VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,957 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 9, 2018

C M Y K Nxxx,2018-05-09,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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Opioid use and homelessness bringdespair to parts of Northern Californiawith scant treatment options. PAGE A14

NATIONAL A14-19

Entwined Epidemics

A racially charged conviction derailedthe career of the first black heavyweightchamp. Should he be pardoned? PAGE B8

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-12

Jack Johnson’s Biggest Fight

The company reported its best quarterlyresults in two years, but its bid for 21stCentury Fox may be challenged. PAGE B1

Disney Wows Wall Street

Frank Bruni PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

Nikol Pashinyan, who led nonviolentdemonstrations that toppled the gov-ernment of Armenia, was elected primeminister by Parliament. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-13

From Protester to Premier

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump declared on Tuesday thathe was withdrawing from the Irannuclear deal, unraveling the sig-nature foreign policy achieve-ment of his predecessor BarackObama, isolating the UnitedStates from its Western allies andsowing uncertainty before a riskynuclear negotiation with NorthKorea.

The decision, while long antici-pated and widely telegraphed,leaves the 2015 agreementreached by seven countries aftermore than two years of gruelingnegotiations in tatters. The UnitedStates will now reimpose thestringent sanctions it imposed onIran before the deal and is consid-ering new penalties.

Iran said it will remain in thedeal, which tightly restricted itsnuclear ambitions for a decade ormore in return for ending thesanctions that had crippled itseconomy.

So did France, Germany andBritain, raising the prospect of atrans-Atlantic clash as Europeancompanies face the return ofAmerican sanctions for doingbusiness with Iran. China andRussia, also signatories to thedeal, are likely to join Iran in ac-cusing the United States of vio-lating the accord.

Mr. Trump’s move could em-bolden hard-line forces in Iran,raising the threat of Iranian retali-ation against Israel or the UnitedStates, fueling an arms race in the

Middle East and fanning sectari-an conflicts from Syria to Yemen.

The president, however, framedhis decision as the fulfillment of abedrock campaign promise and asthe act of a dealmaker dissolving afatally flawed agreement. He pre-dicted his tough line with Iranwould strengthen his hand as heprepared to meet North Korea’sleader, Kim Jong-un, to begin ne-gotiating the surrender of his nu-clear arsenal.

“This was a horrible one-sideddeal that should have never, everbeen made,” a grim-faced Mr.Trump said in an 11-minute ad-dress from the Diplomatic Recep-tion Room of the White House. “Itdidn’t bring calm, it didn’t bringpeace, and it never will.”

Mr. Trump’s announcementdrew a chorus of opposition fromEuropean leaders, several ofwhom lobbied him feverishly notto pull out of the agreement andsearched for fixes to it that wouldsatisfy him.

It also drew a rare public rebukeby Mr. Obama, who said Mr.Trump’s withdrawal would leavethe world less safe, confronting itwith “a losing choice between anuclear-armed Iran or anotherwar in the Middle East.”

The response from Iran itself,however, was muted. PresidentHassan Rouhani declared that theIranians intended to abide by theterms of the deal, and he criticized

TRUMP ABANDONS IRAN PACT HE LONG SCORNED

By MARK LANDLER

“This was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” President Trump said in announcing his decision.DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A11

Move Creates Divide With Allies andComplicates North Korea Talks

For the last 17 months, Eric T.Schneiderman, the attorney gen-eral of New York, had held himselfup as the anti-Trump: a one-manlegal wrecking ball, taking on thepresident and his agenda in boththe courts and the court of publicopinion.

His sudden downfall — Mr.Schneiderman announced his res-

ignation hours after four womenemerged to describe in detail howhe had physically assaulted them— has raised questions of whethera powerful office at the heart of theDemocratic legal resistance couldbe sidelined and besmirched byscandal.

Some have even held up Mr.Schneiderman as a potentialbackstop to prosecute crimesshould President Trump choose topardon his associates in the con-tinuing special counsel investiga-

tion led by Robert S. Mueller III.The president’s vast federal par-doning powers do not apply to vio-lation of state laws.

“If you imagine a next attorneygeneral in New York who is not asinterested in being the big anti-Trump figure, that’s a potentiallysignificant difference,” said Ben-jamin Wittes, a Brookings Institu-tion senior fellow and the editor inchief of LawFare.

Anti-Trump Crusader Is Sullied. Is His Crusade?By SHANE GOLDMACHER

and ALAN FEUER

Continued on Page A21

WASHINGTON — For Presi-dent Trump and two of the allieshe values most — Israel andSaudi Arabia — the problem ofthe Iranian nuclear accord wasnot, primarily, about nuclearweapons. It was that the deallegitimized and normalized Iran’sclerical government, reopening itto the world economy with oilrevenue that financed its adven-tures in Syria and Iraq, its mis-sile program and its support ofterrorist groups.

Now, by announcing on Tues-day that he is exiting the nucleardeal and will reimpose economicsanctions on Iran and companiesaround the world that do busi-ness with the country, Mr. Trumpis engaged in a grand, highlyrisky experiment.

Mr. Trump and his Middle Eastallies are betting they can cutIran’s economic lifeline and thus“break the regime,” as one seniorEuropean official described theeffort. In theory, America’s with-drawal could free Iran to produceas much nuclear material as itwants — as it was doing fiveyears ago, when the world fearedthat it was headed toward abomb.

But Mr. Trump’s team dismiss-es that risk: Iran does not havethe economic strength to con-front the United States, Israeland Saudi Arabia. And Iranknows that any move to producea weapon would only provideIsrael and the United States witha rationale for taking militaryaction.

It is a brutally realpolitik ap-proach that America’s allies inEurope have warned is a historicmistake, one that could lead toconfrontation, and perhaps towar.

And it is a clear example of Continued on Page A12

NEWS ANALYSIS

A Risky BetOn BreakingTehran’s Will

By DAVID E. SANGERand DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

TEHRAN — The sense of crisisin Iran runs deep and wide. Theeconomy is in free fall. The cur-rency is plummeting. Risingprices are squeezing citydwellers. A five-year drought isdevastating the countryside. Thepitched battle between politicalmoderates and hard-liners is soperilous that there is even talk of amilitary takeover.

Now, the lifeline offered by the2015 nuclear deal, which was sup-posed to alleviate pressure onIran’s economy and crack openthe barriers to the West, is fallingapart, too: President Trump an-nounced Tuesday that he waswithdrawing the United Statesfrom the agreement, which hecalled a “disastrous deal.”

The chief loser will be the coun-try’s moderate president, HassanRouhani, who now looks weak-ened, foolish and burned for therisk he took in dealing with theAmericans.

Addressing the nation on livetelevision after Mr. Trump’s an-nouncement, Mr. Rouhani saidIran would take no immediate ac-tion to restart uranium enrich-ment and that it would negotiatewith the other parties to theagreement, Britain, China,France, Germany and Russia.

Deal’s CollapseLeaves LeaderIn Fragile State

By THOMAS ERDBRINK

President Hassan Rouhani ofIran will face new scrutiny.

EBRAHIM NOROOZI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Continued on Page A10

Thread isn’t running low, despite the 124costumes for the 30 dancers in the CityBallet’s Jerome Robbins tribute. PAGE C2

ARTS C1-8

Quick-Change Artists

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestrahad just 30 after-school music studentsa decade ago. It has caught on. PAGE C1

An Orchestra’s 1,300 Children

At least five more top managers areleaving after an investigation into com-plaints of harassment and bias. Thedepartures follow six others. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

Nike Resignations, Part 2Her 50th birthday near, she is exploringnew fields for her cooking media andmerchandise empire. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

Rachael Ray Goes Off-Menu

It takes a lot of trimming to get to theheart of an artichoke, and it can beuntidy. Don’t let that stop you. PAGE D1

A Fine Mess to Get Into

Mick Mulvaney, a fiscal firebrand, hasfound another target: the consumerprotection bureau he runs. PAGE A15

Budget Hawk’s Power Perch

Centuries after the missionaries ar-rived, their musical bequest remainsbeloved. Concepción Journal. PAGE A8

Baroque Music in Bolivia

A shell company that MichaelD. Cohen used to pay hush moneyto a pornographic film actress re-ceived payments totaling morethan $1 million from an Americancompany linked to a Russian oli-garch and several corporationswith business before the Trumpadministration, according to doc-uments and interviews.

Financial records reviewed byThe New York Times show thatMr. Cohen, President Trump’s per-sonal lawyer and longtime fixer,used the shell company, EssentialConsultants L.L.C., for an array ofbusiness activities that went farbeyond what was publicly known.Transactions adding up to at least$4.4 million flowed through Es-sential Consultants startingshortly before Mr. Trump waselected president and continuingto this January, the records show.

Among the previously unre-ported transactions were pay-ments last year of about $500,000from Columbus Nova, an invest-ment firm in New York whose big-gest client is a company con-trolled by Viktor Vekselberg, theRussian oligarch. A lawyer for Co-lumbus Nova, in a statement onTuesday, described the money asa consulting fee that had nothingto do with Mr. Vekselberg.

Other transactions described inthe financial records include hun-dreds of thousands of dollars Mr.Cohen received from Fortune 500companies with business beforethe Trump administration, as wellas smaller amounts he paid forluxury expenses like a Mercedes-Benz and private club dues.

References to the transactionsfirst appeared in a documentposted to Twitter on Tuesday byMichael Avenatti, the lawyer forStephanie Clifford, the adult filmstar who was paid $130,000 by Es-

A TRAIL OF MONEYLEADING TO COHEN

In Firm’s Ledger, AT&Tand an Oligarch

This article is by Mike McIntire,Ben Protess and Jim Rutenberg.

Continued on Page A19

Hackers targeted election sys-tems in at least 18 states, startingas early as 2014, the Senate Intelli-gence Committee says. Page A18.

Russian Election Meddling

WASHINGTON — Republicansnarrowly averted political disas-ter in the West Virginia Senate pri-mary on Tuesday with the defeatof the former coal executive DonBlankenship while mainstreamDemocrats fended off a liberal in-surgent in the Ohio governor’srace, bringing relief to the estab-lishment of both parties on a dayof elections in four states.

But Washington Republicanswere handed a stinging defeat inNorth Carolina, where Represent-ative Robert Pittenger was de-feated by Mark Harris, a pastorwho made his name denouncingsame-sex marriage. The unex-

pected setback is likely to jolt con-gressional Republicans yet againand underscore that their fragileHouse majority is the party’s mostvulnerable front in 2018.

In the West Virginia Senate pri-mary, Mr. Blankenship came in adistant third after an 11th-hour in-tervention by President Trumpthat was coordinated by SenateRepublicans. They saw Mr.Blankenship as unelectable andunworthy of the Senate, given that

he served a year in prison in con-nection with a mining disaster in2010 that killed 29 men, and maderacially offensive comments dur-ing the campaign.

Attorney General Patrick Mor-risey won the Republican nomina-tion to challenge Senator JoeManchin III, one of the most vul-nerable Democrats seeking re-election this year.

Mr. Blankenship, speaking toreporters Tuesday night, said hebelieved a hostile tweet by Mr.Trump may have cost him 10 per-centage points or more in the race.After the May 1 debate, he main-tained, all three candidates’ inter-nal surveys showed him surginginto the lead.

“That might have been the

Parties’ Stalwarts Hold Ground Against RebelsBy JONATHAN MARTIN

and ALEXANDER BURNS

Don Blankenship, who called himself “Trumpier than Trump,” conceded defeat in West Virginia.JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A19

Cordray Tops Kucinich— Blankenship Falls

in West Virginia

Paintings and antiques from the estate ofDavid and Peggy Rockefeller fetched topdollar at a Christie’s auction. PAGE A22

NEW YORK A20-22

New Walls for Rockefeller Art

Late EditionToday, mostly sunny, mild after-noon, high 74. Tonight, clear, calm,low 56. Tomorrow, some sunshine,then increasing clouds, not as warm,high 72. Weather map, Page A23.

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