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VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,244 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2019 U(D54G1D)y+"!{!%!=!; Karl Lagerfeld, the most prolific designer of the 20th and 21st centuries and a man whose career formed the prototype of the modern luxury fashion industry, died on Tuesday in Paris. Though his birth year was a matter of some dis- pute, Mr. Lagerfeld, who lived in Paris, was generally thought to be 85. His death was announced by Chanel, with which he had long been associated. “More than anyone I know, he represents the soul of fashion: restless, forward-looking and voraciously attentive to our changing culture,” Anna Wintour, ed- itor of American Vogue, said of Mr. Lagerfeld when presenting him with the Outstanding Achievement Award at the British Fashion Awards in 2015. Creative director of Chanel since 1983 and Fendi since 1965, and founder of his own line, Mr. Lagerfeld was the definition of a fashion polyglot, able to speak the language of many different brands at the same time (not to mention many languages themselves: He read in English, French, German and Italian). In his 80s, when most of his peers were retiring to their yachts or country estates, he was designing an average of 14 new collections a year, ranging from couture to the high street — and not counting col- Karl Lagerfeld, Shape-Shifting Designer Invaluable to Lives of Luxury, Is Dead By VANESSA FRIEDMAN Karl Lagerfeld and Rihanna in 2015. A longtime force at Chanel and Fendi, he was thought to be 85. DANNY KIM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A24 ‘He represents the soul of fashion.’ ANNA WINTOUR, editor of American Vogue WASHINGTON — As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gath- ered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silenc- ing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whita- ker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investiga- tion, according to several Ameri- can officials with direct knowl- edge of the call. Mr. Whitaker, who had pri- vately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to “jump on a grenade” for the president, knew he could not put Mr. Berman in charge because Mr. Berman had already recused him- self from the investigation. The president soon soured on Mr. Whitaker, as he often does with his aides, and complained about his inability to pull levers at the Jus- tice Department that could make the president’s many legal prob- lems go away. Trying to install a perceived loy- alist atop a widening inquiry is a familiar tactic for Mr. Trump, who has been struggling to beat back the investigations that have con- sumed his presidency. His efforts have exposed him to accusations of obstruction of justice as Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finishes his work investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Mr. Trump’s public war on the inquiry has gone on long enough that it is no longer shocking. Mr. Trump rages almost daily to his 58 million Twitter followers that Mr. Mueller is on a “witch hunt” and has adopted the language of Mafia bosses by calling those who co- operate with the special counsel “rats.” His lawyer talks openly about a strategy to smear and dis- credit the special counsel investi- gation. The president’s allies in Congress and the conservative news media warn of an insidious plot inside the Justice Depart- ment and the F.B.I. to subvert a democratically elected president. An examination by The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more se- cretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law en- forcement. Interviews with doz- ens of current and former govern- ment officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House docu- ments, reveal numerous unre- ported episodes in a two-year drama. White House lawyers wrote a confidential memo expressing concern about the president’s staff peddling misleading infor- mation in public about the firing of Michael T. Flynn, the Trump ad- ministration’s first national secu- rity adviser. Mr. Trump had pri- vate conversations with Republi- can lawmakers about a campaign to attack the Mueller investiga- tion. And there was the episode when he asked his attorney gen- eral about putting Mr. Berman in charge of the Manhattan investi- gation. Mr. Whitaker, who this month told a congressional committee that Mr. Trump had never pres- sured him over the various inves- tigations, is now under scrutiny Inside Trump’s Angry War On Inquiries Around Him Pressure Tactics Leave the President Exposed to Accusations of Obstruction This article is by Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fan- dos and Michael S. Schmidt. Continued on Page A18 AL HAWL CAMP, Syria — She was a 20-year-old college student in Alabama who had become con- vinced of the righteousness of the Islamic State. So she duped her parents into thinking she was go- ing on a college trip, and instead bought a plane ticket to Turkey with her tuition money. After being smuggled into the caliphate, the student, Hoda Muthana, posted a photograph on Twitter showing her gloved hands holding her American passport. “Bonfire soon,” she promised. That was more than four years ago. Now, after being married to three Islamic State fighters and witnessing executions like those she had once cheered on social media, Ms. Muthana says she is deeply sorry and wants to return home to the United States. She surrendered last month to the coalition forces fighting ISIS, and now spends her days as a de- tainee in a refugee camp in north- eastern Syria. She is joined there by another woman, Kimberly Gwen Polman, 46, who had stud- ied legal administration in Canada before joining the caliphate and who possesses dual United States and Canadian citizenship. Both women, interviewed by The New York Times at the camp, said they were trying to figure out how to have their passports reis- sued, and how to win the sympa- thy of the two nations they scorned. “I don’t have words for how much regret I have,” said Ms. Pol- man, who was born into a Re- formed Mennonite community in Hamilton, Ontario, to an Ameri- can mother and Canadian father and who has three adult children. Ms. Muthana, who attended high school in Hoover, Ala., and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said she was first They Married Fighters for ISIS. Now They Want to Come Home. By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI and CATHERINE PORTER A detention camp in Syria where at least two women who left North America to join the Islamic State are stuck without papers. IVOR PRICKETT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES U.S. Citizens in Limbo Ask for Forgiveness Continued on Page A10 LOHHEIDE, Germany — On a former Cold War base, German and Dutch soldiers, serving to- gether in one tank battalion, stood to attention one recent morning and shouted their battle cry in both languages. “We fight —,” their commander bellowed. “— for Germany!” the battalion replied in unison. “We fight —,” the commander shouted. “— for the Netherlands!” his soldiers yelled back. They are not shouting “for Eu- rope.” Not yet. But the battalion — Europe’s first made up of soldiers from two countries — is an important baby step toward deeper European mil- itary cooperation. First floated af- ter World War II, the idea of a Eu- ropean army is as old as the Euro- pean Union itself, but has yet to become a reality. Now, though, the idea has taken on new urgency because of the Trump administration’s threat to withdraw the Continent’s security guarantee if it does not spend more on its defense. At a high-lev- el security conference last week- end, the breach between the United States and Europe burst into the open, leaving many Euro- pean officials feeling increasingly on their own. “Everyone is talking about a European army,” Lt. Col. Marco Niemeyer, the German command- er of the battalion, said. “We are pioneers.” Yet if some powerful European Joining Forces To Give Europe Its Own Army By KATRIN BENNHOLD Continued on Page A9 Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and 2016 Democratic primary runner-up whose populist agenda has helped push the party to the left, em- barked on Tuesday on a second run for president, in a bid that will test whether he retains his anti- establishment appeal or loses ground to newer faces who have adopted many of his ideas. A professed democratic social- ist whose calls for “Medicare for all,” a $15 minimum wage and tu- ition-free public colleges have be- come pillars of the party’s left wing, Mr. Sanders joins the race at a time when Republicans are try- ing to define the Democratic field and its ideas as out of the political mainstream. In Mr. Sanders, who has not joined the Democratic Party and has described himself as a socialist, Republicans have an easy target to try to make the face of the opposition. But Mr. Sanders, 77, starts with stronger support from small- Once an Outlier, Sanders Enters A Packed Race By SYDNEY EMBER Senator Bernie Sanders TOM BRENNER/THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A20 A housing decline has preceded nine of the last 11 recessions. Here’s why history may not repeat itself next time. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-6 Don’t Blame Housing Market The A.C.L.U. may sue a Wisconsin high school where coaches gave out awards mocking cheerleaders’ bodies. PAGE B10 SPORTSWEDNESDAY B10-14 ‘So Wrong, in So Many Ways’ Looking for prestige, the masters of the $1 pizza slice have opened a shop, Up- side Pizza, with offerings, above, that are fancier and more costly. PAGE D1 FOOD D1-8 A Dollar Won’t Cut It Among candidates for public advocate, Eric Ulrich was a lonely voice backing the Amazon deal. Now that could give the Republican a leg up. PAGE A21 NEW YORK A21-22 A Prime Advantage After two years of overhauling educa- tion policy, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos must now answer to Democrats she’s clashed with or ignored. PAGE A15 NATIONAL A14-20 More Oversight for DeVos Hundreds of businesses have been sued, sometimes in alphabetical order, over whether their websites are acces- sible to the blind. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-8 Suing Galleries, From A to Z Frank Bruni PAGE A27 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27 Don Newcombe, an ace for the Brook- lyn Dodgers and the first black pitcher to star in the majors, was 92. PAGE B10 Barrier-Breaking Pitcher Dies Proposals to tax wealth and raise the top rate on income find support across party lines in a voter survey. PAGE B1 Tax the Rich? A Popular Idea An Alabama paper’s editor was widely condemned for an editorial calling for the K.K.K. “to ride again.” PAGE A17 Uproar Over Backing of Klan Plans to ship Moscow’s trash to the provinces are aggravating economic unrest. PAGE A4 INTERNATIONAL A4-12 Feeling Poor and Dumped On WASHINGTON — A day after California filed a lawsuit challeng- ing President Trump’s emergency declaration on the border, the Transportation Department said it was exploring legal options to claw back $2.5 billion in federal funds it had already spent on the state’s high-speed rail network. The Trump administration also said it was terminating a $929 mil- lion federal grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, ac- cording to a letter the Transporta- tion Department sent Tuesday. The $77 billion Los Angeles-to- San Francisco bullet train, which has been a goal of California trans- portation planners for decades, has long faced opposition from Mr. Trump and other Republicans. But on Tuesday morning, the president explicitly tied the rail line to efforts to stymie construc- tion of the Mexican border wall. “The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost over- runs are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. Gov. Gavin Newsom of Califor- nia, who announced last week that he was scaling back the project, said the Transportation Depart- ment’s move was retaliation for the border wall lawsuit, filed on Monday with 15 other states. “It’s no coincidence that the ad- ministration’s threat comes 24 hours after California led 16 states in challenging the president’s far- U.S. May Wrest Billions for Rail From California By ANNIE KARNI and JENNIFER MEDINA Continued on Page A17 Late Edition Today, mostly cloudy, afternoon snow, high 32. Tonight, wintry mix, then rain late, low 31, but rising. To- morrow, morning rain, milder, high 56. Weather map is on Page A16. $3.00
