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WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump’s legal defense teammounted an aggressive offense onSaturday as it opened its side inthe Senate impeachment trial byattacking his Democratic accus-ers as partisan witch-hunters try-ing to remove him from office be-cause they could not beat him atthe ballot box.

After three days of argumentsby the House managers prosecut-ing Mr. Trump for high crimes andmisdemeanors, the president’slawyers presented the senators aradically different view of thefacts and the Constitution, seek-ing to turn the Democrats’charges back on them while de-nouncing the whole process as il-legitimate.

“They’re asking you to tear upall of the ballots all across thecountry on your own initiative,take that decision away from theAmerican people,” Pat A. Cipol-lone, the White House counsel,said of the House managers.“They’re here,” he added mo-ments later, “to perpetrate themost massive interference in anelection in American history, andwe can’t allow that to happen.”

The president’s team spent onlytwo of the 24 hours allotted tothem so that senators could leavetown for the weekend before thedefense presentation resumes onMonday, but it was the first timehis lawyers have formally made acase for him since the Houseopened its inquiry in September.The goal was to poke holes in theHouse managers’ arguments inorder to provide enough fodder toSenate Republicans already in-clined to acquit him.

While less combative than theirfamously combustible client, the

TRUMP TEAM SAYSCHARGES ARE PLOYTO STEAL ELECTION

Turning AccusationsAgainst Democrats

By PETER BAKER

Jay Sekulow, a lead lawyer on President Trump’s impeachment defense team, addressing the Senate on Saturday morning.U.S. SENATE TV

Continued on Page 19

“American Dirt” seemed poisedto become one of this year’s big-gest, buzziest books.

When it came up for auction in2018, the novel — about a desper-ate Mexican mother and son whoflee for the United States borderafter a drug cartel massacrestheir family — set off a biddingwar and sold to a publisher forseven figures. It drew rapturousendorsements from novelists likeStephen King and Sandra Cis-neros, and got glowing advancereviews from industry publica-tions that hailed the book aspropulsive and heart-wrenching.

The author, Jeanine Cummins,has said she hoped the novelwould drive discussions about im-migration policy, and open “a backdoor into a bigger conversationabout who we want to be as acountry.” Since then, “AmericanDirt” has certainly ignited a vig-orous conversation — but hardlythe one the author and publisherintended.

Even before the book hitshelves this past week, a growingchorus of online critics was chal-lenging the hoopla, accusing Ms.Cummins, who identifies as whiteand Latina, of having exploitedthe experience of migrants and re-packaging it as opportunistic“trauma porn” for a predomi-nantly white publishing industry.

Criticism intensified on Tues-

Hype Over Novel on MigrantsTurns Into Backlash for AuthorBy JENNIFER SCHUESSLER

and ALEXANDRA ALTER

Jeanine Cummins, who wrotethe novel “American Dirt.”

HEATHER STEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 16

DES MOINES — SenatorBernie Sanders has opened up alead in Iowa just over a week be-fore the Democratic caucuses,consolidating support from liber-als and benefiting from divisionsamong more moderate presiden-tial candidates who are clusteredbehind him, according to a NewYork Times/Siena College poll oflikely caucusgoers.

Mr. Sanders has gained sixpoints since the last Times-Sienasurvey, in late October, and is nowcapturing 25 percent of the vote inIowa. Pete Buttigieg, the formermayor of South Bend, Ind., andformer Vice President Joseph R.Biden Jr. have remained stagnantsince the fall, with Mr. Buttigiegcapturing 18 percent and Mr. Bi-den 17 percent.

The rise of Mr. Sanders hascome at the expense of his fellowprogressive, Senator ElizabethWarren: she dropped from 22 per-cent in the October poll, enough tolead the field, to 15 percent in thissurvey. Senator Amy Klobuchar,who is garnering 8 percent, is theonly other candidate approachingdouble digits.

The changing fortunes of theleading candidates underscoresthe volatile nature of the primaryafter more than a year of cam-paigning, as voters wrestle withwhich candidate can defeat Presi-dent Trump. Despite the ascent ofMr. Sanders, a self-describeddemocratic socialist, the poll alsohighlighted the combined appealof the centrists: 55 percent ofthose surveyed said they pre-ferred a standard-bearer who is“more moderate than most Demo-crats.” Just 38 percent said theywanted one who is “more liberalthan most Democrats.”

As the strength of the otherleading candidates has ebbed andflowed, Mr. Sanders, making hissecond run for the White House,appears to be peaking at the right

Sanders SeizesA Lead in IowaAs Warren Dips

By JONATHAN MARTINand SYDNEY EMBER

Continued on Page 17

When the RevolutionaryGuards officer spotted what hethought was an unidentified air-craft near Tehran’s internationalairport, he had seconds to decidewhether to pull the trigger.

Iran had just fired a barrage ofballistic missiles at Americanforces, the country was on highalert for an American counter-attack, and the Iranian militarywas warning of incoming cruisemissiles.

The officer tried to reach thecommand center for authoriza-tion to shoot but couldn’t getthrough. So he fired an antiair-craft missile. Then another.

The plane, which turned out tobe a Ukrainian jetliner with 176people on board, crashed and ex-ploded in a ball of fire.

Within minutes, the top com-manders of Iran’s RevolutionaryGuards realized what they haddone. And at that moment, theybegan to cover it up.

For days, they refused to telleven President Hassan Rouhani,whose government was publicly

denying that the plane had beenshot down. When they finally toldhim, he gave them an ultimatum:come clean or he would resign.

Only then, 72 hours after theplane crashed, did Iran’s supremeleader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,step in and order the governmentto acknowledge its fatal mistake.

The New York Times pieced to-gether a chronology of those threedays by interviewing Iranian dip-lomats, current and former gov-ernment officials, ranking mem-bers of the Revolutionary Guardsand people close to the supremeleader’s inner circle and by exam-ining official public statementsand state media reports.

The reporting exposes the gov-

Iran’s 72-Hour Lie, From Jet Crash to ConfessionBy FARNAZ FASSIHI President’s Threat to

Quit Forced Endto a Cover-Up

Continued on Page 8

LANGFANG, China — The typi-cal market in China has fruits andvegetables, butchered beef, porkand lamb, whole plucked chickens— with heads and beaks attached— and live crabs and fish, spewingwater out of churning tanks. Somesell more unusual fare, includinglive snakes, turtles and cicadas,guinea pigs, bamboo rats, bad-gers, hedgehogs, otters, palm civ-ets, even wolf cubs.

The markets are fixtures in

scores of Chinese cities, and now,for at least the second time in twodecades, they are the source of anepidemic that has spread fear,taxed the Communist Party bu-reaucracy and exposed the epide-miological risks that can spawn inplaces where humans and wildlifeconverge.

The novel coronavirus that hasalready killed at least 56 and sick-ened more than 1,370 in China andaround the world is believed tohave spread from exactly one ofthese places: a wholesale market

in Wuhan, a city in central China,where vendors legally sold liveanimals from stalls in close quar-ters with hundreds of other.

“This is where you get new andemerging diseases that the hu-man population has never seenbefore,” said Kevin J. Olival, a biol-ogist and vice president of re-search with EcoHealth Alliance, anonprofit research organization,who has tracked previous out-breaks.

While the exact path of the

In China’s Markets, a Thriving Lab for VirusesBy STEVEN LEE MYERS

The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, the suspected source of a new outbreak.HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

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A rise in anti-Semitism and dehumaniz-ing political attacks has some fearingthat the death camp’s horrific lessonscould be forgotten. PAGE 10

INTERNATIONAL 4-13

75 Years After AuschwitzThe Times Privacy Project investigatedthe largely unregulated smartphonedata collection industry and found ithad a shocking potential for abuses.

SPECIAL SECTION

One Nation, Tracked Shoshana Zuboff PAGE 1

SUNDAY REVIEW

U(D547FD)v+"!&!_!?!"

Stock traders are accused of siphoning$60 billion from state coffers in Europe,in a scheme that one called “the devil’smachine.” PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

The Great Tax Robbery

WASHINGTON — For morethan an hour one evening in 2018,President Trump sat around a din-ner table in a private suite in hisWashington hotel with a group ofdonors, including two men at thecenter of the impeachment inqui-ry, talking about golf, trade, poli-tics — and removing the UnitedStates ambassador to Ukraine.

The conversation, captured on arecording made public Saturday,contradicted Mr. Trump’s re-peated statements that he doesnot know the two men, Lev Parnasand Igor Fruman, who went on towork with the president’s person-al lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, tocarry out a pressure campaign onUkraine.

The recording — a video shot onMr. Fruman’s phone during thedinner in April 2018 — largely con-firmed Mr. Parnas’s account ofhaving raised with Mr. Trump crit-icisms of the ambassador to Kyivat the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch,and the president’s immediate or-der that Ms. Yovanovitch shouldbe removed from the post.

“Get rid of her,” Mr. Trump canbe heard responding.

The recording was made publicby Mr. Parnas’s lawyer, Joseph A.Bondy, hours after the president’slawyers began presenting theirdefense in the impeachment trialand as Democrats looked forleverage to persuade Republicansto support their calls to expandthe inquiry by introducing addi-tional evidence and calling newwitnesses.

Mr. Bondy said it was being re-leased in “an effort to provide clar-ity to the American people and theSenate as to the need to conduct afair trial, with witnesses and evi-dence.”

In the recording, Mr. Parnas,who is the more talkative of thetwo, broached an energy deal thetwo were pursuing in Ukraine,and then went on to discuss sev-eral themes that later became

Continued on Page 20

Recording UndercutsPresident’s Claims

By KENNETH P. VOGELand BEN PROTESS

IOWA ENVY? South Dakotans andNebraskans have to wait monthsto vote while their neighbor getsall the attention. PAGE 14

The reigning Australian Open championand a 16-time Grand Slam winner sayshe now sees tennis as a platform ratherthan an end in itself. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

The Zen of Novak Djokovic

WILD CARD Lamar Alexander, aG.O.P. senator who is retiring atthe end of the year, looms as a keyvote on witnesses. PAGE 18

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,584 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020

Today, clouds and sunshine, breezy,high 47. Tonight, mostly cloudy, low35. Tomorrow, clouds breaking forsome afternoon sunshine, high 46.Details, SportsSunday, Page 8.

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