The Biden administration has taken office in crisis mode, facing a coronavirus pandemic that it believes requires immediate action—specifically, a new economic stimulus plan that can be in place before supplemental federal unemployment benefits expire on March 14. Once again, there is the prospect that action will be taken entirely, or almost entirely, with Democratic votes, because the gap between what the White House wants and what Republicans think is necessary is yawning.

The grounds for a bipartisan effort in both areas were there in the Trump years, but bitterness over Democratic investigations of the president got in the way.

Two obvious obstacles stand in the way of post-stimulus bipartisanship. The first is that there simply won’t be enough money left. The new coronavirus package is just the latest of a handful of such pandemic plans financed, in effect, with borrowed dollars.

Republicans, having essentially looked the other way at a sea of red ink unleashed in the past four years, now are paying more attention to the rising federal debt load. But so are some Democrats.

Maybe partisanship is inevitable in today’s divisive political climate; maybe it is simply naive to think otherwise. The partisan divides of 2021 aren’t created simply by attitudes but by the changing nature of the Democratic and Republican parties from the ground up

The Democratic party is increasingly racially diverse, female and focused in urban areas along the coast. The Republican party is increasingly male, populated by voters without college degrees and focused in the heartland outside of coastal urban areas.

There is ample reason to believe that if the remaining 2,500 U.S. forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban forces fighting the internationally recognized Afghan government would take over the capital of Kabul within a matter of months.

Most important, the country that spawned the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil could well revert to the incubator of violent Islamic extremism that it was once before.

Stacked up against that is candidate Joe Biden’s pledge to “end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure.” That statement not only mirrored the pledge made by former President Donald Trump, but also reflected broad public sentiment.

In a sense, that target already has been met: Mr. Trump reduced the troop level to 2,500 from 14,000 as a result of last year’s tentative peace agreement. The problem with going further is that the Taliban has shown neither the ability nor the willingness to actually go all the way toward real peace with the Afghan government.

The Taliban can’t seem to get out of its own way; a wise, if cynical, strategy would be to quell violence until American troops are gone, but that isn’t what has emerged.

On the other hand, there actually is progress in the normally bleak Afghan picture that’s worth protecting. A diplomatic process actually is under way, and the country is making slow progress in education and health.

Even a token military presence—2,500 troops out of America’s active force of some 1.3 million—can have an outsize impact in protecting those gains.

Asian nations are also wary of getting caught in the middle of a battle between China, a major investor and market for their goods, and the U.S., for whom they rely on for security. The U.S., for instance, has offered rhetorical support for Australia, which has seen China cut off imports of Australian coal, wine and other goods over Canberra’s call for an independent investigation of how China handled the emergence of the coronavirus.

The cabinet secretaries’ visits next week will be their first trips overseas since taking office and, the State Department said, are meant to underscore the U.S. commitment to these alliances and the region’s security.

On Friday, Mr. Biden will host a virtual summit with other leaders of the so-called Quad, a strategic group seen as a bulwark against Chinese expansionism that includes Australia, Japan and India.

Relations, strained for years, pitched down last year as the Trump administration ramped up its drive to roll back China’s global influence, bolster support for partners such as Taiwan and confront Beijing over alleged espionage, its crackdowns on Hong Kong and in the Muslim-region of Xinjiang, and other policies seen as inimical to U.S. interests.

The U.S. hasn’t named its representative but for the Chinese it will be Ma Jun, a World Bank veteran and former chief economist at the People’s Bank of China who is an expert on environmentally sustainable finance.

“I told him I will work with China when it benefits the American people,” Mr. Biden tweeted afterward. Mr. Xi also pledged cooperation and told his counterpart a confrontation between the two powers would be a disaster, according to Chinese media.

The survey, which was conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw and Company Research, also found that 28% of Americans believe the U.S. should prioritize its military resources toward Asia, compared with the Middle East, which was second at 21%.

“One area where extroverts excel is the in-the-moment processing of bodily cues,” says William Lamson, an assistant professor of psychology in clinical psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine. But because video calls are more about talking heads, extroverts end up “using more focus and not likely getting the same reward as a live interaction,” Dr. Lamson says.

Creating more satisfying Zoom experiences does not, however, mean adding more video calls, say experts. Each individual has to find the right balance. Ken Schmitt, an executive recruiter in San Diego, says he used to use Zoom to socialize and even organized 40-person Zoom celebrations for his own and his wife’s 50th birthdays in 2020. Now he has cut back as he finds he experiences some Zoom fatigue every day from his virtual work calls.

For introverts, the structure and control of videoconferencing platforms could be somewhat comforting, compared with typical workplace social exchanges.

For one thing, in most virtual meetings, with multiple participants observing one another, “you feel like you’re being constantly watched,” says Dr. McIntyre. “Introverts prefer to control who is in their personal space and for how long.”

“Portion control is critical for everyone,” he says. Shorter video calls or making the video feature optional can help.

The scrutiny of Seven Springs is part of a broader criminal probe into Mr. Trump, his company and its officers that also includes financial dealings at properties such as Mr. Trump’s flagship Trump Tower in Manhattan, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported. Outside of New York, prosecutors are also examining a loan for the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago, people familiar with the matter said, which CNN reported earlier.

The district attorney’s office also requested recordings of planning-board meetings in Bedford, N.Y., one of three towns on which the Seven Springs estate sits, people familiar with the matter said. Messrs. Mastromonaco and Martabano appeared before the board with Mr. Trump’s son, Eric Trump, in 2012 and 2013, meeting minutes show.

Mr. Trump valued the property at $291 million in 2012, according to what he called his “statement of financial condition,” a collection of financial information compiled but not audited by his accountants. Mr. Trump valued the property at between $25 million and $50 million on financial-disclosure paperwork filed when he was president.

The office also has hired FTI Consulting Inc. to do forensic-accounting work on the case, people familiar with the matter said. An FTI spokesman declined to comment.

The information that prosecutors have requested centers on a yearslong effort to gain the necessary local approvals to build a subdivision of luxury homes after Mr. Trump’s original plan of building a golf course at Seven Springs fell through in the early 2000s. The subdivision effort dates to at least 2004 and continued through 2013, according to planning and zoning board documents.

The final appraisal, sent to Mr. Trump in 2016, values the property at $56.5 million and the conservation easement portion at $21.1 million. Seven Springs LLC, which is part of the Trump Organization, claimed a $21.1 million tax deduction for the easement in tax year 2015, a lawyer for the attorney general’s office has said in court.

“What we saw was the single largest demand event in history,” said Peter Keavey, managing director for energy products at CME Group, owner of the New York Mercantile Exchange, where U.S. crude futures trade.

Prices have since somewhat recovered. But those jarring moves of the spring added urgency to arguments about whether benchmarks used since the 1980s adequately reflect the modern oil market

The crash rippled through the physical market, where, for example, Saudi Arabia sets prices for exports to the U.S. using an assessment tied to futures prices.

The pricing system based on three benchmark crudes—West Texas Intermediate in the U.S., Brent in Europe and Dubai in the Middle East—has broadly stayed the same.

WTI futures show no sign of being displaced as the primary gauge of U.S. crude prices, said CME’s Mr. Keavey. “Crude-oil infrastructure in the U.S. still revolves around Cushing,” he said. “The Gulf Coast is certainly an emerging price point, but it is still a secondary benchmark.”

That means the price of the contracts typically converges with oil prices at Cushing in the run-up to their last day of trading.

“We need to open up the benchmarks to be more reflective of global oil prices,” said Greg Newman, chief executive of U.K.-based Onyx Capital Group, which specializes in oil swaps. “How can it be accurate if you’re focusing on one tiny localized area?”

Even before coronavirus, there was growing interest in assessing the price of crude at the Gulf Coast, home to other U.S. trading hubs.

there has been a boom in U.S. oil exports since a four-decade embargo on its shipments ended in late 2015.

Crude oil comes in dozens of varieties that differ by density and sulfur content. WTI, Brent and Dubai act as reference points against which other grades are priced. They also are the basis for financial contracts that allow players in the oil market to hedge against and speculate on price swings.

“Benchmarks always reflect flows,”

The proposed change was meant to reflect the growing importance of U.S. exports in global energy markets.

The changes also were due to affect contracts known as cash BFOE, which reflect the forward price of crude that doesn’t yet have a specific loading date. Making sellers responsible for freight costs in the cash BFOE market would have transformed a pillar of the North Sea’s vast and complex crude-oil market, analysts said.

The proposed changes initially sparked a big rise in the price of swaps that traders use to hedge positions in the physical market, as they sought to factor in the price of freight.

Platts signaled Wednesday that West Texas Intermediate will still be added to its Brent calculations at some point in the future.

The administration has said it needs more time to accomplish its goal and has repeatedly warned prospective migrants that now isn’t the time to make the journey to the border.

the U.S. said Wednesday it is restarting a program allowing Central American children to come to the U.S. legally if they have a parent here. Mr. Biden was briefed earlier in the day by a team of senior administration officials who recently traveled to the Southern border to review the situation.

The Central American Minors program was started by former President Barack Obama in 2014 in response to the first wave of Central American children arriving at the border. Former President Donald Trump terminated the program in 2017, saying it was an immigration pathway that had been created without congressional approval.

The Central American Minors program was meant to provide a safe and legal alternative for children who would otherwise undertake dangerous journeys to the U.S., the State Department said when the program was announced.

“Neither this announcement nor any of the other measures suggests that anyone, especially children and families with young children, should make the dangerous trip to try to enter the U.S. in an irregular fashion,” Roberta Jacobson, the administration’s coordinator for the southern border, said at a news conference announcing the restart of the Central American Minors program at the White House. “The border is not open.”

One of the Trump administration policies that the Biden administration has maintained is a public-health-emergency order allowing Border Patrol agents to immediately turn back most migrants they encounter, skipping the process of formally arresting them and depriving them of the chance to ask for asylum. The policy is being applied to single adults who cross the border—still the majority of migrants—as well as most families.

The Biden administration also stopped expelling unaccompanied children to their home countries, a reversal of Trump administration policy that the Biden team says is a more humane approach to caring for children. The government has instead been allowing children to claim asylum or apply for other visas. The children are then transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which operates a network of child-welfare shelters around the country.

Ms. Psaki told reporters the additional J&J doses the administration intends to secure weren’t expected until the second half of the year and would allow the administration to plan for booster shots, if necessary, or for the possible approval of the vaccine for children.

“Some observers may view this corporate partnership as the coming together of rivals, but in these extraordinary times we are colleagues, not competitors,” Merck’s Mr. Frazier said on Wednesday.

The White House said states will receive 15.8 million doses this week, up from 15.2 million last week. Another 2.7 million doses will be distributed to pharmacies. Those shipments don’t include doses of the J&J vaccine due to manufacturing constraints.

The vaccine hasn’t been approved for people under 16 years old. Administration officials have sought to increase the total number of vaccines to prepare for all contingencies, including new variants that could require booster shots.

As part of the agreement, the administration committed to help Merck with upgrading its facilities for vaccine production. —Peter Loftus contributed to this article.

Before the passing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the full amount of taxes paid to the local and state authorities could be deducted. The decrease in deductions has been a bone of contention for politicians from high-tax states like California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Because homeowners can no longer deduct the full amount of their property taxes from their federal income tax bill, many have pulled up stakes from high-tax states and moved to places with less of a burden.

When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) offered an amendment to the Covid-aid bill on Friday pushing for the Senate to override the rules and raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, eight Democrats voted against it, including swing votes Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona along with Mr. Coons.

A group of other Senate Republicans signed on to the proposal, with some additional GOP lawmakers saying they would be open to an increase.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that Mr. Biden will use his “political capital” to help achieve a $15 minimum wage, and said he wasn’t currently considering a lower rate

But any Democratic effort to compromise with Republicans on a minimum-wage increase would need to contend with demands from progressive Democrats and activists to not back down from $15 an hour.

Sen. Manchin has said $15 is too high for low cost-of-living states and said he could support a minimum wage of $11 an hour. Other Democratic senators had expressed concern about the rate, as well as its extension to tipped workers, who currently must be paid a subminimum wage of as little as $2.13 an hour, as long as they earn the full minimum in gratuity.

Many economists say a smaller total increase or a raise spread out over more years would cause less job loss.

a $12-an-hour minimum wage by 2025 would reduce employment by 300,000, while increasing wages for up to 11 million workers and lift 400,000 above the poverty threshold. A minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2025 would have little effect on employment or poverty, while providing raises for up to 3.5 million workers.

“If the progressive view is that it’s $15 or nothing, they may end up with nothing,” said Glenn Spencer, head of the Chamber’s Employment Policy Division.

Children and adult dependents would be eligible for the full $1,400.

Enhanced unemployment benefits totaling $300 a week are set to expire on March 14, creating a de facto deadline for Congress to act. Senate Democrats struck a last-minute agreement Friday to set federal unemployment benefits at $300 a week, down from the $400 passed by the House, but extend their duration by a month, through September. In addition, the first $10,200 of the benefits for 2020 wouldn’t be taxable.

the restaurant industry will receive $25 billion in relief targeted at small and midsize restaurants and chains.

It allocates $8.75 billion to federal, state, local, territorial and tribal public-health agencies for distributing, administering and tracking vaccinations, with some funds specially dedicated to making sure the vaccination process reaches underserved communities.

While the package would make the child tax-credit changes only for one year, it is broadly expected that Democrats will seek to make them permanent in the future.

allow federal workers, including postal workers, to take as many as 600 hours of emergency paid leave related to Covid-19.

Vaccine development would also get a boost, with around $20 billion going to federal biomedical research for vaccine and therapeutic manufacturing and procurement, along with around $3 billion for a strategic national stockpile of vaccines. Another $25 billion would be spent on testing, contact tracing and reimbursing hospitals for lost revenue related to the pandemic.

Senate Democrats added a provision that would make much student-loan forgiveness free from income taxes, creating an exception from 2021 through 2025 to the normal rule that canceled debt is income

Not likely. Republicans see the bill as too large, saying it sprawls beyond pandemic aid and instead is a wish list of liberal priorities.

Republicans have used the budget-resolution amendment process to inflict political damage on Democrats and expose their differences on issues like providing aid to undocumented immigrants and raising the minimum wage. But they have been unable to strike many blows against support for the overall package, which enjoys strong approval in polls and has so far kept congressional Democrats united on its top-line priorities.

raised some fresh worries about inflation and potentially overheating the economy. Republicans opposed the bill, attacking its price tag and calling many of its measures bloated or unnecessary and unrelated to the crisis.

Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and key cabinet secretaries plan to spend the coming weeks traveling around the country touting the package and explaining how the public can take advantage of its benefits, White House officials said. Ms. Psaki said the White House is planning interviews with local media outlets as well as a digital strategy related to the bill.

Like in previous packages, the full direct payments will go to individuals making as much as $75,000 and married couples making as much as $150,000, and the $300 weekly jobless-aid supplement lawmakers approved in December will continue through Sept. 6. Federal unemployment benefits had been set to begin expiring on March 14, spurring lawmakers to quickly approve the package.

The additional subsidies could mean lower premium payments for almost 14 million people insured on the individual market.

reconciliation also enabled Democrats to move forward with measures that Republicans oppose, including $350 billion in aid for state and local governments that Republicans have assailed as a political handout in excess of the budget hardships caused by the pandemic.

The bill will expand the child tax credit—increasing the benefit to $3,000 per child from $2,000, with a $600 bonus for children under age 6—make it refundable, and authorize periodic payments.

Lawmakers are expected to push to make the expansion, set to last through 2021, permanent.

After a push from centrist Democrats in the Senate, lawmakers did downsize some elements of the bill. The direct payments will go to zero for individuals with incomes of $80,000 and married couples with incomes of $160,000, a faster phase-down than in previous aid packages.

At $21.9 trillion as of March 1, the debt is roughly the size of the nation’s entire economic output, the highest since the aftermath of World War II.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect the aid package to propel the U.S. economy to its fastest annual growth in nearly four decades, boosting employment and reducing poverty while also reviving inflation. The economists expect the economy to grow 5.95%, measured from the fourth quarter of last year to the same period this year. The bill also puts roughly $86 billion into a new program to help multiemployer pension plans. The measure would allow the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to provide cash assistance to troubled multiemployer pension plans and ensure they continue paying benefits to retirees.

President-elect Biden’s inclusion of policies to shore up the health law in his first major legislative package has raised those hopes further.

“We’re talking about improving affordability after not being able to have that conversation for years.”

One conducted in 2018 shows that 42 percent of those who shopped for individual market coverage found it “very difficult or impossible to find an affordable plan.”

The Biden plan would create a new cap — 8.5 percent of an individual or family’s income on premium contributions — for midlevel health plans, something the president-elect had also proposed during the campaign. This policy would mostly affect higher-earning Americans who do not currently qualify for subsidies.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that a family of four earning $110,000 would see monthly premiums for a midlevel health plan fall to $779 from $1,529.

These are low-income Americans, who make up the majority of those who still lack coverage in the United States. These people already receive help buying coverage, but are still left with paying a monthly premium share that can be unaffordable.

Numerous academic studies show that premium subsidies are the strongest driver of health law enrollment. Experts say this type of large increase, directed toward low-income Americans, could drive millions more to sign up.

“It’s important both in terms of helping people through this crisis, and as a sign of the seriousness with which he is considering the future of improvements to the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “This is a step in the right direction, and it’s certainly consistent with the bigger vision he campaigned on.”

About 75 percent of the public said Mr. Trump bore some responsibility for the violence and destruction of Jan. 6, which put the lives of the vice president and members of Congress at risk and resulted in five deaths, according to the survey.

encouraged supporters who do not view President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. as legitimate, and refused to concede — has cost Mr. Trump support even with those individuals who have loyally supported him up until now.

Mr. Biden, in contrast, has benefited from how he has handled the transition period. About 64 percent of voters said they had a positive opinion of his conduct since the November election. The majority of voters said they also approved of his cabinet selections.

Mr. Trump’s polling while in office has been surprisingly stagnant, despite regular eruptions from the president

About 34 percent of respondents said they believed Mr. Trump was “definitely” or “probably” the rightful election winner.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have tried to play up that base of loyal support to him, noting that there are “welcome home” events planned for his arrival in Florida on Wednesday. They have also planned an upbeat send-off on the morning of Jan. 20 to commemorate his final departure from Washington as president, aboard Air Force One

Not only has he made history as the first president to be impeached twice. But he appears to be on track to leave office with the lowest approval rating of any modern-day president.

“Patriots are in control,” and said, “We are in the Capitol building, 1776 will commence again.”

Over 70 arrests have been made in relation to the riots, and at least 170 cases have been opened. Many of the mob participants have been easily identified through their social media posts.

Ms. Hernandez was seen in numerous videos and photographs holding Ms. Pelosi’s splintered nameplate like a prized keepsake. According to documents from the F.B.I., the agency received tips about Ms. Hernandez from her friends and acquaintances after she posted pictures and videos of herself parading around with the nameplate on Facebook and Snapchat. One tipster recognized her from a widely circulated video by ITV News, which is based in Britain.

Jenna Ryan, a real estate broker from Frisco, Texas, who took a private plane to Washington to participate in the mob, was also charged on Friday

Mr. Lindell arrived with a concerning agenda: A photograph of his partially visible notes showed that he wanted to speak to the president about invoking the Insurrection Act and appeared to recommend “martial law if necessary.” He also appeared to suggest moving Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist serving as chief of staff at the Defense Department, to the position of “C.I.A. Acting.”

In reality, Mr. Lindell is a conspiracy theorist who has been spreading inaccurate information about election fraud since November, when Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the presidential race

Even after the violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol last week, Mr. Lindell went on television to promote the lie that “Donald Trump will be our president for the next four years.” On Friday, he said he was the emissary of a lawyer working to prove that Mr. Trump won the 2020 election, but would not say who the lawyer was.

Mr. Lindell is a former crack cocaine and gambling addict, who created his company while battling his addictions.

In his memoir, John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, wrote that the president had once encouraged him to stir up trouble by flashing a yellow legal pad in the White House briefing room, on which Mr. Bolton had scrawled notes about sending 5,000 more U.S. troops to Colombia.

Even if he did not intend to act on any of Mr. Lindell’s suggestions on Friday night, Mr. Trump, through the antics (intended or not) of his loyal pillowmaking friend, managed to stir another round of shock on his way out.

But over the course of several days, the Mexican government dismantled the caravan, which at one point numbered about 4,000 people, using persuasion and force.

ut in the spring of 2018, a migrant caravan that formed near the southern border of Mexico and came to include upward of 1,200 people at its peak — a record at that time — got President Trump’s attention and became a volatile flash point in the immigration debate.

In 2019, Mr. Trump put further pressure on Mexico, as well as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, to crack down on illegal northbound migration, freezing American aid and threatening tariffs. Pressure on Mexico led to the deployment of thousands of Mexican security forces to help detain undocumented migrants as they traveled north.

The Trump administration also signed deals with the three Central American nations allowing the United States to send asylum seekers to those countries to apply for sanctuary there.

“They have no heart,” one Honduran migrant, Dixón Vázquez, 29, told the Agence France-Presse news service, speaking about the Guatemalan authorities. “We are risking our lives. There is no work in Honduras, especially after the two cyclones and the pandemic. We are going to hold out until they let us continue.”

While poverty, violence and government corruption appear to be the main drivers of the latest caravan, the change in American leadership this week may also be a factor. Migrants’ advocates and scholars have warned that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory over Mr. Trump could inspire a surge of migrants hopeful that his administration will significantly relax migration policy, making it easier for them to get into the country.

Mr. Biden said he would move quickly to undo the tougher restrictions on asylum enacted by the Trump administration, including a policy that has forced many asylum seekers to wait in Mexico pending the outcome of their cases.

On his first day in office, Mr. Biden plans to ask Congress for a broad overhaul of immigration laws, changes that would include a pathway to citizenship for 11 million immigrants now in the United States illegally, plus aid for damaged Central American economies and plans to help people fleeing violence.

“The riot was preplanned,” said Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. “This was an attempt to slander Trump.” He added, “The evidence is coming out.”

Republicans are now using the looting to try to explain away the Capitol attack. The result, for some Republican voters, ranges from doubt to conspiratorial thinking.

In one of the ultimate don’t-believe-your-eyes moments of the Trump era, these Republicans have retreated to the ranks of misinformation, claiming it was Black Lives Matter protesters and far-left groups like antifa who stormed the Capitol — in spite of the pro-Trump flags and QAnon symbology in the crowd

Democrats pointed to the differences in motivation between the Capitol mob and the mass protests of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was not seeking to overturn an election or being incited by the president. Republicans saw the Capitol attack as the work of outsiders or as justified by the summer’s isolated incidents of looting and property destruction.

A new Pew Research poll released Friday showed the president’s approval rating dropping sharply among Republicans since he inspired the mob violence, cratering to an all-time low of 60 percent, more than 14 percentage points lower than his previous nadir. Among Americans at large, Mr. Trump’s approval rating was 29 percent, a low since he took office in 2017, and he had a 68 percent disapproval rating — his highest recorded number.

“The world that said this was actually a landslide victory for Donald Trump, but it was all stolen away and changed and votes were flipped and Dominion Voting Systems,” Mr. Meijer said, describing what he called a “fever swamp” of conspiracy theories

Interviews with local and state Republican officials show the long-term effects that the amplification of misinformation has among the party. While few members of Congress have agreed with Mr. Trump’s assertion that his actions were “totally appropriate,” several party officials did. And while many Republicans condemned violence, attacks on law enforcement personnel and the killing of a Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, they did not agree that those things were the work of pro-Trump mobs acting in the president’s name, as is the consensus among law enforcement officials.

After Mr. Trump’s impeachment for inciting his supporters before the deadly riot at the Capitol, and with Republican leaders turning on him, the pardon power remains one of the last and most likely outlets for quick unilateral action by an increasingly isolated, erratic president.

He has also discussed issuing pre-emptive pardons to his children, his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and Mr. Giuliani.

He has paid Mr. Tolman at least $10,000 since late last year to lobby the White House and Congress for a pardon for his son Jeremy Hutchinson, a former Arkansas state lawmaker who pleaded guilty in 2019 to accepting bribes and tax fraud, according to a lobbying disclosure filed this month.

That system favors pardon seekers who have connections to Mr. Trump or his team, or who pay someone who does, said pardon lawyers who have worked for years through the Justice Department system.

“This kind of off-books influence peddling, special-privilege system denies consideration to the hundreds of ordinary people who have obediently lined up as required by Justice Department rules, and is a basic violation of the longstanding effort to make this process at least look fair,” said Margaret Love, who ran the Justice Department’s clemency process from 1990 until 1997 as the United States pardon attorney.

“The criminal justice system is badly broken, badly flawed,” said the former senator, Tim Hutchinson, a Republican who served in Congress from 1993 to 2003.

. Any explicit offers of payment to the president in return could be investigated as possible violations of bribery laws; no evidence has emerged that Mr. Trump was offered money in exchange for a pardon.

A filing this month revealed that Mr. Tolman was paid $22,500 by an Arizona man named Brian Anderson who had retained him in September to seek clemency for Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road founder. Mr. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and distributing narcotics on the internet.

The former Trump campaign adviser, Karen Giorno, also had access to people around the president, having run Mr. Trump’s campaign in Florida during the 2016 primary and remaining on board as a senior political adviser during the general election.

Though the name was never publicly disclosed, Mr. Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison. In the meeting, at the Washington office of his lawyer, Mr. Kiriakou said he had been wronged by the government and was seeking a pardon so he could carry a handgun and receive his pension.

In July 2018, Ms. Giorno signed an agreement with Mr. Kiriakou, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, “to seek a full pardon from President Donald Trump of his conviction” for $50,000 and promised another $50,000 as a bonus if she secured a pardon.