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Tag: Mike Pence

  • Former US Veep, Mike Pence pulls out from 2024 presidential race

    Former US Veep, Mike Pence pulls out from 2024 presidential race

    Former US Vice President Mike Pence has opted to step back from the 2024 presidential race, citing that the timing is not favorable.

    He delivered this announcement during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on a Saturday afternoon.

    “We always knew this would be an uphill battle, but I have no regrets”, he wrote in a statement.

    In a race currently dominated by former President Donald Trump, Mr. Pence has become the first prominent Republican candidate to halt his campaign. Pence’s presidential bid had been lagging behind Trump in the polls.

    Furthermore, Mr. Pence’s campaign has accrued substantial debt, with him ending September in the red, owing $621,000 (£512,038) and holding only $1.2 million (£989,446) in his campaign funds, which is notably less than his Republican competitors.

    “I am leaving this campaign, but I will never leave the fight for conservative values,” he wrote in a statement addressed to his supporters.

    The 64-year-old faced a significant loss of support from Republican voters when he openly disagreed with Mr. Trump regarding the events of the 6th of January Capitol riot in 2021. Additionally, his role in presiding over the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Congress further eroded his standing with many in the Republican base.

    Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Pence for what he perceived as a lack of “courage” when Pence declined to challenge the Democratic leader’s election win. During the 2021 storming of Congress, some rioters even chanted “hang Mike Pence,” and since that fateful day, many staunch Trump supporters have viewed him as a betrayer.

    The former Vice President said in March that Mr Trump’s encouragement of the rioters had “endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day”.

    In his resignation, Mr Pence did not endorse any other Republican candidates for the presidential election.

    But he called on Americans to choose a leader that “will ‘appeal to the better angels of our nature’ and not only lead us to victory but also lead our nation with civility and back to those time-honoured principles that have always made America strong, prosperous and free.”

  • Pence to run for president against ex-boss Trump

    Pence to run for president against ex-boss Trump

    Former Vice President Mike Pence has submitted the necessary paperwork to run against his former employer, then-President Donald Trump, in the 2024 election.

    On Monday morning, Pence formally declared his presidential candidature with the Federal Election Commission.

    Two days prior to his scheduled appearance at a CNN Republican presidential town hall, he filed his paperwork. On Wednesday, his 64th birthday, Pence will formally begin his campaign for president earlier in the day. The inaugural rally for Pence will take place in Des Moines, Iowa.

    A major challenge for Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president, will be winning back the support of Republicans who discounted him after the tumultuous end of Trump administration.

    Pence served 12 years in the House and four years as governor of Indiana, before become vice president in 2017. He broke from Trump after refusing to follow his orders to reject President Joe Biden’s victory while presiding over the 2020 Electoral College vote counting.

    Pence joins a growing field for the GOP nomination. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been polling second after Trump, entered the race less than two weeks ago.

    The town hall hosted by CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash is scheduled to start 9pm ET at Grand View University in Des Moines.

    Breaking story, check back for updates…

  • Ex-VP Mike Pence avoids charges for classified documents in his home

    Ex-VP Mike Pence avoids charges for classified documents in his home

    The discovery of secret materials in the home of the former vice president Mike Pence will not result in any charges being brought against him.

    The Justice Department informed Pence, who worked for former President Donald Trump, in a letter that it had completed its investigation and would not be bringing any charges.

    In a letter to Pence’s lawyer that CNN acquired on Friday, the Justice Department stated: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department’s National Security Division have conducted an investigation into the potential mishandling of classified information.”

    ‘Based on the results of that investigation, no criminal charges will be sought.’

    Former Vice President Mike Pence is reportedly set to announce his presidential campaign on June 7
    Former Vice President Mike Pence is reportedly set to announce his presidential campaign on June 7 (Picture: AP)

    The development comes days after reports that Pence plans to announce his 2024 presidential campaign next week.

    Pence’s lawyer found about a dozen classified documents in the former vice president’s home in Carmel, Indiana, in January. Pence had asked his attorney to do the search after classified records were discovered in President Joe Biden’s Delaware home and an office in Washington, DC.

    After discovering the classified documents, Pence immediately handed them over to the FBI, which began a probe into how they wound up there. Pence said he did not know the material was at his home but took responsibility for it, saying ‘mistakes were made’.

    The content of the papers is still unknown.

    An adviser to Pence told CNN that he and his team were not surprised by the Justice Department’s decision, but are pleased.

    The Justice Department continues to probe the sensitive records found in Biden’s possession, as well as boxes of classified documents that were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

    Pence reportedly will announce his 2024 bid for the presidency on June 7, the same day he is slated to appear in a CNN presidential town hall in Iowa. He will enter a growing field of candidates vying for the Republican nomination, with Trump maintaining a lead in most polls and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis coming in a clear second.

  • Capitol riot: Mike Pence ‘tell the truth’ in Trump’s criminal investigation

    Capitol riot: Mike Pence ‘tell the truth’ in Trump’s criminal investigation

    Former US Vice-President Mike Pence has testified as part of a criminal probe into Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to avenge his loss in the 2020 election.

    According to sources quoted by the BBC’s US partner CBS News, Mr. Pence, 63, appeared before a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, for more than seven hours.

    He received a subpoena earlier this year to give testimony while being sworn in.

    Prosecutors questioned the suspects in a private setting.

    His appearance on Thursday came just hours after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch bid by Mr Trump’s legal team to stop Mr Pence from testifying.

    Mr Pence’s lawyers had also sought unsuccessfully to challenge the subpoena, arguing that his role as president of the Senate during his time in office meant he had congressional immunity.

    CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA – AUGUST 24: President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence greet delegates on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Charlotte Convention Center on August 24, 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The four-day event is themed “Honoring the Great American Story.” (Photo by David T. Foster III-Pool/Getty Images)

    His eventual testimony, which had been sought for months, is a major milestone in the two-year investigation which is being led by special counsel Jack Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor who was appointed to the role by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

    The investigation has been gathering evidence about whether Mr Trump and his allies broke federal law in their efforts to challenge the result of the 2020 election, which was won by President Joe Biden.

    It is also investigating the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021, when Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the building in an effort to prevent the election result from being certified.

    Mr Pence, who like all vice-presidents was also president of the Senate – a mostly ceremonial role – could in theory have derailed the final certification of the election result and delayed the transfer of power.

    Mr Trump publicly pressured his vice-president to do so, and his refusal led him to lash out at Mr Pence.

    Trump supporters then chanted “hang Mike Pence” as they stormed Congress and marauded through the corridors of the Capitol building as politicians, including Mr Pence, sheltered inside.

    Mr Pence is considered a key witness in the investigation and, while it is not immediately clear what he told the grand jury, prosecutors will likely have asked him about his interactions with Mr Trump and his team in the days and weeks leading up to the riot.

    “We’ll obey the law, we’ll tell the truth,” Mr Pence said in an interview with CBS on Sunday. “The story that I’ve been telling the American people all across the country… that’ll be the story I tell in that setting.”

    US former president, Mike Pence

    Mr Pence has spoken publicly about the Capitol riot and the pressure he faced to challenge the election result. “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” he said in a speech in February.

    In his memoir, So Help Me God, Mr Pence wrote that Mr Trump had attempted to pressure him into blocking the certification of the election result on the morning of the riot. “You’ll go down as a wimp,” the then-president apparently told Mr Pence.

    He has also accused Mr Trump of endangering his family as well as others who were at the Capitol, saying history will hold him “accountable”.

    Mr Pence is reportedly considering a presidential bid of his own in 2024, which would see him challenge his former boss directly for the Republican nomination.

    Mr Trump, who has already launched his bid to return to the White House, was in New Hampshire on Thursday for a campaign event. When asked by NBC News about Mr Pence’s testimony, he commented: “I don’t know what he said, but I have a lot of confidence in him.”

    The former president is facing other legal issues, including another federal investigation led by Mr Smith into the potential mishandling of classified documents.

    There is also a separate investigation in Georgia into alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election result.

  • Classified finds: USA finds another set of classified documents at former vice-president’s home

    Classified finds: USA finds another set of classified documents at former vice-president’s home

    Former US Vice-President Mike Pence’s home has been found to contain classified documents, marking the latest instance of top-level government officials’ homes being found to contain classified documents.

    The documents, which were found by Mr. Pence’s attorney last week at his Indiana home, have been given to the FBI.

    Investigators are already looking into the possession of documents by Vice President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

    Because of alleged paper handling violations, Mr. Trump is under criminal investigation.

    Representatives for Mr. Pence informed the National Archives of the documents in a letter.

    The FBI came to the former vice-president’s home to collect the documents, bypassing “standard procedures” and requesting “direct possession” of them, lawyers added in a separate letter.

    Under the Presidential Records Act, White House records are supposed to go to the National Archives once an administration ends. Regulations require such files to be stored securely.

    A “small number of documents bearing classified markings” were “inadvertently boxed and transported” to Mr Pence’s home at the end of Mr Trump’s presidency, his lawyer wrote in a letter shared with US media.

    The latest development emerged after Mr Pence sought legal help from specialists in handling classified documents “out of an abundance of caution”.

    He asked for help “after it became public that documents with classified markings were found in President Joe Biden’s Wilmington residence”, the letter read.

    Lawyers found “a small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information”, which were locked by the former vice-president in a safe.

    An aide to Mr Pence told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the documents were stored in boxes in an insecure area of Mr Pence’s home. The aide said they were taped shut. 

    According to US media, the documents are believed to have first been taken to Mr Pence’s home in Virginia before later being sent to Indiana.

    After the letter became public, Mr Trump came to Mr Pence’s defence, taking to his Truth Social social media platform to say that he is “an innocent man”.

    “He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life,” Mr Trump wrote. “Leave him alone!!!”

    Mr Pence had repeatedly said over the last months that he did not believe he was in possession of classified documents.

    Earlier this month, he told CBS that he was confident reviews of documents in his home were done “in a thorough and careful way”.

    https://emp.bbc.com/emp/SMPj/2.47.2/iframe.htmlMedia caption,

    President has no regrets about classified documents

    Mr Biden previously said he had “no regrets” about not going public before the midterm elections with the news that classified documents had been discovered in his private office.

    Six more classified files were found during a 13-hour search of President Biden’s home in Delaware on Friday, his lawyer Bob Bauer said in a statement on Saturday.

    The documents unearthed so far are believed to be related to Mr Biden’s eight-year tenure as vice-president under former President Barack Obama.

    Mr Biden offered access “to his home to allow DoJ [the Department of Justice] to conduct a search of the entire premises for potential vice-presidential records and potential classified material,” Mr Bauer added.

    Earlier this month, Mr Biden’s lawyers said a first batch of classified documents had been found on 2 November at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank that the president founded in Washington DC.

    A second batch of records was found on 20 December in the garage at his Wilmington home, while another document was found in a storage space at the house on 12 January, his lawyers said.

    Representatives for former Presidents Obama and George W Bush told Reuters on Tuesday that their administrations had turned over all documents to the National Archives after leaving office.

    The discoveries at the homes of Mr Pence and Mr Biden come as Mr Trump faces a special counsel inquiry over his alleged mishandling of documents.

    Hundred of classified records were found at Mr Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago residence – Mr Trump and his lawyers resisted handing over the documents until the FBI raided the Florida holiday home last August.

    He denied any wrongdoing, alleging that President Biden was being treated more favourably by the FBI.

    Document discovery timeline

    • 2 November 2022 – First batch of classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank that President Joe Biden founded in Washington DC
    • 20 December – Second batch of records found in the garage of Joe Biden’s Wilmington home
    • 12 January – Document found in a storage space at Mr Biden’s Wilmington home
    • 19 January – FBI agents come to Mike Pence’s Indiana home to collect files
    • 20 January – Department of Justice investigators discover six more classified documents during a 13-hour search of Biden’s home in Delaware.

  • Mike Pence urges voters to turn out in Georgia, a key state

    While Biden was in Florida, former Vice President Mike Pence travelled to Georgia, another crucial battleground state, to campaign for the Republican candidate for governor there.

    Pence told supporters at a rally in the Atlanta suburbs last night that Georgia must “lead the way to a great American comeback” by re-electing Governor Brian Kemp.

    Kemp is ahead of his Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in most polls, but that did not stop him or Pence from emphasising the need to get people out in support – whatever the data suggests.

    Pence, who was elected alongside Donald Trump in 2016, emphasized what he called Kemp’s credentials as a “champion for the Conservative Agenda”.

    After the rally, Pence said: “No one has done more to create jobs, cut taxes, restore sanity to our schools, put criminals behind bars, protect the unborn, secure our elections, and defend our God-given rights enshrined in the United States Constitution.”

  • Capitol riot: Trump ignored pleas to condemn attack, hearing told

    Ex-US President Donald Trump watched last year’s Capitol riot on TV at the White House, ignoring his children and aides who “begged him” to rebuke the mob, a congressional inquiry has heard.

    “He chose not to act,” said Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the Democratic-led committee.

    The prime-time hearing was told Mr Trump did not make a single call to law enforcement or national security staff.

    He was motivated by “his selfish desire to stay in power”, the inquiry alleged.

    On Thursday night, the House of Representatives select committee used its eighth hearing of the summer to draw a timeline of Mr Trump’s activities over 187 minutes on 6 January 2021 as a mob of his supporters raided Congress.

    The panel is seeking to build a case that Mr Trump, a Republican, acted illegally in a bid to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the November 2020 presidential election.

    Members of the committee have suggested there might be enough evidence to charge Mr Trump with such counts as obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the American people or witness tampering.

    Any potential prosecution of Mr Trump would be led by the Department of Justice. But some commentators have suggested that advice issued by Attorney General Merrick Garland requiring prosecutors to obtain approval before embarking on politically sensitive investigations means it is unlikely Mr Trump will ever face trial.

    Mr Trump, who has been hinting he may run again for president in 2024, has dismissed the inquiry as a “kangaroo court” designed to distract Americans from the “disaster” of Democratic governance.

    The hearing was told that former President Trump had watched coverage of the riot on Fox News in the private dining room at the White House for more than two-and-a-half hours.

    Elaine Luria, a Virginia Democrat on the committee, said: “President Trump sat at his dining table and watched the attack on television while his senior-most staff, closest advisers and family members begged him to do what is expected of any American president.”

    The lawmaker also said the chief White House photographer had wanted to take pictures during the historic event, but was told not to.

    Demonstrators at the US CapitolGetty Images
    Trump supporters at the US Capitol during the 6 January riot

    A former White House national security staffer, whose voice was obscured to conceal his identity, said officials in the executive mansion were “in a state of shock” over what was unfolding at the Capitol.

    The committee also played parts of a videotaped testimony by former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who said he had pushed for a strong statement from the president condemning the onslaught.

    “I said that people need to be told, there needs to be a public announcement, fast, that people need to leave the Capitol,” said Mr Cipollone.

    The president’s children, Ivanka Trump and Don Jr, had also wanted him to call off the rioters, the committee heard.

    But former press aide Sarah Matthews testified that an unnamed White House colleague had argued that if Mr Trump were to disavow the violence. it would be “handing a win to the media”.

    At 14:24 that day, Mr Trump sent a tweet attacking his Vice-President, Mike Pence, saying he “didn’t have the courage to” spurn his constitutional duty of certifying Mr Biden’s election win at Congress.

    Ms Matthews said the post amounted to “pouring gasoline on the fire”. She and Matthew Pottinger, who was deputy national security adviser to the president, testified that that tweet had prompted them both to resign.

    Three hours and seven minutes after the assault began, Mr Trump released a video at 16:17, recorded from the White House Rose Garden, in which he praised the rioters as “very special”, but asked them to disperse.

    Bennie Thompson, chairman of the committee and a Mississippi Democrat, said in his opening remarks: “For 187 minutes on Jan 6, this man of unbridled destructive energy could not be moved.

    “Not by his aides, not by his allies, not by the violent chants of rioters, or the desperate pleas of those facing down the mob. He could not be moved.”

    The committee also aired a previously unseen video outtake of Mr Trump on 7 January repudiating the violence at the Capitol of the day before.

    “I don’t want to say the election is over,” Mr Trump said during the recording as he apparently read from a script.

    Polling in the US has suggested that the hearings are having little impact on Mr Trump’s personal popularity among Republican voters.

    A recent survey by the PBS broadcaster found that just one in five party members think the 76-year-old should face prosecution for his actions on 6 January, while more than half would like to see him as the Republican candidate for president in 2024.

    Source: CNN