Source: Pence given subpoena regarding Trump investigation
Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to cling to his office after he lost his bid for reelection, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.
The move by the Justice Department sets up a likely clash over executive privilege, which Trump has previously used to try to slow, delay and block testimony from former administration officials in various probes into his conduct.
It was not immediately clear when the special counsel, Jack Smith, sought Pence’s testimony. The move is among the most aggressive yet by Smith in his wide-ranging investigation into Trump’s role in seeking to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election and a parallel inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
An aide to Pence declined to confirm the existence of the subpoena. A Justice Department official did not respond to a request for comment.
Pence was at the center of Trump’s last gasp to hold on to power in the two months after his election loss. Trump seized on Pence’s ceremonial role in overseeing the congressional certification of the Electoral College results to try to press his vice president into blocking or delaying the outcome on Jan. 6, 2021.
Pence refused, a fact highlighted publicly by Trump as he stirred up supporters that day before they marched to the U.S. Capitol and breached it. Some of the rioters were heard chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Pence is a potential rival to Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Trump has frequently tried to assert executive privilege when officials have sought testimony from people who worked for him in the White House. He has generally been unsuccessful, but those battles over which matters are covered by privilege have slowed some of the investigations.
A Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison.
Kevin Seefried, 53, tearfully apologized for his part in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot before U.S. District Judge Trevor Mcfadden sentenced him. The judge allowed Seefried to remain free until he must report to prison at a date to be determined.
Seefried and his adult son, Hunter, stormed the Capitol after attending the “Stop the Steal” rally, where then-president Donald Trump addressed thousands of supporters. In October, Mcfadden sentenced Hunter Seefried to two years of imprisonment.
Photographs showed Kevin Seefried carrying his Confederate flag inside the Capitol after he and his son, then 22, entered the building through a broken window.
Within a minute of entering the building, Kevin Seefried jabbed his flagpole at Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman and joined other rioters in chasing the officer up a flight of stairs, a harrowing scene captured on video.
Jan. 6 rioter sentenced: Nicaragua prisoner release:
Some 222 inmates considered by many to be political prisoners of the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega flew to Washington on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State
Antony Blinken said.
Blinken said the prisoners, including a U.S. citizen, had been jailed “for exercising their fundamental freedoms and have endured lengthy unjust detentions.”
He said that among those on the plane were political and business leaders, journalists, civil society representatives and students.
Ortega has maintained that his imprisoned opponents and others were behind 2018 street protests he claims were a plot to overthrow him.
Thousands have fled into exile since Nicaraguan security forces violently put down those protests.
UK same-sex marriage:
The Church of England’s national assembly Thursday voted to let priests bless same-sex marriages and civil partnerships, while continuing to ban church weddings for the same couples.
Bishops proposed the compromise measure after five years of discussions about the church’s position
on sexuality. It was approved by the church’s General Synod following eight hours of debate in London.
The measure included an apology for the church’s failure to welcome LGBTQ people. But it also endorsed the doctrine that marriage is between one man and one woman, meaning priests are still barred from marrying same-sex couples.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in England and Wales since 2013, but the church didn’t alter its teaching on marriage when the law changed.
DC, House spar: The Republican-led House has launched the first salvo in what could be a long-running feud with the District of Columbia over self-government in the nation’s capital.
In back-to-back votes, the House voted Thursday to overturn a sweeping rewrite of the criminal code passed by the City Council in 2022 and a new law that would grant noncitizens the right to vote in local elections.
Congressional oversight of the district is written into the Constitution. And while it’s been more than three decades since Congress outright nullified a D.C. law, Congress has often used alternative methods such as budget riders to alter laws.
The House voted 250-173 to overturn the rewrite of the criminal code, which among other things, reduced the maximum penalties for burglary, carjacking and robbery. The voting rights bill was overturned by a 260-173 vote.
Both moves would have to pass the Democratic-held Senate and be signed by President Joe Biden.
FTX founder’s hearing:
A federal judge Thursday ordered lawyers for Sam Bankman-fried, the disgraced founder of the bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency exchange, to create a plan with prosecutors that would ensure that Bankman-fried did not delete text messages he sent while awaiting trial on charges
that he orchestrated the theft of billions of dollars in customer deposits.
Judge Lewis Kaplan issued his instructions at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, New York, two days after rejecting an agreement that federal prosecutors in Manhattan struck with Bankman-fried’s lawyers to limit his ability to use certain encrypted messaging services such as Signal.
Kaplan said the proposal had done “nothing but spark more questions in my mind,” explaining it did not eliminate the potential for Bankman-fried to send messages he could later delete.
Bankman-fried, 30, was arrested in December on charges he used FTX customer deposits to finance political contributions, lavish real estate purchases and trading operations at his hedge fund.
He has been living with his parents in Palo Alto, California, after reaching a $250 million bail agreement late last year.