Mike Pence enters 2024 race with speech denouncing Trump’s ‘reckless’ actions

Pence says Trump ‘demanded I choose between him and the constitution’ and that someone like that ‘should never be president again’

Mike Pence officially announced he is running for the Republican presidential nomination in a video posted early Wednesday and formally addressed a crowd of supporters in Ankeny, Iowa, on Wednesday afternoon.

In his speech, the former Indiana governor chastised Donald Trump for his “reckless” actions on 6 January 2021, took swipes at Joe Biden and singled out “enemies of freedom” around the world, including a three-second frame of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, in the video.

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Samuel Alito says leaked abortion draft made conservative justices ‘targets of assassination’ – as it happened

Ron DeSantis grew angry on Thursday when asked by a reporter in Israel about his time at Guantánamo Bay:

One interesting thing about this clip is that it’s been shared on Twitter both by DeSantis’s own media operation (which is posted above) and by Democrats looking to attack the presumptive candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. Make of that what you will.

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Mike Pence testifies to grand jury about Donald Trump and January 6

Former vice-president’s proximity to the ex-president during the Capitol attack makes him a key witness in the criminal inquiry

Mike Pence testified before a federal grand jury on Thursday in Washington about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a source familiar with the matter, a day after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch motion to block his appearance.

The former vice-president’s testimony lasted for around seven hours and took place behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors hearing evidence in the case remains uncertain.

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Mike Pence will enter presidential race ‘well before late June’ – if he does at all

Former vice-president, adrift of Trump and DeSantis in polls, makes less-than-bold presidential prediction to CBS

Mike Pence has not decided whether to enter the Republican presidential primary but if he does he will enter “well before late June”.

The former congressman, Indiana governor and vice-president to Donald Trump has been moving towards a run for months, releasing a memoir, visiting early voting states and establishing a political staff.

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Mike Pence will not appeal order to testify to January 6 grand jury

Decision clears way for former vice-president to appear before panel looking into 2020 election interference and Capitol attack

The former vice-president Mike Pence will not appeal an order compelling him to testify in the US justice department investigation of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, attempts which culminated in the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.

The order was handed down last week. A spokesperson for Pence announced the decision on Wednesday, clearing the way for Pence to appear before a grand jury in Washington.

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Mike Pence must testify before grand jury investigating January 6 – reports

A federal judge ruled the former vice-president must appear in the inquiry into Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election

Former US vice-president Mike Pence must testify in front of a grand jury investigating Donald Trump’s election subversion and incitement of the January 6 attack on Congress, a federal judge reportedly ruled on Tuesday.

Multiple news outlets reported the ruling, which remained under seal.

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Trump allies and rivals rally to his defence after he claims arrest is imminent

Former president says he expects to be arrested on Tuesday but there has been no official confirmation of the likelihood or timing of charges being brought

Top Republicans, including some of Donald Trump’s potential rivals for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, rushed to his defence after the former president said he expected to be arrested next week.

On Saturday, Trump announced he would be arrested on Tuesday in a criminal case involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, but there has been no official confirmation on the likelihood that charges will be brought.

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‘You can blame him’: Trump shifts responsibility for January 6 on Pence

Ex-president’s remarks come after his former vice-president said that history will hold Trump accountable for the violence

Donald Trump on Monday responded to Mike Pence’s contention that history will hold him accountable for the January 6 attack on Congress, saying the deadly attack was his former vice-president’s fault.

“Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with January 6, so in many ways you can blame him for January 6,” Trump told reporters on a flight to Iowa for a campaign appearance.

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White House rebukes Mike Pence over homophobic jokes about Pete Buttigieg

Former vice-president took aim at transportation secretary for taking maternity leave and joked about postpartum depression

The White House rebuked the Republican former vice-president Mike Pence on Monday, for making jokes about US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, maternity leave and postpartum depression that it said were homophobic and offensive to women.

“He should apologise to women and LGBTQ+ people,” said Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.

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Mike Pence: history will hold Donald Trump accountable over Capitol attack

Former vice-president, speaking at Gridiron dinner, says it ‘mocks decency’ to portray January 6 as anything other than a ‘disgrace’

Mike Pence has offered a rebuke of his one-time boss Donald Trump, saying history will hold the former president accountable for his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Pence, then vice-president, was in the Capitol when thousands of Trump supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress certifying the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.

Reuters contributed reporting

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Prosecutors seek to question Trump lawyer before grand jury in classified papers case

Investigators are looking at invoking an exception that can bypass attorney-client privilege if legal advice is used for furthering crime

Federal prosecutors involved in the criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents argued to a US judge on Thursday that one of the former US president’s lawyers should answer more questions before a grand jury over objections of attorney-client privilege.

US prosecutors have been seeking to invoke the so-called crime-fraud exception that allows them to compel testimony about communications between an attorney and a client when they have evidence to suggest legal advice was used in furtherance of a crime.

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US confirms ‘high-altitude object’ taken down over Alaska – as it happened

John Kirby says defense department was tracking flying object, and Biden ordered military to ‘down’ it

Reports are now confirming that the FBI is searching Pence’s Indiana home for additional classified documents.

CNN reported that “a source familiar with the situation” is confirming that the search is taking place and in relation to classified documents.

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FBI search of Pence’s Indiana residence finds new classified document

Lawyer for Trump’s former vice-president reportedly present for search, which followed discovery of documents there last month

FBI agents searched an Indiana property belonging to Mike Pence on Friday and found new official papers, including one with classified markings. The search was the latest step in a saga over the improper retention of classified documents by Pence, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The Washington Post reported that Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, was in California while the search was carried out at his home in Carmel, north of Indianapolis. A Pence lawyer was present, the paper said.

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Biden and Pence documents reveal US crisis of ‘overclassification’, expert says

System whereby government classifies 50m documents a year threatens national security and democracy, says Jameel Jaffer

Donald Trump was caught with classified documents and Democrats were outraged. Joe Biden was caught with classified documents and Republicans were outraged. Mike Pence was caught with classified documents and it became clear that there might be a bigger problem here.

America has a crisis of “overclassification”, critics say. Since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks, Washington has been overzealous in defining government secrets. Politicians and officials can too easily fall foul of this secrecy-industrial complex but the biggest losers are the American people denied democratic accountability.

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Pence documents discovery sparks scrutiny on US classification system – live

Some lawmakers on both sides now asking if discoveries mean it’s time to look at how government manages its secrets

Joe Biden will at 12 pm eastern time speak about the United State’s support for Ukraine, amid reports that Washington plans to send its Abrams tanks to help Kyiv defend against the Russian invasion.

Earlier in the day, the White House announced the American president had spoken to president Emmanuel Macron of France, Britain’s prime minister Rishi Sunak, chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and prime minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy “as part of our close coordination on support for Ukraine.”

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Discovery at Pence’s home brings question: why were classified documents left unsecure?

Similar incidents involving Pence, Biden and Trump lead to calls for tightening how documents are handled – and whether the US is over-classifying

The discovery of classified documents at the home of former US vice-president Mike Pence, following similar incidents involving Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is bringing new scrutiny to government procedures for handling and securing its most delicate secrets.

The justice department and FBI are looking into how about a dozen classified-marked papers came to be found last week in an unsecure location at Pence’s Indiana residence, two years after he and Trump left office.

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From Liz Cheney to Donald Trump: winners and losers from the January 6 hearings

As the House January 6 committee is set to publish its report, here are some of the key standouts

The House January 6 committee is set to publish its report on the attack on the Capitol that shocked both America and the world . After a year of dramatic hearings and bombshell testimony, here are some of the key winners and losers to emerge from its work.

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Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by 23 points in Republican poll

Florida governor takes enormous lead over embattled ex-president for 2024 race as Mike Pence nears a run of his own

In a new poll regarding potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, led Donald Trump by a whopping 23 points.

Republican and Republican-leaning voters dealt the significant blow to the former president’s ego in a survey carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University and released on Tuesday.

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DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign books

The GOP flopped in the midterms but its White House hopefuls still hope to find readers – and conservative group bulk-buyers

In one of the clearest signs that the 2024 Republican presidential primary will feature rivals to Donald Trump, a host of likely candidates have released or will soon release books purporting to outline their political visions.

Such books often sell poorly, but that is rarely their point. They are markers of ambition. To judge from the political bookshelves, after midterm elections in which many Trump-endorsed candidates suffered humiliating losses, the former president will not be the only declared candidate for long.

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Pence says FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago ‘sent the wrong message’

Ex-vice-president hopes prosecutors ‘give careful consideration before taking more steps’ in investigating Trump over January 6

Though he believes “no one is above the law,” former US vice-president Mike Pence says he hopes federal prosecutors “give careful consideration before they take any additional steps” in investigating Donald Trump’s role in inciting the rioters who staged the January 6 Capitol attack and tried to hang him.

Pence made those remarks Sunday in an interview with the host of NBC’s Meet the Press, Chuck Todd, in which he also said that the FBI “sent the wrong message” with its search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August to retake government secrets that were stored there without authorization.

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