Former Vice President Mike Pence is expected to launch his bid for the White House within the next two weeks, according to the news site The Messenger.
The site cited sources and an email from the Georgia Republican Party that said he would make “an announcement regarding his future plans” at a televised town hall.
Pence is scheduled to headline a CNN town hall on June 7.
His run would be him head-to-head with his old boss, former President Donald Trump.
The Donald Trump aide who recently broke ranks with the former president has provided some of the strongest evidence yet in connection with the Mar-a-Lao documents case, according to a January 6 investigator on CNN.
Temidayo Aganga-Williams, an attorney who served as an investigator for the House Jan. 6 committee, appeared on CNN Primetime Tuesday night, and was asked what to think about Trump's conduct in the case. Specifically, the host asked what Aganda-Williams thinks of Trump allegedly saying his aide, Molly Michaels, should pretend she doesn't know about the boxes.
"How damaging is that?" the host asked.
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Aganga-Williams, replied, "I think it's incredibly damaging. Molly Michaels, I think, is going to be an essential, critical witness to Jack Smith's case."
He added that this particular allegation "puts these documents in Trump's hands."
The testimony will also help establish intent for the obstruction part of the case, according to Aganga-Williams, who highlighted why Michaels might make an ideal witness for Smith.
"This is not some Democrat, political opposition to Trump. This is his personal assistant. She stuck by him through impeachment one, impeachment two, the January 6th attack," the report states. "She was with him, she's someone who's shown loyalty to him. And at this point, she broke. That's important, a jury is going to look at that and say, why was she -- she has no bias, no incentive to mislead here."
A far-right anti-conservation group is being paid tens of thousands in taxpayer money by various Western counties to spread conspiracy theories about President Joe Biden's conservation policies, reported The Daily Beast on Tuesday — even comparing them to genocide.
"The Biden administration’s '30 by 30' plan is a voluntary environmental program with a goal of conserving 30 percent of the country’s land and water by 2030. But anti-conservation groups have a darker interpretation of the initiative. One group, American Stewards of Liberty (ASL), has whipped up opposition to the plan, with leaders comparing the program to genocide," reported Kelly Weill. "At least five counties that signed onto ASL’s anti-30 by 30 effort this summer have paid ASL tens of thousands in recent months. Another has earmarked unspecified funds for the group. Others have indicated involvement in a potential ASL lawsuit over federal conservation efforts, with the planning director of one ASL-aligned county announcing that the suit would be funded by counties connected to the oil and gas industries."
At its events, ASL has reportedly pushed theories comparing land conservation programs to the Holodomor, a genocide by famine conducted by the Soviet Union against Ukraine — and they are scheduled to push a conspiracy theory film by the misinformation outlet the Epoch Times, suggesting billionaires are plotting to draw down the world's food supply and force people to eat insects.
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One ASL activist, Trent Loos, told The Daily Beast that "the natural state of the United States before Lewis and Clark was a horrific place ... even Lewis and Clark had to eat horses to get across mountain ranges. So to return it to its natural state is to regress us by 250 years.”
In recent years, ASL has sought to push itself more squarely into mainstream conservative circles, but has suffered setbacks as governors and members of Congress have withdrawn from working with the group.
This comes as other groups, like Moms for Liberty, continue to embed themselves in GOP politics around the country and set policy at the local level.
Former President Donald Trump is relying on the legal counsel of his less-wealthy co-defendants in the Georgia election racketeering case, reported The Messenger on Tuesday — effectively "cribbing" his defense off of them.
"By the numbers, at least nine of Trump’s recent defense motions seeking to quash the indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis have been very brief items that essentially adopted the arguments of fellow co-defendants," reported Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon and Adam Klasfeld. "Trump is 'letting them do the heavy lifting,' said Caren Morrison, a Georgia State University law professor who has attended key recent Trump-related court hearings. 'Just basically let your co-defendant do the work and spend the money and then just be like: ‘Okay. I'll just add my name to that, please.''"
According to this report, Trump's strategy has already effectively gotten him to delay his trial, because lawyers Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro, two of his co-defendants, successfully moved to sever their cases from his, requiring that he and at least some of the others stand trial at a later date.
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Trump is also reportedly watching intently as his former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and high-ranking DOJ ally Jeffrey Clark have moved, with little success, to get their cases removed to federal court, which could inform his decision about whether to try this himself.
"It remains unclear when or whether Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee will subdivide the remaining 17 co-defendants' case further, potentially spelling more delay," said the report. "But legal experts note that Trump's ability to sit back and watch the Fulton County proceedings play out over the next four or so months could work to the former president's advantage by giving him an early preview of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ evidence and strategy."
Willis is charging Trump and his allies' electoral scheme under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute, which is much stronger in Georgia than on the federal level or in most states; numerous criminal conspiracies not conventionally considered organized crime can be charged under this law.
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