Transcript
Page 1: Lied, Ex-Official Testifies White House Knew Flynn · For the past year, and longer, the European Union has been poli-tically radioactive, deemed un-touchable by most mainstream candidates

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A three-story mural showing a work-man chipping away at one of the 12stars of the European Union flag ap-peared in Dover, England. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Banksy on ‘Brexit’

New York City’s Correction Departmentplaced its head of internal affairs onmodified duty in response to spyingaccusations. PAGE A18

NEW YORK A18-20

Rikers Investigator RemovedThe right-leaning media company hasagreed to pay $3.9 billion for TribuneMedia, raising concerns about thepitfalls of consolidation. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-8

Sinclair to Add 42 TV Stations

WASHINGTON — Less than aweek into the Trump administra-tion, Sally Q. Yates, the acting at-torney general, hurried to theWhite House with an urgent con-cern. The president’s national se-curity adviser, she said, had lied tothe vice president about his Rus-sian contacts and was vulnerableto blackmail by Moscow.

“We wanted to tell the WhiteHouse as quickly as possible,” Ms.Yates told a Senate Judiciary sub-committee on Monday. “To statethe obvious: You don’t want yournational security adviser compro-mised with the Russians.”

But President Trump did notimmediately fire the adviser, Mi-chael T. Flynn, over the apparentlie or the susceptibility to black-mail. Instead, Mr. Flynn remainedin office for 18 more days. Only af-ter the news of his false state-ments broke publicly did he losehis job on Feb. 13.

Ms. Yates’s testimony, alongwith a separate revelation Mon-day that President Barack Obamahad warned Mr. Trump not to hireMr. Flynn, offered a more com-plete public account of Mr. Flynn’sstunning fall from one of the na-tion’s most important securityposts.

It also raised fresh doubts aboutMr. Trump’s judgment in keepingMr. Flynn in place despite seriousJustice Department concerns.White House officials have notfully explained why they waitedso long.

“I don’t have any way of know-ing what, if anything, they did,”

Ms. Yates said. “If nothing wasdone, then certainly that would beconcerning.”

At the heart of Monday’s testi-mony were Mr. Flynn’s conversa-tions with the Russian ambassa-dor to the United States, Sergey I.Kislyak. Mr. Flynn denied thatthey had discussed Americansanctions, an assertion echoed byVice President Mike Pence andthe White House press secretary,Sean Spicer. But senior F.B.I. andJustice Department officialsknew otherwise. Mr. Kislyak, likemany foreign diplomats, was un-der routine surveillance, and hisconversations with Mr. Flynnwere recorded, officials have said.Investigators knew that Mr. Flynnhad, in fact, discussed sanctions.

Much of what Ms. Yates saidwas previously known, but hertestimony offered a dramatic first-hand account of a quickly unfold-ing scandal at the highest level ofgovernment.

On Jan. 26, Ms. Yates said, shecalled the White House counsel,Donald F. McGahn II, regarding “avery sensitive matter” that theycould discuss only in person. Lat-er that day, at the White House,she warned Mr. McGahn thatWhite House officials were mak-ing statements “that we knew notto be the truth.” Ms. Yates said sheexplained to Mr. McGahn how sheknew Mr. Flynn’s statementswere untrue, though she did notgo into details Monday, citing con-cerns about sensitive information.

“Why does it matter to D.O.J. if

White House Knew FlynnLied, Ex-Official Testifies

Former Justice Dept. Head Says She WarnedAbout Blackmail Risk in January

By MATT APUZZO and EMMARIE HUETTEMAN

Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general, at a Senate hearing on Monday. President Trump fired her in January.STEPHEN CROWLEY/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A16

WASHINGTON — It was thefirst major piece of legislation thatPresident Trump signed into law,and buried on Page 734 was onesentence that brought a potentialbenefit to the president’s ex-tended family: renewal of a pro-gram offering permanent resi-dence in the United States to afflu-ent foreigners investing money inreal estate projects here.

Just hours after the appropria-tions measure was signed on Fri-day, the company run until Janu-ary by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law andtop adviser, Jared Kushner, wasurging wealthy Chinese in Beijingto consider investing $500,000each in a pair of Jersey City luxuryapartment towers the family-owned Kushner Companies plansto build. Mr. Kushner was evencited at a marketing presentationby his sister Nicole Meyer, whowas on her way to China even be-fore the bill was signed. Theproject “means a lot to me and myentire family,” she told the pro-spective investors.

The sequence of events offersone of the most explicit examplesto date of the peril of the Trumpand Kushner families maintainingclose ties to their business inter-ests and creates an impressionthey stand to profit off Mr.Trump’s presence in the WhiteHouse. It also illustrates the prob-lems of the so-called EB-5 visaprogram that prominent Republi-can and Democratic members ofCongress want changed.

“It is just one more dilemma

Trump Acts,And KushnersStand to Gain

By ERIC LIPTONand JESSE DRUCKER

Continued on Page A14

WASHINGTON — The top Re-publican in the Senate, Mitch Mc-Connell of Kentucky, has a reputa-tion as a shrewd tactician and awily strategist — far more than hisyounger counterpart in theHouse, Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

So the Senate majority leader’sdecision to create a 13-man work-ing group on health care, includ-ing staunch conservatives and ar-dent foes of the Affordable CareAct — but no women — has beenwidely seen on Capitol Hill as amove to placate the right as Con-gress decides the fate of PresidentBarack Obama’s signature do-mestic achievement.

But Mr. McConnell, with onlytwo votes to spare, could find thatthe Senate’s more moderatevoices will not be as easily as-suaged as the House’s when a re-peal bill finally reaches a vote. Re-publican senators like SusanCollins of Maine, Lisa Murkowskiof Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Loui-siana may prove less amenable toappeals for party unity and legis-lative success when the lives andhealth of their constituents are onthe line.

And certain issues, like effortsto reverse the expansion of Medic-aid under the Affordable Care Act,are sure to receive more attentionin the Senate than they got in theHouse. The prospect of higherpremiums for older Americansliving in rural areas will also loomlarger in a chamber where Repub-licans from sparsely populatedstates hold outsize power.

“This process will not be quick

All-Male PanelOn Health BillLeans to Right

By ROBERT PEAR

Continued on Page A13

It was a policing invention witha futuristic sounding name —CompStat — when the New YorkPolice Department introduced itas a management system forfighting crime in an era of muchhigher violence in the 1990s. Po-lice departments around the coun-try, and the world, adapted its sys-tem of mapping muggings, rob-

beries and other crimes; measur-ing police activity; and holdinglocal commanders accountable.

Now, a quarter-century later, itis getting a broad reimagining andbeing brought into the mobile age.Moving away from simple statsand figures, CompStat is gettingtouchy-feely. It’s going to ask NewYorkers — via thousands of ques-tions on their phones — “How areyou feeling?” and “How are we,the police, doing?”

Whether this new approach willbe mimicked elsewhere is still un-known, but as is the case with al-most all new tactics in the N.Y.P.D.— the largest municipal policeforce in the United States by far —it will be closely watched. Nor is itclear if New Yorkers will embracethis approach, reject it as intru-sive or simply be annoyed by it.

The system, using locationtechnology, sends out short sets ofquestions to smartphones along

three themes: Do you feel safe inyour neighborhood? Do you trustthe police? Are you confident inthe New York Police Department?

The questions stream out everyday, around the clock, on 50,000different smartphone applicationsand present themselves onscreens as eight-second surveys.

The department believes it willget a more diverse measure of

Data Crunchers Ask New Yorkers: How Are the Police Doing?By AL BAKER

Continued on Page A19

Forget Machiavelli, or “Game ofThrones.” When it comes to stay-ing in power, South Korea’s richestbusiness clans have the game plandown.

There is the charity maneuver,in which family members parktheir stakes in their business em-pires in philanthropic nonprofits,letting them keep control withoutpaying heavy taxes.

There is the new company ma-neuver, in which they create newfirms that strike lucrative andfriendly business deals with theothers they control.

And then there is old-fashionedcorporate engineering, in whichthey merge arms of their empirestogether to consolidate power,even as other shareholders com-plain.

With South Korea’s biggestbusiness empire, Samsung,caught up in a nationwide politicalscandal, a new generation ofSouth Korean leaders has vowedto rip up that playbook. Major can-didates in Tuesday’s election forpresident have said they willclamp down on South Korea’s fam-ily-controlled business empires,called chaebol, which dominatethe country’s economy and haveamassed immense political power.

“Chaebol family control as weknow it could end with this gener-ation,” said Kim Woochan, a pro-fessor of finance at Korea Univer-sity Business School in Seoul, theSouth Korean capital, pointing toan intensifying backlash againstinherited wealth. “An opportunityas good as this one is unprece-dented.”

But that could be easier saidthan done, South Korean officialsand experts say. While the publicblames the chaebol for an embar-

Powerful ClansSkirt RestraintsIn South Korea

This article is by Jonathan Soble,Jeyup S. Kwaak and Choe Sang-Hun.

Continued on Page A10

LONDON — It was a strikingmoment when EmmanuelMacron, newly elected to be presi-dent of France, torchbearer of anew politics, strode onto a court-yard of the Louvre to celebrate hisvictory: As the crowd cheered,waving the tricolor French flag,the choice of music was “Ode toJoy,” the anthem of the EuropeanUnion. Some people even wavedthe bloc’s flag, with its circle ofgolden stars.

For the past year, and longer,the European Union has been poli-tically radioactive, deemed un-touchable by most mainstreamcandidates for national office inEurope. Yet Mr. Macron, 39, notonly embraced the embattledbloc, but proclaimed membershipin it to be a necessity for France’sfuture. It needed reform, cer-tainly, he said, but it was some-thing to embrace rather than run

from. And he defeated the mosteurophobic of opponents, the far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen.

Nathalie Tocci, director of theInstitute for International Affairsin Rome, said Mr. Macron’s vic-tory had helped the bloc avoid acataclysm. “The alternativewould have been the end of theEuropean Union,” Ms. Tocci said.“It means France is back in thepicture.”

If France is again vital to Euro-pean affairs, any euphoria is cer-tain to be short-lived. First, Mr.Macron faces many domestic

challenges in translating his cen-trist promises into policy and inassuaging those millions whovoted for Ms. Le Pen, cast blankballots or did not vote at all.

Beyond that, the European Un-ion can hardly take a victory lap.The bloc has survived the Le Penthreat, but it is still deeply unpop-ular in many countries and has yetto answer the existential questionof what sort of union it wants to be.There are doubts about whether itcan inspire Europeans and regaintheir trust. Nationalism and popu-lism are hardly dead, even inFrance, where Ms. Le Pen has al-ready shifted her focus to parlia-mentary elections next month.

The populist threat to the Euro-pean Union “remains alive andhas to be taken seriously,” saidStefan Lehne, a former Austriandiplomat and a visiting scholarwith Carnegie Europe. In France,“more than 40 percent of Frenchvoters opted for anti-European

Macron’s Victory Bolsters French Role in E.U.By STEVEN ERLANGER

Emmanuel Macron, left, with François Hollande, center, at a World War II ceremony on Monday.JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES

ESCALATION Grass-roots groups have pledged to confront lawmakersmore intensely to stop the health care repeal in the Senate. PAGE A11

INTERROGATION Federal judges asked about the president’s campaigntalk of a “Muslim ban” as they considered his travel ban. PAGE A15

HACKING CONTAINED A breach’sfallout was minimal, partly be-cause France lacks an equivalentto Fox News. PAGE A7

MOSCOW MEDDLING The Krem-lin’s Europe ties are strained afteranother fruitless attempt to influ-ence an election abroad. PAGE A8

Senior Trump and military officials areseeking to send several thousand moretroops to Afghanistan. PAGE A4

Adding to Afghan Fight

What happened when a homeless manfell off a Manhattan F train platform ona Saturday afternoon. PAGE A19

Saved From the Subway Tracks

The American Writers Museum, open-ing in Chicago on May 16, aims to bringliterary history to life. PAGE C1

A Showcase for Writers

Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who withdrewfrom opera because of a brain tumor,returned to the stage with a secretlyarranged gala performance. PAGE C4

ARTS C1-8

Triumph for a Beloved BaritoneResearch on Russian cosmonauts, heldin isolation to simulate space travel,suggests that salt makes you lessthirsty but somehow hungrier. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

A New Take on Salt

David Leonhardt PAGE A22

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

The Yankees had no time to celebrate an18-inning win over the Cubs. They boltedto the airport for a 3 a.m. flight, arrivingin Cincinnati bleary-eyed. PAGE B9

SPORTSTUESDAY B9-13

After Marathon, Yanks Sprint

With the authorities cracking down oninitiation rituals, charges were filed overa Penn State student’s death. PAGE A11

NATIONAL A11-17

A Harder Line on Hazing

Continued on Page A7

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVI . . . No. 57,592 © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2017

Today, clouds and sunshine, remain-ing cool, high 61. Tonight, partlycloudy, low 48. Tomorrow, sunshineand patchy clouds, still cool, high 62.Weather map appears on Page C9.

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