes a worldview. The most serious Trump enablers may indeed include elected officials like McCarthy and his successor Mike Johnson, both of whom brazenly supported Trump’s attempt to undo the 2020 election, and who come in for serious grief in Cheney’s book. But they are not the only ones who, at key moments throughout the Trump presidency, preferred to look the other way. Even those former supporters turned vocal opponents owe some explanation of why their minds needed changing — if only because their transformation can help illuminate the mindset of those who decline to follow their lead.It is largely correct to write, as Cheney does, that “no amount of evidence would ever convince a certain segment of the Republican Party.” It is also largely unhelpful.The irony of the history Cheney highlights in “Oath and Honor” is that her focus on the final days of Trump’s term in late 2020 and early 2021 proves quite helpful in anticipating what the early days of a second term might bring. Most of those troublesome “adults in the room” from the first Trump administration will be gone, consigned to the green room instead of the Cabinet Room. No one will threaten to resign citing principles for the simple reason that they won’t have any; loyalty will be their chief qualification.Cheney recalls how Ronald Reagan described America’s orderly transfer of power every four years as “nothing less than a miracle,” and she worries of the dangers that loom when that transfer grows disorderly. The transition from an outgoing administration to an incoming one is “a time of heightened potential vulnerability” for the country, Cheney writes, and she notes how, immediately after the 2020 election, Trump subbed out key senior officials — including the defense secretary — in favor of more pliable replacements. “Why was he appointing inexperienced loyalists to the most senior civilian positions in the Pentagon at a moment when stability was key?” Cheney asks. (After her service on the Jan. 6 committee, Cheney is able to answer her own question, concluding that Trump was considering “deploying our military for some election-related purpose.”) The president also tried to replace the attorney general with someone willing to falsely assert in writing that the 2020 vote was corrupt; only when multiple senior Justice Department officials threatened to resign did Trump back down.Now imagine an administration staffed that way from the beginning, starting on Jan. 20, 2025, and buttressed by empowered collaborators in Congress, and you’ll grasp Cheney’s most serious warning. “I am very sad to say,” she acknowledges in her final pages, “that America can no longer count on a body of elected Republicans to protect our republic.” It’s a remarkable statement considering the political lineage of its author, but a defensible one. Just as the history Liz Cheney tells in “Oath and Honor” should go back further than the lies about 2020 and the scandal of Jan. 6, the damage of a second Trump term would extend far beyond whatever measures he might inflict on day one.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, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      GOP Support Grows for Majewski, a Trump Ally With a Disputed Military Record

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      J.R. Majewski, an ally of former President Donald J. Trump, is seeking to avenge his 13-point loss in the 2022 midterm elections in Ohio.J.R. Majewski, a Trump acolyte from Ohio whom House Republicans abandoned the first time he ran for Congress in the 2022 midterm elections after discrepancies in his military record emerged, is back as a candidate — and with some prominent G.O.P. names behind him.Mr. Majewski, an Air Force veteran, picked up endorsements on Monday from Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio and Frank LaRose, Ohio’s secretary of state, in his Republican primary as he seeks to challenge Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat, for a second time in the Ninth District.The show of support contrasted sharply with the National Republican Congressional Committee’s canceling its ads for Mr. Majewski during the final six weeks of his 2022 race, which he lost by 13 percentage points to Ms. Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in congressional history.The committee pulled the plug after The Associated Press reported that the Air Force had no record of Mr. Majewski, 44, serving in Afghanistan, which he continues to claim that he did, and drew attention to a series of inconsistencies about his military record. Mr. Majewski has vehemently disputed the reporting.The endorsements came just days after the release of a secret recording of Craig Riedel, a rival G.O.P. candidate and a former state legislator, telling a Republican donor that he would not support former President Donald J. Trump and did not want his endorsement. It was obtained by Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump grass-roots group.Not long after, Mr. Riedel announced that he was endorsing Mr. Trump. But the damage appeared to have been done, with at least one prominent Republican in Ohio (Representative Max Miller, a former Trump adviser) saying that he no longer supported Mr. Riedel, who lost to Mr. Majewski in the 2022 Republican primary.Mr. Riedel accused one of Mr. Majewski’s top MAGA boosters, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, of setting him up.“Matt Gaetz and a social media trickster pulled a stunt yesterday to try and convince President Trump to get involved in my congressional primary for proven loser JR Majewski,” Mr. Riedel wrote on X.Mr. Trump, who endorsed Mr. Majewski in 2022, heralded him on Saturday while both attended a New York Young Republican Club gala, blaming the “deep state” for undermining Mr. Majewski during his last run.“We stuck by him,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “They played dirty pool, but you’ll get a second shot, right?”Erica Knight, a spokeswoman for Mr. Majewski, said in a text message that he was expecting to be endorsed by Mr. Trump again. A campaign spokesman for Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.Mr. Riedel has received endorsements from Republicans considered more mainstream, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, before he was deposed as speaker of the House, and Americans for Prosperity Action, a political network founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. The group has spent nearly $250,000 on Mr. Riedel’s behalf this election cycle, according to the Federal Election Commission.Mr. Riedel did not respond to a request for comment.In a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday, Mr. Gaetz denied orchestrating the secret recording.“Craig Riedel trashed Trump when he thought it would help him get a New Yorker to give him money,” he said. “We have enough people willing to say and do anything for campaign cash in Congress already. Craig Riedel exposed himself in his own words. I had nothing to do with it, though I wish I had.”Aidan Johnson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, in a statement called the Republican primary contest an “ugly and expensive race to the bottom.” Steve Lankenau, a former mayor of Napoleon, Ohio, is also running in the Republican primary.While Mr. Majewski has frequently promoted himself as a combat veteran who served in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Air Force records obtained by The Times show that he deployed for six months in 2002 to Qatar, which is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East.According to military records, the Air Force demoted Mr. Majewski in September 2001 for driving drunk at Kadena Air Base in Japan, contradicting his earlier account that he could not re-enlist in the Air Force after his initial four years because of a “brawl.”The inconsistencies in Mr. Majewski’s public accounts of his military service brought renewed scrutiny during the last election cycle, when he was already facing questions about his presence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and sympathies for the QAnon conspiracy movement.In August 2023, more than nine months after Mr. Majewski’s defeat, the military updated his records to reflect that he had received a Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal for his service, an honor created in 2003 for Air Force members who deployed abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks.But Afghanistan is just one of several dozen countries, including Qatar, that count toward eligibility. That has not stopped Mr. Majewski and his allies, including Mr. Trump, from claiming that he was “totally exonerated.” More

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      State Dept.’s Fight Against Disinformation Comes Under Attack

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      The Global Engagement Center has become the focus of Republican-led criticism that the U.S. government coerces social media platforms into removing offensive content.A Republican-led campaign against researchers who study disinformation online has zeroed in on the most prominent American government agency dedicated to countering propaganda and other information operations from terrorists and hostile nations.The agency, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, is facing a torrent of accusations in court and in Congress that it has helped the social media giants — including Facebook, YouTube and X — to censor Americans in violation of the First Amendment.The attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, and two conservative digital news outlets last week became the latest plaintiffs to sue the department and its top officials, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. The lawsuit said the center’s work was “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.”The center faces a more existential threat in Congress. House Republicans blocked a proposal this month to reauthorize the center, which began in 2011 to counter the propaganda of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. A small agency, with a regular staff of 125 people, many of them contractors, and a budget of $61 million, the center coordinates efforts across the government to track and expose propaganda and disinformation from Russia, China and other adversaries. With its mandate set to expire at the end of next year, the center is now operating under a shroud of uncertainty, even though its supporters say there is no evidence to back the charges against it.If the Republicans hold firm, as a core bloc in the House appear determined to do, the center would disband amid two major regional wars and a wave of elections in 2024, including the U.S. presidential campaign.James P. Rubin, the center’s coordinator since early this year, disputed the allegations that his organization censored Americans’ comments online. The center’s legal mandate, he said, was to “focus on how foreign adversaries, primarily China and Russia, use information operations and malign interference to manipulate world opinion.”“What we do not do is examine or analyze the U.S. information space,” he said.The center’s fate has become enmeshed in a much broader political and legal campaign over free speech and disinformation that has gained enough traction to reach the Supreme Court.A lawsuit filed last year by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accused numerous government agencies of cajoling or coercing social media platforms into removing content that spread what officials called false or misleading information about the Covid-19 pandemic, the presidential election of 2020 and other issues.A federal court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor in July, temporarily barring government officials from contacting officials with the companies except in matters of law enforcement or national security. An appeals court largely upheld the ruling in September but limited its reach, excluding several agencies from the lower court’s injunction against contacts, the Global Engagement Center among them.“There is no indication that State Department officials flagged specific content for censorship, suggested policy changes to the platforms or engaged in any similar actions that would reasonably bring their conduct within the scope of the First Amendment’s prohibitions,” wrote a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.The Global Engagement Center, which is part of the State Department, is facing a torrent of accusations in court and in Congress that it has helped the social media giants to censor Americans.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressThe Supreme Court is expected to weigh in next spring on the Missouri case, a decision that could have big ramifications for the government and free speech in the internet era. The campaign against researchers who study the spread of disinformation has already had a chilling effect on universities, think tanks and private companies, which have found themselves smothered by subpoenas and legal costs.The efforts have been fueled by disclosures of communications between government officials and social media companies. Elon Musk who released a selection of messages after he purchased Twitter, since rebranded as X, called the Global Engagement Center “the worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation.”“They are a threat to democracy,” wrote Mr. Musk, who has restored numerous accounts that Twitter had suspended for violating the platform’s guidelines for disinformation, hate speech and other content. (Over the weekend, he allowed the return of Alex Jones, a far-right conspiracy theorist who spent years falsely claiming the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 was a hoax.)The Global Engagement Center has faced criticism before — not over censorship, but for having little effect at a time when global propaganda and disinformation has become more pernicious than ever with the rise of social media.A report by the State Department’s inspector general last year said the center suffered from a sclerotic bureaucracy that limited its ability to manage contractors and failed to create a strategic planning process that could measure its effectiveness. The department accepted the findings and promised to address them, the report said.Mr. Rubin, who was appointed at the end of last year, has sought to bolster the center’s core mission: challenging disinformation from foreign adversaries intent on undermining American democracy and influence around the world.In September, the center released a sweeping report that accused China’s Communist Party of using “deceptive and coercive methods” to try to control the global information environment. A month later it released two reports on Russia’s covert influence efforts in South America, including one intended to pre-empt an operation before it got off the ground.The Global Engagement Center began in 2011 to counter the propaganda of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.Jon Elswick/Associated PressThe center has had regular interactions with the social media companies, but, the appeals court ruled, there is no evidence that its officials coerced or otherwise influenced the platforms. Federal regulations prohibit any agency from engaging in propaganda at home.“We are not in the business of deciding what is true or not true,” Mr. Rubin said, adding that the center’s role was to identify “the hidden hand” of foreign propaganda.Since the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January, however, the Global Engagement Center has faced numerous subpoenas from a subcommittee investigating the “weaponization of government,” as well as depositions in lawsuits and requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act.At public hearings, House Republicans have repeatedly threatened not to renew the center’s expiring mandate and have grilled department officials about Americans whose accounts have been suspended. “The onus on you is to change my mind,” Representative Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida, told Daniel Kimmage, the center’s principal deputy coordinator, at a hearing in October.The Democrats in both houses of Congress and the Republicans in the Senate reached an agreement to extend the center’s mandate as part of the defense authorization act — one of the few pieces of legislation that might actually pass this year — but House Republicans succeeded in stripping the provision out of the broader legislation.The plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed last week in Texas argued that the department had in effect sidestepped its legal constraints by providing grants to organizations that routinely identify sources of disinformation in public reports and private interactions with social media platforms. The organizations include the Global Disinformation Index, a nonprofit based in London; and NewsGuard, a company in New York.The two news organizations that joined Texas in filing the suit — The Federalist and The Daily Wire — were both listed by the Global Disinformation Index in a December 2022 report as having a high risk for publishing disinformation. (The New York Times was among those rated as having a minimum risk. The Times’s website, the report said, “was not always free of bias, but it generally avoided targeting language and adversarial narratives.”)The center’s grant to the group — $100,000 in total — went to a project focused on disinformation in Southeast Asia. But the lawsuit claimed that its support injured the outlets “by starving them of advertising revenue and reducing the circulation of their reporting and speech — all as a direct result of defendants’ unlawful censorship scheme.”Josh Herr, The Daily Wire’s general counsel, said the outlet might never know “the full extent of the business lost.”“But this lawsuit is not about quantifying those losses,” he said. “We are not seeking damages. What we are seeking is to protect our rights, and all publishers’ rights, under the First Amendment.”Nina Jankowicz, a researcher who briefly served as the head of a disinformation advisory board at the Department of Homeland Security last year before controversy scuttled her appointment and the board itself, said the argument that the State Department was responsible for the impact of research it did not finance was absurd.Ms. Jankowicz said that the campaign to cast efforts to fight disinformation as a form of censorship had proved politically effective even when evidence did not support the claims.“I think any American, when you hear, ‘Oh, the administration, the White House, is setting up something to censor Americans, even if that has no shred of evidence behind it, your ears are going to prick up,” she said. “And it’s really hard to disprove all that.” More

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      Ramaswamy Pushes Fringe Idea About Jan. 6 at Town Hall in Iowa

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      The Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy repeated his claim, without specific evidence, that the attack on the Capitol was an “inside job.”In the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses, Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and Republican presidential candidate, is pressing an unusual strategy: leaning into conspiracy theories.At a CNN town hall on Wednesday evening in Des Moines, Abby Phillip, the CNN anchor, asked Mr. Ramaswamy about previous comments in which he had said that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was an “inside job” — a claim for which there is no evidence, and which has been refuted by numerous criminal indictments and bipartisan congressional investigations.Instead of walking back his remarks, he dug in.“The reality is, we know that there were federal law enforcement agents in the field. We don’t know how many,” Mr. Ramaswamy told the audience at Grand View University, at which point Ms. Phillip interrupted him to clarify. “There’s no evidence that there were federal agents in the crowd,” she said. Mr. Ramaswamy suggested, without providing specific details, that he had seen “multiple informants suggesting that they were.”He turned to another conspiracy theory — involving the kidnapping plot against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat of Michigan. He claimed, of some defendants in that case, that “government agents put them up to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have done.” (That claim also has no evidence to support it.)“I don’t want to have to interrupt you, I really don’t, but I don’t want you to mislead the audience here —” Ms. Phillip began, before Mr. Ramaswamy redirected and claimed that it was “mainstream media” outlets that were misleading.Mr. Ramaswamy, who has continued to praise former President Donald J. Trump while competing against him for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, has slipped in polls. At the same time, on the campaign trail, during debates and at the CNN event, he has pushed conspiracy theories, including ones on the origin of Covid-19 as well as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.Ms. Phillip’s question on Wednesday referred to Alan Hostetter, a Jan. 6 defendant who invoked Mr. Ramaswamy’s debate remarks during his sentencing hearing last week in claiming that conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen “are no longer fringe.”Mr. Ramaswamy did not address Mr. Hostetter’s remarks and instead reiterated false claims, to favorable responses from the crowd.Mr. Ramaswamy’s combative demeanor in public appearances was brought up by Rylee Miller, a law student who said that Mr. Ramaswamy seemed to have “somewhat abandoned the tact and diplomacy that I would look for in a president.” He then asked a question about how Mr. Ramaswamy would balance authenticity with a “presidential demeanor.”Mr. Ramaswamy, in answering, referred to his role as a parent who would strive to “make our children proud” as president. But, he continued, voters should not “want a wilting flower in the White House.”Mr. Ramaswamy also repeated several disputed proposals he has called for on the campaign trail. He said he would end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, effective from January 2025 onward. He reiterated his call to end aid to Ukraine and to back a deal “with some territorial concessions” for the country.He also said that he would support the Supreme Court if it ruled to take mifepristone, a commonly used abortion pill facing a legal challenge, “off the market.” More

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      La Corte Suprema analizará el cargo de obstrucción en el caso de Trump por el asalto del 6 de enero

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      La decisión de admitir el caso complicará y quizá retrase el inicio del juicio de Trump, que ahora está previsto que se celebre en Washington en marzo.La Corte Suprema aceptó el miércoles analizar un caso que podría poner en entredicho el procesamiento de cientos de alborotadores que irrumpieron en el Capitolio el 6 de enero de 2021 y retrasar —o limitar el alcance— del juicio del expresidente Donald Trump por cargos federales de intentar anular su derrota electoral.Lo que está en juego es si el gobierno puede acusar a los imputados en los casos en virtud de una ley federal que tipifica como delito la obstrucción corrupta de un procedimiento oficial. La ley está en el centro de los procesamientos de muchos partidarios de Trump que, en 2020, trataron de bloquear la certificación de la victoria de Joe Biden en el Congreso. También es una parte clave del proceso federal que acusa a Trump de conspirar para mantenerse en el poder, a pesar de la voluntad de los votantes.La decisión de admitir el caso complicará y quizá retrase el inicio del juicio de Trump, que ahora está previsto que se celebre en Washington en marzo. Es probable que la sentencia definitiva de la Corte Suprema, que es posible que no se produzca hasta junio, aborde la viabilidad de dos de los principales cargos contra Trump. Y podría obstaculizar de manera grave los esfuerzos del fiscal especial, Jack Smith, para responsabilizar al expresidente de la violencia desatada por sus partidarios en el Capitolio.La eventual decisión de la corte también podría invalidar las condenas que ya se han dictado contra decenas de seguidores de Trump que participaron en el asalto. Eso supondría un duro golpe para las acusaciones del gobierno en los casos de los disturbios del 6 de enero.El caso que la corte admitió afecta a Joseph Fischer, acusado de siete cargos por su participación en el ataque al Capitolio. Los fiscales afirman que agredió a la policía mientras el Congreso se reunía para certificar los resultados de las elecciones de 2020. Al igual que otros cientos de alborotadores cuyas acciones perturbaron el procedimiento de certificación en el Capitolio, Fischer fue acusado del cargo de obstrucción, formalmente conocido como 18, USC, 1512.Fischer solicitó la desestimación de una parte de la acusación presentada en virtud de la ley de obstrucción, que se aprobó como parte de la Ley Sarbanes-Oxley de 2002, una medida dirigida principalmente contra los delitos de cuello blanco. Los fiscales han utilizado habitualmente la acusación de obstrucción, en lugar de cargos más polémicos como insurrección o conspiración sediciosa, para describir cómo los miembros de la turba pro-Trump perturbaron el traspaso pacífico del poder presidencial.El año pasado, el juez Carl J. Nichols, del Tribunal Federal de Distrito de Washington, accedió a la petición de desestimación de Fischer, afirmando que la ley exigía que los acusados realizaran “alguna acción con respecto a un documento, registro u otro objeto”, algo que, según él, faltaba en la conducta de Fischer en el Capitolio.Un panel dividido de tres jueces del Tribunal de Apelaciones de EE. UU. para el Circuito del Distrito de Columbia revocó finalmente la decisión del juez Nichols, dictaminando que la ley “se aplica a todas las formas de obstrucción corrupta de un procedimiento oficial”. Tres acusados del 6 de enero, entre ellos Fischer, le pidieron finalmente a la Corte Suprema que decidiera si la ley se había aplicado correctamente en el caso del Capitolio.La acusación de obstrucción nunca fue fácil de incluir en los casos derivados del asalto al Capitolio. Cuando se aprobó a principios de la década de 2000, la ley pretendía frenar la prevaricación empresarial al prohibir cosas como la destrucción de documentos o la manipulación de testigos o pruebas.Los abogados defensores que representan a los alborotadores del 6 de enero han argumentado que los fiscales federales ampliaron indebidamente su alcance para abarcar la violencia que estalló en el Capitolio e interfirió en el procedimiento en el que los legisladores se habían reunido para certificar los resultados de las elecciones.Los abogados también discreparon con el uso de la acusación contra las personas que irrumpieron en el Capitolio, afirmando que muchas no actuaban de forma “corrupta”, como exige la ley, porque creían que protestaban contra unas elecciones robadas.“La ley se ha utilizado para criminalizar en exceso los casos del 6 de enero”, dijo Norm Pattis, abogado de Jake Lang, uno de los tres acusados que recurrieron a la Corte Suprema. “El Congreso nunca pretendió eso”.Pattis dijo que la revisión de la corte era “significativa” en cientos de causas penales derivadas de la revuelta del Capitolio y que era “una razón más para retrasar la causa de 2024 contra Donald Trump”.Dos de los cuatro cargos de la acusación federal de interferencia electoral contra Trump se basan en el cargo de obstrucción. Se le acusa de obstruir personalmente el procedimiento de certificación en el Capitolio el 6 de enero y también se enfrenta a un cargo de conspirar con otras personas para obstruir el procedimiento.La revisión de la corte, aunque es potencialmente perjudicial para la acusación, no afectaría a los otros dos cargos contra Trump. Uno de ellos lo acusa de conspirar para defraudar a Estados Unidos mediante la mentira de que le habían robado las elecciones, en un esfuerzo por revertir su derrota. El otro lo acusa de conspirar para privar a millones de estadounidenses del derecho a que se cuenten sus votos.Sin embargo, si la Corte Suprema determina que la ley de obstrucción no se aplica al ataque de la turba en el Capitolio, podría paralizar los planes de Smith de responsabilizar a Trump de la violencia.Documentos judiciales recientes sobre el caso de las elecciones han sugerido claramente que los fiscales planeaban utilizar la acusación de obstrucción para mostrar al jurado videos gráficos del ataque al Capitolio y tal vez introducir el testimonio de los alborotadores que afirman que asaltaron el edificio siguiendo instrucciones de Trump.La posibilidad de que la corte revise —y pueda invalidar— el recuento de obstrucción se ha cernido sobre el caso de las elecciones de Trump durante meses. Pero la reciente decisión de la corte se produjo en un momento especialmente delicado: dos días después de que Smith pidiera a los jueces que aceleraran la apelación de los distintos intentos de Trump de anular el caso basándose en alegaciones de inmunidad presidencial.Aunque la Corte Suprema aún no ha decidido si considerará los argumentos de inmunidad de Trump, en una semana se ha visto profundamente implicado en el procedimiento de injerencia electoral. Sus decisiones sobre la acusación de obstrucción y sobre la inmunidad podrían alterar radicalmente la forma, el alcance y el calendario del caso, que durante mucho tiempo ha parecido que sería la primera de las cuatro acusaciones a las que se enfrentaría Trump.La fiscala general, Elizabeth Prelogar, había instado a los jueces a denegar la revisión del caso, alegando que la ley era lo suficientemente amplia como para abarcar las acciones de Fischer aunque no se vieran afectados documentos u otros objetos.“Un acusado obstruye un procedimiento oficial impidiendo físicamente que se lleve a cabo, como ocurrió aquí cuando los demandantes y otras personas ocuparon violentamente el Capitolio durante varias horas e impidieron así que la sesión conjunta del Congreso realizara su trabajo”, escribió.Añadió que, en cualquier caso, se trataba de documentos.“Impedir que los miembros del Congreso validaran los certificados estatales constituye, por tanto, una obstrucción centrada en las pruebas”, escribió, añadiendo que la revisión era prematura. “Como mínimo, debería permitirse al gobierno presentar su caso ante un jurado y demostrar que los peticionarios obstruyeron un procedimiento impidiendo (en parte) que los responsables de la toma de decisiones pertinentes vieran las pruebas en el momento y lugar especificados para ese efecto”.Independientemente de cómo se pronuncie finalmente la Corte Suprema, es probable que los abogados de Trump utilicen su decisión de revisar la acusación de obstrucción para reforzar sus argumentos de que el juicio en Washington debería aplazarse, quizá hasta después de que se decida la campaña presidencial de 2024.Desde el inicio del caso, Trump ha seguido una persistente estrategia de retraso. Si puede retrasar el juicio hasta después de las elecciones y ganar la contienda, estaría en condiciones de ordenar sencillamente que se retiraran los cargos contra él.Alan Feuer cubre el extremismo y la violencia política para el Times, centrándose en los casos penales relacionados con el atentado del 6 de enero en el Capitolio y contra el expresidente Donald Trump. Más sobre Alan FeuerAdam Liptak cubre la Corte Suprema y escribe Sidebar, una columna sobre novedades jurídicas. Licenciado por la Facultad de Derecho de Yale, ejerció la abogacía durante 14 años antes de incorporarse al Times en 2002. Más sobre Adam Liptak More

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      Trump and His Allies Descend on Iowa

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      The former president will also campaign in New Hampshire and Nevada, a burst of activity less than five weeks before voting begins.Former President Donald J. Trump kicked off a flurry of campaign activity on Wednesday with an eye toward a decisive victory in Iowa that would crush his Republican rivals’ hopes of emerging with any kind of momentum in the presidential primary.He’ll have a little help from his friends.Mr. Trump gave a speech in Coralville, a small city in eastern Iowa, on Wednesday, before planned stops in New Hampshire, the second nominating state, and Nevada, third on the primary calendar, over the weekend. Mr. Trump will return to Iowa on Tuesday for a speech in Waterloo, a city in the northeastern part of the state.But as Mr. Trump is shoring up support in the other early states, prominent surrogates will hit the ground in Iowa on his behalf in a display of the particular advantages he enjoys as the former president and the primary’s dominant front-runner. In the coming week, his campaign will hold events in Iowa with Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, a conservative firebrand and one of Mr. Trump’s closest allies in Congress, and Ben Carson, the former president’s secretary of housing and urban development.Mr. Trump enters this campaign stretch buoyed by recent polling that shows him holding his edge in the primary and in a strong position against President Biden in next year’s general election should the pair meet for a rematch. Mr. Trump’s allies in the Republican-led House of Representatives have approved a formal impeachment inquiry of Mr. Biden that could have ramifications for the president’s campaign even as their investigations thus far have failed to produce evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More