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Two members of Donald Trump’s legal team, Evan Corcoran and Lindsey Halligan, were seen entering the Justice Department headquarters in Washington DC on Monday morning as the agency continues its investigations into their employer and his handling of classified documents after the presidency. During the meeting, lawyers argued that Mr. Trump should not face charges in the investigation.
Meanwhile, federal investigators involved in the probe are focusing on an employee at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla., who, in the process of draining a pool on the property last year, flooded a room. where computer servers containing video surveillance records were stored.
Investigators are said to have questioned at least one witness about the episode, but it remains unclear whether the server room flooding is being treated as suspicious or an accident.
Responding in an all-caps meltdown on Truth Social, Mr Trump raged: “HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAS BEEN CHARGED?”
Also on Monday, his estranged former deputy Mike Pence filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to launch a presidential bid of his own, which is likely to be officially announced on Wednesday.
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DNC statement on Pence’s 2024 run
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison released the following statement in response to Mike Pence’s entry into the 2024 Republican primary:
In Mike Pence’s own words, he was a member of the extreme Tea Party before it was cool,’ and he hasn’t slowed down since. Pence pushed an extreme agenda in Congress and in the state of Indiana before becoming Donald Trump’s MAGA wingman for four years and then campaigning for election negatives last year. Now, he’s promising to take the Trump-Pence agenda even further, leading the charge for a national abortion ban, slashing Medicare and ending Social Security as we know it.
Pence’s entry will no doubt drag an increasingly MAGA 2024 GOP field even further to the extremes.
Oliver O’ConnellJune 6, 2023 3:18 p.m
Texas sheriff recommends criminal charges over DeSantis’ migrant flights
The sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, is recommending criminal charges against those involved in flights that sent 49 mostly Venezuelan migrants from El Paso to Martha’s Vineyard last year, which was widely derided as a political stunt orchestrated by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.
A statement from the sheriff’s office says it has completed an investigation that began last September and recommended multiple unlawful restraint charges, both misdemeanors and felonies, to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
Oliver O’ConnellJune 6, 2023 3:15 p.m
Trump says case against him is ‘all about election interference’
In his latest speech on Truth Social, former President Donald Trump claims the investigations against him are designed to interfere with the 2024 election.
The Marxists and fascists at the DOJ and FBI are after me at a level and speed never seen in our country, and I did nothing wrong. Joe Biden kept (keeps) thousands of documents, in many places, some illegally taken from skiffs while he was a senator, much of which was classified. He didn’t want them back, and still doesn’t. Nothing wrong with him, with the same reasonable prosecutor who properly exonerated Mike Pence. I have a very different prosecutor, a Trump hater!
It’s all about ELECTION INTERFERENCE. They don’t want to run against me. I ran twice, I did much better the second time, getting millions and millions more votes than the first time, a record for a sitting president, and I’m leading Biden by a lot in the polls. They are the Disinformation Party! They are using the DOJ and FBI against me to rig the 2024 election. They will hit Hunter with something small to make their hit on me look “fair”. Nothing about these fascists is fair or honest. FIGHT!
They are also persecuting me as RETURN to the Republicans in Congress persecuting them. The difference is that they have created major crimes, I have not created any!
ELECTORAL INTERFERENCE!!! Don’t let it happen.
Oliver O’ConnellJune 6, 2023 2:45 p.m
Mike Pence files paperwork to enter 2024 race
Mike Pence, the former Indiana governor who spent four years as then-President Donald Trump’s loyal vice president until he became persona non grata in MAGA circles to certify his defeat in the 2020 election, has declared officially a candidate for the GOP nomination in next year’s Republican presidential primary.
Mr Pence on Monday filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to register his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, capping months of speculation over whether Trump’s former right-hand man would challenge his former running mate, who is seeking to regain the his former post at the head of the executive branch amid multiple criminal investigations into his conduct.
Read more in The Independent:
John BowdenJune 6, 2023 2:15 p.m
Trump and DeSantis must pledge their support to an eventual White House nominee when the first debate is announced
Donald Trump and primary challenger Ron DeSantis must pledge their support for the eventual Republican presidential nomination if they want to participate in the party’s first primary debate.
The Republican National Committee will insist on the condition that any candidate can take the stage at the event, which it announced will take place on August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The Independent has the story:
John BowdenJune 6, 2023 1:45 p.m
ICYMI: DeSantis Defines ‘Woke Up’ After Trump Claims ‘Half The People Can’t’
Ron DeSantis has finally responded, days after Donald Trump said “half the people” can’t define the word “woke.”
“Look, we know what the awakening is, it’s a form of cultural Marxism,” DeSantis told NBC News reporter Dasha Burns during a campaign stop in Iowa on Saturday.
“It’s about putting merit and achievement behind identity politics, and it’s basically a war against the truth. And how this has infected institutions and corrupted institutions. So you have to be willing to fight the woke, we’ve done that in Florida and we proudly consider ourselves the state where the woke go to die.
Two days earlier, Mr. Trump took a veiled shot at the Florida governor by criticizing the Republican buzzword’s overuse at his own campaign event in Iowa on Thursday.
“I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear: ‘Woke, woke, woke’. It’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is.” Trump said at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, Iowa.
John BowdenJune 6, 2023 1:15 p.m
Wisconsin judge: Don’t delete records from Trump’s 2020 loss probe
A Wisconsin judge on Monday refused to throw out a lawsuit to ensure that no records are deleted from a now-shuttered state office created to investigate former President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss.
The lawsuit was one of several filed by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight against former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and the special counsel office he led. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos tapped Gableman to lead that office in 2021 under pressure from Mr. Trump and conservative Wisconsin Republicans pushing for the state to decertify Joe Biden’s victory.
Read more in The Independent about the far-reaching consequences of this now closed effort:
John BowdenJune 6, 2023 12:45 p.m
Chris Christie will launch the 2024 presidential bid
Yesterday, Mike Pence took his first steps toward announcing a tilt at the White House.
Tonight, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie looks set to launch his own bid for the Republican presidential nomination at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire.
The campaign will be the second for Mr Christie, who lost to Donald Trump in 2016 and became a close and occasional adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. S ‘has presented as the only candidate willing to take on the 45th president directly.
Joe SommerladJune 6, 2023 12:15 p.m
Casey DeSantis tagged “Walmart Melania” over the jacket stunt
Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady and wife of Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis, has been dubbed the “Walmart Melania” after wearing a leather jacket emblazoned with a map of the Sunshine State, an alligator and the legend “Where is the awakening”. die” during a campaign stop in Iowa to promote her husband.
Ms. DeSantis wore the offensive jacket to Des Moines at a “Roast and Ride” event hosted by state Sen. Joni Ernst.
The gesture was reminiscent of former US first lady Melania Trump wearing a jacket that read “I really don’t care. Do you?” while immigrant children were being cruelly separated from their families at the Texas border during her husband Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Walmart Melania made a fair play when she wore that jacket,” one Twitter user wrote, while another prominent account tweeted: “Behind every Republican man, there’s a Republican woman selling her sisterhood “.
Joe SommerladJune 6, 2023 11:55 am
Trump’s latest truth social collapse
Donald Trump unleashed a furious rally in all-caps on Monday against the Justice Department and appeared to indicate he believed charges were imminent in the case of its dispute with the National Archives over the preservation of presidential records.
In a Truth Social post, he also revealed that two other lawyers on his payroll, James Trusty and John Rowley, had also met with the Department of Justice on Monday.
The former president wrote:
“HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING DOUBLE, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAS BEEN CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WILL NOT BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MANY OF THEM WITH A GOOD CLASSIFICATION, THE ITS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRATIC SENATORS GET EXCITED. Also, PRESIDENT CLINTON HAD DOCUMENTS AND WON IN COURT. CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY WERE CLASSIFIED AND IT WAS NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING LOADED! ONLY TRUMP – THE BIGGEST WITCH HUNT EVER!
Politico had originally reported that attorneys Evan Corcoran and Lindsey Halligan had been seen entering DoJ headquarters.
Read more:
Joe SommerladJune 6, 2023 11:30 am
