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December 2, 2019

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David Boies Andrew Kelly/Reuters

David Boies is under an ethical cloud. Again.

The prominent lawyer David Boies is facing new questions about his role working for several accusers of Jeffrey Epstein.

A shadowy hacker promised evidence to Mr. Boies and a colleague, John Stanley Pottinger, that would have implicated some of the world’s most powerful men, according to an NYT report over the weekend from Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Emily Steel, Jacob Bernstein and David Enrich.

The two lawyers reportedly discussed a plan to use the videos, allegedly of the rich and famous having sex with girls in Mr. Epstein’s residences, to extract money from the men. But there were no damning videos.

The story reveals the extraordinary measures that elite lawyers use to get evidence that could be used to win lucrative settlements — and keep misconduct hidden, allowing perpetrators to abuse again.

Mr. Boies denied being involved in the hypothetical plans. Shown text exchanges between Mr. Pottinger and the hacker, he acknowledged that the messages were ill advised and contained “loose language.”

Still, Mr. Boies declined to outright condemn Mr. Pottinger. That refusal prompted this reaction, the reporters noted: “His longtime P.R. adviser, Dawn Schneider, who had been pushing for a more forceful denunciation, dropped her pen, threw up her arms and buried her head in her hands.”

Bottom line: This is the latest embarrassing episode for Mr. Boies, who was previously perhaps best known for prosecuting a landmark antitrust case against Microsoft and for obtaining the right for gays and lesbians to get married in California. In recent years, he has defended Theranos and Harvey Weinstein, and ethical questions were raised about his actions in both cases. John Carreyrou, the author of “Bad Blood,” an examination of Theranos, took to Twitter: “NY Bar: You paying attention?”

More: “The Weekly” tells the wild story of four reporters chasing one of the biggest stories of the year — if only it were true.

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Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Gregory Schmidt and Sharon O’Neal.

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President Trump Carlos Barria/Reuters

Trump’s trade deal has a chance of passing Congress

House Democrats face a difficult choice this week: Either hand President Trump a victory in the middle of a heated impeachment battle or walk away from one of the most progressive trade pacts negotiated by either party, write Ana Swanson and Emily Cochrane of the NYT.

The trade deal with Canada and Mexico awaits the approval of Congress, even though the White House agreed with the two countries on revisions a year ago. After months of talks, including through the Thanksgiving break, both sides say they are in the final phase of negotiations.

The revised pact reflects Mr. Trump’s populist trade approach — one that has blurred party lines and appealed to many of the blue-collar workers that Democrats once counted among their base.

• “Taken as a whole, it looks more like an agreement that would’ve been negotiated under the Obama administration,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio.

An agreement with the Trump administration would give Democrats a chance to lock in long-sought changes to a pact that they have criticized as prioritizing corporations over workers, and it could lay the groundwork for future trade agreements.

More trade news: After years of rivalry and mutual suspicion, Beijing and Moscow are expanding an economic and strategic partnership influencing global politics, trade and energy markets.

At a Saudi Aramco plant in Saudi Arabia. Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

Saudi Arabia seeks longer OPEC cuts ahead of Aramco I.P.O.

Hoping to prop up Saudi Aramco’s I.P.O., Saudi Arabia will push for an extension of cuts in oil production through mid-2020 at a meeting of oil producers this week, the WSJ reports.

But the talks are being overshadowed by growing unrest in the Middle East. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is set to meet with a 10-nation coalition led by Russia on Thursday and Friday to discuss extending an agreement to curb production by 1.2 million barrels a day beyond March 2020.

The debate is likely to be heavily influenced by the market debut of Aramco, which is set to announce the pricing of its shares on Thursday ahead of its roughly $25 billion listing.

“Fearing that uncertainty could lead to a sharp drop in oil prices, the kingdom wants an agreement to extend production cuts to at least June 2020,” the WSJ reports.

More: Saudi Arabia is accelerating efforts to diversify its economy and polish its global image by broadening cultural offerings centered on Western sports and entertainment.

How Amazon wove itself into the lives of Americans

Amazon offered consumers convenience, and became a juggernaut. A look at the city of Baltimore shows how it reaches into Americans’ daily lives perhaps more than any company in history, writes the NYT’s Scott Shane.

The city offers a microcosm of the contentious issues that the company’s conduct has raised nationally, including:

• The end of brick-and-mortar stores;

• Modestly paid warehouse work with the threat of job automation;

• An aggressive foray into government procurement;

• Neighborhood surveillance.

Amazon says that its market power is not as large as people imagine. It accounts for 40 to 50 percent of online retail in the United States, but that is only 4 to 5 percent of total retail.

But Amazon’s retail platform is only the beginning. “It’s the invisible infrastructure that powers our everyday lives,” one expert told Mr. Shane.

More retail news: A former employee tells the NY Post that Amazon warehouses are “cult-like” sweatshops run by robots. Amazon removes from its marketplace holiday ornaments displaying images of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. And Black Friday hit a record $7.4 billion in U.S. online sales, forcing retailers to rethink their staffing levels.

Revolving door

Silver Lake has named Egon Durban and Greg Mondre to the newly created roles of co-C.E.O. Ken Hao, the managing partner, will become the firm’s chairman.

The speed read

Deals

• How a former Credit Suisse banker allegedly conspired to defraud investors in Mozambique debt deals. (WSJ)

• Apollo Global outbid Berkshire Hathaway for Tech Data, again raising questions about the stock market’s valuation. (CNBC)

• A surge of global deals in the past week has helped put mergers and acquisitions on track to approach and perhaps even top last year’s totals. (Bloomberg)

• TCI, an activist hedge fund, plans to punish directors of companies that fail to disclose their carbon dioxide emissions. (FT)

• Goldman Sachs will avoid setting strict profitability targets at its coming investor day. (FT)

• Acosta, a marketing firm owned by the Carlyle Group, has filed for bankruptcy protection. (Bloomberg)

Trump impeachment inquiry

• President Trump’s lawyers said yesterday that they would not participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s first public impeachment hearing, set for Wednesday. (NYT)

• The judiciary panel had been leading the debate over whether to impeach Mr. Trump long before the Ukraine affair. This week, it returns to the center of the action. (NYT)

• Jay Sekulow, who is coordinating Mr. Trump’s personal legal team, doesn’t have a White House office and is not close to Rudy Giuliani. But he’s one of the president’s most trusted advisers and loyal defenders in the news media. (NYT)

Politics and policy

• Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plan to tax the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. has wide support, except with one group: Republican men with college degrees. (NYT)

• Medicare for All as proposed by Ms. Warren would be a boon to all businesses, especially to entrepreneurs. (WSJ Opinion)

• While on a surprise Thanksgiving visit to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, President Trump created confusion over U.S. policy, particularly when he said stalled talks with the Taliban were back on. (NYT)

• It’s not just Mr. Trump who has caused headaches at NATO: Emmanuel Macron of France and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey have also posed questions of the alliance. (NYT)

• Legislation to curb drug prices in the U.S. has stalled amid partisan gridlock. (Politico)

• Why deficits are dead as a political issue. (The Hill)

Tech

• Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, ended a tour of Africa by pledging to move to the continent for several months in 2020. (CNN)

• How the U.N.’s new facial recognition and surveillance standards are being shaped by Chinese technology companies. (FT)

• American tech companies can resume business with Huawei, but it may be too late: The company is now building smartphones without U.S. chips. (WSJ)

• Efforts by Big Tech to keep trolls, bots and online fakery from affecting another presidential election is a never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole. (Politico)

Best of the rest

• A decade of historically low interest rates has helped push total U.S. corporate debt to nearly $10 trillion. (WaPo)

• The plunge in three Hong Kong stocks raises fresh questions about corporate governance and regulatory oversight at a crossroads for global finance. (NYT)

• Hong Kong is expected to post its first budget deficit since the early 2000s as the economic cost of almost six months of political unrest mounts. (Bloomberg)

• Why shade is a sign of privilege in Los Angeles. (NYT)

• As scandal engulfs Prince Andrew, Prince Charles has emerged as a monarch-in-waiting in Britain. (NYT)

• The cure for an economy hooked on debt may be more debt. (Bloomberg)

• Support for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan is sliding amid questions about whether he rewarded supporters with invitations to a publicly funded cherry blossom viewing party. (Bloomberg)

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December 2, 2019

Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

Miscalculations, and an unexpected victory from President Trump, have put abortion access at its most vulnerable point in decades. In a span of six months this year alone, states in the South and Midwest have passed a total of 58 restrictions. The left is on the defensive. Now it’s trying to recover.

House Democrats return to Washington facing a difficult choice: Give President Trump a victory in the midst of a heated impeachment battle or walk away from one of the most progressive trade pacts ever negotiated by either party, one that they’ve been fighting for for years.

After being sidelined for two months while the House Intelligence Committee built a case that Mr. Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate a political rival, the House Judiciary Committee will reclaim the impeachment effort it once led.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers said that they will not participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s first public impeachment hearing on Wednesday, continuing a pattern of stonewalling by the president.

Meet Mr. Trump’s other personal lawyer: Jay Sekulow. He is a trusted, telegenic presidential adviser more experienced in religious liberty cases than impeachment battles.

Voting machines in a county in Pennsylvania showed that the Democratic candidate had zero percent of the votes, a statistical impossibility in a county where you could vote for a straight-party ticket. The paper ballots showed him winning the election. Whatever happened has people worried.

For all the emphasis placed on the various divides among the 2020 Democratic candidates, the question of “to fight or not to fight” might represent the most meaningful contrast.

Mr. Trump has focused on blocking unauthorized crossings on the Southern border. But nearly half of those who are in the country unlawfully actually entered with permission.