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On the day his presidential campaign said it had laid off more than a third of its staff to address worries about unsustainable spending, Gov. The choice was a routine one — Mr. DeSantis and his wife, Casey, haven’t regularly flown commercial for years — but also symbolic to close observers of his struggling presidential campaign. As Mr. DeSantis promises a reset, setting out on Thursday on a bus tour in Iowa to show off a leaner, hungrier operation, several donors and allies remained skeptical about whether the governor could right the ship. Their bleak outlook reflects a deep mistrust plaguing the highest levels of the DeSantis campaign, as well as its supporters and the well-funded super PAC, Never Back Down, bolstering his presidential ambitions. Publicly, the parties are projecting a stoic sunniness about Mr. DeSantis, even as he has sunk dangerously close to third place in some recent polls.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, DeSantis, Casey, haven’t Organizations: Gov, Publicly Locations: Florida, Chattanooga, Tenn, Iowa

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump met on Thursday with officials in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, as federal prosecutors edged closer toward bringing an indictment against Mr. Trump in connection with his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to three people familiar with the matter. It was not immediately clear what subjects were discussed at the meeting or if Mr. Smith took part. But similar gatherings are often used by defense lawyers as a last-ditch effort to argue against charges being filed or to convey their version of events in a criminal investigation. The former president’s legal team — including Todd Blanche and a newly hired lawyer, John Lauro — has been on high alert since last week, when prosecutors working for the special counsel sent Mr. Trump a so-called target letter in the election interference case. It was the clearest signal that charges could be coming.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Jack Smith, Smith, Todd Blanche, John Lauro — Organizations: Mr Locations: United States

The updated indictment said that in late June of last year, Mr. De Oliveira went to see Mr. Taveras — who is identified only as Trump Employee 4 — and told him that “‘the boss’ wanted the server deleted,” referring to the computer server holding the security footage. “What are we going to do?” the indictment quoted Mr. De Oliveira as saying, after Mr. Taveras objected and said he would not know how and did not think he had the right to do so. A statement attributed to “the Trump campaign” with no person’s name attached called the new accusations a “desperate and flailing attempt” by President Biden’s Justice Department. The original indictment against Mr. Trump was filed last month in Florida and accused him of illegally holding on to 31 individual classified documents containing national defense information. That indictment also charged with Mr. Trump and Walt Nauta, one of his personal aides, with a conspiracy to obstruct the government’s repeated attempts to reclaim the classified material.

Persons: De Oliveira, Taveras —, “, ’, Taveras, Smith, Trump, De Oliveira’s, John Irving, Walt Nauta Organizations: Trump, Mr, Biden’s, Department Locations: Washington, Florida

On Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis was on a three-stop fund-raising swing through Tennessee when his four-car motorcade had a pileup after traffic suddenly slowed. On Thursday, Mr. DeSantis is set to return to Iowa for two days of events and his first bus trip in the state. His main super PAC is doing so instead, inviting Mr. DeSantis as a “special guest.”The payroll reduction came on the heels of a donor retreat in Park City, Utah, where Mr. DeSantis convened about 70 top supporters. They enjoyed s’mores on the deck and cocktails as campaign officials and super PAC advisers made presentations about the state of the race. Instead, they focused on the notion that they were steadying the ship, making adjustments and trying to find ways to help Mr. DeSantis spread his message.

Persons: Ethan Eilon, Carl Sceusa, DeSantis Organizations: PAC Locations: Tallahassee, Tennessee, Iowa, Park City , Utah

Even as the special counsel, Jack Smith, appears to be edging closer toward bringing charges against former President Donald J. Trump in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, prosecutors have been continuing to investigate multiple strands of the case. In recent weeks, Mr. Smith’s team has pushed forward in collecting new evidence and in arranging new interviews with witnesses who could shed light on Mr. Trump’s mind-set in the chaotic postelection period or on other subjects important to the inquiry. At the same time, word has emerged of previously undisclosed investigative efforts, hinting at the breadth and scope of the issues prosecutors are examining. In the past few days, a lawyer for Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who worked closely after the election with Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, gave hundreds of pages of documents to prosecutors working with Mr. Smith. The documents detailed efforts by Mr. Kerik and Mr. Giuliani to identify and investigate allegations of fraud in the election — an issue that is likely to be front and center as prosecutors seek to understand what Mr. Trump may have been thinking when he set in motion various efforts to maintain his grip on power.

Persons: Jack Smith, Donald J, Trump, Smith’s, Trump’s, Bernard B, Rudolph W, Giuliani, Smith, Kerik Organizations: New, Mr Locations: New York City

Ron DeSantis of Florida and his advisers waved off his sagging poll numbers with the simple fact that he wasn’t yet an actual candidate for president. Allies are complaining about a lack of a coherent message about why Republican voters should choose Mr. DeSantis over former President Donald J. Trump. His Tallahassee-based campaign has begun shedding some of the more than 90 workers it had hired — roughly double the Trump campaign payroll — to cut swelling costs that have included $279,000 at the Four Seasons in Miami. people and showed Mr. DeSantis with lasers coming out of his eyes. The video drew a range of denunciations, with some calling it homophobic and others homoerotic before it was deleted.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, DeSantis, Donald J, Trump, — Organizations: Republican, Trump, Republicans, Twitter, Mr Locations: Florida, Tallahassee, Miami

The former president has now been indicted in Florida in the classified documents case and in New York City on charges involving hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. Mr. Woodward has worked for several Jan. 6 defendants — including one convicted last year of seditious conspiracy — while also representing Walt Nauta, Mr. Trump’s co-defendant in the classified documents case, and several witnesses embroiled in the Trump-related grand jury investigations. Investigators also sought information from him in connection with an inquiry into Mr. Trump’s fund-raising off his false claims of widespread fraud affecting the election. On Thursday, Mr. Russell was asked a series of questions about his interactions with Mr. Trump before the former president’s departure from the White House, according to a person familiar with the appearance. More than once, Mr. Russell got up and left the proceedings to consult with Mr. Woodward after prosecutors asked questions related to his discussions with Mr. Trump, the person familiar with the appearance said.

Persons: Trump, Stanley Woodward Jr, Woodward, Walt Nauta, Trump’s, Will Russell, Russell Organizations: Trump, Mr, White House, White Locations: Florida, New York City, Washington, Georgia

Federal prosecutors have introduced a new twist in the Jan. 6 investigation by suggesting in a target letter that they could charge former President Donald J. Trump with violating a civil rights statute that dates back to the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, according to three people familiar with the matter. The letter to Mr. Trump from the special counsel, Jack Smith, referred to three criminal statutes as part of the grand jury investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss, according to two people with knowledge of its contents. Two of the statutes were familiar from the criminal referral by the House Jan. 6 committee and months of discussion by legal experts: conspiracy to defraud the government and obstruction of an official proceeding. But the third criminal law cited in the letter was a surprise: Section 241 of Title 18 of the United States Code, which makes it a crime for people to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person” in the “free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”Congress enacted that statute after the Civil War to provide a tool for federal agents to go after Southern whites, including Ku Klux Klan members, who engaged in terrorism to prevent formerly enslaved African Americans from voting. But in the modern era, it has been used more broadly, including in cases of voting fraud conspiracies.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Jack Smith, “ Organizations: Trump, United States Code, Ku Klux Klan Locations: United States, ”, Southern

Data from Mr. Clark’s firm shows that Republicans view an attack on Mr. Trump “as an attack on them,” he said. “Almost always means arrest and indictment,” Mr. Trump wrote of the target letter on Truth Social. Mr. Smith’s 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. opponents, who are polling double digits behind him, still will not seize this opportunity to denounce his unfit actions.”

Persons: Justin Clark, Trump’s, Trump, ”, “, Mr, Jack Smith, ” Mr, Alyssa Farah Griffin, G.O.P Organizations: National Public Affairs Locations: Georgia

At least two grand juries in Washington have been hearing matters related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to stay in office. Two of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Christopher M. Kise, briefly mentioned the new target letter at a pretrial hearing in Florida on Tuesday on the documents case. In disclosing that he had received the target letter, Mr. Trump said he was given four days to testify before a grand jury if he chooses. Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga., who has pressed ahead with her own investigation of Mr. Trump and his allies, could bring charges as early as next month. If she were to proceed first, that could complicate Mr. Smith’s case.

Persons: Todd Blanche, Christopher M, Kise, Blanche, Trump, Willis, Smith Organizations: Court Locations: Washington, Trump, Fort Pierce, Fla, Florida, Fulton County ,

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands. Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control. Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him. Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Biden Organizations: White House, Justice Department, White, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Trade Commission

☆ Ramaswamy Looks to Supreme Court in Effort to Appeal to Conservatives
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-17 | by ( Maggie Haberman | More About Maggie Haberman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Vivek Ramsawamy, an entrepreneur running for the Republican presidential nomination, on Monday will release a list of potential choices for the U.S. Supreme Court, in an effort to highlight his conservative credentials to early-state voters who may be skeptical of a candidate without a political background. Mr. Ramaswamy’s list, reported earlier by Axios, includes jurists who have ruled on various aspects of the Republican culture wars, including religious issues, free speech, vaccine mandates and transgender rights. In a statement, Mr. Ramaswamy sought to contrast his approach to that of President Biden, who vowed during his campaign to appoint the first Black woman to the highest court, which he did when he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson. Mr. Ramaswamy dismissed that move as “purely skin-deep diversity.”“What each of the individuals I would appoint share is their unwavering dedication to the principles of originalism and commitment to a constitutionalist judicial philosophy,” Mr. Ramaswamy said. “Our courts are the last line of defense against an administrative state that rules by fiat, legislates from the bench, stifling freedom and truth.”

Persons: Vivek Ramsawamy, Donald J, Trump, Ramaswamy, Biden, Ketanji Brown Jackson, ” Mr, ” Organizations: Republican, U.S, Supreme Locations: New York

Ron DeSantis of Florida has started cutting campaign staff just months into his presidential bid, as he has struggled to gain traction in the Republican primary and lost ground in some public polls to former President Donald J. Trump. The exact number of people let go by the DeSantis team was unclear, but one campaign aide said it was fewer than 10. An aide, Andrew Romeo, described the campaign’s circumstances in an upbeat tone. “Americans are rallying behind Ron DeSantis and his plan to reverse Joe Biden’s failures and restore sanity to our nation, and his momentum will only continue as voters see more of him in person, especially in Iowa,” he said in a statement. “Defeating Joe Biden and the $72 million behind him will require a nimble and candidate-driven campaign, and we are building a movement to go the distance.”

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Donald J, Trump, DeSantis, Andrew Romeo, Joe, ”, “, Joe Biden Organizations: Republican, Politico Locations: Florida, Iowa

The employee, whom the person declined to name, received the letter in the past few weeks after appearing in May before a federal grand jury in Washington. Footage from the cameras at Mar-a-Lago has been at the center of the case against Mr. Trump and was an instrumental part of the evidence used to obtain a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago last August. hauled away a trove of more than 100 classified documents that Mr. Trump had taken with him from the White House and kept even after receiving a subpoena demanding their return. The surveillance footage was also key to the indictment that Mr. Smith’s office brought last month against Mr. Trump and his personal aide, Walt Nauta, in the Southern District of Florida. The indictment charges both men with conspiring to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim dozens of highly classified documents and Mr. Trump alone of illegally holding onto the documents after he left office.

Persons: Jack Smith, Donald J, Trump’s, Lago, Trump, Walt Nauta Organizations: Trump Organization, Prosecutors, Lago, White, Mr, Southern District of Locations: Washington, Mar, Florida, Southern District, Southern District of Florida

Unlike other candidates who have employed online gimmicks to secure 40,000 donors, Mr. Pence has invested little in seeking out contributors on the internet. The super PAC supporting Mr. Pence, Committed to America, had raised an additional $2.7 million during the fund-raising reporting period that ended June 30, an aide said. Other Republican presidential candidates have announced far larger fund-raising sums from the three-month reporting period; some of them, unlike Mr. Pence, were in the race for the entire quarter. Mr. Trump said his campaign and his joint fund-raising committee had raised $35 million in the second quarter. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina said his campaign had raised $6.1 million.

Persons: Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott of Organizations: Facebook, Google, PAC, Republican, Gov, South, United Nations Locations: America, Florida, South Carolina, Tim Scott of South Carolina

“Words are incredibly powerful in white-collar cases because in a lot of them you’re not going to hear from a defendant, as they are seldom going to take the stand,” he said. Some aides and allies who interacted with Mr. Trump in the days after the election have previously disclosed that Mr. Trump indicated that he knew he lost the election. In testimony before the House select committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, said that in an Oval Office meeting in late November or early December 2020, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he had lost the election. There wasn’t anything — the subject we were talking about was a very serious subject, but everything looked very normal to me. But I do remember him saying that.”General Milley said, though, that in subsequent meetings Mr. Trump had increasingly discussed how the election was stolen from him.

Persons: ”, ” Andrew Goldstein, Trump, Cooley, Trump’s, ” Mr, Goldstein, Mark, “, Mr, Milley, Biden Organizations: Department of Justice, Mr, Joint Chiefs of Staff Locations: Russia

In the super PAC’s filing, those two payments were labeled “event planning and consulting,” according to Federal Election Commission records. Federal rules are generally lax when it comes to requiring that the final destination of money be revealed. Instead, committees must disclose only the first vendor paid. It is rare for the spouse of a potential presidential candidate to be paid directly by a campaign or an outside group affiliated with the candidate. The fee was $125,000, and the second $30,000 payment was for additional services rendered out of the scope of the first contract, the representative said.

Persons: Charles Gantt, ”, Trump Organizations: Commission, PAC, Trump, Make, Inc

In March, as Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida laid the groundwork for his presidential run, he joined the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade to play a nationally televised game of catch on his hometown baseball field outside Tampa. The questions Mr. DeSantis faced were as relaxed as the tosses. “Locker room gets you ready for the press, right?” Mr. Kilmeade asked. Four months later, with Mr. DeSantis’s campaign having failed to immediately catch fire against Mr. Trump, Fox News is not taking it quite so easy on Mr. DeSantis anymore.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Brian Kilmeade, DeSantis, “, Kilmeade, Donald J, Trump, Rupert Murdoch, DeSantis’s Organizations: Fox News, ”, Republican Party, Mr Locations: Florida, Tampa

Chinese hackers intent on collecting intelligence on the United States gained access to government email accounts, Microsoft disclosed on Tuesday night. In a blog post, Microsoft said about 25 organizations, including government agencies, had been compromised by the hacking group, which used forged authentication tokens to get access to individual email accounts. Hackers had access to at least some of the accounts for a month before the breach was detected, Microsoft said. The new intrusion involved far fewer email accounts and did not go as deep into the targeted systems, Microsoft officials said. Nevertheless, having access to government email for a month before being detected could allow the hackers to learn information useful to the Chinese government and its intelligence services.

Organizations: United, Microsoft Locations: United States

Iowa may be the most important state on Donald J. Trump’s early 2024 political calendar, but he hasn’t been making many friends there lately. He lashed out at Iowa’s popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, and then his campaign informed one of the state’s politically influential evangelical leaders, Bob Vander Plaats, that the former president would skip a gathering of presidential candidates this week in Des Moines. The back-to-back moves on Monday — which the campaign of Gov. “With Trump’s personality, I feel he thinks he owns Iowa,” said Steve Boender, a board member for the Family Leader, the conservative Christian group organizing the event on Friday that Mr. Trump is skipping. “And I’m not sure he does.”

Persons: Donald J, Trump’s, hasn’t, Kim Reynolds, Bob Vander Plaats, Ron DeSantis, ”, Trump, Steve Boender Organizations: Republican, Gov, Family, Christian Locations: Iowa, Des Moines, Florida

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump asked a federal judge on Monday night to indefinitely postpone his trial on charges of illegally retaining classified documents after he left office, saying that the proceeding should not begin until all “substantive motions” in the case had been presented and decided. If granted, it could have the effect of pushing Mr. Trump’s trial into the final stages of the presidential campaign in which he is now the Republican front-runner or even past the 2024 election. While timing is important in any criminal matter, it could be hugely consequential in Mr. Trump’s case, in which he stands accused of illegally holding on to 31 classified documents after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to reclaim them. There could be complications of a sort never before presented to a court if Mr. Trump is a candidate in the last legs of a presidential campaign and a federal criminal defendant on trial at the same time. If the trial is pushed back until after the election and Mr. Trump wins, he could try to pardon himself after taking office or have his attorney general dismiss the matter entirely.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Aileen M, Cannon, Trump’s Organizations: Trump, Republican, White

Ms. Reynolds is said to have tired of Mr. Trump, and she reacted with disbelief to his comment that she owed him her governorship, according to people familiar with her thinking and her response. Before Mr. Trump’s latest visit to Iowa on Friday, a behind-the-scenes standoff played out for days over whether Ms. Reynolds would join him. Ms. Reynolds has said she will make an effort to appear with whomever invites her, but an aide said she had not actually been invited. The relationship with Mr. DeSantis, who has privately courted Ms. Reynolds for many months, has been strikingly different. They banter with a degree of familiarity and friendship that Mr. DeSantis rarely flashes with other politicians.

Persons: Reynolds, Trump, ”, Trump’s, DeSantis, Kim, Ron Organizations: Mr, Biden, America, Republican Party, Trump Locations: Iowa

A federal magistrate judge unsealed on Wednesday additional portions of the affidavit that the F.B.I. used last summer to obtain a warrant to search for sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald J. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, revealing a few new details about how that extraordinary process had unfolded. Much of the material in the affidavit unsealed on Wednesday had already been made public in the expansive indictment of Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta issued in Miami last month. That indictment charged the former president with 31 counts of illegally retaining national defense information and a separate count of conspiring with Mr. Nauta to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim them. The judge who ordered the unsealing, Bruce E. Reinhart, had issued two previous orders unsealing separate portions of the warrant affidavit in response to media requests.

Persons: Donald J, Walt Nauta, Trump, Mr, Nauta, Bruce E, Reinhart, unsealing Organizations: Mar Locations: Florida, Mar, Miami

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