A former Florida governor who is seeking re-election said Saturday he was in favor of lifting a US embargo on Cuba. Washington has had an economic embargo clamped on the communist-run Caribbean country since 1962, and the two have never moved off a…
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Former Vice President Mike Pence has tried to dodge a subpoena around the special counsel's investigation of the Jan. 6 attacks on Congress and the attempt to overthrow the election.
He's claiming that as the president of the Senate, he was operating in his role as a legislator, thus he should be safe from testifying due to Article 1, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution, the "speech and debate clause." It protects lawmakers who are working in the course of their jobs as an elected official. Legal analysts have said that it's a Hail Mary pass that isn't likely to work.
According to the Washington Post, Pence knows that he/s going to be forced to speak to the grand jury whether he wants to or not.
"Pence’s advisers have privately accepted the possibility that the former vice president might have to testify against his former boss and likely political rival during an election season," the report said, citing a person familiar with the conversations.
Last weekend, Pence told ABC News that it is the only plea that he is using.
“We’re not asserting executive privilege, which may encompass other discussions, I believe, the president may well have brought a claim for that. But I just believe that the work that I did, preparing for and conducting my role as president of the Senate, is covered by the speech and debate clause," said Pence.
It puts Pence in a difficult position because if he intends to run for president, he'll need the support of Donald Trump's fans to get through a Republican Primary.
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As former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — the latter of whom has not even formally declared his candidacy yet — increasingly duke it out for the 2024 presidential nomination, Republican candidates on the lower rungs are fighting to break through. And they are now gearing up to attack the two frontrunners themselves, POLITICO reported on Wednesday.
"Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence have begun more aggressively criticizing positions held by Trump, and now DeSantis, on a range of foreign and domestic issues," reported Natalie Allison and Adam Wren. "They have been aided, their respective teams believe, by DeSantis’ decision to leave little daylight between himself and Trump on key topics, from the war in Ukraine to entitlement reform."
"'Ron DeSantis is copying Donald Trump on Ukraine, entitlement reform, and who knows what’s next?' Haley adviser Nachama Soloveichik said in a statement to POLITICO, describing the former South Carolina governor as 'a leader on these serious issues facing our country’s future' who 'will continue to note her differences with both Republicans and Democrats who want to bury their heads in the sand,'" said the report. "'Republicans deserve a choice, not a copycat,' Soloveichik said."
Pence, meanwhile, has attacked both Trump and DeSantis for staking out absolutist positions on protecting entitlement programs, saying at a speech at Washington & Lee University that he cannot “endorse voices in our party today that simply want to walk past the problem of national debt by pledging to never touch Social Security and Medicare.”
For their parts, the erstwhile allies Trump and DeSantis, who commandingly outstrip everyone else in recent polling, have ramped up rhetoric against each other.
Earlier this week, DeSantis took a potshot at Trump for his legal trouble over a $130,000 hush payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump, meanwhile, attacked DeSantis in a new statement today accusing him of being a merely "average governor" who is mismanaging the state of Florida.
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It has to be serious for the DOJ to want to breach attorney-client privilege: analysis
March 22, 2023
The court rulings around Donald Trump's document scandal reveal that there was a crime committed, and that's the reason that the court agreed to breach attorney-client privilege. It's a point that Los Angele Times legal columnist Harry Litman said shouldn't be ignored.
"We are talking about the subpoena and the false declaration that is a crime in itself, very possibly," said Litman about the information in the classified documents scandal. "And the only reason you could find a crime-fraud exception here is because the actual communications between [Trump lawyer Evan] Corcoran and Trump are themselves evidence of a crime. Stop and think about that. What is the least it could be? This is one Corcoran is preparing to, well, actually tell Christina Bobb, 'sign this, it will be okay. We've done a diligent search and we have turned over everything.' That was a lie. That is a serious lie. And in sort of prosecutorial terms, a very clean one."
He went on to say that it isn't just words that are involved in this case, but the invoices as well.
"We have tantalizing personal audio recordings," Litman explained. "Clearly, it is almost — the least it could be is very strong evidence of Trump participating in a clear violation with that subpoena and the false declaration. It could be the centerpiece of this Mar-a-Lago case. And it seems possible that it is close to the final nail in the case he is building."
MSNBC host Chris Hayes explained that it isn't normal to breach attorney-client privilege. The bar for that is high.
On MSNBC, former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade agreed, saying that it's rare that the Justice Department would make such a move.
"It is sacrosanct. The Justice Department respects it," said McQuade. "I can't remember in 20 years at the U.S. attorney's office — one time when we did seek that high-level approval to pierce the attorney-client privilege. It was because the attorney was working with the client in a conspiracy. They were both in on it. But we went through all of the steps, the judge review the material, and then determined that yes, because of the evidence, there was a crime here. But never, to answer your question, have I seen a situation where the client was trying to use the lawyer as a — that may be what is happening here."
See the full discussion in the video below or at the link here.
It has to be serious for the DOJ to want to breach attorney-client privilege: legal analysts www.youtube.com
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