1
VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,939 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 2018 U(D54G1D)y+#!]!.!#!{ WASHINGTON — Federal civil rights prosecutors have recom- mended charges against a New York police officer in the 2014 death of Eric Garner, three cur- rent and former officials said, but top Justice Department officials have expressed strong reserva- tions about whether to move for- ward with a case they say may not be winnable. Mr. Garner died on a Staten Is- land street after the police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, used a chokehold to subdue him. Officers had con- fronted Mr. Garner, who was un- armed, over accusations of selling untaxed cigarettes. His final gasps of “I can’t breathe,” cap- tured on a cellphone video, be- came a rallying cry for protesters around the country. In recent weeks, career pros- ecutors recommended civil rights charges against Officer Pantaleo and sought approval from the dep- uty attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to seek an indictment, according to the officials. Mr. Rosenstein has convened several meetings that revealed divisions within the Justice Department over whether to move forward. No decision has been made, but one law enforcement official said that, based on the discussions so far, it appeared unlikely that Mr. Rosen- stein would approve charges. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also been briefed on the case and could weigh in after Mr. Rosenstein makes his own recom- Justice Dept. Is Seen as Divided On Rights Case in Garner Killing By MATT APUZZO Eric Garner died after being subdued with a chokehold. NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, VIA GETTY IMAGES Continued on Page A18 KHALIL HAMRA/ASSOCIATED PRESS Protesters hurled stones Friday at Israeli troops along the fence dividing Israel from Gaza. Israeli snipers killed four people. Page A9. Deadly Clash at Border Fence For years, a joke among Trump Tower employees was that the boss was like Manhattan’s First Avenue, where the traffic goes only one way. That one-sidedness has always been at the heart of President Trump’s relationship with his longtime lawyer and fixer, Mi- chael D. Cohen, who has said he would “take a bullet” for Mr. Trump. For years Mr. Trump treated Mr. Cohen poorly, with gratuitous insults, dismissive statements and, at least twice, threats of being fired, according to interviews with a half-dozen peo- ple familiar with their relation- ship. “Donald goes out of his way to treat him like garbage,” said Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s in- formal and longest-serving poli- tical adviser, who, along with Mr. Cohen, was one of five people orig- inally surrounding the president when he was considering a presi- dential campaign before 2016. Now, for the first time, the traf- fic may be going Mr. Cohen’s way. Mr. Trump’s lawyers and advisers have become resigned to the strong possibility that Mr. Cohen, who has a wife and two children and faces the prospect of devas- tating legal fees, if not criminal charges, could end up cooperating with federal officials who are in- vestigating him for activity that could relate, at least in part, to work he did for Mr. Trump. Last week federal agents raided Mr. Cohen’s office and hotel room and seized business records, emails and other material as part of what Mr. Trump has called a “witch hunt” by his own Justice Department. The trove included documents dating back decades, as well as more recent ones relat- ed to a payment in 2016 to a porno- graphic film actress who has said she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, which Mr. Trump de- nies. Although Mr. Trump called Mr. Cohen last Friday, four days after Punching Bag For President Now Has Clout This article is by Maggie Ha- berman, Sharon LaFraniere and Danny Hakim. Continued on Page A12 WASHINGTON — For days, top Republicans in Congress demanded the release of James B. Comey’s memos about Presi- dent Trump, threatening Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, with a subpoena if he failed to share the highly antici- pated documents written by the former F.B.I. director. But if Mr. Trump and his allies believed that Mr. Rosenstein’s refusal would deliver a pretext to call for his firing, as Democrats asserted, his decision to quickly release all the memos late Thurs- day night foiled that plan. The memos leaked to reporters hours after being delivered to lawmak- ers in both parties. And the seven memos, in which Mr. Comey methodically documented his interactions with the president in real time, did little to help Republicans under- mine Mr. Comey’s credibility or expose contradictions with his best-selling, tell-all book. Taken together, the 15 pages of detailed notes largely back up the stories that Mr. Comey told in congres- sional testimony, in the pages of his memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” and during numerous television and radio interviews. “I’m not quite sure how this improved the strategic posture of those who want to dismantle the special counsel investigation,” said Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland. “This is a tactic that has back- fired. From what I’ve seen of the Comey memos, they bear out completely the authenticity of his reports and his own credibility.” Word last spring that Mr. Comey had taken contemporane- ous notes of his meetings with Mr. Trump jolted Washington, and for nearly a year, the exist- ence of the still-secret memos cast a shadow over the capital, generating intense speculation about the private details that might be exposed if they were made public. Salacious talk of Russian prostitutes, a request to ease up on the investigation of the president’s national security adviser and a presidential de- mand for the loyalty of the F.B.I. director all made for bombshell revelations. But by the time the actual memos appeared, the details were already known, and some Republicans suggested the real import of the memos was that they indicated that there was no obstruction of justice case. “I don’t know that it was nec- essarily earth-shattering, the new information that we found,” G.O.P. Push on Comey Files May Have Backfired By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and NICHOLAS FANDOS CONGRESSIONAL MEMO Memos Help Reinforce Testimony and Fail to Alter Inquiry Continued on Page A13 On Feb. 20, a young woman named Mirian arrived at the Texas border carrying her 18- month-old son. They had fled their home in Honduras through a cloud of tear gas, she told border agents, and needed protection from the political violence there. She had hoped she and her son would find refuge together. In- stead, the agents ordered her to place her son in the back seat of a government vehicle, she said later in a sworn declaration to a federal court. They both cried as the boy was driven away. For months, members of Con- gress have been demanding an- swers about how many families are being separated as they are processed at stations along the southwest border, in part because the Trump administration has in the past said it was considering ta- king children from their parents as a way to deter migrants from coming here. Officials have repeatedly de- clined to provide data on how many families have been sepa- rated, but suggested that the num- ber was relatively low. But new data reviewed by The New York Times shows that more than 700 children have been taken from adults claiming to be their parents since October, including more than 100 children under the age of 4. The data was prepared by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services that takes custody of children who have been removed from migrant parents. Senior officials at the De- partment of Homeland Security, which processes migrants at the border, initially denied that the numbers were so high. But after they were confirmed to The Times by three federal officials who work closely with these cases, a spokesman for the health and hu- man services department on Fri- day acknowledged in a statement Over 700 Children Taken From Parents at Border By CAITLIN DICKERSON Immigrants after crossing the border near McAllen, Tex., this month. The Trump administration has sought to deter migrants. LOREN ELLIOTT/REUTERS Continued on Page A14 Students left classrooms on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massa- cre, protesting gun violence. PAGE A10 NATIONAL A10-15 A Walkout Against Guns Files released on the death of Prince reveal the desire of the singer’s friends and employees to protect him. PAGE A15 Standing Guard for Prince Tapper’s debut novel, “The Hellfire Club,” a historical thriller set in 1950s Washington, has some unsettling paral- lels to today’s political climate. PAGE B1 Jake Tapper’s New Novel Actors’ Equity has decided to rename a beloved Broadway insider ritual cele- brating chorus members. PAGE C1 Doing Away With ‘Gypsy Robe’ LAWSUIT The Democrats said Russian officials, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks con- spired in the 2016 vote. PAGE A11 An exclusive excerpt from “The Mars Room,” a new novel by Rachel Kushner. THIS WEEKEND Special Section: Fiction From fashion to flowers, music to food, Broadway to literature, T Magazine looks at 36 months that left an enduring imprint on American culture. New York City, 1981-1983 Decades ago, Nigel Oakes promoted the power of the subliminal to sway behav- ior. That led to data mining. PAGE A4 INTERNATIONAL A4-9 The Power to Manipulate Murders in East New York, Brooklyn, have often exceeded 100 a year. There have been none since Dec. 12. PAGE A16 NEW YORK A16-19 129 Murder-Free Days Arsène Wenger plans to depart after 22 years as Arsenal’s manager. PAGE D1 SPORTSSATURDAY D1-5 A Flawed Soccer Giant’s Exit Gail Collins PAGE A21 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A20-21 The president called oil prices “artifi- cially” high as gasoline hit its highest point in three years after the cartel and Russia moved to limit output. PAGE B1 Trump Targets OPEC Two Metropolitan Opera stars learn what their voices would sound like captured on wax cylinders. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-7 Recording (Really) Old School The Justice Department is investigating possible coordination by AT&T and Verizon to hinder people from easily switching wireless carriers. PAGE B1 BUSINESS DAY B1-6 A Claim of Wireless Collusion SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, an- nounced early Saturday that his country no longer needed to test nuclear weapons or long-range missiles and would close a nuclear test site. “The nuclear test site has done its job,” Mr. Kim said in a state- ment carried by North Korea’s state media. Mr. Kim’s announcement came just days before a scheduled sum- mit meeting with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea; Mr. Kim is also planning to meet with Presi- dent Trump soon. It was the sec- ond time in two days that he made what appeared to be a significant concession to the United States but in reality cemented the status quo. North Korea already had stopped testing its weapons. Mr. Kim made no mention in his latest remarks of dismantling the nuclear weapons and long-range missiles North Korea has already built. On the contrary, he sug- gested he was going to keep them. Still, Mr. Trump welcomed what Mr. Kim said. “North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site,” the president said in a Twit- ter message. “This is very good news for North Korea and the World — big progress! Look for- ward to our Summit.” Mr. Moon’s office also praised the announcement. “We view the North’s decision as a significant step toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula the world has wished for,” said Yoon Young- chan, a spokesman for Mr. Moon. Despite the enthusiasm, Ameri- can officials have watched Mr. Kim with a mix of satisfaction and wariness. The North Korean leader’s move could be tactical — putting the United States on the defensive in advance of talks on its nuclear arsenal. By extending an olive branch, American officials said, North Korea is putting pressure on the United States to accept a NORTH KOREANS PROMISE TO HALT NUCLEAR TESTING ‘BIG PROGRESS’ TO TRUMP Summit Meetings Loom — No Plans to Scrap Weapons of War By CHOE SANG-HUN Continued on Page A8 SEOUL, South Korea — On a dark February night, the trucks unloaded their contraband near Hyesan, a North Korean town across a narrow river from China. As border guards looked the other way, workers used carts to pull the cargo of metal ore — tungsten, lead, zinc, copper and gold con- centrates, all banned from export under United Nations sanctions — across the frozen river. By sunrise, all that was left were tire tracks and footprints across the river’s frozen surface. A North Korean witness told an acquaintance living in South Ko- rea that ore, as well as other ma- terials, was being smuggled into China at the crossing almost ev- ery night. He said smugglers also headed the other way, moving sugar, flour and 50-kilogram sacks of fertilizers into North Korea. There is growing evidence that tough new sanctions imposed on North Korea to stop its nuclear weapons and missile programs have begun to bite, and bite hard. Factories have closed because of a lack of raw materials, fishermen have deserted their boats and mil- itary units are resorting to char- coal-engine vehicles and even ox- driven carts for transport. But the elaborate efforts to smuggle goods in and out of North Korea are among the signs that the closed, secretive country is finding ways to cope. The North is responding with patriotic appeals and belt-tighten- ing, and by prioritizing the alloca- tion of resources to the military and political elite. Despite short- ages, exchange rates and key con- sumer prices are stable, and there is no sign of an approaching fam- ine, according to recent visitors and North Korean defectors who remain in contact with people in- side the country. President Trump and South Ko- rea’s president, Moon Jae-in, say their policy of “maximum pres- sure” on the government of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong- un, has helped bring him to the bargaining table. Mr. Trump re- cently acknowledged that he sent the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, to a secret meeting with Mr. Kim this month to lay the groundwork for the first-ever meeting between the leaders of the United States Can Sanctions Push the North Into Reforms? Penalties Hit Isolated Nation in New Ways By CHOE SANG-HUN Continued on Page A8 Late Edition Today, sunshine and patchy clouds, breezy, high 59. Tonight, clear, chilly, low 41. Tomorrow, sunshine and patchy clouds, seasonable, high 62. Weather map appears on Page C8. $3.00
