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      Maine Bars Trump From 2024 Primary Ballot, Joining Colorado

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      In a written decision, Maine’s secretary of state said that Donald J. Trump did not qualify for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.Maine’s top election official on Thursday barred Donald J. Trump from the state’s primary election ballot, the second state to block the former president’s bid for re-election based on claims that his efforts to remain in power after the 2020 election rendered him ineligible.In a written decision, the official, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, said that Mr. Trump did not qualify for the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, agreeing with a handful of citizens who claimed that he had incited an insurrection and was thus barred from seeking the presidency again under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.“I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.,” Ms. Bellows, a Democrat, wrote.Last week, Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled in a 4 to 3 decision that the former president should not be allowed to appear on that state’s Republican primary ballot.The decision in Maine underscores the ongoing tensions in the United States over democracy, ballot access and the rule of law. It also adds urgency to calls for the U.S. Supreme Court to insert itself into the politically explosive dispute over his eligibility.Just weeks before the first votes in the 2024 election are set to be cast, lawyers on both sides are asking the nation’s top court to provide guidance on an obscure constitutional amendment enacted after the Civil War, which is at the heart of the effort to block Mr. Trump from making a third White House run.Courts in two other states, Minnesota and Michigan, have ruled that election officials cannot prevent the Republican Party from including Mr. Trump on their primary ballots.Michigan’s Supreme Court concluded on Wednesday that an appeals court had properly decided that political parties should be able to determine which candidates are eligible to run for president.Another court decision is expected in Oregon, where the same group that filed the Michigan lawsuit is also seeking to have the courts remove Mr. Trump from the ballot there, though Oregon’s secretary of state declined to remove him in response to an earlier challenge.And in California, the state’s top election official was expected to announce whether Mr. Trump would remain among the candidates certified for the March 5 primary.Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, faced a Thursday deadline to certify the list of official candidates so that local election officials could begin preparing ballots for the upcoming election. She has indicated in recent days that she is inclined to keep Mr. Trump on the ballot, despite a request from the lieutenant governor to explore ways to remove him.The legal cases are based on a Reconstruction Era constitutional amendment that was intended to bar Confederate officials from serving in the U.S. government. The provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, disqualifies people who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.Over the years, the courts and Congress have done little to clarify how that criterion can be met. As the legal challenges mount, election officials and judges across the country find themselves in largely uncharted waters as they wait for the Supreme Court to provide guidance.The case would be the most politically momentous matter before the Supreme Court since it settled the disputed 2000 election in favor of President George W. Bush. Since then, the court has become far more conservative, in large part as a result of the three justices whom Mr. Trump appointed as president.Mr. Trump and his lawyers have called the efforts to bar him from ballots an underhanded tactic by Democrats who fear facing him at the polls.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, assailed Maine’s secretary of state as “a virulent leftist and hyperpartisan Biden-supporting Democrat.” In a statement, he added: “Make no mistake, these partisan election interference efforts are a hostile assault on American democracy.”Groups leading the disqualification efforts contend that the former president’s attempts to subvert the will of voters in 2020 warrant extraordinary measures to protect American democracy.Ms. Bellows, the official in Maine charged with considering the petition in that state, is the state’s first female secretary of state and a former state senator. She is also the former executive director of the nonprofit Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine and of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine.In her 34-page decision, Ms. Bellows wrote that Mr. Trump’s petition to appear on the Maine ballot was invalid because he falsely declared on his candidate consent form that he was qualified to hold the office of president. She found that he was not, she wrote, because “the record establishes that Mr. Trump, over the course of several months and culminating on Jan. 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them” to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.She also concluded that Mr. Trump “was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use given he both encouraged it with incendiary rhetoric and took no timely action to stop it.”Legal experts say the scope of a Supreme Court decision on the issue would determine if these challenges will be quickly handled or play out for months.A ruling that Mr. Trump’s conduct cannot be construed as a violation of the 14th Amendment would effectively shut down challenges pending in several states. A narrower ruling on the Colorado case could allow Mr. Trump to remain on the state’s primary ballot, while giving lawyers challenging his eligibility a chance to argue that he should be kept off the general election ballot.The petitioners in Maine included Ethan Strimling, a former mayor of Portland and Democratic state legislator who filed a challenge along with two other former Maine lawmakers.“Secretary Bellows showed great courage in her ruling, and we look forward to helping her defend her judicious and correct decision in court,” they said in a statement on Thursday. “No elected official is above the law or our constitution, and today’s ruling reaffirms this most important of American principles.”Mr. Trump can appeal Ms. Bellows’s decision to Maine’s Superior Court within five days. Her order will not go into effect until the court rules on an appeal, which the Trump campaign says it intends to file soon. The Republican primaries in Maine and Colorado are both scheduled for March 5, known as Super Tuesday because so many states hold primaries that day.The challenges to Mr. Trump’s ballot access have been brought in more than 30 states in recent weeks, largely through the courts. But because of a quirk in Maine’s Constitution, registered voters there must first file a petition with the secretary of state.Ms. Bellows heard arguments on three such petitions on Dec. 15.After the Colorado decision, lawyers for Mr. Trump argued in new Maine filings that the Colorado ruling should be irrelevant there because the two states had different laws and standards, and because Mr. Trump did not have a fair opportunity to litigate the facts in Colorado. They also maintained that the secretary of state lacked the authority to exclude him from the ballot.“The constitution reserves exclusively to the Electoral College and Congress the power to determine whether a person may serve as president,” they argued in the filing late last week.Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an election law expert, said the Maine decision illustrated the power of the Colorado court ruling to ease the way for similar decisions.“It takes a lot of courage to disqualify a major candidate, but once the Colorado court did it, and thrust the issue into public light, it became easier for others,” he said.Given the “incredible complexity” of the legal questions involved, said Mr. Hasen, the U.S. Supreme Court is best equipped to resolve the issues. If the court opts not to disqualify Mr. Trump, its decision would not be binding for Congress, but it would make it “politically very difficult for Congress to say something different,” he said.In California, where the secretary of state is certifying an approved list of candidates, Democrats have overwhelming control of government, so the state might seem like a likely venue for a ballot challenge similar to the one that was successful in Colorado.But legal experts said that California, unlike many other states, does not explicitly give its secretary of state the authority to disqualify presidential candidates.Nonetheless, Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a Democrat, asked Ms. Weber last week to “explore every legal option” to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot using the same constitutional justification cited by the Colorado Supreme Court.In response, Ms. Weber suggested last week that she planned to leave the question up to state and federal courts, which have already dismissed at least two lawsuits in the state challenging Mr. Trump’s qualifications. Ms. Weber wrote that she was obligated to address ballot eligibility questions “within legal parameters” and “in a way that transcends political divisions.”Gov. Gavin Newsom of California indicated last week that he did not believe officials in his state should remove Mr. Trump from the ballot. “There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy, but in California we defeat candidates we don’t like at the polls,” he said in a statement. “Everything else is a political distraction.”Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs More

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      Nikki Haley, in Retreat, Says ‘Of Course the Civil War Was About Slavery’

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      A day after giving a stumbling answer about the conflict’s origin that did not mention slavery, Ms. Haley told an interviewer: “Yes, I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Republican presidential hopeful, on Thursday walked back her stumbling answer about the cause of the Civil War, telling a New Hampshire interviewer, “Of course the Civil War was about slavery.”Her retreat came about 12 hours after a town-hall meeting in New Hampshire, a state that is central to her presidential hopes, where she was asked what caused the Civil War. She stumbled through an answer about government overreach and “the freedoms of what people could and couldn’t do,” after jokingly telling the questioner he had posed a tough one. He then noted she never uttered the word “slavery.”“What do you want me to say about slavery?” Ms. Haley replied. “Next question.”Speaking on a New Hampshire radio show on Thursday morning, Ms. Haley, who famously removed the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol in Columbia, said: “Yes I know it was about slavery. I am from the South.”But she also insinuated that the question had come not from a Republican voter but from a political detractor, accusing President Biden and Democrats of “sending plants” to her town-hall events.“Why are they hitting me? See this for what it is,” she said, adding, “They want to run against Trump.”In recent polls, Ms. Haley has surged into second place in New Hampshire, edging closer to striking distance of former President Donald J. Trump. To win the Granite State contest on Jan. 23, the first primary election of 2024, she will most likely need independent voters — and possibly Democrats who registered as independents. That is how Senator John McCain of Arizona upset George W. Bush in the state’s 2000 primary.But the Civil War gaffe may have put a crimp in that strategy.“I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run,” she said Wednesday night, “the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”The answer echoed a century’s argument from segregationists that the Civil War was fundamentally about states’ rights and economics, not about ending slavery.Late Wednesday night, even Mr. Biden rebuked the answer: “It was about slavery,” he wrote on social media.She tried to walk back her comments on Thursday, asking: “What’s the lesson in all this? That freedom matters. And individual rights and liberties matter for all people. That’s the blessing of America. That was a stain on America when we had slavery. But what we want is never relive it. Never let anyone take those freedoms away again.”The episode also undermined her appeal to moderates and independents seeking to thwart Mr. Trump’s return to the White House by portraying Ms. Haley as an agent of compromise.Her record as governor of South Carolina included blocking a bill to stop transgender youths from using bathrooms that corresponded to their gender identity. Her push to lower the Confederate battle flag came after the mass shooting of Black worshipers at a Charleston church by a white supremacist. And she has recently called for a middle ground on abortion.“Haley’s refusal to talk honestly about slavery or race in America is a sad betrayal of her own story,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California. More

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      Primaries, Polls and Party Shares: It’s Time for the Mailbag.

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      Readers have questions, including on switching over to another side’s primary, and a quick comment on Swift.A sign that voting is near.Geoff Stellfox/The Gazette, via Associated PressI hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. We haven’t received many questions about the Republican primary recently, even though the Iowa Caucus is less than three weeks away. But we have gotten a few, and many on other topics, so let’s dive into the mailbox one last time in 2023.Switching parties for a primary?What if some of us former Republicans, now independents or Democrats thanks to Trump, registered as Republicans in order to vote for Nikki Haley in the primary? As a New Jersey voter, it wouldn’t really matter here, because the primaries are usually decided before they get to us. I would much rather see her on the ballot than Trump. Would a push like that do anything? — Nancy DriesMs. Haley trails by 50 points in the national polls, so realistically it’s going to take a lot more than moderate Democrats switching for the race to become competitive.But that doesn’t mean that Democrats and independents won’t play a role. Unlike New Jersey, many states have open primaries where Democrats will be able to vote in the Republican primary without changing their registration at all. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ms. Haley fares especially well in states like those, including South Carolina. She’ll also probably fare well in states where independent voters can participate, like New Hampshire.What about a one-on-one race?When I look at a recent poll of Iowa voters, I see that Trump is at 44 percent with DeSantis and Haley tied at 17 percent. Trump is clearly leading, but there are a lot of voters who are aligning themselves with DeSantis, Haley, Ramaswamy and Christie. And a small number of voters who are undecided.If the Republican field were to narrow down to one candidate who runs against Trump, where do the supporters of those other candidates go? — Steven BrownWhen we surveyed Iowa back in July, we found Donald J. Trump leading Ron DeSantis by 16 points, 55 percent to 39 percent, in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup. Mr. DeSantis won just 51 percent of the voters who didn’t back him or Mr. Trump, and I’d guess the tally is worse for him today, given the trend in the polls since then. I’d also guess it’s worse for Ms. Haley, who would need to win over relatively conservative DeSantis voters.Wrong tack for “wrong track”I’m frustrated with “right track-wrong track” polling — well, maybe more specifically, media coverage of it. It always seems to be presented as poor numbers reflecting badly on the president. But if I’m asked that question, I will say “wrong track” but because of the G.O.P. threat to democracy. Any way to fix that? — Jack CowanTo be honest, Jack, I’ve never been a big fan of the question and we don’t always ask it. That said, I do think it has its place: It’s useful to have a longstanding rough proxy for the national mood, even if it doesn’t yield any insight into the “why.” For that, we have other questions.What are they conserving?The term “conservatives” used to have a specific political meaning. But today what are they conserving? I believe the media needs to adopt more accurate terms to call them, such as right wing populists, or right wing ideologues, or right wing radicals. What they are practicing is no longer true conservatism. Am I wrong? Thank you. — Don NationsI don’t think I agree that “conservative” has always had a consistent, specific and clear political meaning. “Liberal” and “progressive” haven’t had consistent, specific and clear political meanings either.And at least to my mind, today’s conservatives are still true to the most basic definition: a political ideology aimed at conserving a traditional way of life — customs, culture, ideas, institutions, hierarchies, values, beliefs and more.Clearly, some conservatives today see tension between preserving certain traditional institutions — like a democratic republic, which risks empowering those opposed to conservatives — and other conservative aims. But this is not exactly unprecedented in the conservative tradition: Beyond “radical” or “populist” that you offered, terms like reactionary or counterrevolutionary have also been used to describe conservatives who aren’t so conservative in defense of some long-established values.But are they enthusiastic about Trump?Do the polls reflect an increasing popularity for Trump among the young, Black or Hispanic voter sets?I hear a great deal about disaffection toward Biden. But does that mean they are happy or enthusiastic about Trump? — Bryan WatsonIt does not mean they’re happy or enthusiastic about Mr. Trump. In fact, most of the voters who backed President Biden in 2020, but have backed Mr. Trump in recent New York Times/Siena College polling, do not have a favorable view of Mr. Trump at all. They’re also far less likely to say they’ll actually vote, or to have a record of doing so in the past.Who else is out there?Are there any polls that show a Democrat who could beat Trump? Gavin Newsom? — Michele SayreWell, “could” is a pretty loose term! President Biden could beat Mr. Trump, you know. There’s even a perfectly reasonable case he’s still the favorite, despite trailing in polling today.But the polls don’t show any other Democrats beating Mr. Trump, at least outside of their home states. In fairness to them, they’re not especially well known — and, relatively speaking, neither is Mr. Newsom.Hello? Cellphones?If this poll is using the tired old method of calling landline phone numbers, forget it.Especially for young, Black and Hispanic voters, if the pollsters are not using cellphone contacts, they aren’t reaching those voters. None of them has a landline anymore!And, in fact, in my age group (over 65), half or more of the ones I know no longer have a landline. — Robin C. KennedyThe Times/Siena poll is not using the tired old method of calling landline phone numbers. At this point, more than 90 percent of our respondents are reached on their cellphones, and more than 99 percent of our young respondents are reached by cellphone.Taylor Swift effect?I know very little about this person except she’s exceedingly popular with young people and encourages them to vote, apparently Democratic. Could this affect the elections in ’24? If so, is there such a precedent? — Jerry FrankelMy first instinct was to say, “No, of course not,” but …I did not expect her Eras Tour to be the tour of the century, so I’m not sure I’m the best judge of the power of her appeal — which has clearly proven to be extraordinary. I’m not sure her 40-16 favorability rating in a recent NBC/WSJ poll quite does justice her appeal, either.So I asked someone in my household who is far more knowledgeable on the matter whether Ms. Swift could be important in the election and she said: “I think she could. I think she has a ton of power.”Now, even if she does make a difference, it would only be at the margin (right?). But if she did make a marginal difference, it wouldn’t be entirely without precedent. If you have a long memory, you might remember that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement really might have decided the 2008 Democratic primary in Barack Obama’s favor, though I don’t think a T-Swift endorsement of Mr. Biden would be nearly as symbolic or surprising, given her previous support for Democratic candidates.What are the shares by party?What’s the latest data on the breakdown of Republicans, independents and Democrats? Thanks. — Liz GeorgesIn our last poll, Democrats, Republicans and independents each represented 30 percent of the electorate. I can’t remember getting a clean, 30-30-30 break before (7 percent weren’t sure and 3 percent identified with another party). I thought there was something kind of elegant about it. More

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      Lauren Boebert, Far-Right Firebrand, Is Switching House Districts in Colorado

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      Facing a strong primary challenger and the fallout from the “Beetlejuice” scandal, Ms. Boebert is turning to a more conservative district in hopes of victory.Representative Lauren Boebert, a far-right House Republican, announced on Wednesday that she would run in a more conservative district in Colorado — seeking to increase her chances after a strong primary challenger emerged in her district.The move — from the Third Congressional District to the Fourth — will thrust Ms. Boebert into a crowded primary to replace Representative Ken Buck, a conservative who is not seeking re-election. She has fervently promoted false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. Mr. Buck attributed his decision not to run in part to the widespread belief in his party of these false claims — as well as to the refusal of many of his Republican colleagues to condemn the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.In a video posted on social media, Ms. Boebert said that the move was a “fresh start,” alluding to a “pretty difficult year for me and my family,” pointing to her divorce. “It’s the right move for me personally, and it’s the right decision for those who support our conservative movement,” Ms. Boebert said.In September, then in the midst of finalizing the divorce, she was caught on a security camera vaping and groping her date shortly before being ejected from a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” for causing a disturbance.A primary challenger has since emerged with significant backers among prominent former Republican officials in the state. Jeff Hurd, a 44-year-old lawyer from Grand Junction, has been endorsed by former Gov. Bill Owens and former Senator Hank Brown. The editorial board of the Colorado Springs Gazette also endorsed Mr. Hurd over Ms. Boebert this month.Mr. Hurd, in a statement after Ms. Boebert’s announcement, played up the support he has received from Republicans across the state, vowing that he “will fight every day to ensure this seat stays in Republican hands.”Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District is significantly more conservative than the Third, and securing the Republican nomination would place Ms. Boebert in a strong position to win in a seat where Mr. Buck earned 60 percent of the vote in 2022. Ms. Boebert barely won re-election that year, pulling ahead of her Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, with roughly 500 votes.Mr. Frisch, who is running again in the Third District, said that Ms. Boebert’s withdrawal from that race changed little for his campaign.“From Day 1 of this race, I have been squarely focused on defending rural Colorado’s way of life,” he said in a statement, adding that “my focus will remain the same.”An earlier analysis by the Cook Political Report had rated the race for Ms. Boebert’s current seat in 2024 as a tossup. By contrast, the race in the general election in the Fourth Congressional District is not considered competitive.The other Republicans running in the primary to replace Mr. Buck include two former state senators, Ted Harvey and Jerry Sonnenberg; Richard Holtorf, a state representative; Trent Leisy, a Navy veteran and business owner; and Deborah Flora, a radio host.Mr. Leisy asserted on social media soon after Ms. Boebert’s announcement that she was giving Democrats an advantage in the race for her current district by making the switch.“Lauren should be a fighter and keep her district red,” Mr. Leisy said, adding that he was “running in a district that I actually live in.”Charles Homans More

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      True-Crime Podcasts About Trump Are Everywhere

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      MSNBC, NPR, Vox Media and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are all aiming to capitalize on interest in the criminal cases against President Donald J. Trump with the shows.True crime is among the most popular genres in podcasting. One of the biggest stories in the coming months is the wave of criminal charges facing former President Donald J. Trump.The result: a boomlet of podcasts dedicated to the criminal cases against him.MSNBC, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, NPR, Vox Media and The First TV, an upstart conservative media company, have all introduced or are about to start new shows examining Mr. Trump’s courtroom travails as he campaigns to win back the White House.On MSNBC’s “Prosecuting Donald Trump,” the legal commentators Andrew Weissmann and Mary McCord offer analysis gleaned from their years serving as prosecutors. A recent episode of “Breakdown,” from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, includes a newsy interview with Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. Recently on “Trump’s Trials,” the NPR host Scott Detrow discussed whether Mr. Trump could claim presidential immunity.The criminal charges against Mr. Trump — brought by state prosecutors in New York and Georgia, as well as in two federal indictments — involve allegations of election interference, his role in the Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol, his handling of sensitive documents and payments to cover up a sex scandal. Mr. Trump denies any wrongdoing.Many of the hosts interviewed by The New York Times cited the newsworthiness of the story — a former president and a leading candidate for the office is facing a legal onslaught while battling for the White House — as the impetus to go wall to wall with dedicated podcasts.“He is the far and away front-runner to the nomination and has a real chance of being president again,” Mr. Detrow said. “That, to me, is an enormous legal story, an enormous political story.”But there is a significant potential economic upside as well: capturing a slice of the $2.4 billion that advertisers are expected to spend on podcasts in 2024, according to the data firm eMarketer. For years, news organizations have benefited financially from the public’s interest in Mr. Trump — colloquially known as the “Trump bump.”“The number of users is up, but the number of people vying for those users in terms of dollars is also way up,” said Chris Balfe, founder of The First TV.Mr. Trump’s legal challenges present an unusual twist on the true-crime genre, which often focuses on grisly murders or dramatic heists. “Serial,” a podcast from the creators of “This American Life,” was a pioneer of the category, which has also included entrants like “Exit Scam” (about a vanished cryptocurrency mogul) and “Last Seen,” a suspenseful yarn about the theft of 13 irreplaceable artworks from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. (The New York Times Company now owns Serial Productions, maker of “Serial.”)The Trump cases, by contrast, involve complicated questions about the Constitution and democracy. Adding to the complexity: They span state and federal jurisdictions in Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington, D.C.Podcasts are an ideal format to explain the nuances to the public, because they give journalists the time and space to examine complicated issues at length, Mr. Balfe said. They also allow news organizations to create a listener destination for coverage quickly and relatively inexpensively, with two mics and a simple distribution feed for Spotify and Apple Podcasts, he said.“You don’t have to go lease a beautiful studio on Sixth Avenue and hire a crew and all this other stuff,” Mr. Balfe said. “A podcast is a low-floor, high-ceiling way to start a new product. And if it works, it can be very successful, very quickly.”Last year, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the largest newspaper in Georgia, dedicated the latest season of its true-crime podcast, “Breakdown,” to the criminal investigation. Since then, it has been all Trump, all the time, with 22 episodes on the topic since August.This year, the podcast garnered more than one million downloads, making it the newspaper’s most popular, finding audiences in Florida, California and New York, according to a spokeswoman for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The newspaper also has three full-time reporters covering Mr. Trump’s case in Fulton County, where he faces 13 felony charges, including racketeering.Tamar Hallerman, one of those reporters, co-anchors the podcast. She describes herself as a “recovering Washington correspondent.” (She was previously a reporter at Roll Call.)The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the largest newspaper in Georgia, dedicated its latest season of its true-crime podcast, “Breakdown,” to the Trump criminal investigation.Wulf Bradley for The New York Times“All of these legal cases that Trump is in the middle of are already creating a unique set of circumstances for a leading presidential candidate,” said Ms. Hallerman, who covered the 2016 presidential campaign. “This is absolutely not business as usual for the campaign press corps.”Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has dedicated much of one of his three podcasts for Vox Media to the criminal investigations facing Mr. Trump. Mr. Bharara has covered Mr. Trump’s legal issues since 2018, saying, “There’s really been no shortage of legal-based news.”Yet “the dam broke” in April, he said, after Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, brought the first criminal charges against Mr. Trump.“Every month or two, there was another one,” Mr. Bharara said. “And it became clear that that was going to be a central focus.”Political coverage of Mr. Trump should focus on the criminal investigations into the former president, rather than traditional horse-race coverage, said Timothy Crouse, whose 1973 book, “The Boys on the Bus,” about the media’s coverage of the previous year’s presidential campaign, became a classic of the genre.Investigative reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, not campaign reporters, did the most enduring political journalism of that era, Mr. Crouse said. At the time, many campaign reporters were skeptical of those stories. He added that sustained exploration of Mr. Trump’s criminal charges would probably follow the same pattern.“Fewer political reporters might be OK, but only if that decrease were to be balanced by an increase in investigative reporters,” Mr. Crouse said. More

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      Plagiarism Allegations Against Claudine Gay

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      More from our inbox:The Bronx Defenders and the Fallout From WarUndoing Roe: ‘A Shameful Saga’Buying Cashmere Without an Environmental CostKen Cedeno/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Why Claudine Gay Should Go,” by John McWhorter (column, nytimes.com, Dec. 21):Mr. McWhorter argues that Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, should be held to the same academic standards as the institution’s undergraduates. If only that were true!When I was a graduate student there in the late 1990s, I was warned by a senior professor not to pursue a case of plagiarism because it might lead to a lawsuit. The university, he confided, had recently lost a costly court case brought by the parents of a student accused of plagiarism.Plagiarists are rarely brought to account, especially in academe, where it is often treated as a minor delict. How do I know? I’ve been plagiarized by at least two other academics, including a visiting professor at Harvard during my first year of graduate school. Neither she nor the other offender ever faced any consequences.Andrew I. PortDetroitThe writer is a professor of history at Wayne State University.To the EditorRe “Harvard Finds More ‘Duplicative Language’ of President” (news article, Dec. 22):I find it quite odd for The Times to consistently lead the coverage of Claudine Gay’s academic work with an overemphasis that “conservative” voices have driven the claims of plagiarism.The issue is not the political background of the whistle-blowers, but the actual charges. I (hardly a conservative if it matters) wrote articles, a master’s thesis, a Ph.D. dissertation and a book, and I can guarantee that in each case I knew my writing and what I got from other sources (primary and secondary).Nothing bothered my mentor and friend, the late historian Stan Kutler, more than plagiarists who claimed, after getting caught, that their stealing was an oversight, a little mistake, a slight error, a problem in checking content. No, they simply got caught.Dr. Gay would surely support a grad student’s expulsion for plagiarizing. Her turn.Joseph L. DavisMadison, Wis.To the Editor:The New York Times has devoted a startling amount of coverage to sorting out the question of Claudine Gay’s plagiarism. May I suggest that before devoting more, the newspaper’s reporters might want to examine publications by all the Harvard presidents who came before her? And perhaps some of those by its most famous professors, too.The computer technology that exists today may allow critics to scrutinize her writings far more than any past scholar’s work was scrutinized when such technological capabilities did not exist.Let’s see how much she is an outlier in her community — or not — before condemning her so roundly.Janna Malamud SmithMilton, Mass.The writer graduated from Harvard in 1973.The Bronx Defenders and the Fallout From WarSome lawyers in housing and family courts have said they want nothing to do with members of the Bronx Defenders.Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Feud Over War Imperils Future of Legal Group; Claims of Antisemitism at Bronx Defenders” (front page, Dec. 15):I am an attorney and a former priest at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in the South Bronx.The Bronx Defenders are among the best lawyers in the city. A lawyer’s duty is to represent a client “zealously,” and the Bronx Defenders represent their clients passionately. I always felt confident when they represented a parishioner or someone I knew from the community.Apparently they bring the same passion to advocating for Palestinians, seeing the hardships they face as similar to those of their South Bronx clients.I urgently hope that they can see that, throughout history, the Jewish people have suffered from prejudice that is also similar to the prejudice their clients have experienced, and, for the sake of their clients, save the Bronx Defenders.(Rev.) Martha OverallNew YorkTo the Editor:Your article about the Bronx Defenders epitomizes my deepest fears about the effects of the Israel-Hamas war on the United States.Longstanding progressive American allies in the campaigns for free speech, civil rights, marriage equality, reproductive freedom, L.G.B.T.Q. protections, educational and legal reform, health care for all, affordable housing, academic freedom, animal and environmental protection — and more — are fighting each other over support for Israel versus support for Palestine as if no compromise were possible and this one point of conflict outweighed years of cooperative work, personal friendships and even family ties.Marches, flag-waving and ill-informed slogan-shouting, especially on college campuses, will have little effect on the war, but they might alienate enough normally Democratic voters to let Donald Trump win a close election. That would harm the country beyond our wildest imagining far into the future.Judy OlinickMiddlebury, Vt.Undoing Roe: ‘A Shameful Saga’Erin Schaff/The New York Times; Illustration by Matt DorfmanTo the Editor:Re “Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe” (front page, Dec. 17):This brilliant account of the undoing of Roe v. Wade exposes a shameful saga of partisan judging by justices who were committed to ending a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion even as they misled the Senate about their respect for long-settled precedent.Appointed by then-President Donald Trump with the mandate of reversing Roe, the three newest justices joined the reactionary core of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to fashion a decision that will live in infamy, rivaled in disgrace only by the cases of Citizens United and Dred Scott.The story of how the conservative majority manipulated the calendaring and hearing of the case, and their activism in going beyond the limited relief initially sought by Mississippi, will further erode public confidence in the integrity of the court and undermine its legitimacy as a once revered institution.Gerald HarrisNew YorkThe writer is a retired New York City Criminal Court judge.Buying Cashmere Without an Environmental CostGoats grazing on the Mongolian Plateau in Central Asia.Gilles Sabrié for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Demand for Cashmere Is Harming the Environment,” by Ginger Allington (Opinion guest essay, Dec. 17):While, of course, we must do all we can to preserve the incredibly fragile world we walk on, we can own cashmere — buy it used!Dr. Allington’s vivid essay teaches us to eschew the fabric that comes from the destructive practices used in herding Mongolian goats. But, as she says, “consider vintage cashmere.” We can head to our nearest consignment shop or other retailer of preworn clothing and find cashmere treasures for our loved ones during these alarming times.Here’s to such warmth!Deborah FriedNew Haven, Conn.To the Editor:Thank you so much for Ginger Allington’s guest essay on cheap cashmere fibers. It is up to every one of us to make a difference by choosing sustainable options.I had the luxury of buying several real cashmere sweaters in the 1970s. I am still wearing them! And I have just inherited a batch from my mother’s closet that are all still perfectly wearable because of the quality. The cheap cashmere that is being produced is doubly egregious because it won’t last one season.At what cost fast fashion? Is it the chicken or the egg? Buyers should stop buying, or manufacturers should stop producing?Susan StockToronto More

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      in Elections

      Michigan Supreme Court Decides Trump Can Stay on Ballot

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      After Colorado’s top court ruled that the former president was disqualified for engaging in insurrection, justices in Michigan considered a similar challenge.The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday paved the way for Donald J. Trump to appear on the state’s primary ballot, a victory for the former president in a battleground state. The state’s top court upheld an appeals court decision that found that the former president could appear on the ballot despite questions about his eligibility to hold elected office because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.The Michigan decision followed a bombshell ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which on Dec. 19 determined in a 4-3 opinion that Mr. Trump should be removed from the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.Mr. Trump applauded the Michigan ruling in a statement posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “We have to prevent the 2024 Election from being Rigged and Stolen like they stole 2020,” the statement said. Ron Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, a group seeking to have Mr. Trump disqualified from running in the 2024 election, said the Michigan Supreme Court ruled narrowly, sidestepping the core questions at the heart of the case. The decision, he said, leaves the door open to challenge whether Mr. Trump can appear on the general election ballot in Michigan. “The Michigan Supreme Court did not rule out that the question of Donald Trump’s disqualification for engaging in insurrection against the U.S. Constitution may be resolved at a later stage,” Mr. Fein said in a statement. Michigan’s primary will be held Feb. 27.The question of Mr. Trump’s eligibility is widely expected to be answered by the U.S. Supreme Court. Some form of challenge to Mr. Trump’s eligibility has been lodged in more than 30 states, but many of those have already been dismissed.The challengers’ arguments are based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies anyone from holding federal office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it.A lower-court judge previously decided the ballot eligibility case in Mr. Trump’s favor. Judge James Robert Redford of the Court of Claims in Michigan ruled in November that disqualifying a candidate through the 14th Amendment was a political issue, not one for the courts. A lower court in Colorado had also ruled in Mr. Trump’s favor before the Supreme Court there took up the case.Judge Redford also ruled that Michigan’s top elections official does not have the authority alone to exclude Mr. Trump from the ballot. Free Speech for People, a liberal-leaning group that filed the lawsuit, appealed the ruling, asking the state Supreme Court to hear the case on an accelerated timetable.Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state and a Democrat, echoed the request for a quick decision, citing approaching deadlines for printing paper primary ballots. She wrote that a ruling was needed by Dec. 29 “in order to ensure an orderly election process.”Jan. 13 is the deadline for primary ballots to be sent to military and overseas voters; absentee voter ballots must be printed by Jan. 18. The state’s presidential primary is set for Feb. 27.Mitch Smith More