WASHINGTON — President Trump forced the State Department on Friday to commit to releasing at least some of Hillary Clinton’s emails before next month’s election, resurrecting a four-year-old issue in hopes that it would prove as helpful to his political prospects as it was when he defeated her in 2016.
Trailing badly in the polls and eager to change the subject from the coronavirus, Mr. Trump succeeded in compelling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to announce that he would make public the emails even as Attorney General William P. Barr resisted pressure from the president to prosecute Democrats like former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., this year’s Democratic nominee.
Still recovering from his own coronavirus infection, Mr. Trump made plans to host hundreds of supporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday for his first in-person event since he tested positive last week, according to three people familiar with the schedule. The rally that he had previously said he wanted to hold on Saturday in Florida will instead be held on Monday, his campaign announced, as the president insisted on getting back on the road despite his illness.
The burst of activity and machinations 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, expanded in recent days, despite every effort by the president to shift the momentum of the race.
He lost one of the few obvious opportunities to transform the dynamics of the campaign on Friday when the Commission on Presidential Debates formally canceled Thursday’s second showdown between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden after the president refused to participate remotely.
Battered by an October surprise that Mr. Trump did not anticipate — his hospitalization from a virus that he had played down even as it has killed 213,000 people in the United States — the president appeared intent on Friday on creating an October surprise more to his liking, in this case tarring Democrats by using the instruments of government power at his disposal.
He publicly badgered Mr. Barr this week to indict Democrats connected to the original investigation 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 Election 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 Mr. Barr to lead the inquiry, would produce indictments or any other developments that could affect the trajectory of the election before Nov. 3.
“If that’s the case, I’m very disappointed,” Mr. Trump said on Friday during a two-hour phone conversation with the radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I think it’s a terrible thing, and I’ll say it to his face.”
The president has been consumed for months with the hope that the Durham investigation would provide him evidence that the Russia inquiry was an effort to smear him. He has told advisers he hoped for indictments of top former Obama administration national security officials or even Mr. Obama or Mr. Biden themselves. 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 conversations.
Beyond his public comments, the president has also conveyed to Mr. Barr, directly and through surrogates, that he wanted “scalps,” according to two government officials familiar with the conversations.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the president’s remarks.
While Mr. Barr defied the president’s desire for pre-election action, Mr. Pompeo bowed to Mr. Trump’s wishes a day after he publicly…
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