THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALSATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2020 Y A
The 45th President
WASHINGTON — Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, amplifying ques-
tions about President Trump’s fit-
ness for office less than a month
before the election, introduced
legislation on Friday that would
create a standing bipartisan
group of outside experts tasked
with evaluating the president’s
mental and physical health and
advising Congress on whether the
commander in chief’s powers
should be forcibly removed under
the 25th Amendment.
The measure is certain to die at
the end of the year, given that it
would need a presidential signa-
ture to be enacted. But Demo-
crats’ decision to promote it now
— after the president’s coronavi-
rus diagnosis and as Ms. Pelosi
has suggested that his treatment
might be affecting his judgment —
was an unmistakable dig at the sit-
ting president’s capacity to gov-
ern, just weeks before voters go to
the polls.
“A president’s fitness for office
must be determined by science
and facts,” Ms. Pelosi said at a
news conference on Capitol Hill,
where she insisted that the bill, a
version of which was introduced
before Mr. Trump was hospital-
ized with the virus, had nothing to
do with him. “This legislation ap-
plies to future presidents, but we
are reminded of the necessity of
action by the health of the current
president.”
The measure, sponsored by
Representative Jamie Raskin,
Democrat of Maryland, would cre-
ate a bipartisan commission of
health experts, doctors and for-
mer senior executive branch offi-
cials, such as a former president,
selected by top congressional
leaders, to report to Congress on
the president’s competence.
Mr. Trump has raged against
the idea, calling Ms. Pelosi “Crazy
Nancy” and accusing her of stag-
ing a coup, and on Friday sug-
gested that Democrats had pro-
posed the measure because they
were concerned not about his
competence, but about that of for-
mer Vice President Joseph R. Bi-
den Jr., his Democratic rival.
“Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking
at the 25th Amendment in order toreplace Joe Biden with Kamala
Harris,” Mr. Trump tweeted.
Republicans blasted the legisla-
tion as an attempt to overturn the
results of the 2016 election.
“Right here in this last three
weeks before the election, I think
those kinds of wild comments
should be largely discounted,”
Senator Mitch McConnell, the ma-
jority leader, told reporters in his
home state of Kentucky.
Congress has never invoked the
25th Amendment to assemble a
group like the one being proposed.
The amendment was ratified in
1967, in the wake of President
John F. Kennedy’s assassination,
to prepare the country for an im-
mediate transfer of power be-
cause of an emergency or illness.
It directs the vice president to
work with a commission to deter-
mine whether the president is
“unable to discharge the powers
and duties of his office,” and could
forcibly transfer those powers to
the vice president until the presi-
dent recovered.
Mr. Raskin argued on Friday
that the saliency of convening
such a commission had been un-derscored by the pandemic, and
said that he wished Congress had
set up the panel when the amend-
ment was first ratified, adding,
“there is never really a good time
to do it because it’s always just
seen in its local circumstance.”
“In the age of Covid-19, whichhas killed more than 210,
Americans and now ravaged the
White House staff, the wisdom of
the 25th Amendment is clear,” Mr.
Raskin said. “What happens if a
president — any president — ends
up in a coma, or on a ventilator,
and has made no provisions forthe temporary transfer of
power?”
The focus around the measure
comes as Mr. Trump continues to
refuse to answer basic questions
about his illness. Mr. Trump re-
turned to the White House on
Monday evening after being hos-
pitalized at Walter Reed National
Military Medical Center, where he
received two experimental drug
treatments and was briefly put on
supplemental oxygen.
Ms. Pelosi wondered aloud on a
private conference call with
House Democrats this week
whether the steroids Mr. Trump
was taking had an impact on his
thinking, according to people on
the call who spoke on the condi-
tion of anonymity to describe it.
He was to receive a televised
medical “evaluation” Friday
evening on Tucker Carlson’s pro-
gram on Fox News, conducted by
a doctor who suggested in 2016,
without evidence and without
conducting a personal exam, that
Hillary Clinton might be suffering
from the lingering effects of a con-
cussion that could compromise
her fitness to serve.New House Bill Focuses on Creating Group to Advise on Invoking 25th Amendment
By CATIE EDMONDSON“A president’s fitness for office must be determined by science
and facts,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a news conference.ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESnations reflected a president
grasping for a way to make up a
double-digit polling deficit against
Mr. Biden with 25 days left before
the election on Nov. 3. Mr. Biden’s
lead has remained stable for
months and, if anything, ex-
panded in recent days, despite ev-
ery effort by the president to shift
the momentum of the race.
He lost one of the few obvious
opportunities to transform the dy-
namics of the campaign on Friday
when the Commission on Presi-
dential Debates formally canceled
Thursday’s second showdown be-
tween Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden
after the president refused to par-
ticipate remotely.
Battered by an October sur-
prise that Mr. Trump did not antic-
ipate — his hospitalization from a
virus that he had played down
even as it has killed 213,000 people
in the United States — the presi-
dent appeared intent on Friday on
creating an October surprise
more to his liking, in this case tar-
ring Democrats by using the in-
struments of government power
at his disposal.
He publicly badgered Mr. Barr
this week to indict Democrats con-
nected to the original investiga-
tion into Russian interference in
the 2016 election and any ties to
Mr. Trump’s campaign, naming
specifically Mr. Biden and former
President Barack Obama. But Mr.
Barr has told Republicans and
others that he planned no major
moves in his re-examination of the
Russia investigation before Elec-
tion Day.
Three government officials
briefed on the investigation said
that they had been told that it was
unlikely that John H. Durham, the
prosecutor tapped by Barr to lead
the inquiry, would produce indict-
ments or any other developments
that could impact the trajectory of
the election before Nov. 3.
“If that’s the case, I’m very dis-
appointed,” Mr. Trump said dur-
ing a two-hour phone conversa-
tion with the radio host Rush Lim-
baugh on Friday. “I think it’s a ter-
rible thing, and I’ll say it to his
face.”
Mr. Trump has been consumed
for months with the hope that the
Durham investigation would pro-
vide him evidence that the Russia
inquiry was an effort to smear
him. He has told advisers he
hoped for indictments of top for-
mer Obama administration na-
tional security officials or even
Mr. Obama or Mr. Biden them-
selves. Short of that, he hoped for
a report with the imprimatur of
the Justice Department detailing
their actions in 2016, according to
people briefed on the conversa-
tions.
Beyond his public comments,
the president has also conveyed to
Mr. Barr, directly and through sur-
rogates, that he wanted “scalps,”
according to two government offi-
cials familiar with the conversa-
tions.
The Justice Department de-
clined to comment on the presi-
dent’s remarks.
While Mr. Barr defied the presi-
dent’s desire for pre-election ac-
tion, Mr. Pompeo bowed to Mr.
Trump’s wishes a day after he
publicly chastised the secretary of
state for not cooperating. Mr.
Pompeo told Fox News that he
would release at least some of
Mrs. Clinton’s emails from when
she was secretary of state and us-
ing a private server.
“We’ve got the emails,” Mr.
Pompeo said. “We’re getting them
out. We’re going to get all this in-
formation out so the American
people can see it.”
He made no effort to suggest
that releasing them was uncon-
nected to the political campaign.
“We’re doing it as fast as we can,”
he added. “I certainly think
there’ll be more to see before the
election.”
Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr.
Pompeo explained why they
would release the emails now, in
the final weeks of a hotly con-
tested presidential campaign, giv-
en that they could have done so atany point in the past four years.
Nor did they explain why they
would seek to prove that Mrs.
Clinton was too casual with emails
containing classified information
by releasing emails containing
classified information.
But Mr. Pompeo said he did not
expect Mr. Trump to declassify
any documents that might include
sensitive information that would
be damaging to American inter-
ests once it is made public. “We’ll
get the information out that needs
to get out,” Mr. Pompeo said.
“We’ll do it in a way that protects
the intelligence sources that we
need to protect.”
While Mr. Pompeo made a
name for himself as a Republican
congressman from Kansas excori-
ating Mrs. Clinton over the email
issue, the State Department un-
der his leadership concluded just
last year that while she had risked
compromising classified informa-
tion, she did not systematically or
deliberately mishandle it.
The F.B.I. declined to recom-
mend charges against Mrs. Clin-
ton in 2016 but made its decision
public, contributing to the political
liability for her. It ultimately cost
her in the final days of the cam-
paign when the investigation was
briefly reopened after the discov-
ery of emails on the laptop of an
aide’s estranged husband and
then quickly closed again when nofurther evidence of wrongdoing
was found.
Despite defeating Mrs. Clinton
four years ago, Mr. Trump and his
conservative allies have contin-
ued to obsess about her emails.
Leading the charge has been the
conservative group Judicial
Watch, which has sued repeatedly
to force the State Department to
hand over emails from Mrs. Clin-
ton’s server, including ones she
exchanged with Mr. Obama.
Although Mr. Trump heads the
executive branch and has long
said he wants the emails dis-
closed, the government has re-
fused to hand over the emails to
Judicial Watch, arguing that they
contain classified or privileged
materials. This has angered many
of Mr. Trump’s allies, particularly
commentators on Fox News.
The head of Judicial Watch,
Tom Fitton, has lobbied Mr.
Trump directly in the Oval Office
to push the State Department to
disclose more of Mrs. Clinton’s
emails in a timely fashion.
“The Trump State Department
has been more obstructionist than
the State Department under the
Obama administration,” Mr. Fit-
ton said in a telephone interview.
“The president seems to be upset
that the State Department and
Department of Justice are still de-
fending Clinton’s misconduct.”
Mr. Pompeo has been amongthe most outwardly loyal of the
president’s top advisers. He has
openly campaigned for Mr.
Trump, including during an offi-
cial diplomatic visit to Jerusalem,
from where he addressed the Re-
publican National Convention.
Critics said Mr. Trump had al-
ways made clear that he thinks
that the Justice Department was
supposed to serve his political
needs.
“Attorney General Barr has, at
times, presented himself as a will-
ing participant to that politiciza-
tion,” said Carrie Cordero, general
counsel at the Center for a New
American Security and a former
national security lawyer at the
Justice Department. “He got to
this place because the president
expects his subordinates to bend
completely to his desires.”
Hyperconscious of news re-
ports that his health was not as
good as his aides had said earlier
in the week and eager to get back
to campaigning, Mr. Trump has
been eating a steady media diet of
comfort food in recent days, mak-
ing the most of soft interviews
with some of his most supportive
media personalities. The inter-
views have also served as a way
for the president to capture the at-
tention of supporters while he was
otherwise sidelined.
After two telephone interviews
with Fox networks on Thursday,he appeared on Friday for two
hours on the radio show hosted by
Rush Limbaugh, a conservative
whom Mr. Trump presented with
the Presidential Medal of Free-
dom this year.
The event was billed as a virtual
rally, replete with Mr. Trump’s
typical walkout song, “God Bless
the U.S.A.,” and Mr. Limbaugh
tried to create the kind of adula-
tion that the rallies give the presi-
dent.
“We love you!” Mr. Limbaugh
said.
Mr. Trump conceded that he
was not in “great shape” when he
fell ill with the coronavirus. Then
he said something that contra-
dicted an earlier claim that he
thought he would have gotten bet-
ter even without medicine: After
he was treated with a cocktail of
medicine, including an experi-
mental antibody cocktail
produced by Regeneron, “I recov-
ered immediately, almost immedi-
ately,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “I
might not have recovered at all
from Covid” without the drugs.
He acknowledged “lingering”
effects of the virus impacting his
voice, although he held steady for
the two hours — even being cut off
by Mr. Limbaugh at the end as the
president continued talking.
The White House was planning
to placate Mr. Trump’s desire for
an event as soon as possible in
person by spinning off one al-
ready being held elsewhere in
Washington on Saturday by Can-
dace Owens, a Black supporter of
the president who has urged
Black voters to leave the Demo-
cratic Party.
Mr. Trump is to greet the sup-
porters from one of the White
House balconies, far from his au-
dience, people close to the plan-
ning said. All attendees were to be
required to wear masks on the
complex as well as submit to a
temperature check and fill out a
questionnaire.
But several Trump aides pri-
vately expressed concern about
the message that the event will
send and what Mr. Trump might
end up saying to the crowd.
In a meeting after the Republi-
can National Convention, where
the president staged his accept-
ance speech on the South Lawn in
front of supporters — many of
whom had not been tested — the
president joked about the agita-
tion he had caused among his crit-
ics about how he may have vio-
lated the Hatch Act, which pro-
hibits federal employees from en-
gaging in political activities while
on the job, by using the White
House grounds for political pur-
poses. He said he thought he
would do it more.
He pitched the idea of staging
events and concerts on the South
Lawn every week up through
Election Day. He appeared to be
half kidding, but half intrigued by
the idea, aides said.From Page APresident Pressures Pompeo and Barr to Deliver a Jolt to the Campaign
With his health issues bogging down the campaign, President Trump is seeking political help from his cabinet to stir things up.ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESAnnie Karni and Nicholas Fandos
contributed reporting.
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