Trump’s WashingtonHow President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.Good evening. It’s Jess here. Tonight, my colleague Michael Schmidt, an investigative reporter, explains how a problem he encountered while reporting this week reveals something important about the second Trump era. We’ll begin with the headlines.
REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
When silence speaks volumesThis week, my colleague Eileen Sullivan and I reported that the Secret Service took the extraordinary step in May of surveilling the former F.B.I. director James Comey, a day after he posted a photo that President Trump’s allies claimed contained an assassination threat. The story raised questions about whether Comey was tailed not because he was a legitimate threat but as part of a retribution campaign Trump has promised to wage against those he sees as his enemies. To nail down the story, we had to do one of the most challenging tasks we face as reporters: pry loose details from the inside of a federal investigation. But there was also something unexpectedly difficult about that story, compared with similar stories I’ve reported over 20 years at The New York Times. Some of the people we’ve previously called on to provide outside expertise refused to speak with us this time. Tonight, I’m going to take you behind the scenes of our reporting, and explain why the speed bump we hit may be a sign of something more significant. A chill in WashingtonWhen we write a story like this, we reach out to experts who can put what we are writing about in context. Drawing on their work experience or academic expertise, they can help us — and our readers — understand whether and why an incident we are covering is unusual, or which laws might apply to it. These individuals are often more than willing to share what they know. Being publicly identified as an expert can bolster someone’s professional standing. But in this case, people we had quoted previously about important matters related to Trump, refused to speak with me about Comey. This appeared to be the latest development in what my colleague Elisabeth Bumiller described in March as “a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond.” It reflects a growing reluctance to speak publicly that my colleagues and I have noticed this year from voters, federal employees and many others. It’s not the kind of thing that would usually make headlines because, after all, we’re talking about people not talking. But it’s worth remarking upon as we watch the culture in Washington change before our eyes. An escalating campaign of retributionI’ve spent much of the past eight and a half years covering Trump’s retribution campaigns. During his first term, he tried, both privately and publicly, to pressure the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and the I.R.S. to investigate his enemies. He sometimes succeeded. In Trump’s second term, those efforts have been more sophisticated and more wide-ranging. He has pulled security details from or opened investigations into former officials he does not like, while turning the powers of the federal government against institutions that were once seen as above the fray, like universities and law firms. The administration’s attacks on Harvard University and the law firm Paul, Weiss have sent a lasting message to professors and lawyers wanting to criticize the administration: Your school could be stripped of critical federal funding or your firm could be hit with a potentially crippling executive order that would make it really difficult to represent your clients. On top of that, Trump’s supporters have trolled and, at times, harassed or even swatted those who have opposed the president. The reluctance that we’ve seen suggests that even people not yet within the administration’s direct sightlines are becoming worried about speaking freely. New fearsOne of my first calls was to a well-respected former federal prosecutor who works at a large law firm and has been quoted about matters related to Trump before. I hoped he would be able to tell me whether or not it was unusual for the Secret Service to deploy invasive surveillance tactics on someone like Comey. He told me that he was interested in commenting for our article. But shortly thereafter, he called to say that his firm did not want him to be quoted on the sensitive topic of Comey. Speaking to me later on the condition of anonymity, he said that it was not worth the potential hassle to his law firm for him to opine on something related to Trump. The climate now, he said, is very different from what it was during Trump’s first term, or when Trump was out of office and facing four indictments. The next legal expert I consulted ultimately refused to be quoted, too. Finally, I reached Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, who argued that the surveillance of Comey was deeply unusual. Today, she told me that she thought it was worth saying so. “As a former U.S. attorney, I feel a duty to speak out about violations of D.O.J. norms. As a professor, I have the freedom to speak candidly in a way that perhaps lawyers in law firms or private companies cannot,” McQuade said. It can be hard to show the tangible effects of a vengeful government, particularly because concerns about retribution often spur people not to do something they normally would. But the quiet in Washington is noticeable, and meaningful. Silence, particularly around something fairly innocuous like explaining the law, reflects a level of fear that feels new. This is not something that I saw during the first Trump administration, when much of the country seemed to be lining up to take on Trump or opine about what he was doing. In a small way, the entire experience showed how things have changed.
FROM THE BENCH ‘I’m not buying that’It’s Jess again. My colleague Minho Kim has spent a lot of time in federal court this week, where he’s watched Judge Paula Xinis grow increasingly frustrated with the government’s handling of the case of a Maryland man who was wrongly deported this year. Minho sent us this dispatch about the judge, who is losing her patience. “Insufficient and incredible.” “Defies the reality.” “Conveniently omit the fact.” These were among the phrases that Judge Xinis used on Friday to describe the Trump administration’s arguments in a case involving the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. The judge expressed deep mistrust of the administration, which had claimed for weeks that it was powerless to bring Abrego Garcia back from a notorious prison in El Salvador, only to transport him back to the United States last month to face criminal charges. A judge in Tennessee ruled that Abrego Garcia should be released from criminal custody until trial. The administration suggested that if he were indeed released, it would move to detain and deport him again. This week, I attended three days of hearings in Greenbelt, Md., where Xinis sought to understand the Trump administration’s exact plans for Abrego Garcia. But the Justice Department’s lawyers called a witness who claimed not to know the answers to the judge’s questions. And both the lawyers and the witness insisted that any decision on deportation would be made by a case officer with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, not by administration officials like Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary. “I’m not buying that,” Xinis said. “That insults my intelligence.” It was a remarkable clash between a judge and administration lawyers who have repeatedly failed to answer her questions. “You violated the law, undisputedly,” Xinis said. Abrego Garcia’s release could come as soon as Wednesday, when a separate hearing in his criminal case will be held in Nashville. Xinis has signaled that she will issue an order protecting him from being hastily deported again. Got a tip? THE MOMENT
Making himself at homeMy colleague Haiyun Jiang, a Times photographer, is used to getting called in to ornate rooms for just a few minutes, before journalists are ushered out. But that’s often enough time for her to capture something revealing. On Monday night, she entered the Blue Room in the White House, where President Trump was sitting down for dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and some of their aides. Haiyun was struck by Netanyahu’s evident ease in the space, as he answered reporters’ questions with his hand on the back of an aide’s chair. “It indicated how comfortable he was at the White House and around Trump,” Haiyun said. The president also trained his focus on Netanyahu, she noticed. Body language in these moments can speak volumes. In contrast to Netanyahu, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who faced a barrage of questions this week over a recent pause in delivery of some weapons to Ukraine, was a more diminutive presence. “Hegseth was very quiet the whole time during the photo op,” Haiyun said, “and a lot of times looked down.” Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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