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The indictments of Donald J. Trump past and pending are becoming the background music of the 2024 presidential campaign: always there, shaping the mood, yet not fully the focus.

Like so much of the Trump presidency itself, the extraordinary has become so flattened that Mr. Trumps warning on Tuesday that he was facing a possible third indictment this year, this time over his involvement in the events that led to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, drew shrugs from some quarters of his party and a muddled response from his rivals.

At one Republican congressional fund-raising lunch on Tuesday in Washington, the news of a likely third Trump indictment went entirely unmentioned, an attendee said. Some opposing campaigns strategists all but ignored the development. And on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trumps allies quickly resumed their now-customary defensive positions.

Two and half years ago, the deadly riot that left the nations seat of government defiled had threatened to forever tarnish Mr. Trumps political legacy. His supporters had stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of his defeat, stoked by their leader who had urged them to fight like hell. Even long-loyal Republicans broke with him as shattered glass littered the Capitol complex.

Yet today, Mr. Trump is the undisputed front-runner for the Republican Partys 2024 presidential nomination. And the threatened charges relating to Jan. 6 against Mr. Trump were instead turned into attacks on his successor by his Republican defenders on Tuesday.

We have yet again another example of Joe Bidens weaponized Department of Justice targeting his top political opponent, Donald Trump, Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 4 House Republican, told reporters on Capitol Hill.

When Mr. Trump and Ms. Stefanik spoke by phone on Tuesday, the former president lingered on the line as they discussed ways to use the Republican-led House committees to try to attack the investigations. Mr. Trump also spoke with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who accused the Biden administration of trying to weaponize government to go after their No. 1 opponent.

Their comments reprised a role that Republicans in Congress played for Mr. Trump twice before when he was impeached, and twice again when he was indicted earlier this year. The first indictment came in March, by the district attorney in Manhattan in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. The second was in June, when he was indicted on charges of keeping top-secret classified documents and obstructing efforts to get them back.

Republicans and Mr. Trumps extended orbit have established a rhythm of how to respond. Yet on the campaign trail, Mr. Trumps leading rivals continue to struggle to even articulate a response.

Chief among them is Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mr. Trumps top-polling rival. At a stop in South Carolina, Mr. DeSantis on Tuesday said that Mr. Trump should have come out more forcefully against the protesters who stormed the Capitol that day.

But after that line was picked up by Trump surrogates to attack Mr. DeSantis, his usually forceful DeSantis War Room Twitter account was anything but warring, accusing those surrogates of taking the governor out of context.

I hope he doesnt get charged, Mr. DeSantis said of Mr. Trump in an interview broadcast later on CNN.

The CNN interview was supposed to be an important moment for a candidate who had previously avoided any sit-downs that might legitimize the corporate media that he regularly denounces. Instead, the network interrupted its own exclusive recorded DeSantis interview with live updates from outside a courthouse in Florida on one Mr. Trumps coming trials. The sequence seemed to capture the state of the race that Mr. Trump is dominating.

Justin Clark, who served as Mr. Trumps deputy campaign manager in 2020 and whose firm, National Public Affairs, has conducted polling of the primary race, said the challenge for his rivals is the voters themselves. Data from Mr. Clarks firm shows that Republicans view an attack on Mr. Trump as an attack on them, he said.

That loyalty is not something that is easy to beat in a campaign, he added. His opponents see this, too, and that is why they tread very carefully. Its hard to see how another Republican breaks out when primary voters are rallying around their most recent president and any challengers have to hold their fire.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday revealed that he had received a target letter from the Justice Departments special counsel, Jack Smith, who is investigating his role in the lead-up to the violence of Jan. 6.

Almost always means arrest and indictment, Mr. Trump wrote of the target letter on Truth Social.

Mr. Smiths office already indicted Mr. Trump in federal court in June, saying he had possessed reams of national defense material and obstructed the investigation. In the coming weeks, he faces possible indictment in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who had served as Mr. Trumps communications director before resigning in late 2020 and publicly breaking with her former boss, said, The most striking thing to me is that most of Trumps G.O.P. opponents, who are polling double digits behind him, still will not seize this opportunity to denounce his unfit actions.

One reason is that Mr. Trump, and Republican primary voters, have so thoroughly rewritten the history of Jan. 6, 2021. The mere mention of the day is no longer an overwhelmingly clear political loser for the former president, at least in a Republican primary. Mr. Trump, two months after the attack, declared the violence a love-fest, and has continued to do so.

Indeed, at a rally this year in Texas, Mr. Trump placed his hand on his heart and listened to the song Justice for All that featured his voice and those of some Jan. 6 prisoners.

Few prominent elected officials were as directly affected on Jan. 6 as former Vice President Mike Pence. But even he declined to suggest that Mr. Trump should be prosecuted and said the election should be how the matter is arbitrated.

I believe that history will hold him to account for his actions that day, Mr. Pence said Tuesday on NewsNation. But of an indictment, he said, I hope it doesnt come to that. Im not convinced that the president acting on bad advice of a group of crank lawyers that came into the White House in the days before Jan. 6 is actually criminal.

There were some exceptions.

The low-polling former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, said in a statement that Donald Trumps actions on Jan. 6 should disqualify him from ever being president again.

And former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey wrote on Twitter that he wants to see the indictment itself before offering his opinion, but added that Mr. Trumps conduct on January 6th proves he doesnt care about our country & our Constitution.

However, the details laid out in the first federal indictment against Mr. Trump allegations that he waved material he described as secret government documents in front of people without security clearances at two of his private clubs barely dented his support. Several Republican elected officials instinctively leaped to support him, and his poll numbers remained high or even rose.

Rob Stutzman, a Republican strategist in California who worked on Mitt Romneys 2008 presidential race, says he believes it will eventually all become too much freight for Mr. Trump to carry to win the nomination.

Theres been the question of electability and as these indictments pile up and details emerge, I dont think we know yet if voters will stick with him if there appears to be viable competitive alternatives, Mr. Stutzman said.

Mr. Trumps team has capitalized on his past indictments to raise huge sums of campaign cash. But in Iowa on Tuesday, at a town hall-style interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Mr. Trump dismissed the friendly hosts suggestion that he was able to slough off his latest legal entanglement.

No, Mr. Trump said, it bothers me.

Maya King contributed reporting.

Originally posted here:
Republicans Shrug at New Possible Trump Indictment - The New York Times

Donald Trump Ronda Churchill for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed federal judge in Miami overseeing the former president's Mar-a-Lago documents case, on Friday set a trial date for next May after Trump sought to delay it until after the 2024 election.

The timeline of the case became a point of contention for federal prosecutors, who wanted to start the trial as soon as December, and defense attorneys, who argued that Cannon should not set a trial date at all due to Trump's presidential campaign.

Cannon heard arguments from both parties on Tuesday and said she would decide promptly. On Friday, she scheduled the date for the jury trial inthe Fort Pierce Division of the U.S. District Court in Southern Floridato start in the two-week period that begins May 20, 2024.

According to Politico, Cannon has also labeled the case "complex," despite the Justice Department arguing that, as a legal matter, the case isn't especially complicated and, thus, does not need to be drawn out.

The former president is the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, which "means any trial that takes place before the election will likely resonate across the campaign trail," according to The Washington Post. His defense argued that the trial should be postponed until after the election because the vote will make it more challenging for an impartial jury to be seated and suggested the trial could impact the course of the election.

Cannon's ruling, however, sets the trial late in the Republican primary schedule, just weeks before the 2024 Republican National Convention.

"This is the worst possible outcome for the Republican Party. Great for Trump though," Georgia State Law professor and political scientist Anthony Kreis wrote of the trial date on Twitter.

"This basically allows Trump to snag the nomination before the most easily damning case comes to trial," he added.

Trump's attorneys also noted, in addition to his campaign schedule, Trump will be embroiled in other legal battles in the near future. He is facing criminal charges in Manhattan in connection to hush money payments made to an adult film star with a trial slated for that case in March 2024, and civil lawsuits scheduled to go to trial in New York this fall and next year. He's also the subject of two other criminal investigations one in Georgia and the other a federal probe in connection to his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

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Prosecutors, however, pushed for beginning the trial as early as December, acknowledging that the date would present an "aggressive" timeline but dismissing calls for delay. They argued that their proposed schedule would give Trump's attorneys plenty of time to review evidence from the discovery period. Prosecutors also recognized that jury selection in this case could be lengthy but cited that as a reason why proceedings should begin sooner rather than later.

Some legal experts conceded that Cannon's Friday decision on a timeline for the trial was a good one, arguing that it falls in a sweet spot between being rushed and drawn out.

"The 5/20/24 trial date that Cannon just set is about as extended as it could be without seeming ridiculous," former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman said in a tweet.

"May was the perfect choice, actually. Not so soon that it's unachievable. Yet early enough that even some additional postponements would still allow the case to be tried before next fall," lawyer George Conway added. "Good for Judge Cannon."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Other experts, however, expressed concern that, despite being a reasonable timeline now, the trial date could be pushed further due to potential delays from the defense.

"[B]ig win for Jack Smith on trial date. But the key is making this schedule stick," NYU Law professor Andrew Weissmann,who served as a senior prosecutor on special counsel Robert Mueller's team,wrote on Twitter.

"Here's the thingin a case like this, plenty of opportunity for Trump to manufacture delay & if this date slips, it makes it far less likely trial happens before the election," former U.S. Attorney and federal prosecutor Joyce Vance tweeted, adding that "setting it in Fort Pierce with its tiny courtroom & no cameras allowed is a disservice to democracy."

Trump and his longtime aide, Walt Nauta, were indicted last month on a total of 38 counts. Trump is accused of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office and obstructing the government's efforts to retrieve them, while Nauta is alleged to have assisted Trump in his efforts to hoard sensitive materials and making false statements to the government.Both pleaded not guilty to all charges.

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about Judge Aileen Cannon

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Experts: Judge Cannon just set the worst possible Trump trial date for the Republican Party - Yahoo News

How much is a dollar worth?

To Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, quite a lot.

Mr. Burgumis one of several Republican presidential candidates going to great lengths to reach a crucial threshold to qualify for the partys first primary debate on Aug. 23 the requirement that only candidates with at least 40,000 individual donorsto their campaignswill be allowed on the stage.

A long-shot contender at the bottom of recent polls, Mr. Burgum is offering $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 people who donate at least $1 to his campaign. And one lucky donor, as his campaign advertised on Facebook, will have the chance to win a Yeti Tundra 45 cooler that typically costs more than $300 just for donating at least $1. The unusual offer was earlier reported by FWIW, a newsletter that tracks digital politics.

Mr. Burgums push to prioritize donors over actual dollars is a sign of some candidates desperation to make the debate stage and to seize some of the national spotlight from the Republican front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, and his top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.

Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, another Republican candidate, recently ended a campaign ad with a direct plea that flashed on the screen to Donate today, get Chris Christie on the debate stage.

Mr. Burgums campaign acknowledged that its requests were directly tied to the debate and spun the gift-card giveaways into attacks on President Biden.

Doug knows people are hurting because of Bidenflation, and giving Biden Economic Relief Gift Cards is a way to help 50,000 people until Doug is elected President to fix this crazy economy for everyone, said Lance Trover, a spokesman for the Burgum campaign.

Mr. Trover added that the efforts allowed the campaign to secure a spot on the debate stage while avoiding paying more advertising fees to social media platforms who have owners that are hostile to conservatives.

Kyle Tharp, the author of the FWIW newsletter that reported on the solicitations, said that as part of his reporting process, he had donated $1 to the Burgum campaign. He did not receive any follow-up information about how he would receive the gift card, he said. The campaign laterclarified on Twitterthat 50,000 donors would receive a Visa or Mastercard gift card to their mailing address.

The campaign did not respond to a request for comment about how many donors had contributed so far.

The campaigns donations-for-cash strategy could raise potential legal concerns, said Paul Ryan, a campaign finance lawyer. Voters who make donations in exchange for gift cards, he said, might be considered straw donors because part or all of their donations are being reimbursed by the campaign.

Federal law says no person shall make a contribution in the name of another person, Mr. Ryan said. Here, the candidate is making a contribution to himself in the name of all these individual donors.

Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in election law, said that typically, campaigns ask the Federal Election Commission when engaging in new forms of donations.

The Burgum campaigns maneuver, he said, certainly seems novel and raises concerns about whether it violates the prohibition on straw donations.

But some of the legal uncertainty, Mr. Hasen added, stems from the fact that functionally, campaigns spend a lot of money to get small donations, especially in cases like this where theyre trying to reach a debate threshold.

Mr. Burgum isnt alone in using his immense wealth hes a former software executive who sold a company to Microsoft in a $1.1 billion stock deal to bolster his campaign.

Perry Johnson, a businessman who also announced a hopeful bid for the Republican presidential nomination and who ran for Michigan governor last year, has spent $80,000 to $90,000 on ads promoting $1 hats that read, I identify as Non-Bidenary, Facebook records show. His campaign said in a recent ad that it had reached 10,000 donors.

To qualify for the first presidential debate, candidates must have a minimum of 200 unique donors per state or territory in 20 states and territories, according to the Republican National Committee, which set the rules. They must also garner at least 1 percent in multiple national or early-voting state polls recognized by the committee.

Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.

Continue reading here:
Desperate to Debate: Why a G.O.P. Candidate Is Offering $20 for $1 Donations - The New York Times

Longshot Republican presidential candidate Doug Burgum is offering to pay people to donate to his campaign as he races to meet the criteria to qualify for the first Republican debate in Milwaukee next month.

In text message and emailed solicitations to voters this week, Burgum, former software executive and governor of North Dakotawho has a reported net worth of more than $1 billion, according to some sourceshas been offering donors to his campaign a $20 gift card if they give money to his campaign, even for donations of a single dollar.

"The burden on American families caused by the Democrats is unruly, and Joe Biden is doing nothing to fix it," his campaign wrote on a WinRed page soliciting donations. "We want to help, so we're offering YOU a $20 gift card, and all YOU have to do is contribute $1 to claim it."

The program was first reported by FWIW, a Substack newsletter that covers campaign spending and strategy.

It's unlikely a move made out of a need for funds. Burgum is independently wealthy and made a reputation of lavish spending from his own pockets against his political opponents in North Dakota, the Associated Press reported, often to the chagrin of his own party. However, the spending could be a sign of the Burgum campaign failing to gain traction as it races to meet the qualifications they need to make it onto the debate stage in a crowded Republican field.

According to rules set by the Republican National Committee, qualifying candidates will have received contributions from a minimum of 40,000 individual donors, including at least 200 unique donors in 20 or more states. Those candidates also must earn at least one percent in a trio of high-quality national polls (or a mix of national and early-state polls) between July 1 and August 21.

They also must sign a loyalty pledge promising to support the party's eventual nomineea quirk in the process that could prevent figures like former Texas Congressman Will Hurd and frontrunner Donald Trump from participating.

While it is unclear how many donors Burgum currently has (a number that won't be made public until his Q2 campaign finance report becomes public in the next week), Burgum has also failed to register with voters nationally, rarely appearing in national polls.

And when he does, he often polls poorly; In a CWS Research poll for the conservative Defend Texas Liberty PAC late last month, Burgum polled at less than one percent out of a group of 10 candidates in the Lone Star State ahead of its primary next spring, while a national poll by Echelon Insights on June 29 had Burgum sitting at just 1 percent nationally.

Newsweek has reached out to the Burgum campaign for comment. However, he's not alone in his struggle to qualify.

Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor, has already been quoted publicly saying he was having difficulty meeting the RNC threshold for the debate, while Vivek Ramaswamyanother candidate in the Republican fieldrecently launched a program to give donors a 10 percent cut of whatever they raise for his campaign.

Others, like Hurd, have made qualifying for the debate stage a central part of their recent campaign messaging, consistently urging his supporters on social media and in the press to give him at least a dollar to see him on the debate stage.

"I am working in order to get to 40,000 donors and making the case to 40,000 individual donors that, 'Hey, if you want to see someone on the debate stage who has experience in foreign policy, domestic policy, and technology, go to hurdforamerica.com and give me at least $1 to get me on there," Hurd said in a recent interview with MSNBC before answering a question about his willingness to sign the RNC loyalty pledge.

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Republican Candidate Is Paying People to Donate to His Campaign - Newsweek

Less than a month after a deadlocked Iowa Supreme Court left a six-week abortion ban unenforceable, lawmakers returned to the State Capitol on Tuesday to consider a nearly identical set of restrictions on the procedure.

With large Republican majorities in both legislative chambers and a Republican governor who has decried the inhumanity of abortion, the new restrictions seemed very likely to pass.

I believe the pro-life movement is the most important human rights cause of our time, Gov. Kim Reynolds said last week when she called the special session on abortion. She also lamented the courts deadlock, saying the lack of action disregards the will of Iowa voters and lawmakers who will not rest until the unborn are protected by law.

The session was expected to further cement Iowas sharp political shift to the right and end its increasingly rare status as a Republican-led state where abortions are allowed up to 20 weeks of pregnancy. The new limits would add Iowa to a list of conservative states, which includes Indiana, North Dakota and South Carolina, that have passed abortion restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the national right to abortion last year.

Iowans on both sides of the abortion debate gathered at the Capitol in Des Moines on Tuesday, holding signs with messages like My Body, My Choice and wearing T-shirts with slogans like Unborn Lives Matter. Every seat was claimed inside a public hearing before a House committee, with scores of others standing in the hallways and chanting Abortion bans have got to go.

The call for a special session infuriated but did not surprise Iowa Democrats, who celebrated the courts deadlock a few weeks ago but knew that Republicans were likely to try again. The Iowa Supreme Courts deadlock left in place a lower courts injunction that blocked enforcement of a six-week ban, but it also left unsettled the broader question of whether such restrictions are permissible under the states Constitution. Supporters of abortion rights said the new limits being considered by lawmakers endangered womens health and ran counter to public opinion.

We knew this would happen, Senator Pam Jochum, the leader of the Democratic minority, said in a statement, adding that Republicans were rushing to take away Iowans established rights and personal freedoms and that they hope they can do it fast enough that Iowans wont even notice.

The new bill introduced by Republicans allows for abortions up to about six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant. The bill includes exceptions after that point in situations involving rape or incest, in circumstances when the womans life is in serious danger or she faces a risk of certain permanent injuries or when fetal abnormalities incompatible with life are present.

Such restrictions on abortion in Iowa would further erode access to the procedure in the Midwest, where it is already limited. But a new law would almost certainly face a fresh legal challenge, and the outcome in the courts would again be uncertain.

Abortion is banned in almost all cases in the bordering states of Missouri, South Dakota and Wisconsin, and a new 12-week ban recently passed in Nebraska. Illinois and Minnesota, which are led by Democrats, have permissive abortion laws and could become destinations for Iowa women seeking abortions. More than 3,700 abortions were performed in Iowa in 2021, according to state data, most of them by medication.

A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll from this year found that 61 percent of adults in the state believed abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 35 percent believed it should be illegal in most or all cases.

But last year, when Democrats nationally ran on abortion rights, retaking state legislative chambers and holding governorships, the party floundered in Iowa, which not so long ago was viewed as a state where voters might swing to either party. Governor Reynolds won re-election in a landslide, Republicans swept the states congressional seats and voters unseated the attorney general and treasurer, both Democrats who had held office for decades.

Though Iowans voted twice for Barack Obama, and Democrats held a majority in the State Senate as recently as 2016, the state is now solidly Republican. Only one Democrat, Auditor Rob Sand, still holds statewide office, and the national Democratic Party has moved to push Iowas coveted first-in-the-nation caucuses later in the nominating calendar.

Republicans, for their part, have wasted no time remaking Iowa in a more conservative image. Ms. Reynolds signed laws this year that banned hormone therapy for transgender children, loosened child labor rules and limited the powers of Mr. Sand. And with Republicans keeping Iowa at the start of their nominating calendar, presidential hopefuls have been flooding the state.

State Representative Jennifer Konfrst, the leader of the Democratic minority in the Iowa House, said the state was not as conservative as recent election results suggested. Although Democrats are not likely to retake a legislative chamber next year, she said they saw an opportunity to expand their statehouse numbers in 2024 and regain a foothold in the congressional delegation. New abortion limits, she said, would have the potential to mobilize Democratic voters who sat out the last election.

Our best case is going to be to hold Republicans accountable for going against what Iowans want, said Ms. Konfrst, who represents parts of suburban Des Moines. The fact that theyre hurrying it through in July, a year before an election, shows that politically they know this is unpopular.

But Iowa Republicans have made no efforts to hide their support for abortion restrictions, and they have kept winning elections anyway. Matt Windschitl, the majority leader in the House, said, Iowans have elected us on the promise to defend the unborn, and we will continue to follow through on that promise.

The same poll that showed broad support for abortion rights this year also showed that more Iowans approved than disapproved of how the State Legislature was doing its job. And nearly two-thirds of those surveyed disapproved of President Bidens job performance.

Link:
Iowa Republicans Aim to Sharply Limit Abortion in Special Session - The New York Times