fires prosecutor after president backlash grows · 2020-06-21  · prosecutor, geoffrey s. berman,...

TULSA, Okla. — PresidentTrump’s attempt to revive his re-election campaign sputteredbadly on Saturday night as hetraveled to Tulsa for his first massrally in months and found a farsmaller crowd than his aides hadpromised him, then delivered adisjointed speech that did not ad-dress the multiple crises facingthe nation or scandals batteringhim in Washington.

The weakness of Mr. Trump’sdrawing power and political skills,in a state that voted for him over-whelmingly and in a format thathe favors, raised new questionsabout his electoral prospects for asecond term at a time when hispoll numbers were already falling.And rather than speak to the widecross-section of Americans whosay they are concerned about po-lice violence and systemic racism,he continued to use racist lan-guage, describing the coronavirusas “Kung Flu.”

While the president’s campaignhad claimed that more than a mil-lion people had sought tickets forthe rally, the 19,000-seat BOK Cen-ter was at least one-third emptyduring the rally. A second, outdoorvenue was so sparsely attendedthat he and Vice President MikePence both canceled appearancesthere.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesmanfor the Trump campaign, falselyblamed the small numbers on“radical protesters” and the newsmedia who he said frightenedaway supporters. But there werefew protests in the area, a strongsecurity presence and no oneblocking entrances.

Mr. Trump was furious aboutthe unused outdoor stage and thecomparatively thin crowd in thestadium, according to two peoplefamiliar with his reaction. Newsbroadcasts carried video of thepartially-empty stadium, andeven the Drudge Report, a reli-ably conservative website, car-ried an all-caps headline that said“MAGA LESS MEGA” with a pic-ture of rows and rows of emptyblue seats.

The disappointing turnoutcame as Mr. Trump already foundhimself under siege about his sud-den firing of the U.S. attorney inManhattan and his losing legalbattle over the release of a mem-oir full of damaging revelations by

Trump’s PlanFor a Big RallySputters Badly

This article is by Michael D.Shear, Maggie Haberman andAstead W. Herndon.

Continued on Page 22

President Trump held a rally, his favored way of talking to his base, in an arena that never filled on Saturday night in Tulsa, Okla.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

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Images by black photographers reflecton America and identity at this extraor-dinary moment. PAGE 8

ARTS & LEISURE

Self-Portraits in These Times

Some restaurants in Eastern Europeoffer customers disposable gloves to eatburgers. The coronavirus may bring theidea a wider following. PAGE 12

INTERNATIONAL 12-14

Cheese? Onion? Gloves?

The Trump administration is beingaccused of favoring Serbia over Kosovoin pushing for a peace deal. PAGE 14

U.S. Roils Allies Over Balkans

Pagan Kennedy PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

The killing of George Floyd shows howfar the country has to go to change lawenforcement. Five experts and organ-izers come together to discuss solutions.

THE MAGAZINE

How to Remake Policing

Of all the schemes that have si-phoned resources from LatinAmerican countries fighting thecoronavirus, the body bag con-spiracy might be the most brazen.

Last month, prosecutors in Ec-uador announced they had identi-fied a criminal ring that had col-luded with health officials to win acontract selling body bags to hos-pitals at 13 times the real price.

Then one of the men implicated,Daniel Salcedo, fled Ecuador in a

small plane that crashed in Peru.Mr. Salcedo is now recovering inthe custody of the Ecuador police.

Even as Latin America hasemerged as an epicenter of thepandemic, with deaths and infec-tions soaring, efforts to containthe crisis have been underminedby a litany of corruption scandals.

Dozens of public officials and lo-cal entrepreneurs stand accusedof exploiting the crisis for person-al enrichment by peddling influ-ence to gouge hospitals and gov-ernments for medical supplies in-cluding masks, sanitizer and ven-tilators. Some of the gear was so

flawed that it was rendered use-less — and may have contributedto even more sickness and death.

“People are dying in the streetsbecause the hospital system col-lapsed,” said Diana Salazar, Ecua-dor’s attorney general. “To profitfrom the pain of others, with allthese people who are losing theirloved ones, it’s immoral.”

Fraud inquiries have reachedthe highest levels of government.The former Bolivian health min-ister is under house arrest await-ing trial on corruption charges af-

Latin America Also Confronts a Graft EpidemicBy NATALIE KITROEFF

and MITRA TAJ

Continued on Page 10

WILLIAMS, Ala. — In early2017, a pastor in the Alabamacountryside named Chris Thomasprepared to give his Sunday ser-mon. President Trump had beeninaugurated the week before, andthe new administration was al-ready making headlines with atravel ban that included refugeesfrom Syria.

Mr. Thomas knew of no one inhis congregation who had evermet a Syrian refugee. Still, the bandeeply bothered him. So did theprospect of speaking against itfrom the pulpit, which he pre-ferred to keep clean of politics.

And so that morning at FirstBaptist Church of Williams, a rela-tively liberal church with a mostlywhite congregation, he carried

with him a sermon on the Beati-tudes, eight blessings for theneedy Jesus is said to have givento his followers on a hillside in Gal-ilee.

“Blessed are those who mourn,for they will be comforted,” wentone.

“Blessed are the meek, for theywill inherit the earth,” went an-other.

To these, the pastor added averse of his own: “Blessed arethose who seek refuge and havethe door shut on their face.”

What Mr. Thomas, a 35-year-oldpreacher with cropped sandy hairand a trimmed beard, didn’t knowwas the degree to which Mr.Trump’s election had already po-larized his small church. Nor didhe know how the Trump presiden-cy would continue to fracture thecongregation for the next threeyears — a rift that would widenand threaten his own stewardshipof Williams Church as the culturewars spilled into its pews in wayshe could not control.

A few days after the sermon onthe Beatitudes, a group of congre-gants wanted to talk.

“They more-or-less said, ‘Thoseare nice, but we don’t have to liveby them,’ ” Mr. Thomas recallschurch members saying about theverses, a cornerstone of Christian

Culture Wars Reach the Pews, and Empty ThemBy NICHOLAS CASEY

Chris Thomas, right, upset some members of First Baptist Church of Williams with his sermons.CALLA KESSLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Divisions of Trump EraChallenge a Pastor

in Alabama

Continued on Page 26

The Last of Us Part II, the long-awaitedvideo game sequel set in a tribal, pan-demic-ravaged world, takes violence toan uncomfortable new level. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Playtime in a World UndoneThis American holiday is a reminderthat engaging in freedom is an every-day practice, even as the fight for racialjustice and equality continues. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

Juneteenth Now

On a chilly afternoon in April,Los Angeles police found an old,disoriented man crumpled on aKoreatown sidewalk.

Several days earlier, RCKendrick, an 88-year-old with de-mentia, was living at LakeviewTerrace, a nursing home with ahistory of regulatory problems.His family had placed him there tomake sure he got round-the-clockcare after his condition deterio-rated and he began disappearingfor days at a time.

But on April 6, the nursinghome deposited Mr. Kendrick atan unregulated boardinghouse —without bothering to inform hisfamily. Less than 24 hours later,Mr. Kendrick was wandering thecity alone.

According to three Lakeviewemployees, Mr. Kendrick’s oustercame as the nursing home wastelling staff members to try toclear out less-profitable residentsto make room for a new class ofcustomers who would generatemore revenue: patients withCovid-19.

More than any other institutionin America, nursing homes havecome to symbolize the deadly de-struction of the coronavirus crisis.More than 51,000 residents andemployees of nursing homes andlong-term care facilities havedied, representing more than 40

As Crisis Swirls,Nursing Homes‘Dump’ Patients

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERGand AMY JULIA HARRIS

Continued on Page 8

New York City’s ambitious con-tact-tracing program, a crucial ini-tiative in the effort to curb the co-ronavirus, has gotten off to a wor-risome start just as the city’s re-opening enters a new phase onMonday, with outdoor dining, in-store shopping and office work re-suming.

The city has hired 3,000 diseasedetectives and case monitors, whoare supposed to identify anyonewho has come into contact withthe hundreds of people who arestill testing positive for the virusin the city every day. But the firststatistics from the program, whichbegan on June 1, indicate that trac-ers are often unable to locate in-fected people or gather informa-tion from them.

Only 35 percent of the 5,347 cityresidents who tested positive orwere presumed positive forCovid-19 in the program’s first twoweeks gave information aboutclose contacts to tracers, the citysaid in releasing the first statis-tics.

Contact tracing is one of the fewtools that public health officialshave to fight Covid-19 in lieu of avaccine, along with widespreadtesting and isolation of those ex-posed to the coronavirus. Theearly results of New York’s pro-gram raise fresh concerns aboutthe difficulties in preventing asurge of new cases as states

New York EffortTo Trace the IllFalters Early On

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Continued on Page 6

The International Thespian Festival,nirvana for theater kids, goes on — butwith screens instead of sets. PAGE 4

Thespians on Tape, at LeastFury over the killing of Breonna Taylorhas changed the contest to determineSenator Mitch McConnell’s rival. PAGE 15

NATIONAL 15-29

A Tight Race in Kentucky

President Trump on Saturdayfired the federal prosecutor whoseoffice put his former personal law-yer in prison and is investigatinghis current one, heightening criti-cism that the president was carry-ing out an extraordinary purge torid his administration of officialswhose independence could be athreat to his re-election campaign.

Mr. Trump’s dismissal of theprosecutor, Geoffrey S. Berman,the United States attorney inManhattan, whose office has pur-sued one case after another thathave rankled Mr. Trump, led to po-litical blowback and an unexpect-ed result: By the end of the day,Mr. Berman’s handpicked deputy,not the administration’s favoredreplacement, was chosen to suc-ceed him for now.

The abrupt ouster of Mr.Berman came as Mr. Trumpsought to reinvigorate his cam-paign with its first public rally inmonths and days after new allega-tions by his former national secu-rity adviser that he had engagedin “obstruction of justice as a wayof life.”

It was the latest move in abroader purge of administrationofficials that has intensified in themonths since the Republican-ledSenate acquitted Mr. Trump at animpeachment trial.

Since the beginning of the year,the president has fired or forcedout inspectors general with inde-pendent oversight over executivebranch agencies and other key fig-ures from the trial.

Mr. Berman, who has been in of-fice since 2018, had declined toleave his post after Attorney Gen-eral William P. Barr announcedlate on Friday night that Mr.

Berman would be replaced by JayClayton, the chairman of the Secu-rities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Clayton is friendly with Mr.Trump and had golfed with thepresident at his club in Bedmin-ster, N.J., as recently as last week-end, according to two people fa-miliar with the matter.

But on Saturday, facing a stand-off with Mr. Berman, Mr. Barrshifted course. In a letter releasedby the Justice Department, Mr.Barr told Mr. Berman that Mr.Trump had fired him and that hewould be replaced temporarilywith the prosecutor’s own chiefdeputy, Audrey Strauss.

The choice of Ms. Strauss ap-peared to mollify Mr. Berman,who then issued a statement say-ing he would step down in light ofthe reversal.

In the statement, Mr. Bermansaid that under Ms. Strauss, theSouthern District of New York, asthe prosecutors’ office in Manhat-tan is formally known, “will con-

BACKLASH GROWSAFTER PRESIDENTFIRES PROSECUTOR

U.S. Attorney Who Pursued Trump AlliesHad Refused a Request to Resign

This article is by Alan Feuer, KatieBenner, Ben Protess, Maggie Ha-berman, William K. Rashbaum,Nicole Hong and Benjamin Weiser.

Geoffrey S. Berman arriving athis Manhattan office Saturday.

HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 24

The New York-bred horse, ridden byManny Franco, prevailed in front ofempty grandstands. PAGE 32

SPORTSSUNDAY 32-35

Tiz the Law Wins Belmont

Bubba Wallace, the only black driver inNASCAR’s top racing series, hasbecome an unlikely activist. PAGE 34

On Track for Change

Popular national parks are expected toattract crowds, but for any outdooractivity there is a lesser-traveled, andstill awe-inspiring site for you. PAGE 5

AT HOME

Grand Canyon Alternatives

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,731 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2020

Today, rather cloudy, humid, after-noon showers or thunderstorms,high 82. Tonight, clear, humid, low70. Tomorrow, humid, some clouds,high 86. Weather map is on Page 28.

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