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Ahead of the Department of Justice’s filing Tuesday night that opposed President Trump’s call for a "special master" to review White House documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, seven former federal prosecutors filed an amicus brief asking a Florida federal judge to deny his request. Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, Donald B. Ayer, Gregory A. Brower, John J. Farmer Jr., Stuart M. Gerson, Peter D. Keisler, William F. Weld – who all served in Republican administrations – called Trump’s request a "waste of time." The motion said the former prosecutors have a "special interest" in the...

William F. Weld, who has faced surprisingly strong competition in the race for the Republican nomination for governor, is expected to choose Christopher L. Jacobs, the New York secretary of state and a Buffalo businessman, as his running mate, a Republican involved in the Weld campaign said last night. Mr. Jacobs, a real estate developer and a member of the Buffalo Board of Education, could help Mr. Weld gain support from upstate Republican leaders, some of whom have grumbled that the party's ticket is dominated by New York City and suburban candidates. Andrea Tantaros, a spokeswoman for Mr. Weld, would...

Prominent New York Republicans took steps yesterday to derail John Faso's bid for the party nomination for governor by assailing him as an extremist conservative who would drag down the entire Republican slate in the November elections. The onslaught against Mr. Faso, a former assemblyman, could help prepare the way for a major development, several New York Republicans said: Gov. George E. Pataki's endorsement of another candidate, William F. Weld. These Republicans, who are close to Mr. Pataki, said he would like to endorse Mr. Weld but could do so only if Mr. Faso was seen by Republican voters as...

Last month, William F. Weld, a candidate for governor of New York, set state Republican politics astir by telling of an encounter with Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato that cast his fellow Republican in a bad light and offered an explanation for their simmering feud. Mr. Weld said that in 1996, when he was governor of Massachusetts and running for the Senate, he received a $750,000 check from Mr. D'Amato that was delivered with an expletive-filled warning. Mr. D'Amato vigorously denied the encounter, calling it "a bunch of baloney" and asserting that he had never even spoken to Mr. Weld in...

The Republican race for governor of New York is set for a shake-up on Monday with one of the three candidates, Randy A. Daniels, planning to drop out and throw his conservative and upstate political coalition to a rival, John Faso, both men said today. Mr. Daniels, a former New York secretary of state, said that he will endorse Mr. Faso at a campaign event in Albany on Monday morning, and that he expected at least some of his allies to attend and switch sides to Mr. Faso as well. Both men said in separate interviews that no deals were...

For the last few months, William F. Weld's bid to become governor of New York has had a sharp thorn in its side: the outspoken opposition of the onetime kingmaker of state Republican politics, former Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, who has said that Mr. Weld is "without any real experience" in New York. Yesterday, Mr. Weld struck back in force, telling how their feud dated at least to a 1996 encounter in which Mr. D'Amato gave him $750,000 in donations for his Senate campaign that year against John Kerry of Massachusetts. The donations, according to Mr. Weld, came with an...

New details that emerged yesterday about William F. Weld's tenure at a small Kentucky college, which collapsed in a financial scandal two months ago, threatened to push the issue closer to the forefront of his campaign for governor of New York. Several of his opponents, Republicans and Democrats alike, seized on the revelations to either raise questions about Mr. Weld's managerial competence or warn that the federal investigation of possible student loan fraud at the school, Decker College, would hobble his chances of winning the Republican nomination in 2006. "If Bill Weld becomes the nominee, he will be on the...

William F. Weld, a popular former governor of Massachusetts and prodigious fund-raiser, said yesterday that he was seriously considering running for governor of New York in 2006 if Gov. George E. Pataki and Rudolph W. Giuliani did not. Mr. Weld, a moderate Republican, is relatively unknown to many New Yorkers, yet his multimillion-dollar fortune and his colorful personality would clearly be assets for such a race. He was born in New York City and raised on Long Island, and Republican leaders in New York have said they will welcome his candidacy if Mr. Pataki does not run again, but until...