Joe Biden has been spared criminal charges by a justice department report on his handling of highly classified materials but endured the extraordinary spectacle of being called “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. A year-long investigation by special counsel Robert Hur centred on Biden’s improper retention of highly classified documents from his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama. Hur, a Republican, found that Biden “willfully” retained and disclosed the materials, including documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan. The report includes photos of documents inside a damaged cardboard box in the garage of his Delaware home. But among the reasons Hur gave for not bringing charges was a concern that jurors would not believe that Biden knowingly kept the documents. The special counsel explicitly referenced the 81-year-old’s “significantly limited” memory – an incendiary topic in this year’s election – including his inability to remember what year his son Beau died. “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” In a letter written to Hur dated earlier this week and included in the report, the president’s special counsel Richard Sauber and personal attorney Bob Bauer took issue with the special counsel’s language. They wrote: “We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events. “Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report, particularly one that in the first paragraph announces that no criminal charges are ‘warranted’ and that ‘the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt.” Addressing a House Democratic caucus issues conference in Leesburg, Virginia, on Thursday, Biden accentuated the positive side of the report. “I was especially pleased to see the senior special counsel make clear there’s stark differences between this case and Donald Trump,” he said. “Bottom line is the special counsel in my case decided against moving forward on any charges. This matter is now closed.” But the release of the report is likely to play into the US’s bitterly contested 2024 election, with Republicans poised to jump on any criticism of the president. Donald Trump is also being investigated for improperly holding on to classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The Biden documents included a handwritten memo to then President Obama in 2009 opposing a planned troop surge in Afghanistan and handwritten notes related to intelligence briefings and national security meetings, the report found. Sensitive records were found in 2022 and 2023 at Biden’s Delaware home and at a private office that he used between his service in the Obama administration and becoming president. According to Hur’s report, Biden told a writer working on his memoir during a February 2017 conversation at a home he was renting in Virginia that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs”. Hur identified several reasons why he did not charge Biden, including that the documents may have been taken to his home while he was vice-president, when he had the authority to keep such documents. Hur said Biden would not have faced charges even without a longstanding justice department policy against indicting a sitting president and that he believed a jury would be unlikely to convict him, especially given any trial would have to take place when he left the White House. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/08/biden-classified-documents-special-counsel#EmailSignup-skip-link-17) Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Hur wrote that in an interview last year, Biden struggled to recall important episodes in his personal and professional life: “In his interview with our office, Mr Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice-president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being vice-president?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still vice-president?”). “He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him.” Hur, a Republican who served in senior roles at the justice department during the Trump administration, was appointed in January 2023 to oversee the investigation into Biden’s handling of the documents. The attorney general, Merrick Garland, who was nominated by Biden, put Hur in charge of the investigation to give it a degree of independence from the leadership of the justice department**.** Hur’s direct reference to Biden’s mental faculties was expectedly seized on by Republicans. Alex Pfeiffer, communications director for Make America Great Again Inc, a Super Pac that supports Trump, said: “If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president. Joe Biden is unfit to lead this nation.” The House of Representatives judiciary committee, which is led by Republicans, added on social media: “They didn’t want to bring charges against President Biden for the classified documents case because he’s too old and has a bad memory. They’re admitting what we all see every day.” But Democrats criticised Hur for going beyond his brief and straying into partisan politics. Some drew comparisons with FBI director James Comey, who declined to recommend charges against 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her use of a personal email system during her time as secretary of state but rebuked her as “extremely careless”. Tommy Vietor, a former spokesperson for Obama, [tweeted](https://x.com/TVietor08/status/1755685028791763307?s=20): “Robert Hur clearly decided to go down the Jim Comey path of filling his report absolving Biden of criminal activity with ad hominem attacks, like calling him an “elderly man with poor memory.” Not remotely subtle. Just a right-wing hit job from within Biden’s own DOJ. Wild.” Trump falsely claimed on Thursday that Biden’s case was worse than his own. The former president said in a statement: “The Biden Documents Case is 100 times different and more severe than mine. I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more.”

Image source, Getty Images **The US Supreme Court appeared sceptical of Colorado's move to bar Donald Trump from the state's presidential primary, during tough questioning on Thursday.** The ex-president was removed from the ballot by Colorado's top court in December under the 14th Amendment. At the hearing, justices grilled the attorney defending the move about its constitutionality, its real-world consequences and defining "insurrection". It is unclear when the court will rule. Mr Trump, who did not attend the hearing, remains the overwhelming favourite to clinch the Republican nomination for president and set-up a rematch with President Joe Biden in November. The legal challenge hinges on a Civil War-era constitutional amendment that bans anyone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" from holding federal office. In its judgement in December, the Colorado Supreme Court said Mr Trump's actions during the 2021 Capitol riot amounted to insurrection, and the state's attorney repeated that claim on Thursday. Most of the tough questioning went to lawyer Jonathan Murray, representing the five Coloradoans who originally sued to kick Mr Trump from the ballot. One of the three court members nominated by Mr Trump, conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, challenged him about the potential "disenfranchising effect" of kicking Mr Trump from the ballot, by not allowing citizens to cast their votes as they wanted. Mr Murray said "the reason we're here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him" during the violence on 6 January 2021, where rioters tried to stop congress from certifying that Mr Biden won the 2020 election. Mr Trump's team fought back against that allegation, telling justices that the event was "a riot, not an insurrection". "The events were shameful, criminal, violent, all of those things but did not qualify as an insurrection as that term is used in Section 3," Mr Trump's attorney Jason Mitchell told the court. Justices on both wings of the court appeared reluctant to uphold the Colorado ban, subjecting Mr Murray to a barrage of complex legal queries as the morning went on. Chief Justice John Roberts observed that if the court upheld the Colorado ruling it could unleash chaos on the US political system by granting states the unilateral power to strike candidates from the ballot. "It will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That's a pretty daunting consequence," he said. And Justice Elena Kagan appeared to agree, noting: "I think that the question that you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States." Enforcing the 14th amendment would have "to be federal, national means," she suggested. But Trump's team were also subjected to a grilling by the justices, who challenged attorney Jonathan Mitchell on his claims that the 14th Amendment didn't apply to the presidency. Mr Trump's team have long insisted that the term "officer of the United States" outlined in the provision can only apply to an appointed official, not the elected president. Justice Amy Comey Barrett, a conservative also appointed to the court by Mr Trump, expressed a heavy scepticism when examining the Trump team's claims that the 14th Amendment did not apply to the presidency. Nonetheless, it appears unlikely that the court will uphold the initial Colorado ruling. Robert Tsai, a Boston University constitutional law professor, told the BBC that the state's ruling "is toast". The argument that Prof Tsai said most justices seemed to be attracted to was the idea that the power to remove presidential candidate from a ballot under Section 3 belonged to congress, not the states. The court has not said when it will issue its decision, but it is expected soon. The court expedited the case and is under pressure to rule before 5 March, when Colorado holds its primary. * [Colorado](/news/topics/c008ql15d2et) * [US Supreme Court](/news/topics/c6lw1qzwlp2t) * [US election 2024](/news/topics/cj3ergr8209t) * [Donald Trump](/news/topics/cp7r8vgl2lgt)

In January 2023, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate President Biden’s handling of classified documents to avoid any perception that he was protecting his boss entering an election year. The man Mr. Garland tapped for the job, Robert K. Hur, has not been quite as cautious. On Thursday, Mr. Hur, 50, a former Justice Department official in the Trump administration, dropped a 345-page political bomb into the middle of the 2024 campaign, the final report summing up his investigation. The document, written in unvarnished prose, is an excruciatingly detailed and seemingly subjective assessment of Mr. Biden’s faulty memory that overshadowed his conclusion: Mr. Biden, unlike former President Donald J. Trump, should not face criminal charges. The Hur report underlines the challenges of deploying special counsels, which are intended to shield prosecutors from political meddling, but often result in the release of negative information about high-profile targets who have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing. It also showed the complicated balance of the job — navigating a polarized environment that leaves little option but to expansively explain the rationale for any decision. Mr. Hur is no stranger to high-wire investigations and legal conflict. Under the Trump administration, he spent 11 months as the top aide to the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein — as Mr. Rosenstein oversaw the appointment of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, to investigate Mr. Trump’s connections to Russia. Mr. Hur’s critics say he broke through guardrails intended to avoid tarnishing politicians facing tough elections. That was perhaps best exemplified by the F.B.I. director James B. Comey’s public condemnation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of government secrets, delivered in the months before the 2016 election. Among the thousands of sentences in the Hur report, one juts out like a dagger: “Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” he writes. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Frobert-hur-biden-memory-special-counsel.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Frobert-hur-biden-memory-special-counsel.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Frobert-hur-biden-memory-special-counsel.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Frobert-hur-biden-memory-special-counsel.html).

For veterans of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for president, yesterday brought back painful memories. The [special counsel’s report](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/us/politics/biden-memory-age-democrats.html) on the handling of classified documents by President Biden instantly recalled how James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, concluded his investigation of Clinton for her handling of classified documents when she was secretary of state. “The first text I got this morning was, ‘Were you thoroughly triggered last night?’” said Nick Merrill, a senior adviser to Clinton. Robert Hur, the special prosecutor in Biden’s case, cleared him of criminal wrongdoing in his handling of classified documents while he was vice president. In 2016, Comey likewise recommended that no criminal charges be filed against Clinton for using her private email server to handle official correspondence as secretary of state. But Hur and Comey — both Republicans investigating Democrats — didn’t stop there, adorning their exonerations with harsh and damaging criticisms. Comey called Clinton “extremely careless” in her actions. That fueled a flood of critical media coverage, including in The New York Times, and handed a cudgel to her opponent, Donald Trump. To this day, many Democrats blame Comey — who went on to reopen briefly, and then shut down, that investigation 11 days before Election Day — as well as the news media for her loss. “Was it a problem?” said Joel Benenson, a senior adviser to Clinton’s campaign. “Yeah, it was a problem. We had a tough time dealing with it.” Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocrats-comey-flashback-biden.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocrats-comey-flashback-biden.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocrats-comey-flashback-biden.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F09%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fdemocrats-comey-flashback-biden.html).

 FBI Director James Comey makes a statement at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on July 5, 2016. Comey said 110 emails sent or received on Hillary Clinton's server contained classified information. Cliff Owen/AP An investigation in the middle of a presidential campaign wraps up with no charges, and yet the words of the investigator hurt far more than they help. That is a scenario that appears to be playing out this week with special counsel Robert Hur deciding President Biden shouldn't be charged with willfully retaining classified documents, while also including language in his report about Biden's at-times-faulty memory, aggravating a preexisting political challenge for Biden. For people who were involved with Hillary Clinton's failed 2016 presidential campaign, the echoes of then-FBI Director James Comey's press conference on July 5, 2016, are hard to miss. He spoke for 12 minutes, describing Clinton as, among other things, "extremely careless" before getting to what he was there to announce. "Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," [Comey said of the FBI's investigation](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/05/484785586/fbi-recommends-no-charges-for-hillary-clinton-in-email-server-case) into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state. On its face, it looked like good news for Clinton, but Jennifer Palmieri, who was the campaign's communications director, said it was probably the single most damaging day of the campaign. "The ad hominem attacks against her were ... brutal," Palmieri recalled. She said the campaign was blindsided by the Comey press conference and that "irredeemable damage" was done to Clinton's election bid. In his report, special counsel Robert Hur said he didn't have the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden willfully retained classified documents. But the nearly 400-page report didn't stop there. It also described apparent memory lapses during his interviews with the president. And it included a sentence that immediately ricocheted around the political world — that Biden comes across as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." Republican politicians immediately took to the airwaves to question Biden's mental competency, citing Hur's report. It was a predictable reaction and one that allowed Biden's opponents to highlight what is perhaps his greatest political liability. Public polls show even before this political storm, more than three-quarters of voters were concerned about Biden's mental and physical health. Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said Hur's report has a lot in common with what Comey did in 2016. "These are criminal investigators who have stepped out of the normal role of sticking with the facts in evidence and analyzing whether the elements of a crime are met," said Goldman, who is a former federal prosecutor and Biden ally. He said both Comey and Hur may have felt political pressure to prove their independence and not to seem like they were going easy on Democrats. "Special counsel Hur went out of his way to editorialize and include extraneous information that was not relied upon or relevant to his ultimate charging decision," Goldman argued. This is a point the White House argued on Friday, with Vice President Harris going so far as to describe Hur's report as "clearly politically motivated." Hur hasn't weighed in on why he included that information. But when he was named he promised to conduct the probe "with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment." Going back to the case of 2016, the Justice Department inspector general [later found](https://oig.justice.gov/node/640) that Comey violated long-standing department practice and protocol by going on at length about uncharged conduct. That's what Goldman said Hur did in this case as well. However, the special counsel regulations required Hur to explain his charging decisions in a report to the attorney general. It doesn't say anything about how thorough that report needs to be, but recent history indicates the report is written with the understanding that it is likely to be released to the public. Biden's team is working overtime to disqualify special counsel Hur, pointing out among other things that he served in the Trump administration and isn't a doctor and is not qualified to assess the president's mental acuity. They're also trying to prove to the public that Biden is fully capable and should be elected to serve another four years. It's a race to stop Hur from becoming the Comey of 2024. But the damage may already be done. "I think this will have the same kind of impact" as Comey in 2016, said Frank Luntz, a pollster who spent years working for Republicans. Luntz recently conducted a focus group with people who voted for Biden in 2020 but aren't sure they can do it again. "And the age thing is the No. 1 concern, more than immigration, more than inflation," Luntz said. Luntz also said this report gives credibility to that worry, providing validation from someone who isn't a politician. "It's from an independent source, saying this guy is not prepared for four more years," Luntz said. "I think this is pivotal."

Until a few days ago, I was feeling fairly sanguine about America’s prospects. Economically, we’ve had a year of strong growth and plunging inflation — and aside from committed Republicans, who see no good, hear no good and speak no good when a Democrat is president, Americans appear to be [recognizing](https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1756302790425444596) this progress. It has seemed increasingly likely that the nation’s good sense would prevail and democracy would survive. But watching the frenzy over President Biden’s age, I am, for the first time, profoundly concerned about the nation’s future. It now seems entirely possible that within the next year, American democracy could be irretrievably altered. And the final blow won’t be the rise of political extremism — that rise certainly created the preconditions for disaster, but it has been part of the landscape for some time now. No, what may turn this menace into catastrophe is the way the hand-wringing over Biden’s age has overshadowed the real stakes in the 2024 election. It reminds me, as it reminds everyone I know, of the 2016 furor over Hillary Clinton’s email server, which was a minor issue that may well have wound up [swinging the election](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/) to Donald Trump. As most people know by now, Robert Hur, a special counsel appointed to look into allegations of wrongdoing on Biden’s part, concluded that the president shouldn’t be charged. But his report included an uncalled-for and completely unprofessional [swipe](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/us/biden-documents-special-counsel.html) at Biden’s mental acuity, apparently based on the president’s difficulty in remembering specific dates — difficulty that, as I [wrote](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/06/opinion/thepoint?smid=url-share#krugman-biden-age) on Friday, everyone confronts at whatever age. Hur’s gratuitous treatment of Biden echoed James Comey’s gratuitous treatment of Clinton — Hur and Comey both seemed to want to take political stands when that was not their duty. It’s a case of bureaucrats overstepping their bounds in a way that’s at best careless and at worst malicious. Yes, it’s true that Biden is old, and will be even older if he wins re-election and serves out a second term. I wish that Democrats had been able to settle on a consensus successor a year or two ago and that Biden had been able to step aside in that successor’s favor without setting off an intraparty free-for-all. But speculating about whether that could have happened is beside the point now. It didn’t happen, and Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F12%2Fopinion%2Fbiden-trump-america.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F12%2Fopinion%2Fbiden-trump-america.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F12%2Fopinion%2Fbiden-trump-america.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F02%2F12%2Fopinion%2Fbiden-trump-america.html).

  Republican presidential candidate former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks to members of the media during a campaign event at Thunder Tower Harley Davidson Monday, Feb. 12 in Elgin, S.C. On the campaign trail, Haley has stepped up attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, drawing parallels between herself and the vice president. Sean Rayford/AP Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has been highlighting concerns about President Biden's [age and mental acuity](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/10/1230594530/biden-special-counsel-report-classified-documents-comey-clinton-2016) on the campaign trail, and using them as a launching point for attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris. "It's either gonna be me, or it's gonna be Kamala Harris," Haley warned while campaigning in Orangeburg, S.C. last weekend. "Do we really want to have a country in disarray, and a world on fire, and have two 80-year-olds as our candidates?" Haley asked the crowd, as she campaigned ahead of South Carolina's [Republican primary](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/13/1231061464/first-in-the-south-gop-presidential-primary-is-later-this-month-in-south-carolin) on Feb. 24. The idea that she represents a new generation of leadership has been a major theme of her campaign. Haley has been focusing many of her attacks on both Biden, 81, and former President Trump, 77, pointing out [their ages](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/12/1230987858/aging-memory-and-the-presidency) and [recent lapses](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/14/1231139957/gaffes-biden-trump-aging-presidency-normal-cognition-not-dementia-alzheimers). In Orangeburg, Haley referred to last week's [special counsel report](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/08/1229805332/special-counsel-report-biden-classified-documents), which questioned Biden's memory. "I wish him well. I do. But this is serious," Haley said. "And we need to be very cautious of what's happening, because Russia, China and Iran are paying attention to every bit of this."   President Biden, holds hands with Vice President Kamala Harris as he speaks at a reception in recognition of Black History Month in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 6. Andrew Harnik/AP And then, Haley made a bold — and unsubstantiated — claim. "My bet is 30 days from now, I don't think Joe Biden's gonna be the nominee," Haley predicted. "You're gonna have a female president of the United States." To be clear, Biden is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee. Haley provided no evidence for her speculation that he will step aside — nor for the suggestion that Harris is poised to step in anytime soon. Asked about Haley's prediction by NPR's Tamara Keith during a White House press briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre she had to be cautious about commenting on the campaign as a federal employee. "The president is, obviously, you know his intentions for 2024," Jean-Pierre said. As for Haley: "I'm not sure what crystal ball she's looking at, but it's not the one we have," Jean-Pierre added. It's a theme Haley has brought up repeatedly in recent months, warning Republican audiences about the prospect of Harris stepping in. In January, campaigning in Conway, S.C., Haley said the thought of a Harris presidency "should send a chill up every person's spine." By doing so, Haley is highlighting Biden's age and Harris' high disapproval ratings among Republican primary voters, says Ange-Marie Hancock, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "Republican primary voters are primed with negative views of Kamala Harris," explained Hancock, who's also the curator of the Kamala Harris Project, a group of scholars studying Harris' vice presidency. Hancock points to what she calls a "drumbeat" of attacks on Harris in right-wing circles, including [Trump's use](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/15/902756963/trumps-attacks-on-harris-are-a-return-to-familiar-territory) of racist birther theories to falsely suggest Harris may not be eligible to be vice president. Trump has directed [similar false attacks](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/23/1226406644/trump-is-spreading-birtherism-falsehoods-again-this-time-about-nikki-haley) at Haley. Hancock says Haley appears to be drawing on those themes as she campaigns for Republican primary votes. "So she's using dog whistles to counteract some dog whistles that may be levied against her," Hancock said. That strategy appears unlikely to work for Haley, who's [been polling far behind](https://www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2024-02-16/trump-leads-haley-by-large-margin-in-inaugural-citadel-poll) Trump in [her home state](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/24/1226752718/nikki-haley-donald-trump-south-carolina-new-hampshire-primary). But Hancock says it may offer a preview of the kinds of general election messages that Trump and other Republicans will be using against Biden and Harris in the months to come. A Haley campaign spokeswoman noted in a statement to NPR that Harris has been tasked with the administration's border security policy and said, "It's not surprising that she is viewed even more unfavorably \[than\] Joe Biden."

When James Comey became head of the F.B.I. in 2013, he sent reading recommendations to his staff, including “Letter From Birmingham Jail” by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “[Lean In](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/02/business/sheryl-sandberg-lean-in.html)” by Sheryl Sandberg and “The Righteous Mind” by a professor at New York University’s business school, Jonathan Haidt. Stumbling on that last book, a 2012 best seller, felt, Mr. Comey recalled, as if he were consulting a how-to guide on leading a stuck-in-its-ways Washington bureau. The book’s core lesson is simple: Humans make moral decisions based on emotional intuition, not just reason. When you’re trying to change minds, you have to change hearts as well. Read through all of Mr. Haidt’s canon and it can be summed up as a guide to changing yourself (“The Happiness Hypothesis,” 2006); changing other people’s minds (“The Righteous Mind,” 2012); changing your own mind (“The Coddling of the American Mind,” 2018); and changing your tech-addicted children (“[The Anxious Generation](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729231/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt/),” on shelves March 26). Is all that actually possible? He would like to think so. And his work has drawn acolytes who would like to think so, too — including some of the very people in big tech whose work Mr. Haidt seems to hold responsible for the rising generation’s social ills. Mr. Haidt’s writings promise these power players something elusive: a scholarly, social scientific explanation of the crises they’re facing, combined with a Silicon Valley founder’s level of confidence about how to fix them. (Mr. Haidt often sounds like what might happen if the doomsayer Cassandra swallowed Dale Carnegie: alarmed by the catastrophes humans have cooked up, but stubbornly chipper about our capacity to undo them.) Toby Shannan, the former chief operating officer of the e-commerce business Shopify, has called on Mr. Haidt for advice on facing ideological battles in the workplace. He said Mr. Haidt got him through a bumpy period in the lead-up to Donald J. Trump’s election in 2016, when some of his employees were fuming about Shopify hosting online swag shops for right-wing groups like Breitbart News. With Mr. Haidt’s counsel, Shopify determined that users could sell merchandise with political commentary, but none with explicit calls to harm. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F03%2F23%2Fbusiness%2Fjonathan-haidt-smartphones-coddling.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F03%2F23%2Fbusiness%2Fjonathan-haidt-smartphones-coddling.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F03%2F23%2Fbusiness%2Fjonathan-haidt-smartphones-coddling.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F03%2F23%2Fbusiness%2Fjonathan-haidt-smartphones-coddling.html).

Donald Trump is now a convicted felon. Donald Trump is also still the favorite to be the next president of the United States. Since as far back as at least 2017, Democrats have dreamed about the moment when a jury would find Trump guilty of crimes. And on Thursday, a Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in the first degree. But now that that moment has arrived, the vibes are all wrong. **What happened?** Former President Donald Trump was convicted on 34 counts in a New York legal case, the first of his four criminal trials to reach a verdict. **What was the case about?** Broadly, the $130,000 [hush money payment](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/31/23579526/trump-arrested-indictment-stormy-daniels-felony) that Trump’s lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election so Daniels wouldn’t go public saying she’d had a sexual encounter with Trump. Specifically, the question was whether, ​​when Trump later repaid Cohen for that money, the Trump Organization falsely logged those payments as “legal expenses” in company records. **What’s next?** Sentencing. Juan Merchan, the New York justice overseeing the case, plans to sentence Trump on July 11. Trump was convicted of 34 counts of a nonviolent, Class E felony, and he has no prior convictions, which means he could receive anywhere from no prison time to up to four years incarceration. Trump’s conviction on charges of falsifying business records comes as he has held on to a stubborn lead in [both](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/national/?ex_cid=abcpromo) [national](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-biden) and [swing state](https://www.270towin.com/2024-presidential-election-polls/) polls for months, and as Democrats have grown [increasingly anxious](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/28/democrats-freakout-over-biden-00160047) about Biden’s reelection chances. Some might hope the conviction and ensuing sentence will be a turning point for the 2024 campaign — that it will be the moment when the public is jolted into realizing that, actually, they don’t want a felon as president. There’s been at least some basis for that hope in [polls showing](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/us/politics/trump-biden-times-siena-poll.html) a significant share of voters saying they would switch from Trump to Biden after a conviction. But amid a long track record of Trump surviving past scandals, a robust right-wing media ecosystem peddling alternative narratives that Democrats are the corrupt ones, and widespread dissatisfaction with Joe Biden’s presidency, it’s far from clear a conviction would really make such a difference in practice. What seems to have happened here is that, over the past decade, the idea of having a major political figure in prosecutorial jeopardy has been normalized. First, we got used to Trump being under investigation and then under (quadruple) indictment. Now, Team Trump has successfully warped the rules of politics to the point where even a felony conviction may not matter. It’s like the metaphor of the frog that doesn’t notice the water around it is gradually boiling: We, the American electorate, are the frog. Back in the before times, criminal investigations of leading politicians were a big, earth-shaking deal. In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was dogged by the FBI’s investigation into whether her use of a private email server had jeopardized classified information. In July, FBI director James Comey publicly opined that she had been “extremely careless,” but concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would actually charge her. Then, in late October, Comey suddenly announced in a letter that he was reopening the investigation because new information had been discovered — the new information didn’t prove to be significant, but there’s good reason to believe Comey’s letter and the heavy media coverage of it swung the election to Trump. (In the week after he released the letter, [Trump gained](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/) 3 points in the polls.) Once Trump was elected, investigative attention switched to him, focused at first on whether his associates had worked with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. Trump’s own behavior, such as his sudden firing of Comey, heightened these suspicions, and spurred the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation drew enormous public attention and seemed to have a great deal of gravity to it. This, it was believed, was the investigation that could unmake a president, it could bring Trump down like the Watergate scandal did to Nixon. But as the probe stretched on, an important change occurred: Trump and his supporters got better at hitting back. He mobilized his allies in Congress and in right-wing media to aggressively attack the investigators, portraying all scrutiny of his conduct as illegitimate. So by the time Mueller got around to finishing his report in 2019, the conclusion didn’t even really matter anymore: Republicans in Congress would almost surely not have removed Trump from office no matter what the special counsel found. This basic dynamic persisted during Trump’s first impeachment scandal — you know, the one over him trying to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens — and even after his attempt to steal the 2020 election and the ensuing January 6 attack on the Capitol. Every time, the right [would unite behind Trump](https://www.vox.com/politics/24035809/trump-iowa-frontrunner-january-6-insurrection-gop-primary-polls-results), shield him from consequences, and ensure he’d still be present in our politics after the storm passed. Meanwhile, the right has also become quite adept at constructing alternative narratives in which it’s really Democrats and the people investigating Trump who are the real criminals. Fox News focuses intensely on Hunter Biden’s legal travails to send the message that Democrats are the corrupt party. Less ideological voters hear both narratives and may conclude it’s really both parties who are crooked, which dilutes the impact of Trump’s criminal scandals among the general public. But, some Democratic optimists say, this time is fundamentally different — a criminal conviction that will officially make Trump a felon and could even perhaps send him to prison. Perhaps this will be the tipping point for some voters to abandon him? They point to [some polls](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4441241-trump-poll-convictions-deep-trouble/) in which a significant number of voters have said they won’t vote for Trump if he’s been convicted of a felony. Consider me skeptical. For one, people have been predicting that this or that scandal will finally be the thing that takes Trump down — driving away enough of his support so that his political career is over — since he [first entered politics in 2015](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/upshot/the-trump-campaigns-turning-point.html). Such predictions continued [during his presidency](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/michael-cohen-and-the-end-stage-of-the-trump-presidency), [after his loss to Joe Biden](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/10/trump-comeback-2024-not-happening-444135), [and after](https://www.axios.com/2022/10/15/donald-trump-2024-presidential-election-paul-ryan) his attempt to steal a second term for himself ended in violence at the US Capitol. But Trump’s dominance over the GOP base and the Republican Party in general has been unshakable. I’m also doubtful that swing voters will be particularly affected by this. Trump has long been scandal-plagued, and voters have heard of his legal jeopardy for many years. It is not as if voters are suddenly learning [for the first time](https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-air-force-one-departure-091920/#:~:text=you%E2%80%99re%20telling%20me%20now%20for%20the%20first%20time.) that he is unethical. The trial itself focused on a matter — hush money Michael Cohen paid to keep Stormy Daniels from going public to allege a sexual encounter with Trump — that was first reported back in 2018. The specific charges are technical, focused on whether internal Trump Organization documents about repaying Cohen were falsely categorized as being for “legal services.” But Trump tried to steal the 2020 election in plain sight. If voters are still considering voting for him even despite that, it seems unlikely that this conviction on the far less consequential business records matter would be the thing that stops them. As for [those](https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/06/trump-trial-poll-ipsos-00104772#:~:text=Among%20the%20broader,can%20cost%20him.) [polls](https://www.reuters.com/legal/about-half-us-republicans-could-spurn-trump-if-he-is-convicted-reutersipsos-poll-2023-08-03/) in which many voters said they’d ditch Trump if he’s convicted: Voters there are responding to hypothetical questions in a vacuum. But in the real world, these voters will also be exposed to pro-Trump messaging: his complaints that he was unfairly treated, that the prosecution was brought by a partisan Democrat in an extremely Democratic area, that the underlying offense is no big deal, etc. Finally, there’s another issue: It’s a two-candidate race, and many on-the-fence voters are frustrated with Joe Biden’s presidency. It’s easy to say, in theory, that no one who’s a convicted felon should be allowed to be president. In practice, there will only be two options on the ballot, so the lesser-of-two-evils reasoning will be strong. That means that if voters decide they really want President Biden out, they may conclude that the only realistic alternative is President Convicted Felon. You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we believe in helping everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help to shape it. Our mission is to create clear, accessible journalism to empower understanding and action. If you share our vision, please consider supporting our work by becoming a _Vox Member_. Your support ensures Vox a stable, independent source of funding to underpin our journalism. If you are not ready to become a Member, even small contributions are meaningful in supporting a sustainable model for journalism. Thank you for being part of our community.  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Like a warm compress drawing pus from a wound, the Democratic presidential candidacy of [Kamala Harris](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kamala-harris) immediately brought out the misogyny and racism of the Maga Republican party. Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican representative, [called](https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/22/politics/video/kamala-harris-burchett-dei-hire-charlamagne-tha-god-angela-rye-lead-digvid) Harris, the child of a Black Jamaican father and an Indian mother, a DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire – picked, that is, because she is Black, not because she’s qualified. Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, insinuated that Harris is a welfare queen. “What the hell have you done other than collect a check?” he asked at a [Michigan](https://www.facebook.com/RepublicWorld/videos/458189460392711/) rally of Harris, a former state attorney general, US senator and now the vice-president. At the same time, [social media posts](https://perma.cc/C9AD-WD57) showing Harris with her parents falsely claim she’s not really Black, because her father is light-skinned. Popping up again are rumors [circulated](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-birther-theory-vice-president-eligibility-trump-campaign/) in 2020 by Trump lawyer John Eastman that Harris is ineligible to run for office because she might not be a citizen. Like Barack Obama, about whom Trump stirred the same “birther” calumny, Harris was born in the US. Far-right blogger [Matt Walsh](https://x.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1815096880272986511) and former Fox host [Megyn Kelly](https://x.com/megynkelly/status/1815383469536550960) suggested Harris slept her way to the top. Conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer went further, alleging that the veep was “once an escort” who started out by “giving blow jobs to successful, rich, Black men”. The founder of Pastors for Trump [tweeted](https://x.com/JacksonLahmeyer): “Both Joe + the Ho gotta go!” While allegedly copulating with all comers, Harris is slammed for failing in her womanly duty to reproduce. In a video that recently turned up, Vance, the father of three, told [Tucker Carlson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gPGxB2FqEc) in 2021 that the US was being run by “childless cat ladies” – Harris among them – who don’t “have a direct stake” in the country’s future. Will Chamberlain, a lawyer who worked on Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign, [proclaimed](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/23/opinion/kamala-harris-jd-vance.html) that “people without kids … are highly susceptible to corruption and perversion. They have no care for the future and live in the present.” Being a step-parent – as Harris is to her husband’s biological children – doesn’t count, Chamberlain [added](https://x.com/willchamberlain/status/1815150379610382598). This criticism has never been leveled against the childless George Washington – although, to be fair, he was the Father of Our Country. And if misogyny and racism are not sufficient, the right keeps searching for plain weirdness to use against the Democratic candidate. All they’ve come up with, though, is one of her more charming characteristics, her [laugh](https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1815112666924699853), from which Trump derives his lamest-yet political nickname: “Laughing Kamala”. This stuff is vile to watch. But as with drained pus, it’s got to be exposed to the air. Because it’s not just talk. It reveals what a Trump presidency would mean. By exposing what’s festering barely under the skin of Trumpism, the Republican party is telling us to vote against him. While in office, Trump’s ignorance and incompetence prevented him from accomplishing – or, often, knowing – what he wanted to do. In his madder moments, some of his advisers pulled him back from the edge. But this time, he’s got a team of smart, loyal experts and a detailed plan, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, to get it done. In 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests after George Floyd’s murder spread across the country, Trump gunned to gun down the protesters – literally. “Can’t you just shoot them?” he asked Mark Esper, [according](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/a-sacred-oath-mark-t-esper?variant=39847191674914) to the then defense secretary’s memoir. In another [memoir](https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/24/politics/bender-book-trump-milley-protests/index.html), then Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender quotes the apoplectic president calling on police and the military to “crack \[protesters’\] skulls” and “beat the fuck” out of them. For the most part, this didn’t happen. Should Project 2025 become reality, however, the commander-in-chief would be freer to [invoke](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/inside-project-2025s-plan-to-reprogram-the-government/) the Insurrection Act of 1807, which authorizes him to direct the military to put down domestic unrest. The blueprint also advises the administration to [revoke all consent decrees](https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-17.pdf) imposing federal oversight on police departments with records of brutality and murder of civilians, particularly civilians of color. The [2024 Republican national convention](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republican-national-convention-2024), featuring Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and another straight white man on the ticket, was practically a parody of the white hypermasculinity animating the party. But the Republican party promises to force its gender ideology on the rest of us. “Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children,” reads the [platform](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-republican-party-platform). Project 2025 proposes that “the redefinition of sex to cover gender identity and sexual orientation … be reversed” and the phrase “sexual orientation and gender identity” be eliminated from anti-discrimination policies across federal agencies. In fact, its aim is to eliminate anti-discrimination policies altogether. And, of course, there’s abortion. In 2016, Trump [opined](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/30/donald-trump-there-has-to-be-some-form-of-punishment-for-women-who-get-abortions/) that “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have abortions. Then he walked the statement back. This April, he [told](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/10/trumps-telling-comment-punishing-doctors-who-provide-abortions/) a reporter that states should be allowed to punish doctors. “Everything we’re doing now is states and states’ rights,” he elaborated, using the historical code words for legislated racial segregation – now updated to gender oppression. And while he’s distanced himself from a federal abortion ban, Project 2025 is riddled with pledges to protect the safety, dignity and humanity of the unborn. Clueless as he was, Trump attained the right’s holy grail: a supreme court majority that will decimate the civil and human rights of people of color, pregnant people, the poor, immigrants and the marginalized long into the future. The Trump court is already punishing people who seek abortions. Even if Congress founders, this court will realize every racist and misogynist dream. It’s hard to say whether this bigotry will sway voters. A month before the 2016 election, after a campaign of one racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic outburst after another, Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” tape was leaked and a dozen women [accused](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/10/13/roundup-accusations-bad-behavior-hit-trump-wednesday/91984974/) the candidate of sexual misconduct. Hillary Clinton [surged](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/10/hillary-clintons-poll-leads-increase-after-access-hollywood-tape-leak.html) to a lead of as much as 11 points. Then, FBI director James Comey released a letter equivocating on the extent or importance of [those official emails](https://www.factcheck.org/2016/07/a-guide-to-clintons-emails/) on her private server, and Trump won. It’s still unclear whether the Comey report turned the election. But the pussy-grabbing tape did not. Still, in 2016, Trump was a pig but an untested pig. A lot has happened since then. His presidency was bookended by the Women’s March and the Black Lives Matter protests. In 2017, Tarana Burke’s #MeToo hashtag went viral and rage over sexual harassment exploded. Five years later, [Pew Research](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2022/09/29/more-than-twice-as-many-americans-support-than-oppose-the-metoo-movement/) found that the majority of Americans, including Republicans, felt the #MeToo movement had a positive impact. BLM engaged protesters of every age and race, and antiracist movements continue to. Trump has been convicted of sexual abuse. Now, if anything, Maga is focusing the anger of women and people of color. Republican leaders sense these changes, and they’re worried – worried enough that Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, called a [closed-door meeting](https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2024/07/24/republicans-steer-clear-racist-sexist-attacks-kamala-harris/) to tell the caucus to cut the slime and focus on the issues. Maybe they will. But Trump and his nastier champions will not: hatred will continue to ooze from their mouths. Disgusting as it, pay attention. Because sexism and racism are not just talk. They’re policies – the calamitous policies a Trump presidency augurs. * Judith Levine is a Brooklyn journalist and essayist, a contributing writer to the Intercept and the author of five books

“It’ll begin to end when the act gets tired and the audience starts walking out,” Warren Beatty, a perspicacious observer, told me eight years ago, in the early summer of 2016, when [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) had just secured the Republican nomination. At the time, Trump was calling in for hours to enraptured TV talk show hosts jacking up their ratings. It was a cocaine trade. In return he snorted $5bn in [free media](https://www.thestreet.com/politics/donald-trump-rode-5-billion-in-free-media-to-the-white-house-13896916) – more than all the other candidates combined. When Trump launched The Apprentice in 2004, a tightly edited fantasy of the six-time bankrupt as king of the heap, he had long been dismissed as a loser and bore in New York. His charade was popcorn fare for out-of-towners. Who knew that the fake reality show’s ultimate winner, announced years after its cancellation, would be [JD Vance](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/jd-vance)? But, in 2016, Trump’s pastiche of fast-talking narcissism, unapologetic insults and brazen lies was eagerly amplified by many of the “leftwing radical media elites” he stuck pins in while the “poorly educated” he claimed to “love” were living the vicarious dream of owning the libs. The shtick was taken as an authentic novelty rather than the rehearsed patter of “John Barron”, his transparent former pseudo-identity as his own huckster. JD Vance, aka Jimmy Bowman, aka James Hamel, isn’t the only one on the Republican ticket with multiple personalities. Trump’s routine was attributed to personal magic that levitated him to become seemingly inevitable. Yet Trump survived time and again, not because he ever won a popularity contest, but through the intercession of others, taken by his true believers to be divine intervention and proof of his higher election. His luck that an odd range of people with motives of their own happened to rescue him from his self-created messes built his mystique, even after he lost. The billionaire grabbing the mic as a stand-up comedian when he [came down the escalator](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/13/donald-trump-presidential-campaign-speech-eyewitness-memories) was laughing gas for many in the media. But the billionaire part itself was an act, since he wasn’t a billionaire, but scamming loans. “You guys have been supporters, and I really appreciate it,” Trump [thanked](https://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/the-messy-history-between-trump-morning-joe-1513303338) popular TV hosts for giving him free access on 10 February 2016. “And not necessarily supporters, but at least believers. You said there’s some potential there.” He carried a grievance that he never won an Emmy for his shambolic boss-man routine on The Apprentice. Now, he gloried in the kudos for his performance. He had finally made it, phoning in to talk shows – his art form. His heartfelt racism, misogyny and nativism were mainly excused as the joker’s tradecraft. When the TV talkers called him out, he called them “dumb”, suffering “mental breakdown”, “low IQ”, “crazy”, “psycho”. Yet those taunts were seen as something new and exciting, too. That’s entertainment. Trump had gotten a pass in the city for decades for his fraudulent business practices. “Don’t tell me what the law is, tell me who the judge is,” said his sage mentor Roy Cohn – or the high-minded district attorney and how to grease his favorite philanthropy. But after the spoiled ne’er-do-well squandered nearly a half-billion dollars of his father’s fortune on casinos, yachts and planes, the New York banks cut him off. He waved his Page Six clippings about his sexual prowess, stories he had invented himself, but the bankers weren’t distracted by his flimsy celebrity. No one has accounted since for the flow of foreign funds through Deutsche Bank and other sources. Many in the media remained mesmerized by the song-and-dance. As the shock president, Trump would supposedly be reined in by the fabled adults in the room. His entourage of misfits couldn’t staff a government. He would be contained by the responsible grown-ups, his administration pressed into the mold of a sort of fourth Bush term, with Trump as the headliner to keep the customers chortling, while the serious business was done in the backroom. The theory was the Oval Office as day care center. The Federalist Society-types squeezed every drop they could out of him – the judges and justices – but the others became his chumps. They beguiled themselves with the illusion that he was their frontman. They hadn’t reckoned that he was a career criminal, not a juvenile delinquent. Eventually it would occur to them, but they kept what they thought was secret knowledge to themselves. Publicly admitting it would pull back the curtain on their embarrassment. Over time, he gratified his sadism by humiliating them one after another, his most personal kind of entertainment. You’re fired! Magnetic attraction was attributed to Trump in defiance of his granitic unpopularity and greater repellence. He never won the popular vote. He lost it by 2.5m in 2016 and 7m in 2020. Throughout his entire presidency, he never crossed the threshold of 50% approval in the [Gallup Poll](https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx#:~:text=High%20point%20was%2049%25%2C%20reached,during%20his%20presidency%20was%2041%25.). He finished with the historically lowest approval rating for a president since polls were first taken. Trump was headed for defeat in 2016 after his final debate with [Hillary Clinton](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hillary-clinton) on 19 October; four days later, [CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/23/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-presidential-polls/index.html) reported their poll showing she held a 13-point lead over him. Five days later, on 28 October, 10 days before the election, the _deus ex machina_ in the form of FBI director James Comey [intervened](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/), in violation of justice department guidelines, to reopen an investigation into Clinton’s emails, to probe whether classified material was on her aide’s husband’s computer, which eight days later, two days before the election, he declared was not there. Two subsequent state department [inquiries](https://www.creators.com/read/joe-conason/09/22/how-many-of-her-emails-were-classified-actually-zero) under the Trump administration would find she never held any classified material on a private email server. Comey’s interference, more than anything else, inspired the myth of Trump’s invincibility. Comey would be one of Trump’s first adult-in-the-room victims when he would not submit the FBI to serve Trump’s direct political orders. Having singularly elevated Trump, his sanctimony could not shield him from his defenestration. In 2020, Trump’s utter incompetence in handling the Covid pandemic cost him re-election. He [told](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658) Bob Woodward of the Washington Post that at its start, “I wanted to always play it down.” When Woodward published Trump’s coldly neglectful remarks, Trump slammed Woodward’s report as “FAKE”. Woodward produced the tapes. Anticipating defeat, Trump called the election “rigged”, organized the scheme to stop the constitutional counting of the electoral college votes on January 6, and incited a violent mob to attack the Capitol. Hang Mike Pence! Supposedly, Trump was done again. The consensus stretching from [Mitch McConnell](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/mitch-mcconnell) to [Joe Biden](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/joebiden) to [Merrick Garland](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/merrick-garland) was that he would be left by the wayside at Mar-a-Lago to disappear while regular order returned. McConnell had intervened to save Trump twice from removal after impeachments. Garland did nothing to probe Trump’s involvement in the [January 6 insurrection](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-capitol-breach) for 18 months. The lapse was critical to Trump’s ability to mount another presidential campaign. No outside force could halt Trump’s trial in New York for his 34 felony counts paying hush money to an adult film star to manipulate the outcome of the 2016 election. But in the case of his theft of national security documents and obstruction of justice, a federal judge he had appointed, Aileen Cannon, threw monkey wrenches into the process to ensure he would not face justice before the election. In the January 6 case, originally scheduled for 4 March, he appealed to the supreme court, whose conservative majority ruled on 1 July to grant him absolute immunity for his “official actions”. In order to protect him and his candidacy, the court fundamentally twisted the constitution to set the president above the law. The founding fathers and originalism went out the window. If their decision had been in effect during Watergate, Nixon would have walked scot-free. Trump had been rescued from facing the music in the nick of time. “Tell me who the judge is.” Biden demanded an early debate to dispel his age issue. He [imploded](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jun/27/biden-trump-presidential-debate-atlanta) on 27 June. Trump was saved. The immunity decision, coming three days later, seemed the ratification of his invulnerability. Fate intervened yet again. On 13 July, an [assassin fitting the profile](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/14/trump-rally-suspected-gunman-what-we-know) of a school shooter [missed him](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/13/trump-rally-gun-shots-pennsylvania). Trump arose streaked with blood with an upraised fist. His followers proclaimed his divine salvation. In the rush of triumphalism, he named as his running mate JD Vance, the 39-year-old Ohio senator, lately incarnated as a crusader in the Maga kulturkampf. Finally, on 21 July, Biden recognized his hopelessness and [withdrew from the race](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/21/joe-biden-withdraw-running-president). Circumstances had conspired to coronate Trump the once and future king, invested with the powers of a “dictator on day one” by the supreme court. But at the height of his hubris his nemesis appeared. The bullet that grazed Trump hit Biden. He had been Trump’s perfect foil, a lifelong politician appearing more fossilized than himself. The jack-in-the-box that jumped out was the 19 years younger, vital and unhesitatingly articulate [Kamala Harris](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/kamala-harris), whose very appearance unified the Democratic party that seemed about to burst at its seams. The inevitable and invulnerable Trump sank into his old and embittered persona. His close encounter gave him no pause; he underwent no character development. Vance flopped, his numbers the worst of any vice-presidential candidate since Thomas Eagleton dropped out as George McGovern’s running mate in 1972 after the revelation of his electro-shock therapy. Trump was aggrieved at the reversal of roles and the reversal of fortunes. Worse, Trump had worn out his material. His rally on 22 July, the day after Biden left the race, was a concert of golden oldies. There was his story about whether he should be electrocuted by a battery-supplied boat or eaten by sharks, the [Hannibal Lecter joke](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/jul/25/donald-trump-hannibal-lecter), the Al Capone self-reference, Nancy Pelosi as “Crazy Nancy”, “low IQ” and still running against “Crooked Joe Biden.” Worse than that, he acknowledged his fear that his material was stale. He was filled with performance anxiety. He opened his monologue with an enigmatic: “Whenever I imitate him…” Suddenly, he brought up Melania. “She looked great the other night. She made that entrance. She made a lot of entrances. She’s just something. But she walked in. But I told her the other night, I said, ‘How good was I? How good?’ This was at a rally a couple of weeks ago. ‘How good was I?’ ‘Well, you were really good, but not great.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Well, it showed that you didn’t know how to get off the stage.’ Well, I was imitating Biden. So, what they do is they show the imitation of Biden. They said, ‘Trump didn’t know how to get off the stage.’ That’s our fake news.” Trump’s stream of consciousness disclosed his worry over his wife’s censorious judgment. He was needy for her praise. She hedged. Her withholding of unreserved flattery sent him spiraling. She suggested he was becoming Biden, someone having trouble selling his act, but Trump protected himself by casting the blame on the media. His awareness of danger to his image provoked an instinctive recoil. Showing him as Willy Loman was the true phoniness. His campaign grasped to find a thread to pull on Harris to unravel her, the equivalent of Biden’s age or Hillary’s emails. They decided to tar her as some kind of leftwinger, but it was the generic Republican negative campaign with risible additions. “Wants To Limit Red Meat Consumption”, Trump [posted](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112895625604098797). He orders his steak burnt and douses it with ketchup. “More Liberal Than Bernie Sanders.” Yawn. Harris was rising, Trump struggling. His young sidekick hired to be his warm-up act, JD Vance, bombed on delivery. Trump was thrown back on himself. His predicament was reminiscent of the flailing music-hall hoofer played by Laurence Olivier in the grim 1960 film, The Entertainer, desperately trying to float his act, shamelessly manipulating and trampling everybody, but incapable of performing anything but the old numbers before a bored audience. So, Trump reached to the bottom of his repertoire. On 31 July, he calculatingly accepted to be interviewed at the [convention of the National Association of Black Journalists](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/31/trump-lies-questions-kamala-harris-racial-identity-nabj), an ideal forum to serve as his backdrop. “I come in good spirits,” he lied. “I was the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln.” Then he launched his attack on Harris: “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black? … All of a sudden she made a turn and she became a Black person … And I think someone should look into that, too.” Trump’s race-baiting is the hoariest of his riffs. He introduced his minstrel show 35 years ago when he took out full-page newspaper advertisements to demand capital punishment for five young Black men who were convicted of the rape and attempted murder of a white female jogger. [The Central Park Five](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/17/central-park-five-donald-trump-jogger-rape-case-new-york), as they became known, served years in prison, but had been falsely accused and were exonerated. Trump comes by his bigotry naturally. According to his nephew, Fred Trump III, in a new [memoir](https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jul/23/donald-trump-n-word-book), All In The Family, his uncle used the N-word to blame Black people for a car scratch: “Look what the n-----s did.” A producer for The Apprentice said Trump [used](https://slate.com/culture/2024/05/donald-trump-news-2024-trial-verdict-apprentice.html) the N-word to describe a finalist: “I mean, would America buy a n----- winning?” Trump laid the groundwork for his 2016 presidential run by promoting the birtherism fraud against [Barack Obama](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/barack-obama) that he was not born in the United States. As president, Trump referred to Haiti and African nations as “shithole countries”, And, so on and on. “The same old show,” remarked Harris. “I am the least racist person that you’ve ever encountered,” Trump stated in 2016, when asked about his birther campaign. In attacking Harris’s “roots”, Trump returned to his. Two days after his appearance at the NABJ, Trump “retruthed” a [post](https://truthsocial.com/@LauraLoomer/posts/112887363527418998) on his [Truth Social network](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/31/trump-truth-social-audience) from Laura Loomer, a fringe character in Maga circles notorious for her ethnic slurs, and [labeled](https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2020-09-09/ty-article/loomer-uses-holocaust-imagery-to-attack-jewish-opponent-over-black-lives-matter/0000017f-e976-dc91-a17f-fdfff7fe0000) “disgusting” by the Anti-Defamation League. “I have a copy of Kamala Harris’s birth certificate,” she wrote. “Nowhere on her birth certificate does it say that she is BLACK OR AFRICAN. @KamalaHQ is a liar. Donald Trump is correct. Kamala Harris is NOT black and never has been.” Then, on 3 August, Trump backed out of a scheduled ABC News debate, proposing one on Fox News instead, [issued](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/112899344194558383) insults that were obvious projections that Harris “doesn’t have the mental capacity to do a REAL debate against me”, that she was “afraid”, and that she and Biden are “two Low IQ individuals”. He offered as proof of her fear, that she could never “justify”, among other things, “her years long fight to stop the words, ‘Merry Christmas’.” The Entertainer, frantic to hold the crowd’s attention, is hamming it up with his cake walk. But the minstrel show that had once packed them in at the Hippodrome has descended into burlesque. He won’t listen to Melania. “Trump didn’t know how to get off the stage.” * Sid Blumenthal is a Guardian US columnist

The US is still not prepared for inevitable Russian attacks on its elections, the former special counsel [Robert Mueller](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/robert-mueller), who investigated Russian interference in 2016 and links between Donald Trump and Moscow, warns in a new book. “It is … evident that Americans have not learned the lessons of Russia’s attack on our democracy in 2016,” Mueller writes in a preface to Interference: The Inside Story of Trump, [Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) and the Mueller Investigation by Aaron Zebley, James Quarles and Andrew Goldstein, prosecutors who worked for Mueller from 2017 to 2019. Mueller continues: “As we detailed in our report, the evidence was clear that the Russian government engaged in multiple, systematic attacks designed to undermine our democracy and favor one candidate over the other.” That candidate was Trump, the Republican who beat the Democrat, Hillary Clinton, for the White House. “We were not prepared then,” Mueller writes, “and, despite many efforts of dedicated people across the government, we are not prepared now. This threat deserves the attention of every American. Russia attacked us before and will do so again.” Interference will be [published](https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/untitled-s-s-nf-if-to-be-confirmed-simon-schuster/7709017) in the US next week. The Guardian obtained a copy. Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein tell the story of the Mueller investigation, from its beginnings in May 2017 after Trump [fired the FBI director](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/09/james-comey-fbi-fired-donald-trump), James Comey, to its conclusion in March 2019 with moves by William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, to [obscure and dismiss](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/24/mueller-report-donald-trump-william-barr) Mueller’s findings. Mueller did not establish collusion between Trump and Moscow but did initiate criminal proceedings against three Russian entities and 34 people, with those convicted including a Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who was jailed. Mueller also laid out [10 instances](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-elections-james-comey-north-america-e0d125d737be4a21a81bec3d9f1dffd8) of possible obstruction of justice by Trump. Though he did not indict Trump, citing justice department policy regarding sitting presidents, Mueller [said](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/mueller-i-did-not-clear-trump-of-obstruction-of-justice) he was not clearing him either. Mueller now says Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein “care deeply about the rule of law and know the importance of making decisions with integrity and humility”, adding: “These qualities matter most when some refuse to play by the rules, and others are urging you to respond in kind.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/18/russia-election-interference-robert-mueller#img-2) Photograph: Simon & Schuster The FBI director from 2001 to 2013, Mueller was 72 and widely admired for his rectitude when he was made special counsel. His former prosecutors describe a White House meeting preceding that appointment. In an atmosphere of high tension, Mueller made his entry “via a warren of passages beneath the Eisenhower Executive Office Building”, thereby avoiding the press. Trump, who wanted Mueller to return as FBI director, “did most of the talking” but though he praised Mueller richly, Mueller declined the offer. As the authors write, Trump “would later [claim](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-again-claims-mueller-wanted-to-return-as-fbi-director-an-assertion-mueller-disputes/2019/07/24/bf78e6c2-ae2f-11e9-bc5c-e73b603e7f38_story.html) that Bob came to the meeting asking to be FBI director”, and that Trump “turned him down”. “This was false,” the prosecutors write. Soon after the White House interview, the New York Times [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html) memos kept by Comey about Trump’s request to shut down an investigation of Michael Flynn, the national security adviser who [resigned](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/13/michael-flynn-resigns-quits-trump-national-security-adviser-russia) after lying about contacts with the Russian ambassador. Soon after that, Mueller was appointed special counsel. Trump escaped punishment arising from Mueller’s work but did lose the White House in 2020, when he was beaten by Joe Biden. Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein’s book arrives as another election looms, with Trump in a tight race with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and shortly after US authorities [outlined](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/04/russia-accused-of-trying-to-influence-us-voters-through-online-campaign) how pro-Trump influencers were paid large sums by Russia. On Tuesday, a new threat intelligence report from Microsoft [said](https://apnews.com/article/russia-disinformation-foreign-influence-election-microsoft-7f802f9f4a0efe206fdaad29516b1f7f) Russia was accelerating covert influence efforts against Harris. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/18/russia-election-interference-robert-mueller#EmailSignup-skip-link-15) Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion US presidential elections are often the subject of “October surprises”, late-breaking scandals which can tilt a race. In 2016, October brought both Trump’s [Access Hollywood scandal](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/donald-trump-leaked-recording-women), in which he was recorded bragging about sexual assault, and the release by WikiLeaks of Democratic emails [hacked by Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/07/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-paid-wall-street-speeches). In Interference, Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein tell how the Mueller team came to its conclusion that Russia boosted Trump in 2016. They also detail attempts to interview Trump that were blocked by his attorneys, Rudy Giuliani among them. Describing how the former New York mayor betrayed a promise to keep an April 2018 meeting confidential, speaking openly if inaccurately to the press, the authors say Mueller “decided he would never again meet or speak with Giuliani – and he never did. For Bob it was a matter of trust.” More than six years on, Giuliani faces criminal charges arising from his work to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat, as well as [costly civil proceedings](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/30/georgia-election-workers-giuliani-assets-defamation-case). Trump also faces civil penalties and criminal charges, having been convicted on 34 counts in New York over hush-money payments made before the 2016 election. Though Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein focus on the Russia investigation, in doing so they voice dismay regarding the US supreme court, to which Trump appointed three rightwing justices and which has this year twice cast his criminal cases into doubt. The authors describe how Mueller’s team decided not to subpoena Trump for in-person testimony, given delays one Trump attorney said would result from inevitable “war” on the matter. Looking ahead, the authors consider new supreme court opinions that will shape such face-offs in future. [Fischer v United States](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jun/28/supreme-court-january-6-rioters), the authors say, narrows the scope of the obstruction of justice statute “that was the focus of volume II of our report”. More dramatically, in [Trump v United States](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/16/supreme-court-john-roberts-trump-immunity-ruling), the court held “that a president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution when carrying out ‘core’ constitutional functions … and has ‘presumptive’ immunity for all ‘official actions’”. Though the court ruled a president was not immune for “unofficial actions”, Zebley, Quarles and Goldstein warn that it nonetheless “sharply limited the areas of presidential conduct that can be subject to criminal investigation – permitting a president to use his or her power in wholly corrupt ways without the possibility of prosecution”.

It was the spring of 2018 and President Donald J. Trump, faced with an accelerating inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, was furious that the Justice Department was reluctant to strike back at those he saw as his enemies. In an Oval Office meeting, Mr. Trump told startled aides that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions would not order the department to go after Hillary Clinton and James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, Mr. Trump would prosecute them himself. Recognizing the extraordinary dangers of a president seeking not just to weaponize the criminal justice system for political ends but trying as well to assume personal control over who should be investigated and charged, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, sought to stall. “How about I do this?” Mr. McGahn told Mr. Trump, according to an account verified by witnesses. “I’m going to write you a memo explaining to you what the law is and how it works, and I’ll give that memo to you and you can decide what you want to do.” The episode marked the start of a more aggressive effort by Mr. Trump to deploy his power against his perceived enemies despite warnings not to do so by top aides. And [a look back at the cases of 10 individuals](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/21/us/trump-opponents-investigations.html) brings a pattern into clearer focus: After Mr. Trump made repeated public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government, they faced federal pressure of one kind or another. The broad outlines of those episodes have been previously reported. But a closer examination reveals the degree of concern and pushback against Mr. Trump’s demands inside the White House. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F09%2F21%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-investigations-enemies.html).

 This presidential cycle has challenged the rules and precedents of our political system so often that it’s no surprise it’s posing a challenge for the “October surprise.” As the month of October goes on, media usage of the phrase only escalates. Yet nothing seems yet to fill the bill. Now well into its fifth decade, that familiar phrase has become such a staple of punditry as to suggest it has standing on the official calendar. But of course there is nothing official about the October surprise. It exists in the mind of the beholder. And there’s usually room for debate about how much any unusual event late in the campaign really matters to the outcome. Suffice it to say, the phrase is used far more often than it is justified. The phrase has long suggested an event or development emerging unexpectedly in the closing weeks of the campaign to upend the contest, flip the script or at least reverse the momentum of the race.  But even if nothing takes place that really matches the description, the phrase gets a workout every four years. Campaigns are always looking for new ways to gain advantage or to cry foul — and we in the media are hungry for new twists or different ways to dramatize the contest. Thus we have lately heard “October surprise” applied to [a judge’s order unsealing evidence](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/02/nx-s1-5137303/trump-election-interference-jack-smith-immunity-jan-6) in the January 6, 2021 insurrection case against former President Donald Trump. We have heard the label thrown at the short-lived [dock workers’ strike](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5139450/dockworkers-port-strike-deal) and the uptick in oil prices. It's even been bandied about in critiques of the new book _War_ by investigative reporter Bob Woodward, which says Trump sent precious COVID-19 testing equipment [to Russian leader Vladimir Putin](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/08/nx-s1-5146501/trump-putin-covid-tests) at the height of the pandemic — even as many Americans were unable to procure their own. Surely each of these stories has had meaning and effect. But it’s hard to say any has been a game changer, especially when the polls seem frozen in place. The last time we saw the race truly change was when President Biden pulled out and the Democratic nomination was shifted to Vice President Harris. This month has been unusually heavy with news of war in the Middle East and Hurricanes [Helene](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5144216/climate-change-hurricane-helene) and [Milton](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5149899/florida-airports-amusement-parks-reopen-as-officials-weigh-damage-from-hurricane-milton) devastating swaths of the Southeast. And there has been no shortage of stories and shifting narratives in the presidential race, accompanied each day by a fresh crop of polls from swing states. But several of these have been part of a larger process — such as the legal system or the hurricane season — with its own rhythms and timetables. So none so far has had the true element of surprise that would seem necessary for an actual October _surprise_. Nonetheless, campaigns regularly fling the phrase as an accusation, adding at least a whiff of skullduggery. This air of suspicion attaches most often to the incumbent party in the White House, which is presumed to be able to deploy government agencies and other powerful forces for partisan purposes. ### Origin in the race of 1980 That implication dates back to what appears to be the phrase’s origin in the campaign of 1980. Republican nominee Ronald Reagan’s campaign chief, William Casey, had been warning the media (and the voters) for months to watch out for a sudden development — an “October surprise” — that might resolve the Iran hostage crisis just before Election Day. Casey was anticipating a sudden release of the more than 50 hostages who had been imprisoned inside the U.S. Embassy for a year after the Islamist revolution of 1979. Many Republicans feared the months-long negotiations to gain the hostages’ release would suddenly bear fruit just before Election Day. If that were to happen, they reasoned, a grateful nation might look at incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter with new appreciation. Had that happened, it is not hard to imagine the media frenzy that would have followed. Americans who were alive at the time can easily recall the upwelling of relief and joy that greeted the hostages when Iran did finally free them on the day Carter left office and Reagan’s presidency began. ### The fear and the phrase persist Ever since that fateful fall, the memory of the October surprise that did not happen in 1980 has been revived — at least as a prompt for speculation and a goad to disagreement. Presidential campaigns and the media who follow them have searched in each cycle for something that would really fulfill the fears of one campaign and give fresh hope to the other. We have seen presidential contests take a notable turn in the final weeks of the campaign, and at least as often we have heard potentially meaningful events described as an October surprise. In 1992, incumbent President George H.W. Bush was staging something of a comeback in the fall against the upstart Democratic nominee, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton. Then former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted for his role years earlier in what had been called the Iran-Contra scandal. The case involved the sale of arms to Iran in exchange for Iran’s assistance in winning the release of a different set of hostages during Reagan’s White House tenure. It brought back the worst memories of Bush’s years as Reagan’s vice president and blunted his late drive.  Something similar occurred in 2000 when George W. Bush was running for president against Democratic nominee Al Gore. Just five days before Election Day it was revealed that the younger Bush had a previously undisclosed drunk driving arrest on the books. Gore won the popular vote that fall, but Bush managed to eke out a historically narrow win in the Electoral College. Bush’s campaign manager, Karl Rove, insisted thereafter that Bush had suffered from low turnout among evangelical voters troubled by the drunk driving story. In 2008, the presidential race between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Arizona Sen. John McCain of Arizona was too close to call in early September. Then the landmark investment bank Lehman Brothers went under in mid-September and precipitated a Wall Street panic unlike any since 1929. The signs of the meltdown over mortgage-backed securities had been flashing red for a year, but in the election context the financial crisis was truly an October surprise and a crucial factor in Obama’s historic win. Four years later, Republican nominee Mitt Romney was bruised when caught on tape referring to “47 percent” of the voters as “dependent” on government programs. While that story broke in late September it was still reverberating for weeks thereafter, weakening Romney in the home stretch. ### Did an October story make the difference? While late-breaking stories may well tip the scales for some voters, their actual effect can be difficult to measure. It is not uncommon for some political actors and media to call a late-breaking story an October surprise when there is little evidence that it mattered that much. One such occasion was the 2016 contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In early October much of the nation was shocked to hear the bawdy way Trump spoke of women while preparing to tape a 2005 episode of the TV show _Access Hollywood._ Major figures in the party such as national chairman Reince Priebus denounced the remarks and privately told Trump he would lose in a landslide. But Trump seemed unperturbed. First Lady Melania Trump gave interviews agreeing with her husband’s dismissal of it all as “locker room talk” and conservative media generally fell in line. While the release of the tape probably cost him some votes, he still managed to win the Electoral College.  In the same month, however, a different release had quite a different effect. James Comey, the FBI director, told the chairman of a congressional committee that a new file of Hillary Clinton’s private emails [had been found](https://www.npr.org/2016/10/28/499770889/anthony-weiner-investigation-leads-fbi-back-to-clinton-email-server-case) during the course of an unrelated investigation. Her emails, long a source of controversy as they involved some official business from her time as Secretary of State, were suddenly back in the news in a big way. By the time Comey announced that no new evidence was found in the emails, the focus and momentum of the campaign had shifted. Clinton would win the popular vote, but fall short in the Electoral College due to narrow losses in several swing states. Just as ambiguous was the 2020 impact of Trump’s personal bout with COVID-19. Did it hurt him or help that he went to the hospital in October with a serious case of a disease he had all but dismissed earlier in his re-election year? Was there a sympathy vote or a rally-round effect when he returned to the White House and dramatically removed his hospital mask? ### The campaign of 2024 marks its own trail This year, there may just be too much happening for one story to be as pivotal as the October surprise is supposed to be. We have two wars happening in Ukraine and the Middle East. The U.S. is heavily involved and is a major supplier of arms to one side in each of these wars. We have had a historic hurricane season that has spread death and destruction far beyond the coastline communities that prepare for such storms. We have new peaks of tech achievement through artificial intelligence and historic levels of income disparity that recall the “Gilded Age” of the late 1800s. And we have had a campaign season in which a former president has returned to be nominated again for the first time since 1892. We also have an incumbent president who has chosen not to seek another term for the first time in almost 60 years. And a major party has not only nominated a woman — but a woman of color whose parents were immigrants.  All these powerful storylines have already contributed to an election unlike any other. So perhaps the notion of one late story breaking through and turning the race on its head is itself an anachronism at this point. As greater numbers of voters choose to vote early, especially by mail, the significance of any and all October events is decreased. It is possible too that the original concept of a blockbuster revelation late in the campaign will be another victim of our age of distrust in the media. Where there were once three dominant TV news sources, we now have countless sources of video and audio with widely disparate points of view and approaches to the news itself. Extreme partisanship and the deceptive powers of AI have made it more difficult for any particular piece of information to be accepted by the electorate as a whole. Nonetheless, the notion of a transforming turn of events in the eleventh hour remains powerful in the imagination. And like a Halloween hobgoblin it will hover over us at least until October 31.

I remember when Donald Trump was not normal. I remember when Trump was a fever that would break. I remember when Trump was [running as a joke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oT_4RJx4G0). I remember when Trump was best [covered in the entertainment section.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-note-about-our-coverage-of-donald-trumps-campaign_n_55a8fc9ce4b0896514d0fd66) I remember when Trump would never become the Republican nominee. I remember when Trump couldn’t win the general election. I remember when Trump’s attacks on John McCain were disqualifying. I remember when Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape would force him out. I remember when Trump was James Comey’s fault. I remember when Trump was the news media’s fault. I remember when Trump won because Hillary Clinton was unlikable. I remember when 2016 was a fluke. I remember when the office of the presidency would temper Trump. I remember when the adults in the room would contain him. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F06%2Fopinion%2Ftrump-wins-harris-loses.html).

Donald Trump announced that he [intends to nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)](https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/13/politics/matt-gaetz-attorney-general?cid=external-feeds_iluminar_google) to serve as his attorney general. Gaetz is a longtime Trump loyalist, who will likely be tasked with remaking the Department of Justice. The department has traditionally adhered to strong norms against interference by the president; Trump and his allies have been explicit [in arguing that should change](https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/381094/trump-second-term-2024-election-justice-department-civil-rights). Trump has also repeatedly called for legal action against his political enemies, including [promising](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-2024-kamala-harris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-liberties) to “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” in 2023. Enforcing those sorts of threats would fall to Gaetz, if he is confirmed by the Senate. Before being nominated to be attorney general, Gaetz was probably best known for two things. One is his [longstanding feud with former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy](https://www.vox.com/2023/10/1/23898555/kevinn-mccarthy-speakership-matt-gaetz) (R-CA), who was eventually ousted in no small part because of Gaetz. The other is the string of sexual misconduct allegations. Gaetz denies these allegations, and the Department of Justice [dropped its investigation into them in 2023](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/doj-decides-not-charge-rep-matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation-rcna70839). If Gaetz does end up running that same department, he’ll be in a uniquely powerful role. He would be tasked with overseeing all federal prosecutions, providing legal advice to the president and the Cabinet, and would have the final say on any legal stance that the United States takes in court. Of greater significance perhaps is the fact that Gaetz would have enormous authority over who is prosecuted, who is allowed to get away with committing federal crimes, and who might be targeted for politically motivated prosecutions in an authoritarian administration. Trump has repeatedly promised “[retribution](https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/382696/donald-trump-wins-2024-election-results-democracy)” against his Democratic rivals. And his fellow Republicans on the Supreme Court ruled last July that he can order the Justice Department to [bring politically motivated prosecutions without consequence](https://www.vox.com/scotus/366855/supreme-court-trump-immunity-betrayal-worst-decisions-anticanon). In the first Trump administration, Trump reportedly wanted to [order the Justice Department to prosecute](https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18105462/trump-clinton-comey-order-justice) his former political opponent Hillary Clinton and former FBI director James Comey, but was dissuaded from doing so by White House Counsel Don McGahn. Gaetz’s strong support for Trump, by contrast, makes it seem he’s much less likely to resist such an order. Gaetz has a law degree, and he [did previously practice law in northwest Florida](https://gaetz.house.gov/about). He’s been a representative since 2017, and became known both for stunts on the House floor — like wearing a [gas mask](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/gaetz-coronavirus-gas-mask/index.html) to protest masking policies during the coronavirus pandemic — as well as his [staunch support for Trump](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/23/20929023/house-republicans-impeachment-stunt-trump). The allegations arose out of his relationship with Joel Greenberg, a former county-level tax collector who was [sentenced to 11 years in prison](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/01/politics/joel-greenberg-sentencing/index.html) by a federal judge in 2022. Greenberg pled guilty to a wide range of crimes, including underage sex trafficking, wire fraud, identity theft, and conspiring to defraud the federal government. Judge Gregory Presnell, who sentenced Greenberg, said that he’s “never seen a defendant who has committed so many different types of crimes in such a relatively short period.” According to CNN, Greenberg also “cooperated extensively with the Justice Department’s [sex-trafficking probe into GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/01/politics/joel-greenberg-sentencing/index.html).” Among other things, Greenberg reportedly told investigators that he [witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4751778-matt-gaetz-joel-greenberg-sex-trafficking-florida/). (Gaetz in 2021 issued a blanket denial of the allegations via a statement from his office, writing: “No part of the allegations against me are true.”) As a general rule, sex offenses such as soliciting prostitution are handled by state-level prosecutors, as the Constitution only gives the federal government [limited authority over sex crimes](https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3801442224983217117&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr). The US Justice Department can get involved, however, in narrow circumstances. The Justice Department’s investigation into Gaetz looked into [whether he had sex with this teenager and paid for her to travel with him](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/30/us/politics/matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation.html). It is a [federal crime](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2423#g) to transport someone across state lines, with the intent that they engage in prostitution or “illicit sexual conduct.” The most serious violations of this statute carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. In any event, the Justice Department [eventually decided not to charge Gaetz](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/doj-decides-not-charge-rep-matt-gaetz-sex-trafficking-investigation-rcna70839). Its reasons for declining to do so have not been made public, but the lack of charges does not necessarily clear him of the allegations. Meanwhile, a [House ethics investigation into Gaetz remains ongoing](https://abcnews.go.com/US/witness-tells-house-ethics-committee-matt-gaetz-paid/story?id=111217102). According to ABC News, one woman told the House committee investigating Gaetz that [the member of Congress paid her for sex](https://abcnews.go.com/US/witness-tells-house-ethics-committee-matt-gaetz-paid/story?id=111217102). Others have said they were paid to attend parties that Gaetz also attended, where attendees used drugs and had sex. Again, Gaetz has denied any misconduct. As of yet, it’s unclear whether a majority of senators will vote to confirm Gaetz as attorney general. But there’s some evidence that many Republicans will be turned off by the sex crimes allegations against Gaetz, and by his generally poor reputation on Capitol Hill. In 2023, for example, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said that “[there’s a reason why no one in the \[Republican\] conference defended](https://x.com/mkraju/status/1709765049051381761)” Gaetz after seeing some of the evidence against him. As [New York Times columnist Ezra Klein writes](https://x.com/ezraklein/status/1856798502484910130), Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz should be read as an effort to gauge whether Republican senators will permit him to take absurd and dangerous actions. “These aren’t just appointments,” Klein writes of Gaetz and Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, “They’re loyalty tests. The absurdity is the point.” You’ve read 1 article in the last month Here at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you — threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country. Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change. We rely on readers like you — join us.  Swati Sharma Vox Editor-in-Chief See More: * [Criminal Justice](https://www.vox.com/criminal-justice) * [Donald Trump](https://www.vox.com/donald-trump) * [Policy](https://www.vox.com/policy) * [Politics](https://www.vox.com/politics)

Matt Gaetz, who savaged the Justice Department and the F.B.I. as Donald J. Trump’s off-leash political guard dog, faces an uphill fight to becoming attorney general. But his selection has already achieved one desired effect: intimidating an already-frazzled federal law enforcement work force. During his campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to exact revenge against officials who prosecuted him. That threat is particularly acute for the F.B.I., which has been in his cross hairs since it opened an investigation into his campaign’s connection to Russia in 2016. Mr. Gaetz, a former Florida Republican congressman who was the focus of a federal investigation into sex-trafficking allegations, has positioned himself as the right guy for that job, an avenger who will tear down and rebuild a Justice Department that twice indicted Mr. Trump, with the close cooperation of the bureau’s agents. “People trusted the F.B.I. more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place than when you are,” Mr. Gaetz told Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, [during a testy oversight hearing in 2023](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/12/us/politics/christopher-wray-fbi-house-judiciary-committee.html), invoking the name of its imperious and secretive founding director. “And the reason is because you don’t give straight answers.” Whatever the outcome of his nomination, the fact that he was selected at all was intended to send an unmistakable message to the nonpolitical career officials who form the backbone of federal law enforcement: Get in line or get out — and maybe get a lawyer. All of this has sent a wave of uncertainty throughout Justice Department and F.B.I. headquarters, perhaps unlike anything experienced by the federal law enforcement establishment since Mr. Trump [fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, in 2017](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html). Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F14%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Fgaetz-attorney-general-justice-department-fbi.html).

 During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump made more than [100 threats](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/21/nx-s1-5134924/trump-election-2024-kamala-harris-elizabeth-cheney-threat-civil-liberties) to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived enemies, including political opponents and private citizens. Now, many of his targets are bracing for the possibility that the president-elect will enact an agenda of "retribution," as Trump put it. "It would be naive and foolish for anyone not to take this seriously," said Mark Zaid, an attorney who represents several people threatened by Trump. "We have to prepare as much as we can for what might be coming." Zaid has represented many current and former government officials who work in national security — people Trump often describes as members of the "deep state" out to subvert his agenda. Zaid also represented a [whistleblower](https://www.npr.org/2019/10/06/767675638/second-whistleblower-with-direct-knowledge-of-ukraine-call-steps-forward-lawyer-), who raised concerns about Trump's interactions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelynsky in 2019. That whistleblower's disclosure helped lead to Trump's first impeachment, and enraged the former — and future — president. When Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Zaid said, he knew he needed to connect with his clients. "A lot of it is to get folks ready. Secure lawyers, CPAs, securing finances, things like that," Zaid said. "Even being out of the country in the most extreme of circumstances." People have more options to fight politically-motivated charges if they are abroad, Zaid said. So in a few cases, he has encouraged his clients to take an overseas vacation around the inauguration. Zaid said he recognizes that leaving the country in the face of Trump's incoming administration might sound extreme. And he's hopeful that these steps won't be necessary. "It's sort of like we know the hurricane is approaching on Saturday," Zaid said. "So we're gonna make sure we have enough food and water to be able to ride out the storm. We just don't know, unfortunately, how long that storm's gonna be." And even if the Trump administration doesn't resort to criminal investigations of their enemies, Zaid said he's concerned about the possibility of politically-motivated IRS audits and firings of government employees. He's not the only one worried about Trump's threats. Multiple sources declined to comment for this story, because they are concerned that speaking out now would make them a target. Trump's announcement that he would nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida as Attorney General has only deepened those concerns. Gaetz is widely seen as a pro-MAGA hardliner and Trump loyalist. He actively supported Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and previously [called](https://web.archive.org/web/20180418153843/https:/desantis.house.gov/_cache/files/8/0/8002ca75-52fc-4995-b87e-43584da268db/472EBC7D8F55C0F9E830D37CF96376A2.final-criminal-referral.pdf) for criminal investigations of Trump critics, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey. On social media, he has said he would "abolish" agencies like the FBI, which he would oversee as Attorney General. Gaetz's nomination "seems to reflect an intent to make good on the retribution threat," said Mary McCord, a former federal prosecutor who served for nearly 25 years at the Department of Justice. Still, McCord said she believes most career officials at the Justice Department will resist efforts to pursue purely political charges. "He can direct his Department of Justice to open prosecutions, and if they are baseless, I do think there would be career prosecutors who say: 'this is baseless," said McCord, who is now executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law. "There may be a few opportunists who want to use the moment to make a name for themselves and perhaps, move up within the department, perhaps even get a political appointment, hitch their wagon to Donald Trump. But I don't think that's the vast majority." Regardless, even the threat of prosecution can have a chilling effect. And investigations, let alone prosecutions, can cause enormous stress and cost their targets hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Trump's office did not respond to NPR's request for comment on this story and questions about whether the administration plans to prosecute political opponents. Trump repeatedly pledged to appoint a "special prosecutor" to investigate President Joe Biden and Biden's family on his first day in office. At other times, he has said "my revenge will be success." Some of the president-elect's allies, have loudly pushed for prosecutions. Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump's first presidential campaign and served as his chief strategist in the White House, has called for prosecutions of Special Counsel Jack Smith, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, among others. "You deserve what we call a rough Roman justice, and we're prepared to give it to you," Bannon said on a livestream on election night. Mike Davis, a right-wing attorney close to the Trump team who previously clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, threatened New York Attorney General Letitia James. James brought a civil suit against Trump alleging widespread business fraud. "I dare you to try to continue your lawfare against President Trump and his second term," Davis said on a podcast. "Because listen here, sweetheart, we're not messing around this time and we will put your fat ass in prison for conspiracy against rights. I promise you that." The New York Attorney General's office did not respond to a message seeking comment. As for Trump himself, just days after the presidential election, he posted online about rumors that he might be considering selling shares in his social media company, Truth Social. "I hereby request that the people who have set off these fake rumors or statements, and who may have done so in the past, be immediately investigated by the appropriate authorities," he [wrote](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113447949058695478).

[Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) is keeping his controversial adviser Kash Patel in the running to be the next FBI director, according to two people familiar with the matter, as the transition team conducted interviews for the role on Monday night at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club. The existence of the interviews, made public in a since-deleted post by the vice president-elect [JD Vance](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/jd-vance), underscored the intent to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray, years before his current term is up. [ Trump’s cabinet and White House picks – so far ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/trump-cabinet-picks-administration-appointees) Vance revealed that he and Trump had been interviewing finalists for [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) director in a post responding to criticism he received for missing a Senate vote last night that confirmed one of Joe Biden’s nominees for the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit. “When this 11th circuit vote happened, I was meeting President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI director,” Vance wrote. Trump has a special interest in the FBI, having fired James Comey as director in 2017 over his refusal to close the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and then complaining about perceived disloyalty from Wray. Patel’s continued position as a top candidate for the role makes clear Trump’s determination to install loyalists in key national security and law enforcement positions, as well as the support Patel has built up among key Trump allies. The push for Patel – who has frequently railed against the “deep state” – has come from some of the longest-serving Trump advisers, notably those close to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, a faction that got Trump’s personal lawyers picked for top justice department roles. That faction has also suggested to Trump in recent days that if Patel gets passed over for the director role, he should be given the deputy FBI director position, one of the people said – a powerful job that helps run the bureau day to day and is crucially not subject to Senate confirmation. Patel has made inroads with Trump by repeatedly demonstrating his loyalty over several years and articulating plans to restructure the FBI, including by dismantling the firewall between the White House and the bureau. During the criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents, for instance, Patel refused to testify against Trump before a federal grand jury in Washington and asserted his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. Patel [ultimately testified only after he was forced to](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/02/trump-advisor-kash-patel-immunity-mar-a-lago-documents), when the then chief US district judge Beryl Howell allowed the justice department to confer limited immunity from prosecution to him to overcome his fifth amendment claim. But Patel also has multiple detractors among other Trump advisers who came from the presidential campaign and carry outsize influence. That group is said to prefer former House intelligence committee chair Mike Rogers, who left Congress in 2015. Rogers is generally seen as a more establishment pick who has experience dealing with intelligence agencies, one of his allies said. But Trump has also suggested to advisers he is less interested in Rogers than Patel, the person said. Still, Trump has increasingly paid little attention to whether a nominee is likely to be confirmed by the Senate, evidenced by his move to pick Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary despite both being dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct. Patel rose to notoriety in 2018 when he served as an aide to Devin Nunes, who was the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, and became involved in attempts by the White House to discredit the Russia investigation. He then went to work for the [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) in 2019 on the national security council, before becoming chief of staff to the defense secretary in the final months of the presidency. In 2020, when Trump weighed firing the then CIA director Gina Haspel, he floated Patel as a potential replacement. Patel was also briefly considered to become the deputy FBI director in the waning months of the presidency but was talked out of the appointment.

NEW YORK -- As she anticipates [her estranged uncle's return to the White House,](https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump) Mary Trump isn't expecting any future book to catch on like such first-term tell-alls as Michael Wolff's million-selling [“Fire and Fury”](https://apnews.com/article/f1c9519a24394a209d99e49d4856d887) or her own blockbuster, [“Too Much and Never Enough.”](https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-mary-trump-donald-trump-john-bolton-politics-535b1e4c2a6c2190df59f6f606efbd94) “What else is there to learn?” she says. “And for people who don't know, the books have been written. It's all really out in the open now.” For publishers, Donald Trump's presidential years were a time of extraordinary sales in political books, helped in part by Trump's legal threats and angered tweets. According to Circana, which tracks around 85% of the hardcover and paperback market, the genre's sales nearly doubled from 2015 to 2020, from around 5 million copies to around 10 million. Besides books by Wolff and Trump, other bestsellers included former FBI Director James Comey's [“A Higher Loyalty,”](https://apnews.com/article/3e123c8153d6497c9e07ec77bdd24171) former national security adviser [John Bolton's “The Room Where it Happened”](https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-courts-john-bolton-politics-entertainment-474bb8964c890e552540ecaecddf207d) and Bob Woodward's “Fear.” Meanwhile, sales for dystopian fiction also jumped, led by Margaret Atwood's “A Handmaid's Tale,” which was adapted into [an award-winning Hulu series.](https://apnews.com/television-3d5c99a7c1e5495a914be570122bc23c) But interest has dropped back to 2015 levels since Trump left office, according to Circana, and publishers doubt it will again peak so highly. Readers not only showed little interest in books by or about President Joe Biden and his family — they even seemed less excited about Trump-related releases. Mary Trump's “Who Could Ever Love You” and [Woodward's “War”](https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-biden-putin-war-ukraine-russia-zelenskyy-ce9c59f689d3f438264a64b2bfa0aa39) were both popular this fall, but neither has matched the sales of their books written during the first Trump administration. “We’ve been there many times, with all those books,” HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham says of the various Trump tell-alls. He added that he still sees a market for at least some Trump books — perhaps analyzing the recent election — because “there's a general, serious smart audience, not politically aligned in a hard way,” one that would welcome “an intelligent voice.” “It’s like the reboot of any hit TV show,” says Eric Nelson, publisher and vice president of Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins that's released books by Jared Kushner, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Trump Cabinet nominees Pete Hegseth and Sen. Marco Rubio. “You’re not hoping for ratings like last time, just better ratings than the boring show it’s replacing.” In the days following Trump's victory, “The Handmaid's Tale” and George Orwell's “1984” [returned to bestseller lists,](https://apnews.com/article/book-sales-trump-handmaids-tale-1984-82b5841b52c8c88eec2795a668d6268d) along with more contemporary works such as Timothy Snyder's “On Tyranny," a 2017 bestseller that expanded upon a Facebook post Snyder wrote soon after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. Books appealing to pro-Trump readers also surged, including those written by Cabinet picks — [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s “The Real Anthony Fauci”](https://apnews.com/article/how-rfk-jr-built-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-4997be1bcf591fe8b7f1f90d16c9321e) and [Hegseth's “The War on Warriors”](https://apnews.com/article/who-is-pete-hegseth-trump-defense-secretary-2e2bdd16c8e90f5d037f763cfadbde94) — and Vice President-elect [J.D. Vance's “Hillbilly Elegy,”](https://apnews.com/article/jd-vance-hillbilly-elegy-trump-vp-candidate-1aab89b90ce7e8534556716930b23a1c) his 2016 memoir that's sold hundreds of thousands of copies since Trump selected him as his running mate. [First lady Melania Trump's memoir,](https://apnews.com/article/melania-trump-president-election-book-memoir-ba562374884a9d4494c658ca248fd32b) “Melania,” came out in October and has been high on Amazon.com bestseller lists for weeks, even as critics found it contained little newsworthy information. According to Circana, it has sold more than 200,000 copies, a figure that does not include books sold directly through her website. “The Melania book has done extraordinarily well, better than we thought,” says Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt. “After Election Day, we sold everything we had of it.” Conservative books have sold steadily over the years, and several publishers — most recently Hachette Book Group — have imprints dedicated to those readers. Publishers expect at least some critical books to reach bestseller lists — if only because of the tradition of the publishing market favoring the party out of power. But the nature of what those books would look like is uncertain. Perhaps a onetime insider will have a falling out with Trump and write a memoir, like Bolton or former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, or maybe some of his planned initiatives, whether mass deportation or the prosecution of his political foes, will lead to investigative works. A new “Fire and Fury” is doubtful, with the originally only possible because Wolff enjoyed extraordinary access, spending months around Trump and his White House staff. Members of the president-elect's current team have already issued a statement saying they have refused to speak with Wolff, calling the author a “known peddler of fake news who routinely concocts situations, conversations, and conclusions that never happened.” A publicist for Wolff said he was declining comment. Woodward, who interviewed Trump at length for the [2020 bestseller “Rage,”](https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-mary-trump-donald-trump-us-news-bob-woodward-5f9a2adab1fd328745a5755ff4ea2468) told The Associated Press that he had written so much about Trump and other presidents that he wasn't sure what he'd take on next. He doesn't rule out another Trump book, but that will depend in part on the president-elect, how “out of control he gets,” Woodward said, and how far he is able to go. “He wants to be the imperial president, where he gets to decide everything and no one's going to get in his way,” Woodward said. “He's run into some brick walls in the past and there may be more brick walls. I don't know what will happen. I'll be watching and doing some reporting, but I'm still undecided.” \_\_\_ 1\. “Too Much and Never Enough,” by Mary Trump: 1,248,212 copies 2\. “Fire and Fury,” by Michael Wolff: 936,116 copies 3\. “Fear,” by Bob Woodward: 872,014 copies 4\. “The Room Where It Happened,” by John Bolton: 676,010 copies 5\. “Rage,” by Bob Woodward: 549,685 copies These figures represent total sales provided by Circana, which tracks about 85% of the print market and does not include e-book or audiobook sales.

Donald Trump has tapped Kashyap “Kash” Patel to be FBI director, nominating a [loyalist and “deep state” critic](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/trump-kash-patel-fbi-director) to lead the federal law enforcement agency that the president-elect has long slammed as corrupt. Patel, 44, has worked as [a federal prosecutor and a public defender](https://www.defense.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/2418491/kashyap-p-patel/) but rose to prominence in Trump circles after expressing outrage over the agency’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. He has called for the FBI leadership to be fired as part of a drive to bring federal law enforcement “to heel.” If confirmed, Patel would replace Christopher Wray, the [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) director who was appointed by Trump in 2017 after the then-president fired James Comey over the FBI’s Russia collusion probe. Comey later testified to Congress there was no evidence of any collusion but the FBI had a “basis for investigating” the matter. Patel had ties to former Republican representative Devin Nunes, who led opposition to the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Muller while serving as chair of the House intelligence committee. In making his nomination for FBI director, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that Patel “is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People.” [ Trump cabinet picks shaped by new power centers in his orbit ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/29/trump-administration-influence-cabinet) “Kash will work under our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to bring back Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity to the FBI,” Trump added. Trump noted Patel’s service as chief of staff at the department of defense, deputy director of national intelligence, and senior director for counter-terrorism at the national security council during his first term. Patel, he said, “played a pivotal role in uncovering the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, standing as an advocate for truth, accountability, and the Constitution.” “This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border”, he said. If confirmed by the senate – Gina Haspel, CIA director during Trump’s first term, reportedly threatened to resign in 2020 when Trump sought to install Patel as her deputy – Patel will likely prove a loyal agent of Trump’s desire to reform what the president-elect considers Washington’s bureaucratic overreach. Patel told the Conservative Political Action Conference in July it was necessary to “identify the people in government that are crippling our constitutional republic”. Trump has called Patel’s 2023 book “Government Gangsters”, in which he argued for firing of government employees who undermine the president’s agenda, a “blueprint to take back the White House”. The reforms Patel outlined in the book “to defeat the deep state” include moving the FBI headquarters from Washington to “curb FBI leadership from engaging in political gamesmanship” and to reduce the general counsel’s office, which he claimed had taken on “prosecutorial decision-making”.

 President-elect Donald Trump intends to install Kash Patel, a close ally and former national security aide who has berated the Justice Department and the news media, to replace Christopher Wray as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump wrote in a post on social media Saturday that Patel is a "brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People." Patel came to national attention as a congressional aide investigating the feds who were probing Russian interference in the 2016 election, before he pivoted into roles in Trump's National Security Council and Pentagon. He's a regular on right-wing podcasts, where he has issued threats to prosecute political adversaries. Patel also pledged to shutter the FBI headquarters "on day one" and to disperse employees there across the country. "We're absolutely dead serious," Patel told podcaster Steve Bannon after the November election. Patel, 44, is a former Justice Department prosecutor turned fierce critic of that agency. He wrote a book promising to hollow out the DOJ and the FBI by cleaning house and sweeping out their senior ranks. Patel also said he wants to declassify reams of government secrets, and to wrest security clearances away from people who investigated Trump. The FBI director serves a 10-year term in office, across multiple presidential administrations, in an effort to shield the bureau from partisan political pressure. The job requires Senate confirmation. In response to the announcement, the FBI issued a statement: "Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. Director Wray's focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for." Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after firing predecessor Jim Comey. Wray has signaled he wants to serve out the remainder of his term. But his relationship with Trump has been a tense one. Near the end of the first Trump administration, then-President Trump attempted to put Patel in a senior role at the Central Intelligence Agency, but senior leaders at the CIA and the Justice Department blocked the move.

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked a former aide, Kash Patel, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency Patel has often criticised. A former US defence department chief of staff in the first Trump administration, Patel has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president. For Patel to take the job, the current FBI director Christopher Wray would need to resign or be fired - although Trump did not call on him to do so in his post. Separately, Trump said he plans to nominate Chad Chronister, sheriff of Florida's Hillsborough County, as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Patel and Chronister join Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi in filling out Trump's law enforcement picks. Also on Saturday, Trump [announced he had has selected Charles Kushner](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qdq9z7pjzo) to be ambassador to France. Mr Kushner is a real-estate developer and the father of Jared Kushner, husband of his daughter Ivanka Trump. The nomination appears to be the first administration position that Trump has formally offered to a relative since his re-election. All three choices will have to be confirmed by a majority vote in the US Senate. Patel is Trump loyalist who shares the president-elect's suspicion of government institutions. "Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending justice, and protecting the American people," Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, adding that Patel was "an advocate for truth, accountability, and the constitution". His past proposals have included “dramatically” limiting the FBI’s authority. In his memoir, Government Gangsters, Patel called for an eradication of what he called "government tyranny" within the FBI by firing "the top ranks”. Patel would replace current FBI director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed in 2017 for a 10-year term. But Wray fell out of favour with the president elect when the FBI assisted with a federal probe into Trump's handling of classified records, [a case that has since been dropped](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gvd7kxxj5o). In a statement following Trump's announcement, the FBI said: "Every day, the men and women of the FBI continue to work to protect Americans from a growing array of threats. "Director Wray's focus remains on the men and women of the FBI, the people we do the work with, and the people we do the work for." The son of Indian immigrants, Patel is a former defence lawyer and federal prosecutor who caught Trump’s eye after he became a senior counsel to the House of Representatives intelligence committee in 2017. He was hired by Trump as a national security aide in 2019 and a year later was appointed chief of staff to the head of the Pentagon. As well as his 2023 memoir, he has published two pro-Trump children’s books. One of the titles, The Plot Against the King, features a villain, Hillary Queenton, trying to depose King Donald, who is aided by a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer. Another villain is called Keeper Komey - a thinly-veiled reference to former FBI Director James Comey - and his “spying slugs”, according to the book’s blurb. Patel has often railed against the so-called “deep state”, which some Americans believe is an unelected bureaucratic machine that secretly runs the country for sinister purposes. Patel has also excoriated the media, which he has called “the most powerful enemy the United States has ever seen”. He is also on the board of Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns the incoming president’s social media platform Truth Social. Patel reportedly has had a consulting contract with the company that paid him at least $120,000 a year. Getty Images Chad Chronister and his wife Nikki DeBartolo pictured during a trip to New York City in 2020 Chronister also comes with a long background in law enforcement. He has worked in law enforcement in Florida for 32 years, according to his official bio, and he has served as the top law enforcement officer in Hillsborough County, Florida, since 2017. On social media, Trump praised Chronister's experience and reiterated his focus on drugs and the US border. "As DEA Administrator, Chad will work with our great Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to secure the border, stop the flow of fentanyl, and other illegal drugs, across the southern border, and SAVE LIVES", Trump wrote. Writing on social media, Chronister said it was "the honor of a lifetime to be nominated" by Trump. "I am deeply humbled by this opportunity to serve our nation."

Critics of President-elect Donald Trump’s [nominee to lead the FBI](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c30p5qlj970o) have expressed doubts that he is qualified to lead the US government’s principal law enforcement agency. Some also raised fears that Kash Patel, a marginal figure in Trump's first administration known for his loyalty, aims to dismantle an apolitical federal security service and refashion it into a means of partisan retribution. "Look, 99.9% of the bureau is made up of hard working agents who adhere to the principles of fidelity, bravery and integrity," Jeff Lanza, a former FBI agent, said. "But he's said that he's coming in to just decimate the agency. How is that going to go well and how will that play into the morale of the agents who have to work under him?" The FBI director leads 37,000 employees across 55 US field offices. They also oversee 350 satellite offices and more than 60 other foreign locations expected to cover almost 200 countries. Former FBI and Department of Justice officials who spoke to BBC said the job is difficult, and it would be nearly impossible for someone like Patel, who has limited management experience, to operate effectively. Gregory Brower, a former FBI assistant director and deputy general counsel who worked closely with the past two directors, called the job "nonstop". "It's relentless. It's high stakes. It requires expert judgment, stamina, experience, and a strong ethical and moral compass," he told the BBC. When he announced his pick for FBI director, Trump called Patel "a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and 'America First' fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People". Patel began his career as a federal public defender in Miami before working as a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice between 2014 and 2017. He then spent two years as senior aide to Republicans who led the House Intelligence Committee, reportedly fighting the investigation of Trump and Russian collusion in the 2016 election. When Democrats took control of the House in 2019, he was hired as a staffer on Trump’s National Security Council. In February 2020, he became principal deputy in the Office of Director of National Intelligence - then led by acting director Richard Grenell. By November of that year, he had moved to the Pentagon to serve as chief ofstaff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller - a position he held until Trump left office two months later. “Kash Patel has served in key national security positions throughout the government. He is beyond qualified to lead the FBI and will make a fantastic Director," Alex Pfeiffer, a Trump transition spokesman, told the BBC. Those critical of Patel cite past FBI directors, many of whom worked their way up through the justice department or FBI for decades, as a better measure of the qualifications needed to lead the agency. "It's certainly not like the backgrounds that we've seen other directors of the FBI and those who have overseen other similarly sized and important federal agencies bring to their jobs," Brower said of Patel's experience. Some pointed to former US Attorney General Bill Barr’s recollection in his 2022 memoir of Trump's attempt to place Patel in a senior FBI position in his first term to stress the point further. “I categorically opposed making Patel deputy FBI director. I told Mark Meadows it would happen ‘over my dead body,'” he wrote. “Someone with no background as an agent would never be able to command the respect necessary to run the day-to-day operations of the bureau.” Since leaving office, Patel has promised in interviews that, if Trump returns to office, he and others will use the government to go after political opponents - including politicians and members of the media who he alleges without evidence helped overturn the 2020 US presidential election results. "We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections," Patel told Steve Bannon, a White House chief strategist in Trump's first term, on the War Room podcast. "We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. We'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting you all on notice… We're actually going to use the Constitution to prosecute them for crimes they said we have always been guilty of but never have." Trump said during his reelection campaign that he considers Patel’s book - titled Government Gangsters - to be a “blueprint” for his next administration. In the memoir, which criticises the so-called deep state, Patel calls for "comprehensive housecleaning" of the FBI by firing “the top ranks”. On a recent podcast, he said the incoming Trump administration intends to retain about 50 members of the FBI’s Washington staff, and the remaining workforce would be put into the field. They would, in essence, "close that building down", he said, referring to FBI headquarters. “Open it up the next day as the museum to the deep state,” he added. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. Mr Grenell and other former Trump administration officials who worked with Patel have praised his nomination and characterised him as a hardworking public servant. “I have no doubt that Kash Patel will inspire our line FBI agents who want to fight crime, destroy the cartels, capture spies, and jail mobsters, thugs, fraudsters and traffickers,” Robert O’Brien, Trump’s last national security adviser, said on X. Few, however, mentioned current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was appointed by Trump after the then-president fired the agency’s last leader - James Comey - or that he still has three years remaining on his term. Ultimately, it remains up to the Senate who will vote on whether Patel's nomination will be confirmed. While most senators have remained relatively quiet about Patel and a few Republicans have praised the pick, there is some apparent scepticism. Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, seemed to raise some doubt that he would receive the necessary votes. “I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term,” Rounds told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “We’ll see what his (Trump’s) process is, and whether he actually makes that nomination,” Rounds commented about Patel. “We still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent, which, for the Senate, means advice or consent sometimes.” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat who will soon hand his gavel to Republicans, stressed that Trump knows Wray’s term has not yet expired and called for his colleagues to block Patel's confirmation. “Now, the President-elect wants to replace his own appointee with an unqualified loyalist,” Durbin said in a statement. “The Senate should reject this unprecedented effort to weaponize the FBI for the campaign of retribution that Donald Trump has promised.” North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of US politics in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

A Department of Justice (DoJ) investigation aimed at finding leakers during Donald Trump’s first presidency resulted in invasive searches of congressional staffers’ phone and email records, often without specific cause or the prior approval of the attorney general, a report published on Tuesday has found. In findings that may trigger concerns of how Trump’s incoming administration will behave, the department’s inspector general [concluded](https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/25-010.pdf) that DoJ lawyers overreached their authority in their inquiries aimed at discovering who was leaking classified information in 2017, in the early phases of the president-elect’s first stint in the White House. The phone records of two Congress members and 43 staffers – including 21 Democrats and 20 Republicans, along with two holding non-partisan roles – were sought in an aggressive effort to find the source of leaks following the firing of James Comey, the former FBI director, who was ousted by Trump. Although Michael Horowitz’s 96-page report did not identify those whose records had been searched, [CNN reported](https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/10/politics/justice-department-spying-congress-patel-trump-ig-report/index.html) that they included Kash Patel, whom Trump has nominated to be the next FBI director. Patel was a staff member of the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee at the time of the DoJ leak inquiry. Others included the then House member, and recently elected Democratic senator, Adam Schiff – branded as an “enemy within” by Trump in his successful recent presidential election campaign – and Eric Swalwell, another Democratic representative. DoJ prosecutors also sought the records of journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN as part of the investigation. The subpoenaing of reporters’ records during the first Trump administration has been [previously reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/us/trump-administration-phone-records-times-reporters.html) and was described as “simply, simply wrong” by Joe Biden in 2021, leading to the DoJ announcing it would no longer seek a legal process to find out journalists’ sources. Since his first presidency, Trump has [pledged to jail reporters](https://www.npr.org/2024/10/22/nx-s1-5161480/trump-media-threats-abc-cbs-60-minutes-journalists) who do not divulge their sources on stories he considers to have national security implications – a threat now carrying greater weight with his imminent return to the White House. Horowitz said many of the congressional records had been obtained without just cause and, as such, put Congress’s constitutional oversight function of the executive branch at risk. “\[D\]ozens of congressional staffers became part of the subject pool in a federal criminal investigation for doing nothing more than performing constitutionally authorized oversight of the executive branch,” he wrote. “We believe that using compulsory process to obtain such records when based solely on the close proximity in time between access to the classified information and subsequent publication of the information – which was the case with most of the process issued for non-content communications records of congressional staff in the investigations we examined – risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch.” The report said DoJ prosecutors did not take into account important constitutional principles governing the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The subpoenas requested records of whom staff had spoken to and for how long, rather than the content of their conversations. However, even such limited requests amounted to an encroachment on Congress’s constitutional powers, the report suggested. It stated: “Even non-content communications records – such as those predominantly sought here – can reveal the fact of sensitive communications of members of Congress and staffers, including with executive branch whistleblowers and with interest groups engaging in First Amendment activity.” Criticism of the department for over-zealousness during Trump’s first administration seems ironic given his insistent claims that it was weaponised against him after he left office to press criminal charges that he has dismissed as a political witch-hunt and which he has demanded be purged. It may also foreshadow developments in his forthcoming presidency after he nominated a staunch loyalist, Pam Bondi, as attorney general, after his original pick, Matt Gaetz, stepped aside amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to bring the DoJ under direct White House control, in contrast with the quasi-independent status it has held since the Watergate era. He has also spoken of using it to pursue his political opponents and enemies.

Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, told bureau employees today that he would [resign before Donald Trump took office in January](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12/11/us/trump-news). In his address, Wray said he believed the move was “the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray.” Wray still had more than two years left of his 10-year term, a length that Congress established in part to distance the bureau from partisan politics. But Trump announced last month that he planned to replace Wray, whom he said he was “very unhappy with,” with a longtime loyalist, Kash Patel. Trump greeted Wray’s announcement by declaring it “a great day for America.” Wray, whom Trump appointed in 2017 after he fired James Comey, oversaw one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods in the agency’s history. His bureau juggled high-profile investigations of political figures, including Trump and President Biden, along with mass shootings, cyberattacks and threats from geopolitical rivals like China, Iran and Russia. His apparent successor could not be more different. Patel, a former federal prosecutor and public defender, [is a fierce critic of the F.B.I. and has vowed to fire its leadership](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/politics/kash-patel-fbi.html) and root out the president-elect’s perceived enemies in what he calls the “deep state.” The scene of the killing of Brian Thompson in Manhattan.Credit...Karsten Moran for The New York Times Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F12%2F11%2Fbriefing%2Ffbi-director-step-down-search-dissapeared-syria.html).

The director of the [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi), Christopher Wray, announced he was stepping down on Wednesday, after [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) said he would fire him and install the firebrand loyalist Kash Patel in his place. Wray, who the president-elect himself appointed as director during his first presidency after firing Wray’s predecessor James Comey in 2017, announced his decision to staff at the bureau’s Washington headquarters. “I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” he said. “This is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.” In the emotional remarks, Wray added: “This is not easy for me. I love this place, I love our mission and I love our people.” Wray also took an implied swipe at anyone who might try and unduly influence the [FBI](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/fbi) in its work in the future – as many fear Trump will do in his second term. “We’re not on any one side. We’re on the American people’s side – the constitution’s side. And no matter what’s happening out there, in here we’ve got to stay committed to doing our work the right way every time – with rigor and integrity,” Wray said. “That means following the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it, or doesn’t – because there’s always someone who doesn’t like it. It means conducting investigations without fear or favor.” The news was greeted with elation by Trump, who called it “a great day for America” and said Wray’s departure would end what he has characterised as the “weaponisation” of the US justice system. Trump used a post on his Truth Social network to celebrate Wray’s demise while elaborating on his grievances against a public official he had once extolled. “It will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice,” Trump wrote. “I just don’t know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans.” He added that, under Wray’s leadership, “the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, and worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me”. “They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.” Wray’s decision means he will depart more than two and a half years before the end of the 10-year term that directors of the bureau are customarily appointed to. By leaving early, Wray may reduce the chances of his name being dragged into what are likely to be highly contentious Senate confirmation hearings surrounding the nomination of Patel. Patel has branded the FBI as part of a “deep state” and pledged to shut its Washington headquarters, dispersing its agents across the US. The attorney general, Merrick Garland, issued a statement, praising Wray’s service. “Under Director Wray’s principled leadership, the FBI has worked to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission to keep our country safe, protect civil rights, and uphold the rule of law,” Garland said. “He has led the FBI’s efforts to aggressively confront the broad range of threats facing our country – from nation-state adversaries and foreign and domestic terrorism to violent crime, cybercrime, and financial crime.” Garland also used the moment to restate what he sees as the FBI’s mission at a moment when there are widespread fears of how Patel and Trump may seek to use the bureau. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/11/fbi-director-christopher-wray-resign#EmailSignup-skip-link-18) Sign up to The Stakes — Presidential Transition We will guide you through the aftermath of the US election and the transition to a Trump presidency **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion “The Director of the FBI is responsible for protecting the independence of the FBI from inappropriate influence in its criminal investigations. That independence is central to preserving the rule of law and to protecting the freedoms we as Americans hold dear,” he said. Wray originally fell foul of Trump and his supporters after declining to investigate the then president’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election – won by Joe Biden – had been stolen and riddled with voter fraud. He further earned Trump’s ire after, as previously mentioned by Trump himself in an aforementioned post, FBI agents raided his home in Mar-a-Lago in 2022 to retrieve classified documents that he had retained from his time in the White House. Trump claimed that FBI agents had been “locked and loaded” and ready to kill him, even though the raid had been agreed upon with his lawyers in advance and there was time to ensure he would not be present. The president-elect made his displeasure with Wray plain in an interview with NBC last weekend. “He invaded Mar-a-Lago. I’m very unhappy with the things he has done,” Trump said. It was a far cry from his words of praise at the time of Wray’s appointment, calling him “a man of impeccable credentials”. Trump was also unhappy that the bureau would not confirm that he had been shot in the ear with a bullet after a failed assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, last July. Agents cited the need to examine fragments as part of its investigation before saying what had caused Trump’s wound. Wray’s tenure also coincided with FBI investigations into Biden after he, too, was alleged to have improperly kept classified documents at his home in Delaware, as well as into his son Hunter who was subsequently convicted of gun and tax evasion charges. Biden granted his son an unconditional pardon last weekend days before he was due to be sentenced.

 FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday announced he would resign from the bureau at the end of the Biden administration next month, with more than two years remaining on his term in office. "My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you're doing on behalf of the American people every day," he told employees at an FBI town hall, according to an excerpt the FBI shared with reporters. "In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work." President-elect Donald Trump in a [post on Truth Social](https://trumpstruth.org/statuses/28578) called Wray's resignation "a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice." The FBI director reports to the Department of Justice. "I just don't know what happened to him." Trump had already said he [would nominate Kash Patel](https://www.npr.org/2024/11/30/g-s1-34479/trump-kash-patel-fbi-director), a close ally and former national security aide, to replace Wray. "We want our FBI back, and that will now happen," Trump said in the post, referring to his pick of Patel. The president-elect made the FBI a frequent target during his first term in the White House. He nominated Wray to head the FBI, which Wray has led since 2017. But Trump's relationship with Wray grew tense as FBI agents helped investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, and then worked with a special counsel to prosecute Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort and attempting to cling to power in 2020. Trump most recently criticized Wray during his first sit-down broadcast interview since being elected to a second term in the White House. He pointed in particular to the FBI's work searching Mar-a-Lago and not doing enough to address crime, [when asked](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-interview-meet-press-kristen-welker-election-president-rcna182857) on NBC's _Meet the Press With Kristen Welker_ about whether he'd fire Wray when he gets into office. But Trump also appeared to be personally offended by something Wray said earlier this summer: speaking at a congressional hearing after the first assassination attempt against Trump, Wray initially speculated on whether Trump's bloodied ear was the result of a bullet or shrapnel. The FBI [later confirmed](https://www.npr.org/2024/07/27/nx-s1-5053981/fbi-trump-bullet-assassination) it was a bullet. "Where's the shrapnel coming from? Is it coming from — is it coming from heaven? I don't think so," Trump said in the NBC interview. "So we need somebody to straighten — you know, I have a lot of respect for the FBI, but the FBI's respect has gone way down over the last number of years." ### Trump hired Wray after firing Comey It's the second time an FBI leader has left in connection to the Trump administration before the director's 10-year-term had expired. In 2017, Trump's Justice Department leaders dismissed James Comey and Trump replaced him with Wray, a longtime conservative and member of the Federalist Society. After Trump's election to a second term in the White House, Wray had initially signaled he intended to remain on the job. "The director is continuing to oversee the day to day operations of the FBI and is actively planning with his team to lead the FBI into next year and beyond," an FBI official said in November after the election. The FBI employs more than 35,000 people who work to investigate federal crimes, prevent terrorist attacks and analyze intelligence materials. Its leader is the only political appointee at the FBI. Congress tried to insulate the agency from political winds by giving the FBI director 10 years in office, to extend beyond the tenure of any one president. The FBI Agents Association, which advocates for the more than 14,000 FBI special agents, called for a meeting with Trump's team about its priorities. "Our country faces a barrage of national security and criminal threats, making a stable transition of leadership in the Bureau essential to the safety of the American public," Natalie Bara, president of the association, said in a statement. "It is important that the next director uphold the central role of the rank-and-file Special Agents in fulfilling this mission." Some of Trump's conservative advisers have suggested trying to overhaul the FBI to make its director accountable to more junior officials inside the Justice Department with more political control. The FBI's headquarters building continues to bear the name of J. Edgar Hoover, its longest-serving leader, whose tenure is now remembered for overreach and personal vendettas. He ended up leading the FBI for 48 years, which [helped prompt](https://www.npr.org/2024/12/03/nx-s1-5213626/what-trumps-pick-of-kash-patel-to-lead-the-fbi-could-mean-for-the-bureau) the 10-year limit on tenures for FBI directors.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray has said he will resign before President-elect Donald Trump, who has indicated he would fire him, takes office next month. Wray announced at an internal FBI meeting on Wednesday that he had decided to step aside after weeks of consideration. Trump has already nominated Kash Patel, who has called for "dramatically" limiting the FBI's authority, to lead the law-enforcement agency. Wray, whom Trump nominated in 2017 to a 10-year term, has faced criticism during his tenure from Republicans due to the FBI's investigations into the former president after he left office. Speaking at the FBI meeting on Wednesday, Wray said: "I've decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down." "In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work," Wray added. He received a standing ovation after his remarks, with some in the audience crying, an unnamed official told the Associated Press. Trump appointed Wray to lead the FBI after [firing his predecessor James Comey](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39866170) following the FBI's investigations into [alleged contacts between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38966846). When appointing him, Trump said Wray - a Yale Law School graduate - was a man of "impeccable credentials". But in recent years, Wray has fallen out of favour with the president-elect after the FBI assisted with a federal probe into Trump's handling of classified documents, [a case that has since been dropped](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gvd7kxxj5o). Trump said Wray's resignation was "a great day for America". "It will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice," he said on Truth Social. "We will now restore the rule of law for all Americans." Following his election to a second term, Trump said his pick for FBI director would be Patel - a former aide who has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president. On Wednesday, Patel said he was "looking forward to a smooth transition and I'll be ready to go on day one". "Senators have been wonderful and I look forward to earning their trust and confidence through the advice and consent process, and restoring law and order and integrity to the FBI," he said. Patel requires approval by the Senate before he can be appointed. In the meantime, FBI deputy director Paul Abbate, a veteran FBI agent, will run the bureau after Wray's departure, the BBC's US partner CBS News reported. Patel has been a fierce critic of the FBI. In his memoir, Government Gangsters, Patel called for an eradication of "government tyranny" within the FBI by firing "the top ranks". Patel's critics have expressed doubts that he is qualified to lead one of the world's top law enforcement agencies. However, some Republican lawmakers have welcomed his nomination. "Reform is badly needed at FBI," Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa wrote on X following news of Wray's resignation, adding that the American people deserve transparency and accountability. Wray has strongly denied he allowed a Democratic partisan agenda to run amok as FBI director, telling lawmakers a year ago at a House of Representatives hearing that he had been a lifelong Republican. "The idea that I am biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background," he said. US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat, reacted to Wray's resignation by thanking him for his service and saying that the FBI "will soon embark on a perilous new era with serious questions about its future." Wray was also praised by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who said in a statement that he had "served our country honourably and with integrity for decades, including for seven years as Director of the FBI under presidents of both parties." The FBIAA, the association representing the bureau's agents, said that Wray led them "through challenging times with a steady focus on doing the work that keeps our country safe." FBI directors are appointed for 10-year terms - a length chosen to outlast political turnovers in the White House every four years, and therefore the appearance of bias. Wray's term was not due to expire until 2027. Trump would not have been able to appoint Patel, his pick, without firing Wray or him resigning voluntarily.