Voter Fraud (Election Fraud)

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      Will Trump Face a Legal Reckoning in Georgia?

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      Over 2,300 text messages to and from Mark Meadows, a former chief of staff for Donald J. Trump, offer stunning real-time details of the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Not least among the revelations are Mr. Meadows’s repeated overtures to the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, with Mr. Meadows pressing the Georgian to be in communication with the White House.Mr. Trump and Mr. Raffensperger eventually spoke, resulting in Mr. Trump’s now-infamous demand that the secretary “find 11,780 votes” — just one more vote than Joe Biden’s margin of victory in the state.On May 2 we see the latest consequence of those efforts: the opening of a special grand jury by District Attorney Fani Willis in Fulton County, Ga., to gather evidence relating to possible criminal charges against Mr. Trump and others associated with him. As important as congressional investigations are, Ms. Willis’s work may present the most serious prospect of prosecution that Mr. Trump and his enablers are facing.We understand that after Robert Mueller’s investigation and two impeachments, the prospect of Mr. Trump actually facing accountability may be viewed with skepticism. Most recently, he seems to have avoided charges by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.But Ms. Willis, a Democrat, has a demonstrated record of courage and of conviction. She has taken on — and convicted — a politically powerful group, Atlanta’s teachers, as the lead prosecutor in the city’s teacher cheating scandal.And she is playing with a strong hand in this investigation. The evidentiary record of Mr. Trump’s postelection efforts in Georgia is compelling. It is highlighted by a recording of Mr. Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, call with Mr. Raffensperger, in which Mr. Trump exhorted Mr. Raffensperger to “find” those votes.The tape also contains threats against the secretary and his staff that had an element of coercion, like Mr. Trump’s warning that failing to identify (nonexistent) fraud would be “a big risk” to Mr. Raffensperger and to his lawyer. The recording is backed by voluminous evidence that Mr. Trump likely knew full well he had lost, including acknowledgment from administration officials like his attorney general, William P. Barr, and an internal Trump campaign memo admitting that many fraud claims were unfounded. As a federal judge noted in finding that Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election were likely criminal, the former president “likely knew the justification was baseless and therefore that the entire plan was unlawful.”What’s more, Georgia criminal law is some of the most favorable in the country for getting at Mr. Trump’s alleged misconduct. For example, there is a Georgia law on the books expressly forbidding just what Mr. Trump apparently did in Ms. Willis’s jurisdiction: solicitation of election fraud. Under this statute, a person commits criminal solicitation of election fraud when he or she intentionally “solicits, requests, commands, importunes or otherwise attempts to cause” another person to engage in election fraud.The decision to impanel a special grand jury is itself another indicator of the peril Mr. Trump may face. Under Georgia practice, special purpose grand juries are typically used for focused investigation of a matter and have the power to subpoena witnesses. Special grand juries develop expertise in a single case over a sustained period (here up to 12 months), as opposed to regular grand juries, which hear many matters over a shorter period. Unlike regular grand juries, the special grand jury cannot issue an indictment, but any charging recommendations are presented by a district attorney to a regular grand jury, which can then indict based on the special grand jury’s work.The special grand jury will begin issuing subpoenas for some of the 30 or so witnesses who have refused requests for voluntary interviews. Those initial witnesses will then be served and will start appearing in June. Mr. Trump and those closest to him have a history of rushing to court to fight subpoenas, but they are unlikely to be given the opportunity in this first wave. Careful prosecutors usually start with less controversial witnesses, and Ms. Willis is a careful prosecutor. If Mr. Trump or those closest to him are served, that is when subpoenas are most likely to be challenged in court — but that is probably months away.If Mr. Trump is charged, it will set off a legal battle. There are substantial legal defenses that Mr. Trump could attempt. He could argue that he has constitutional immunity from prosecution for his acts while president, that his words were protected by the First Amendment or even that he acted in absolute good faith because he genuinely believed that he had won.The judicial system will ultimately decide if these defenses will work. But soliciting election fraud is not within the scope of official presidential duties protected by immunity, the First Amendment does not protect criminal activity, and a president cannot successfully claim good faith when he was repeatedly told by his own officials that there was no fraud. Still, no one should consider the case a slam-dunk.The case also in no way diminishes the importance of the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 committee. In fact, the committee will most likely aid the Georgia prosecution while going about the business of its own investigation. (Ms. Willis and the committee have reportedly already been in contact.) For example, litigation with Mr. Meadows disclosed key details of the alleged plot to overturn the Georgia election. An email the committee filed from one of the lawyers helping Mr. Trump, Cleta Mitchell, included a detailed 11-point memo about overturning the election. Operating outside Washington, Ms. Willis might have taken years to obtain that email and other evidence like it.Jury trials, which both of us have tried and supervised, are living events, and success is never assured. But in Georgia, if it reaches that stage, the evidence is strong, the law is favorable, the prosecutor is proven, and the cause — democracy itself — is just.Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings and the executive chair at the States United Democracy Center, was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment and is the author of “Overcoming Trumpery.” Donald Ayer, a former U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and on the advisory board of States United.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      G.O.P. Concocts Threat: Voter Fraud by Undocumented Immigrants

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      COLUMBUS, Ohio — Six years after former President Donald J. Trump paved his way to the White House on nativist and xenophobic appeals to white voters, the 2,000-mile dividing line between Mexico and the United States has once again become a fixation of the Republican Party.But the resurgence of the issue on the right has come with a new twist: Republican leaders and candidates are increasingly claiming without basis that unauthorized immigrants are gaining access to the ballot box.Voter fraud is exceptionally rare, and allegations that widespread numbers of undocumented immigrants are voting have been repeatedly discredited. Yet that fabricated message — capitalizing on a concocted threat to advance Mr. Trump’s broader lie of stolen elections — is now finding receptive audiences in more than a dozen states across the country, including several far from the U.S.-Mexico border.In Macomb County, Mich., where Republicans are fiercely split between those who want to investigate the 2020 election and those who want to move on, many voters at the county G.O.P. convention this month said they feared that immigrants were entering the country illegally, not just to steal jobs but also to steal votes by casting fraudulent ballots for Democrats.“I don’t want them coming into red states and turning them blue,” said Mark Checkeroski, a former chief engineer of a hospital — though data from the 2020 election showed that many places with larger immigrant populations instead took a turn to the right.Tough talk on illegal immigration and border security has long been a staple of American politics. Both Republicans and Democrats — especially the G.O.P. in recent years — have historically played into bigoted tropes that conflate illegal immigration and crime and that portray Latinos and Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners in their own country or, worse, an economic threat.But the leap from unsecure borders to unsecure elections is newer. And it is not difficult to see why some voters are making it.In Ohio, where Republicans vying in a heated Senate primary are discussing immigration in apocalyptic terms and running ads showing shadowy black-and-white surveillance video or washed-out images of border crossings, Mr. Trump whipped up fears of “open borders and horrible elections” at a rally on Saturday, calling for stricter voter ID laws and proof of citizenship at the ballot box.The campaign commercials and promos for right-wing documentaries that played on huge television screens before Mr. Trump’s speech seemed to alternate between lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him and overblown claims blaming unauthorized immigrants for crime. Speakers in one trailer for a film by Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative author and filmmaker Mr. Trump pardoned for making illegal campaign contributions, denounced “voter trafficking,” compared the work of what appeared to be voter outreach groups to the “Mexican mafia” and referred to people conveying mail-in ballots to drop boxes as “mules.”It is legal in some states for third parties, like family members or community groups, to drop off completed ballots — a practice that became vital for many during the pandemic.Yet the messages seemed tailor-made for rally attendees like Alicia Cline, 40, who said she believed that Democrats in power were using the border crisis to gin up votes. “The last election was already stolen,” said Ms. Cline, a horticulturist from Columbus. “The establishment is, I think, using the people that are rushing over the borders in order to support themselves and get more votes for themselves.”Alicia, left, and Cindi Cline at former President Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally last week in Delaware, Ohio.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe latest fear-mongering about immigrants supposedly stealing votes is just one line of attack among many, as Republicans have made immigration a focal point in the midterms and Republican governors face off with the Biden administration over what they paint as dire conditions at the border.Last week, governors from 26 states unveiled “a border strike force” to share intelligence and combat drug trafficking as the Biden administration has said it plans to lift a Trump-era rule that has allowed federal immigration officials to turn away or immediately deport asylum seekers and migrants.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The 2022 election season is underway. See the full primary calendar and a detailed state-by-state breakdown.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.And in Washington Thursday, Republicans on Capitol Hill previewed their midterm plan of attack on the administration’s immigration policies, trying to make the homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas, accept blame for a historic spike in migration across the border.Jane Timken, a U.S. Senate candidate and former chairwoman of the Ohio Republican Party, said the border with Mexico loomed large for Ohioans because many saw the state’s drug and crime problems as emanating from there. “Almost every state is now a border state,” she said.Some G.O.P. strategists warn that the focus on immigration could backfire and haunt the party as the nation grows more diverse. But political scientists and historians say Republicans’ harnessing of the unease stirred by demographic shifts and a two-year-old pandemic could mobilize their most ardent voters.“When we feel so much anxiety, that is the moment when xenophobic, anti-immigrant sentiment can flourish,” said Geraldo L. Cadava, a historian of Latinos in the United States and associate professor at Northwestern University.Few races nationwide capture the dynamics of the issue like the G.O.P. Senate primary in Ohio. Contenders there are taking after Mr. Trump, who, in 2016, tried to blame illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels for the deadly opioid crisis.An ad for Ms. Timken opens with grainy footage over ominous music, showing hooded men carrying packages presumed to be filled with drugs across the border, until Ms. Timken appears in broad daylight along the rusty steel slats of the border wall in McAllen, Texas.An advertisement released by Jane Timken, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Ohio, showed her at the Mexican border wall encouraging border security and raising fears of drug cartels.Jane Timken for U.S. SenateMs. Timken said she understood the state needed immigrant workers, citing her Irish immigrant parents, but said people still must cross the border legally. And Mike Gibbons, a financier at the top of several Ohio polls, said insisting on law and order was not xenophobic. “You don’t hate immigrants if you tell that immigrant they have to come here under the law,” he said.But across this state in the nation’s industrial belt, anti-immigrant sentiment tends to run as deep as the scars of the drug epidemic.Anger and resentment toward foreigners started building as manufacturing companies closed factories and shipped jobs overseas. The opioid crisis added to the devastation as pharmaceutical companies and unscrupulous doctors profited from pain medications.But with the shuttering of “pain clinics,” federal and local law enforcement officials say, Mexican criminal organizations have stepped in. In Ohio, the groups move large amounts of meth and fentanyl, often in counterfeit pills, along Route 71, which crosses the state through Columbus. Statewide overdose rates remain among the nation’s highest.An ad for suboxone, a medication used to treat opioid addiction, hanging on a building. For the past three years, Ohio has remained among the 10 states with highest rates of drug overdoses, according to federal data.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesJ.D. Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author whom Mr. Trump endorsed, goes right at those scars, telling voters in one ad that he nearly lost his mother, an addict, to “the poison coming across our border.”Republicans like Mr. Vance argue that they are being unfairly attacked for raising legitimate concerns, pointing to enormous drug seizures and a rise in border apprehensions that, last June, reached a 20-year high.Ohio immigrant-rights lawyers and advocates say Republicans are wrongly framing a public health emergency as a national security problem and contributing to bias against Latinos and immigrants regardless of their citizenship.The G.O.P. critique, they say, is also detached from reality: Many if not most immigrants who reach Ohio have been processed by federal immigration agencies. Many are asylum seekers and refugees, and an increasing number arrive on work visas.Angela Plummer, executive director of the nonprofit Community Refugee and Immigration Services, called Republican Senate candidates’ characterizations of immigrants a disturbing flashback to Mr. Trump’s 2015 campaign rhetoric. “It is good to have politicians with different immigration platforms, but not ones that stray into racism and hurtful, harmful accusations.”In the same campaign ad, Mr. Vance goes on to say that Mr. Biden’s immigration policy also meant “more Democrat voters pouring into this country” — explicitly asserting that unauthorized immigrants are crossing over and gaining access to the ballot to support the left.Mr. Trump himself made that false claim in 2017, asserting without evidence that between three million and five million unauthorized immigrants had voted for Hillary Clinton. But the idea that immigrants, and Latinos specifically, are illegally entering the country to vote Democratic has been a fringe right-wing trope for years, said Mike Madrid, a Republican political consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project.The difference is that purveyors of the idea have become much more “brazen and overt,” he said. “It is all part of this sense of an invasion and a lost America and that Democrats are trying to steal elections.”Rhetoric on immigration started heating up last year amid an influx of asylum seekers and migrants from Haiti, Guatemala and Honduras. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott and local officials described illegal immigration as an “invasion” as Mr. Abbott unveiled plans to finish Mr. Trump’s border wall.It has only intensified with the midterm campaign season. Since January, Republican candidates in 18 states have run ads mentioning the border and slamming illegal immigration, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to AdImpact, which tracks ad spending. In the same period in 2018, that number was only six, and most of the ads ran in Texas.At least one ad warns of an “invasion,” and others carry echoes of the “great replacement” trope, a racist conspiracy theory falsely contending that elites are using Black and brown immigrants to replace white people in the United States.In Alabama, a re-election ad for Gov. Kay Ivey shows a photo of Latinos at a border crossing wearing white T-shirts with the Biden campaign logo and the words, “Please let us in.” If Mr. Biden continues “shipping” unauthorized migrants into the United States, Americans could soon be forced to learn Spanish, Ms. Ivey says, adding: “No way, José.”An Ivey spokeswoman dismissed as “absurd” suggestions that the ad played into fears of replacement or perpetuated bias against Latinos or immigrants.Heavy-handed anti-immigrant appeals haven’t always worked. Mr. Trump’s attempts to stir fears over caravans of Central American immigrants making their way north largely failed as a strategy for Republicans in the 2018 midterms.But Democrats then had a punching bag in Mr. Trump’s policy of separating migrant families at the border, which sparked international outcry. This cycle, Democrats themselves are sharply divided on immigration, leaving them either on defense or avoiding the subject altogether.Republicans like the Ohio Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance argue liberals are calling conservatives racist for raising legitimate concerns about drug seizures.Brian Kaiser for The New York TimesThat said, some Republican voters continue to press candidates for more than just new reasons to fear immigration, and the subjects of those fears can turn out to be far less sinister than the faceless migrants depicted in grainy campaign ads.At a campaign stop at a brewery in Hilliard, Ohio, Bryan Mandzak, 53, a factory manager, asked Mr. Vance how he planned to address what he called a broken immigration system that provided workers few paths to legal status. He said he himself had seen “vanloads of Hispanics” arriving at a hotel in Marysville, about 20 miles northwest of Hilliard, but explained that they had been brought in to run an automotive plant that was hurting for employees.As it happened, white vans were indeed picking up Hispanic workers at the hotel in Marysville, for factory shifts ending at 2 a.m. But the workers were mostly American-born citizens like Moises Garza, who said he had applied on Facebook, moved from Texas and was enjoying decent pay, transportation and free lodgings.In between bites of syrupy waffles a few hours after a Friday-night shift assembling tires, Mr. Garza, who is originally from upstate New York, said he wasn’t following the Senate race and shrugged off being mistaken for an immigrant.He had two days to rest up and explore Columbus. On Monday, he would be back at work. More

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      The fight over voting continues. Here’s the latest.

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      The conflict over sweeping new restrictions on voting, largely confined to statehouses and governors’ desks since 2020, is spilling over into the midterm elections.About two dozen states have tightened laws regulating matters like who is eligible to vote by mail, the placement of drop boxes for absentee ballots and identification requirements. Many of the politicians driving the clampdown can be found on the ballot themselves this year.Here are some of the latest developments.In Pennsylvania, the four leading Republican candidates for governor all said during a debate on Wednesday that they supported the repeal of no-excuse absentee voting in that state.In 2020, about 2.6 million people who were adapting to pandemic life voted by mail in Pennsylvania, more than a third of the total ballots cast. But Republicans, smarting over President Donald J. Trump’s election loss to Joseph R. Biden Jr. and promulgating baseless voter fraud claims, have since sought to curtail voting by mail. A state court in January struck down Pennsylvania’s landmark law expanding absentee voting, a ruling that is the subject of a pending appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.Lou Barletta, one of the four on the debate stage and a former congressman, asserted that no-excuse absentee voting was conducive to fraud.“Listen, we know dead people have been voting in Pennsylvania all of our lives,” Mr. Barletta said. “Now they don’t even have to leave the cemetery to vote. They can mail in their ballots.”Several states had already conducted elections primarily through mail-in voting before the pandemic, with there being little meaningful evidence of fraud. They include Colorado and Utah, a state controlled by Republicans.Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, officials in Westmoreland County, which includes the suburbs east of Pittsburgh, voted this week to scale back the number of drop boxes used for absentee ballots to just one. The vote was 2-to-1, with Republicans on the Board of Commissioners saying that the reduction from several drop boxes would save money. The lone Democrat said that the change would make it more difficult for people to send in their ballots.In Arizona, two Trump-endorsed Republican candidates — Kari Lake in the governor’s race and Mark Finchem for secretary of state — sued election officials this month to try to stop the use of electronic voting machines in the midterm elections. Helping to underwrite the lawsuit, along with similar efforts in other states, is Mike Lindell, the MyPillow chief executive.In Nevada, a push by Republicans to scale back universal mail-in voting while introducing a new voter ID requirement ran into a major setback on Monday when two different judges in Carson City invalidated those efforts.In Georgia, Brian Kemp, the Republican governor, signed a bill on Wednesday empowering the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to pursue criminal inquiries into election fraud, an authority solely held by the secretary of state in the past. More

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      L. McCrae Dowless Jr., 66, Dies; Operative at Heart of Election Scandal

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      Federal prosecutors charged him with absentee-ballot tampering in North Carolina, and the state ordered a historic rerun of a federal election.L. McCrae Dowless Jr., the North Carolina political operative who was at the center of a scandal involving absentee-ballot harvesting and tampering that led to the first rerun of a federal election in some 40 years, died on Sunday at his daughter’s home in Bladen County, N.C. He was 66.His daughter, Andrea Heverly, confirmed the death in a statement but did not provide a cause. He was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer last year.It was said that if there were 30,000 people in rural Bladen County, in the southeast corner of North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District, then Mr. Dowless knew 25,000. He grew up there, born on a peanut farm in a house without indoor plumbing. Aside from a short stint working construction in California, he never left.Starting in 2006, he turned that intimate knowledge into a get-out-the-vote operation that served both Democrats and Republicans, and that soon earned a reputation for unproven but potentially illegal tactics.Though there were significant concerns about Mr. Dowless’s work on a 2016 U.S. House race, in 2018 Mark Harris, the Republican nominee for the Ninth District, hired Mr. Dowless in his race against Dan McCready, a Democrat.Mr. Harris won the race that November by just 905 votes. He did especially well among absentee voters: Though only 19 percent of ballot requesters were registered Republicans, 61 percent of absentee voters picked Mr. Harris.Almost immediately, things unraveled. Witnesses came forward saying that Mr. Dowless had paid them to gather absentee-ballot request forms, or absentee ballots themselves, a felony under North Carolina law.Others attested to a wide-ranging operation in which Mr. Dowless directed them to fill in ballots, specifying the type of pen to use and how to mail them (never in large batches, always from post offices near the voters’ homes).The North Carolina Board of Elections ordered a redo. It was the first time that a federal election had been repeated because of allegations of fraud, according to voting experts. Mr. Harris decided not to run again, and in the 2019 redo Dan Bishop, another Republican, defeated Mr. McCready.Mr. Dowless was arrested in February 2019 on charges of ballot tampering and obstruction of justice related to the 2016 and 2018 primary races; four others faced charges. That July he was indicted on similar charges related to the 2018 general election, along with six others.The case faced multiple delays related to the Covid-19 pandemic and Mr. Dowless’s health. That did not prevent an unrelated fraud case from going forward. In June 2021, he pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud for failing to report his income from the Harris campaign while receiving Social Security disability benefits.Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. was born on Jan. 3, 1956, near Lumberton, N.C., where Leslie Sr. worked on a 200-acre peanut farm. His mother, Monnie (Pait) Dowless, was a homemaker. He was the youngest of 11 children in the household, though the only child his parents had together.The family’s first home, tucked into the woods near the farm, had no indoor plumbing, and Mr. Dowless later recalled bathing in a 55-gallon oil drum. When he was 10 years old, his family moved to a modern home in nearby Bladenboro, where he ran from bathroom to bathroom, turning the taps on and off in amazement, he told Michael Graff and Nick Ochsner for their book “The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scammers, Politicians and Preachers Behind the Nation’s Greatest Electoral Fraud” (2021).Along with his daughter, Mr. Dowless is survived by his brother, Harry; his sisters Myrtice Johnson and Filena Carson; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.Mr. Dowless Sr. ran a fertilizer store with his brother, and his son helped out after school and on weekends. And Leslie Jr. continued to work on farms, mostly growing peanuts, a prime crop in that corner of the state.By the late 1980s he was managing a used-car lot with a girlfriend, whom he hoped to marry once he had enough money saved. When one employee died unexpectedly, they took out life insurance on him, with the check illegally backdated.The scheme quickly fell apart, and Mr. Dowless and his girlfriend were charged with insurance fraud. But while she was sentenced to community service, he went to prison — a fact he chalked up to a crooked district attorney.When he got out after six months, he set his mind on revenge, and soon found it in politics, distributing campaign material against the prosecutor who had put him in jail. The prosecutor won the race, but Mr. Dowless was hooked.He dabbled in politics as a candidate as well. He won a seat on the Bladen County Soil and Water Conservation Board in 2012 and was re-elected in 2020.Immediately after his death, Lorrin Freeman, the Wake County district attorney, said that all charges against Mr. Dowless were now moot, but that the charges against the remaining defendants remained in place. More

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      Merrick Garland Finds His Footing as Attorney General

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      During a recent swing through the South, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland chatted up participants in a police program in Georgia aimed at redirecting youth who had sold bottled water on interstate highways into less dangerous work. He announced funding to address policing problems like the use of excessive force. He talked about mental health support, an issue he has thought about since he saw firsthand how officers who responded to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing struggled to process the horror.For all of the attention on the Justice Department’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, the trip was focused on the everyday work of being the attorney general, fighting crime and serving as a steward of law enforcement. Over two days in Georgia and Louisiana, Mr. Garland, in interviews with The New York Times on his plane and later in Baton Rouge, would say only that the assault on the Capitol “completely wiped out” any doubts he had about taking the post.“I felt that this was exactly why I had agreed to be attorney general in the first place,” he said. “Jan. 6 is a date that showed what happens if the rule of law breaks down.”By most accounts, becoming attorney general was a tough adjustment for a former appeals judge who had last worked at the Justice Department in the late 1990s. But more than a year into his tenure, colleagues say that a cautious leader has found some footing, more a prosecutor now than a deliberator.In interviews, a dozen administration officials and federal prosecutors, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said Mr. Garland, 69, initially ran his office like a judge’s chambers, peppering even Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco and Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta with the kind of granular questions that clerks might expect while writing his opinions.But the slow pace that characterized Mr. Garland’s early months has somewhat quickened. Decisions that took weeks at the outset can now take a day. And with more top officials confirmed, he can be less directly involved in the department’s day-to-day work.Mr. Garland has said that the department must remain independent from improper influence if it is to deliver on its top priorities: to uphold the rule of law, keep the nation safe and protect civil rights.Mr. Garland and his chief of staff, Matt Klapper, in Atlanta. Career employees at the Justice Department say they no longer feel the political pressure they did during the Trump administration.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesHe has notched victories. Many career employees say they no longer feel pressure to satisfy blatantly political demands, as they did under the previous administration. The department created a unit dedicated to fighting domestic terrorism and charged important cybercrime cases. Prosecutors won high-profile convictions in the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black jogger, and George Floyd, a Black motorist.But in a significant setback, prosecutors failed to win convictions against four men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. The Bureau of Prisons remains plagued by violence, sexual abuse and corruption. And Democrats still castigate Mr. Garland for not moving more aggressively to indict former President Donald J. Trump for trying to undo his election loss. Republican critics accuse him of using the department to improperly wade into culture wars, including fights over school curriculums and the pandemic response.A Challenging First YearSeated on a sofa in the U.S. attorney’s office in Baton Rouge, Mr. Garland detailed the chaos he encountered when he took the reins in March 2021. Colleagues said that if the typical transition between parties is like relay racers passing a baton, this was a runner searching for a stick dropped on the track.Trump administration officials who expected to spend their final weeks preparing briefing binders for the incoming administration instead parried false cries of voter fraud and absorbed the horror of the Capitol attack. Mr. Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat shortened the transition process. The Biden team would not be up to speed on every issue that awaited them.The first order of business was the nine-week-old Jan. 6 investigation, which entailed a nationwide manhunt and hundreds of criminal cases.Mr. Garland and his top officials, Ms. Monaco and Ms. Gupta, issued policy memos, filed lawsuits and secured indictments related to federal executions, hate crimes, domestic extremism and voter suppression, among other concerns.Vanita Gupta, the associate attorney general, speaking with Mr. Garland in Baton Rouge. Mr. Garland initially ran the Justice Department in a deliberative style, but the pace has quickened.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesMs. Gupta scrutinized corporate mergers and initiated reviews of police departments in Minneapolis and Louisville, Ky. Ms. Monaco’s office, which oversees the Jan. 6 inquiry, eased tensions between prosecutors and officials on the case. She closed the federal prison in Manhattan to address subpar conditions, and is pushing for more Bureau of Prisons reforms.Soft-spoken and slight, Mr. Garland has an understated manner that makes him easy to underestimate, associates said. But they insisted that his questions were always probing, and that he seemed to remember every answer.Some aides said he was slow to shift the department away from postures that had hardened during the Trump era. He took four months to reaffirm a longstanding policy that strictly limits the president’s contact with the department and to curb the seizure of reporters’ records. The department sued Georgia three months after the state passed a restrictive voting law, frustrating the White House.Prosecutors were told over a year ago to expect a new memo allowing them to forgo harsh mandatory minimum sentences, such as those for nonviolent drug dealers who had sold crack rather than cocaine. They are still waiting.In a move that some aides believe reflected the unusually high level of detail he needed to feel prepared, Mr. Garland often dispatched Ms. Monaco to attend White House meetings in his place. This year, he has attended nearly all of them.Ms. Monaco’s office overcame hiccups, too. It did not play its traditional management role under its predecessor, and she had to ease information bottlenecks. Exceedingly wary about cybercrime, she used a pseudonymous email address. That precaution, normally taken by attorneys general, gave those outside her staff the impression that she was difficult to reach.“I’m delegating more,” Mr. Garland said in the interview. “It’s easier to deal with crises every day, and new decisions, if you’re not still working on the old ones.” With Covid risks easing, he has held more meetings of the kind he attended in Georgia and Louisiana, and has met in person more frequently with his leadership team.Mr. Garland meeting with local law enforcement officers at the Justice Department’s office in Atlanta. Mr. Garland has held more in-person meetings as Covid risks have eased.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesHe will not say when he intends to step down, but administration officials believe that he would willingly serve beyond the midterm election.Protecting the Rule of LawFor most of a 90-minute flight to Atlanta on a 12-seat government plane, Mr. Garland sat near the front, editing speeches, conferring with his chief of staff and juggling updates from Washington. In a quiet moment in the interview, he spoke with seeming relish about his prior life as a prosecutor. He recalled uncovering a State Department record that proved a witness had lied, and shining a flashlight behind a document to show a judge and jury that a defendant had doctored it with correction fluid.As a special assistant to Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti in 1979, Mr. Garland helped codify reforms that stemmed from President Nixon’s abuses of power. After a stint in private practice, he became a top department official under Attorney General Janet Reno. He supervised the investigation into the Oklahoma City bombing, that era’s most serious domestic terrorism attack, before joining the federal appeals court in Washington.Mr. Garland, then an associate deputy attorney general, speaking to the news media in 1995 about the trial of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber.Rick Bowmer/Associated PressMr. Biden asked Mr. Garland to lead the department the day before Mr. Trump’s supporters stormed Congress. At home on Jan. 6 writing his acceptance speech, Mr. Garland watched the attack unfold on television.“Failure to make clear by words and deed that our law is not the instrument of partisan purpose” would imperil the country, Mr. Garland said the next day, when his nomination was announced.The Trump InvestigationsCard 1 of 6Numerous inquiries. More

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      Charges Dropped Against Pamela Moses, Who Was Jailed Over Voter Fraud

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      Pamela Moses, who was sentenced in January to six years in a case that outraged voting rights supporters, will not face a new trial, a district attorney said.A Tennessee prosecutor dropped all criminal charges on Friday against Pamela Moses, a Memphis woman with a previous felony conviction who was sentenced to six years and one day in prison in January after she tried to restore her right to vote in 2019.The voter fraud conviction from her trial was thrown out in February after a judge ruled that the Tennessee Department of Correction had improperly withheld evidence that was later uncovered by The Guardian. Ms. Moses had been set to appear in court on Monday to find out whether prosecutors would pursue a retrial.But Ms. Moses will no longer face a second trial “in the interest of judicial economy,” Amy Weirich, the district attorney of Shelby County, said in a statement. Ms. Moses spent 82 days in custody on this case, “which is sufficient,” Ms. Weirich said. Ms. Moses is also permanently barred from registering to vote or voting in Tennessee. Ms. Weirich declined to comment further on the case.The sentencing of Ms. Moses, who is Black, had spurred outrage among voting rights supporters who said that the case highlighted racial disparities in the criminal prosecution of voting fraud cases and opaque voting restoration rights laws that sow confusion and leave many people with felony convictions unsure of their rights.In the summer of 2019, Ms. Moses, a Black Lives Matter activist, decided she wanted to run for mayor of Memphis, or at the very least vote in the upcoming election.She knew that she couldn’t do either while she was on probation for prior felony convictions, including a 2015 conviction for tampering with evidence. But she believed her probation was over, according to her lawyer, Bede Anyanwu. Overall, Ms. Moses had 16 prior criminal convictions, including misdemeanor counts from 2015 of perjury, stalking and theft under $500, according to the district attorney’s office. In September 2019, a judge told Ms. Moses that she was still on probation. But when she went to the probation office to confirm, a probation officer told her she was actually done with her felony probation, records show. The probation officer signed off on her certificate of restoration to vote and Ms. Moses then submitted it to election officials.A day later, the Department of Correction sent a letter to the Shelby County Election Commission informing it that the probation officer had made a mistake and that Ms. Moses could not vote because she was in fact still on probation.Video from a January hearing shows Ms. Moses telling Judge W. Mark Ward of the Shelby County Criminal Court, “All I did was try to get my rights to vote back the way the people at the election commission told me.”Judge Ward responded, “You tricked the probation department into giving you a document saying that you were off probation.”Ms. Moses was charged with perjury on a registration form and consenting to a false entry on official election documents. The first charge was dropped, but she was convicted of the second charge in November and sentenced in January. Ultimately, Ms. Moses’ felony conviction in 2015 for tampering made her permanently ineligible to vote under Tennessee law regardless of her probation status.“The case should not have been prosecuted right from the beginning because there was no trickery,” Mr. Anyanwu said. Ms. Moses declined to comment on Saturday.In recent years, Republican officials have moved to crack down on voter fraud, despite the fact that the crime remains a very rare and often accidental occurrence. Florida election officials made just 75 referrals to law enforcement agencies regarding potential fraud during the 2020 election, out of more than 11 million votes cast, according to data from the Florida secretary of state’s office. Of those investigations, only four cases have been prosecuted as voter fraud.Still, legislators in some states have stiffened penalties for voting-related crimes, and district attorneys and state attorneys general have pursued aggressive felony prosecutions in cases that might have been deemed legitimate mistakes.Voting rights advocates interpret these actions as a voter suppression tactic.“These prosecutions are intended to scare people who have prior convictions from even trying to register to vote,” said Blair Bowie, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., who has been assisting Ms. Moses and Mr. Anyanwu with the case since October.These prosecutions also unfairly blame individuals for failing to navigate a voter restoration process that is unclear, she said, adding that state officials are responsible for putting adequate procedures in place for that process.Ms. Bowie is representing the Tennessee N.A.A.C.P. in a lawsuit against Gov. Bill Lee and other officials that accuses them of failing to establish clearer procedures for individuals with felony convictions, “leading to a rights restoration process that is unequal, inaccessible, opaque and inaccurate.”Nearly 80 percent of the disenfranchised people in the state have completed probation and parole and are potentially eligible to restore their voting rights, but fewer than 5 percent of potentially eligible Tennesseans have been able to acquire a completed certificate of restoration of voting rights and have tried to register to vote, according to the lawsuit.Voting rights advocates say that the case also highlights the racial disparity in the prosecution of voter fraud cases.“What we see consistently is honest mistakes made by returning citizens are penalized to the max, and true bad intentions are not being penalized to the same extent,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a government watchdog group. “And usually in those cases the defendants are white.”In October, Donald Kirk Hartle, a white Republican voter, was charged with two counts of voter fraud in Las Vegas after he forged his dead wife’s signature to vote with her ballot. He was sentenced in November to one year of probation, The Associated Press reported.Edward Snodgrass, a white Republican official in Ohio, forged his dead father’s signature on an absentee ballot in 2020 and was charged with illegal voting, NBC News reported. As part of a plea agreement, he served three days in jail last year, The Delaware Gazette reported.Ms. Moses is still pursuing the restoration of her civil rights, which include voting rights, through a lawsuit in Shelby County Circuit Court, according to Ms. Bowie. That lawsuit presents a constitutional challenge to the state statute that permanently bars people convicted of tampering with evidence from voting in Tennessee. More

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      Marjorie Taylor Greene Denies ‘Insurrectionist’ Charge in Court

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      In an extraordinary administrative law hearing, the Georgia representative was forced to defend her actions surrounding the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.WASHINGTON — Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, on Friday repeated false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election as she defended her actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, in an extraordinary hearing that asked whether she should be labeled an “insurrectionist” and barred from office under the Constitution.While under oath at an administrative law hearing in Atlanta, Ms. Greene insisted that “a tremendous amount of fraudulent activity” had robbed former President Donald J. Trump of his re-election, an assertion that has been soundly refuted by multiple courts, Republican-led recounts and Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, William P. Barr.But despite her exhortations on social media to “#FightForTrump,” she said she had possessed no knowledge that protesters intended to invade the Capitol on Jan. 6, or disrupt the congressional joint session called to count the electoral votes and confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. She said she did not recall meeting with any of the instigators.And Ms. Greene said neither she nor members of her staff had offered anyone tours of the Capitol complex before Jan. 6, 2021, nor had they provided anyone with a map of the complex, refuting tales of a conspiracy promoted by some Democrats that she had helped the rioters plan their attack.“I was asking people to come for a peaceful march, which is what everyone is entitled to do under their First Amendment,” Ms. Greene testified. “I was not asking them to actively engage in violence.”The contentious hearing unfolded after a group of constituents from her Northwest Georgia district, supported by liberal lawyers, filed suit to block Ms. Greene, a vigorously right-wing lawmaker, from appearing on the ballot for re-election. They charged that she had exhorted rioters to take up arms to block the certification of Mr. Biden’s election, and helped organize the assembly behind the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, that turned into a violent mob.The legal case appeared to be on shaky ground as the administrative law judge, Charles R. Beaudrot, repeatedly sided with Ms. Greene’s lawyer, the prominent conservative election attorney James Bopp Jr., who maintained that much of the questioning violated his client’s right of free speech. Judge Beaudrot will make a recommendation on whether to bar Ms. Greene from the ballot, but the final decision will fall to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — the same official who resisted pressure from Mr. Trump to change the presidential election results in the state, and who faces a Trump-backed challenger, Representative Jody Hice, in the coming Republican primary.But the proceeding afforded lawyers pressing the case against Ms. Greene to maintain their pressure and keep attention on her role on Jan. 6, and compel her to answer for it. The proceedings were broadcast on C-SPAN, live-streamed on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and revealed a House Republican that was often peevish and sometimes on the defensive.“This is a solemn occasion,” Ron Fein, the lead lawyer bringing the case against Ms. Greene with the group Free Speech for People, told Judge Beaudrot. “This is not politics. This is not theater. This is a serious case that the voters who we represent have brought in order to offer proof that their United States representative seeking re-election, Marjorie Taylor Greene, having taken the oath to support the Constitution, then broke that oath and engaged in insurrection.”Mr. Bopp dismissed the case as precisely the opposite, asserting that the law was on the side of his client, who, far from engaging in insurrection, had been a victim during the riot — scared, confused, and fearing for her life as Mr. Trump’s supporters swarmed through the Capitol, where she was present just to do her job.He maintained that the entire Free Speech for People effort was designed to deny Georgia voters their rights, because the plaintiffs could not defeat Ms. Greene at the ballot box.“This is not a candidate debate. This is not a place for political hyperbole. This is not a place for political smear. It’s a court of law,” Mr. Bopp said.At the heart of the case against Ms. Greene is the plaintiffs’ claim that the congresswoman is disqualified from seeking re-election because her support of the rioters who attacked the Capitol made her an “insurrectionist” under the Constitution, and therefore barred her under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted during the Reconstruction years to punish members of the Confederacy.That section declares that “no person shall” hold “any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath” to “support the Constitution,” had then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Similar cases have suffered setbacks in North Carolina, where a federal judge blocked a challenge against Representative Madison Cawthorn, another far-right Republican, and in Arizona, where the Superior Court in Maricopa County ruled on Thursday that it did not have the authority to block the re-elections of two other conservative Republicans, Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and the candidacy for secretary of state of a state representative, Mark Finchem.A separate effort is pending against Republicans, including Senator Ron Johnson, in Wisconsin.But so far, only the case against Ms. Greene has been allowed to proceed. And on Friday, she was forced to answer questions under oath.Ms. Greene denied calling Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “traitor to her country,” though the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Andrew Celli, produced a quotation from her saying just that. She also said she never advocated violence against her political opponents, though her personal Twitter account “liked” a post that advocated “a bullet to the head of Nancy Pelosi.” She said she did “not recall” advocating that Mr. Trump impose martial law.Capitol Riot’s Aftermath: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 5Signs of progress. More

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      ‘Lo necesitamos’: la enorme influencia de Trump en el Partido Republicano

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      Mientras acumula fondos, reparte favores y trata de aplastar a sus rivales, el expresidente domina a su partido y se prepara para otra campaña respaldando a quienes lo ayudan a expulsar a los funcionarios que frustraron su intento de subversión de las elecciones de 2020.PALM BEACH, Florida — Una noche cualquiera, Donald Trump se pasea por el patio de Mar-a-Lago y pronuncia unas palabras desde un atril para darle la bienvenida al candidato que le paga por el privilegio de recaudar fondos allí.“Este es un lugar especial”, dijo Trump en una de esas noches de febrero en su club privado. “Solía decir que era la ‘zona cero’, pero después del World Trade Center ya no usamos ese término. Este es el lugar donde todo el mundo quiere estar”.Durante 15 meses, un desfile de aspirantes (senadores, gobernadores, líderes del Congreso y contendientes republicanos de todas las tendencias) ha hecho el recorrido para jurarle lealtad y presentar su candidatura. Algunos han contratado a los asesores de Trump con la esperanza de obtener una ventaja al buscar su respaldo. Otros compran anuncios en Fox News que solo se transmiten en el sur de Florida. Y están los que le llevan regalos; y los que sacan los trapos sucios. Casi todos repiten la mentira de que las elecciones de 2020 fueron robadas.Mientras trabaja desde un gran escritorio de madera que recuerda al que usó en la Oficina Oval, Trump ha transformado la antigua suite nupcial de Mar-a-Lago en una sede informal del Partido Republicano y ha amasado más de 120 millones de dólares, una suma que duplica la del Comité Nacional Republicano. Los registros federales muestran que su iniciativa recaudó más fondos en línea que el partido, casi todos los días durante los últimos seis meses de 2021. La excepción fueron dos jornadas, una de las cuales fue la víspera de Navidad.Y mientras otros expresidentes han cedido el escenario político, Trump ha hecho lo contrario, ya que trata de emprender una agresiva campaña de venganza contra los republicanos que lo han perjudicado, con su respaldo a más de 140 candidatos en todo el país y con la transformación de las primarias de 2022 en una prueba de su persistente influencia.Al inspirar miedo, acaparar dinero, repartir favores y tratar de aplastar a sus rivales, Trump no solo se está comportando como un poderoso actor, sino como algo más cercano al jefe de una maquinaria política del siglo XIX.“Los líderes de los partidos nunca han desempeñado el papel que Trump está desempeñando”, dijo Roger Stone, un asesor intermitente de Trump desde la década de 1980 a quien se ha visto en fechas recientes en Mar-a-Lago. “Porque él puede, y no se rige por las reglas convencionales de la política”, explicó.Esta imagen de Trump como un jefe de partido moderno se ha extraído de más de 50 entrevistas con asesores en activo y retirados de Trump, rivales políticos, republicanos que han buscado su apoyo y funcionarios y estrategas del Partido Republicano que están lidiando con su influencia.Es evidente que Trump disfruta del poder. Pero mientras insinúa una y otra vez la posibilidad de aspirar a la Casa Blanca por tercera vez, la pregunta que se plantea es si puede seguir siendo el rey de la nación si no aspira a la corona.Por ahora, se ha adentrado en las minucias de limpiar al Partido Republicano de sus críticos, incluso si, de manera típica, la planificación y ejecución pueden ser desordenadas. Ha centrado sus esfuerzos casi obsesivamente en instalar personajes leales en puestos estatales clave en el campo de batalla (gobernadores, senadores, miembros de la Cámara, secretarios de Estado y fiscales generales de los estados) a menudo en vez de los mismos funcionarios que frustraron sus intentos de subvertir los resultados de 2020.Ha presionado a los candidatos para que cambien las contiendas en las que participan, aconsejó a los republicanos sobre a quién contratar, se involucró en las reglas de registro del partido en Wyoming y en la contienda por el presidente de la cámara estatal en Michigan. También condicionó su respaldo al gobernador Mike Dunleavy de Alaska a que no apoyara a la senadora titular del estado, Lisa Murkowski; Dunleavy accedió rápidamente. La semana pasada, mostró su desacuerdo al instar a los residentes de Pensilvania a no votar por Bill McSwain en las primarias para gobernador, con el argumento de que el político no había aceptado por completo sus acusaciones de fraude electoral de 2020.Trump no quiso ser entrevistado para este artículo.Las personas cercanas a Trump dicen que se siente complacido por el ejercicio crudo de su poder. Escucha a los cabilderos de los republicanos de alto rango, como el representante Kevin McCarthy, líder del partido en la Cámara de Representantes, y luego los ataca sin previo aviso. Un día después de que McCarthy regañó al representante republicano de Carolina del Norte, Madison Cawthorn, por decir que sus colegas en Washington habían celebrado orgías y consumido cocaína, Trump le concedió a Cawthorn un codiciado espacio para hablar en su próximo mitin.Durante 15 meses, un desfile de aspirantes (senadores, gobernadores, líderes del Congreso y contendientes republicanos de todas las tendencias) ha hecho el recorrido hasta Mar-a-LagoSaul Martinez para The New York Times‘Clientelismo político en desarrollo’Ahora, toda una economía política gira en torno a Trump, en la cual sus propiedades están haciéndose de enormes sumas: tan solo los candidatos federales y las comisiones han pagado casi 1,3 millones de dólares por la celebración de eventos en Mar-a-Lago, según muestran los registros. Ha surgido una falange de aduladores de Trump, a los que los candidatos pagan con la esperanza de conseguir reuniones, aunque los antiguos seguidores de Trump advierten que, en el juego de la influencia, el comprador siempre debe tener cuidado.“Si alguien anda por ahí vendiendo su capacidad para conseguir respaldos, está vendiendo algo que no es suyo”, dijo Michael Caputo, un exasesor que todavía habla con Trump. “Lo que parece ser clientelismo político en desarrollo, en realidad, es la confluencia de muchos asesores que fingen saber cómo conseguir el respaldo de Trump. Pero, en realidad, nadie sabe el camino a seguir”.Sin embargo, aunque el clientelismo político en Nueva York no es nuevo, como lo demuestra Tammany Hall, una máquina política que perduró durante casi dos siglos y cuya longevidad se debe a la difusión del patrocinio, Trump puede ser muy tacaño. Aunque celebra mítines para algunos candidatos, en muchos casos, su apoyo no va más allá de un correo electrónico y un cheque de 5000 dólares. Trump casi nunca ha desplegado su enorme lista de seguidores para ayudar a otros políticos con el fin de que recauden dinero (la representante Elise Stefanik de Nueva York fue una rara excepción, a principios de este año). Frente a la posibilidad de las derrotas de alto perfil, el equipo del exmandatario planea gastar directamente para ayudar a algunos candidatos vulnerables que han recibido su respaldo; una transferencia de efectivo a un súper PAC de Georgia fue solo el primer paso.Taylor Budowich, uno de sus voceros, señaló que centrarse solo en el gasto directo no toma en cuenta el valor que tiene el aval de Trump para los votantes y la “cobertura mediática gratuita” que genera. “Alguna vez se llegó a decir que un respaldo ni siquiera vale el papel en el que está impreso, pero ahora hay una excepción: el respaldo de Trump”, dijo Budowich.A diferencia de los jefes políticos del pasado, Trump ha hecho mucho énfasis en los mecanismos electorales, además de sembrar en todo momento la desconfianza en el sistema mediante afirmaciones falsas de manipulación de votos.Como decía el corrupto “Boss” Tweed, de Tammany, mientras se apoyaba en una urna en una famosa caricatura de la década de 1870: “Mientras yo cuente los votos, ¿qué vas a hacer al respecto?”.O como le dijo Trump a Breitbart News este mes: “Hay una expresión de que los contadores de votos son más importantes que el candidato, y podrías usar esa expresión en este momento”.Ejercer el poder sobre el partido y vender la ficción de unas elecciones robadas también son estrategias para desviar la atención de la desafortunada salida de Trump de la Casa Blanca como perdedor.Michael D’Antonio, biógrafo de Trump, trazó un paralelismo entre este periodo y una crisis anterior en la carrera de Trump: su bancarrota a principios de 1990. “Para cualquier otra persona estos habrían sido acontecimientos demoledores”, dijo. “Pero para Trump solo marcaron un cambio en su método y en su búsqueda del poder. Y nunca aceptó que fueran derrotas de verdad”.Los demócratas se están preparando para las derrotas en 2022. Pero los estrategas de ambos partidos dicen que el gran perfil público de Trump representa un riesgo para los republicanos, porque las encuestas privadas y los grupos de discusión muestran que sigue siendo un poderoso factor de rechazo para los votantes indecisos.Pero las primarias republicanas son otra historia, donde pocos candidatos serios se han separado de Trump. “La toma del control del Partido Republicano por parte del presidente Trump ha sido tan completa”, dijo Boris Epshteyn, otro exasesor de Trump que a veces visita Mar-a-Lago, “que incluso los republicanos más moderados están intentando hablar de MAGA”.El representante Madison Cawthorn de Carolina del Norte fue reprendido por decir que sus colegas en Washington habían organizado orgías y consumido cocaína, sin embargo, Trump le otorgó un codiciado espacio para hablar en su próximo mitin.Veasey Conway para The New York Times“Necesito ver las encuestas, necesito ver la financiación, necesito ver que te estás haciendo un nombre”, le dijo Trump a Joe Kent, quien ganó su respaldo para intentar vencer a Jaime Herrera Beutler, la representante por el estado de Washington.Nathan Howard/Associated Press‘Como cangrejos en una cubeta’No hay mejor ejemplo del dominio de Trump sobre el partido que las genuflexiones y maniobras de quienes buscan su visto bueno en la política.Algunos candidatos pagan para asistir a las recaudaciones de fondos en Mar-a-Lago de otros aspirantes, y esperan lograr captar la atención de Trump, o mejor aún, una foto. “Momento épico”, fue el término que usó una candidata a la Cámara de Representantes para describir los pocos segundos que estuvo con Trump y que subió en un video a su cuenta de Instagram.Cuando Trump invitó a los candidatos de Michigan para que lo acompañaran en un evento, resonó la voz de un hombre: “Yo también me postulo para gobernador, ¿puedo ir?”. Era Ryan Kelley. “¿Te postulas para gobernador de qué?”, le preguntó Trump, un poco confundido. “¡Michigan!”, le respondió Kelley y se acercó, estrechando la mano de Perry Johnson, uno de sus oponentes.Johnson, por su parte, ha frecuentado Mar-a-Lago y publicó con orgullo un video pixelado de Trump alabando sus “buenos números en las encuestas” en otra recaudación de fondos. Incluso pagó un anuncio de televisión dándole la bienvenida a Trump a Michigan, antes de un mitin celebrado el 2 de abril.Sin embargo, Trump lo desairó en el mitin y, en cambio, elogió a una candidata rival, Tudor Dixon, que había realizado su propia recaudación de fondos en Mar-a-Lago en febrero.En muchos sentidos, la búsqueda de su respaldo es una réplica en la vida real del antiguo papel de Trump en la telerrealidad.“¿Qué era El aprendiz sino un lamentable tumulto de personas que se comportaban como cangrejos en una cubeta y que pedían que él los sacara de ahí?”, recordó D’Antonio, su biógrafo. “Estas personas no son otra cosa que concursantes que compiten por su aprobación”.En una de las escenas más recordadas, el año pasado, Trump llevó a varios candidatos al Senado de Ohio a una sala de Mar-a-Lago, donde empezaron a atacarse unos a otros con discursos mientras él los observaba. “Las cosas se salieron de control”, dijo un candidato, Bernie Moreno, quien no culpó a Trump por el caos, sino a sus rivales. Desde entonces, Moreno se retiró porque no quiere dividir el voto a favor de Trump.Casi todos los contendientes de Ohio han publicado anuncios que resaltan sus vínculos con Trump y buscan su respaldo de manera personal. Jane Timken se define como “la verdadera conservadora de Trump”. Josh Mandel se presenta como “pro-Dios, pro-armas, pro-Trump”. Mike Gibbons dice que él y Trump son dos “hombres de negocios con los mismos principios”.Trump no respaldó a ninguno de ellos; en cambio, apoyó al escritor J. D. Vance. En un debate previo al respaldo, Matt Dolan, el único aspirante republicano que no compite por el apoyo de Trump, sugirió que sus rivales estaban poniendo a los electores de Ohio en segundo lugar. “Hay gente en este escenario que, literalmente, está luchando por obtener un voto”, afirmó, “y la persona que les dará ese voto no está en Ohio”.Dolan es una excepción. En general, una audiencia con Trump puede llevar al éxito o al fracaso de una candidatura. Por eso, los candidatos planean mucho sus estrategias.A Trump le gusta la adulación y le gusta recompensar a los aduladores. Pero los expertos dicen que llevar material visual convincente también es importante. El uso de letras de gran tamaño es fundamental, con fotos y gráficos en color.“No es un tipo muy digitalizado, así que llevamos todo impreso”, dijo Joe Kent, quien logró ganarse el respaldo de Trump en su esfuerzo por desbancar a la representante republicana de Washington, Jaime Herrera Beutler, una de las diez representantes republicanas que votaron a favor del juicio político en contra de Trump.“Necesito ver las encuestas, necesito ver la financiación, necesito ver que te estás haciendo un nombre”, le indicó Trump, como recordó Kent.Cuando le gusta lo que ve, Trump envía unas palabras de aliento, garabateadas con un marcador en las impresiones de las noticias. “¡Lo estás haciendo genial!”, le escribió en enero a Kent. “¡Lo estás haciendo genial!”, también le escribió en octubre pasado a Harriet Hageman, quien está desafiando a Liz Cheney, la representante por Wyoming.Cuando el representante Billy Long, candidato al Senado en Missouri, se reunió por primera vez con Trump el año pasado, le llevó una copia impresa de una encuesta favorable. Pero sintió que lo habían derrotado cuando Trump “estiró el brazo y recogió otra encuesta” que Long supuso que provenía de un rival, aunque podría haber formado parte del paquete que su equipo le prepara para las reuniones con los candidatos.“Donald Trump hará lo que quiera hacer cuando quiera hacerlo”, dijo Long. “Eso no es ningún secreto”.En marzo, un grupo que instó a Trump para que cesara su respaldo a Matthew DePerno, candidato a fiscal general de Michigan, compró un anuncio que se publicó en West Palm Beach.Nic Antaya para The New York TimesTrump ha expresado su deseo de tomar el control de los puestos de conteo de votos en Michigan, con el fin de reunir apoyos para Kristina Karamo, su candidata para ser secretaria de Estado.Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesTelevisión de precisiónLa televisión es una vía popular para llegar a Trump y algunos candidatos tratan de hacerlo mediante la transmisión de anuncios lejos de su electorado. Durante el verano, Trump estuvo en su club de golf de Bedminster, Nueva Jersey, y Jim Lamon, un candidato al Senado de Arizona, pagó por un anuncio en Fox News de Nueva Jersey.Michele Fiore, concejala de la ciudad de Las Vegas, anunció su candidatura a gobernadora de Nevada con un comercial pro-Trump que se transmitió en West Palm Beach. Luego desistió y decidió postularse al cargo de tesorera estatal y dijo en otro comercial que el equipo de Trump le aconsejó que optara por ese cargo.Y en marzo, un grupo que instó a Trump a rescindir su respaldo a Matthew DePerno, un republicano que se postulaba para fiscal general en Michigan, lanzó un comercial que atacaba a DePerno y que se transmitió en West Palm Beach.Otros han utilizado los medios audiovisuales con una precisión aún mayor.En noviembre, Blake Masters, candidato al Senado en Arizona, publicó un video que decía: “Creo que Trump ganó en 2020”, el día antes de volar a Florida para una recaudación de fondos en Mar-a-Lago. Según los registros de su campaña, el comercial costó 29.798,70 dólares.Algunos atraen la atención de Trump en televisión, entre comerciales.La vicegobernadora de Idaho, Janice McGeachin, apareció en el programa de Fox News de Tucker Carlson en junio y se deshizo en elogios hacia Trump. Al día siguiente, él la llamó.“Fue lo mejor”, afirmó la vicegobernadora, quien agregó que “le hizo saber” al exmandatario que planeaba desafiar al gobernador Brad Little, el republicano en funciones y le pidió su apoyo. Poco después, estaba en un avión rumbo a Nueva York para una reunión en la Torre Trump. “Lo que quería era darle un gran abrazo y decirle cuánto lo amamos”, dijo. “Y eso fue lo primero que hice”.McGeachin le dijo a Trump que Little no había luchado lo suficiente para anular las elecciones de 2020. En el otoño presentó su propuesta en Mar-a-Lago, y se marchó con una gorra roja firmada por el expresidente que suele usar en sus eventos. Pronto, Trump la apoyó de manera formal, aunque no dejó de elogiar a Little, que apenas unos días antes asistió a una recaudación de fondos en Mar-a-Lago para una organización no lucrativa afín a Trump.McGeachin, quien causó revuelo recientemente al grabar un discurso para una reunión de nacionalistas blancos, es vista como una candidata con pocas posibilidades en las primarias de mayo.El episodio encapsula las peculiaridades del estilo de Trump como jefe del partido: la receptividad al cortejo intensivo, la toma de decisiones aleatoria, la posibilidad de excederse y la exigencia de que se amplifiquen sus falsas afirmaciones de fraude electoral.“Creo que es el respaldo más codiciado en la historia política”, dijo McGeachin.Las encuestas han mostrado que David Perdue está detrás del gobernador de Georgia, Brian Kemp, en la contienda del 24 de mayo, lo que se considera como una muestra de la influencia de Trump.Audra Melton para The New York TimesTed Budd, representante por Carolina del Norte, es el candidato de Trump para el Senado y desafiará en las primarias de mayo al representante Mark Walker, un antiguo aliado del expresidente Trump.Veasey Conway para The New York TimesMano duraCon la vista puesta en su historial de victorias y derrotas en materia de respaldos, Trump está tratando cada vez más a los candidatos republicanos como piezas de ajedrez que se pueden mover, intercambiar o abandonar. Pero, hasta ahora, los resultados han sido dispares.En Georgia, reclutó al exsenador David Perdue para enfrentar al gobernador Brian Kemp, un republicano que desafió a Trump al certificar las elecciones de 2020 y respaldar el resultado. Trump presionó al otro candidato en la campaña, Vernon Jones, un exdemócrata, para que se postulara a la Cámara de Representantes, con su respaldo.Esa maniobra funcionó, pero las encuestas han mostrado que Perdue está detrás de Kemp de cara a la contienda del 24 de mayo, lo que es visto como una primera muestra de la influencia de Trump.En Carolina del Norte, Trump trató de conseguir que un aliado, el diputado Mark Walker, abandonara su campaña al Senado y dejara la vía libre para el candidato que él respaldaba, el diputado Ted Budd, para que se enfrentara al exgobernador Pat McCrory en las primarias de mayo. Pero después de que los tribunales alteraron los mapas políticos del estado, Walker se negó y amenazó con dividir el voto pro-Trump, aunque las encuestas muestran que Budd lidera de todos modos.Trump ya retiró uno de sus respaldos. Fue el caso de Mo Brooks, representante por Alabama que quería postularse al Senado de ese estado, y Trump cesó su apoyo después de que Brooks cayó en las encuestas y se cree que podría hacer lo mismo con otros aspirantes que no lideran las encuestas. Por ejemplo, ha hablado en privado de moderar su postura a favor de McGeachin.Trump ha sido especialmente efectivo en el reclutamiento de rivales para sus críticos republicanos más importantes, como Cheney.El año pasado, entrevistó a varios contrincantes potenciales, con la esperanza de establecer un enfrentamiento de dos personas. Entre ellos se encontraba Darin Smith, un abogado de Cheyenne, que voló a Bedminster y luego dijo que lamentaba no haber contado antes con la asesoría de los miembros del equipo de Trump. Finalmente, el expresidente respaldó a Harriet Hageman, exfuncionaria del partido, cuyos asesores incluyen a los estrategas actuales y anteriores de Trump como Justin Clark, Nick Trainer, Bill Stepien y Tim Murtaugh.“Ya sea que ames el pantano o lo odies, es una realidad”, dijo Smith, quien desde entonces ha respaldado a Hageman. “Hay órbitas alrededor de Trump”.Es posible que en ningún otro lugar Trump haya profundizado más en la política local que en Michigan, guiado en parte por la copresidenta del partido, Meshawn Maddock, una aliada cercana que organizó autobuses para llevar a los manifestantes a Washington el 6 de enero de 2021. En noviembre de 2020, después de que Trump convocó a los legisladores de Michigan a la Casa Blanca para una reunión extraordinaria mientras buscaba anular las elecciones, los dos líderes legislativos del Partido Republicano del estado lo rechazaron. Ahora, Trump ha dado su respaldo a más de media decena de candidatos a la legislatura de Michigan para encumbrar al marido de Maddock, el diputado estatal Matt Maddock, como próximo presidente de la Cámara de Representantes del estado.Trump no ha ocultado su deseo de tomar el control de los puestos de conteo de votos del estado mientras reúne apoyos para DePerno y Kristina Karamo, sus candidatos a los cargos de fiscal general del estado y la Secretaría de Estado.“Recuerden que no solo se trata de 2022, se trata de asegurarnos de que Michigan no sea manipulado y robado nuevamente en 2024”, dijo Trump en las afueras de Detroit el 2 de abril. Y agregó: “No hago esto a menudo con la gente de los estados. Pero esto es muy importante”.Mitch McConnell, líder de la minoría del Senado; Kevin McCarthy, el líder de la minoría de la Cámara de Representantes; y el exvicepresidente Mike Pence en la Oficina Oval con Trump, en marzo de 2020Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAfirmando el dominioEs cierto que la estrategia de guerra de Trump proyecta poder, pero lo que más asusta a otros líderes republicanos es su perdurable popularidad entre la base del partido.El flujo interminable de mensajes de recaudación de fondos republicanos que usan el nombre de Trump, y que a veces dan la idea de que el dinero es para él, es evidencia de su influencia con los pequeños donantes. Las encuestas también muestran que la mayoría de los votantes republicanos valoran su respaldo. “Su dominio del partido a nivel de votantes de base no tiene precedentes”, dijo Stone, quien ha sido asesor de Trump desde hace mucho tiempo.Plenamente consciente de esto, Trump también ha afirmado su dominio sobre los líderes republicanos del Congreso.En la Cámara de Representantes, McCarthy, que espera convertirse en el presidente de ese órgano legislativo después de las elecciones intermedias, ha tratado de mantener a Trump al margen en algunas primarias, ejerciendo presión, por ejemplo, para que deje de respaldar a Mary Miller, la representante por Illinois, quien fue elegida en el mismo distrito que el representante Rodney Davis. Pero Trump la respaldó de todos modos.“El temor legítimo de McCarthy es que se gane la mayoría, pero que 10 miembros de la Cámara se unan y digan: ‘No vamos a votar por usted ni por nada que desee’”, dijo Stone. Y agregó que, en ese caso, Trump tendría influencia en esos votos.En el Senado, Mitch McConnell de Kentucky, el líder de la minoría, no ha hablado con Trump desde que dejó la Casa Blanca, pero accedió a que el exmandatario respaldara a Herschel Walker para el Senado en Georgia, a pesar de las dudas iniciales de su equipo.Quienes están descontentos con el reinado de Trump como jefe del partido están buscando señales de que su control se está perdiendo, y varios rivales potenciales para 2024 (Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Tom Cotton) parecen menos temerosos últimamente de estar en desacuerdo públicamente con Trump.Las contiendas en las que Trump ha respaldado a un candidato serán objeto de estudio para ver si disminuyen su poder. Pero el hecho es que muchos de los candidatos a los que se opone en las primarias siguen diciendo que son republicanos que apoyan a Trump. Pocos ven una fecha de caducidad en su dominio hasta, y a menos, que decline postularse de nuevo en 2024 o sea derrotado.Una reciente aparición en el pódcast del Comité Nacional Republicano captó tanto las ventajas como los inconvenientes del inquebrantable apego del partido hacia Trump. Por mucho, se trató del episodio del pódcast más visto en YouTube, hasta que el sitio lo retiró por difundir información errónea.“No se puede subestimar el poder de su apoyo”, le había dicho Ronna McDaniel, la presidenta del partido, a Trump. Y luego agregó: “Lo necesitamos”.Shane Goldmacher es reportero político nacional y antes fue el corresponsal político en jefe de la sección Metro. Antes de unirse al Times, trabajó en Politico, donde cubrió la política del Partido Republicano a nivel nacional y la campaña presidencial de 2016. @ShaneGoldmacher More