DeSantis news today: Conservative and independent millionaires back Florida governor over ex-president, says poll

The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington, DC grand jury to indict former president Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice as soon as Thursday, adding further weight to the legal baggage facing Mr Trump as he campaigns for his party’s nomination in next year’s presidential election.

The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment against Mr Trump for violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”.

The use of Section 793, which does not make reference to classified information, is understood to be a strategic decision by prosecutors that has been made to short-circuit Mr Trump’s ability to claim that he used his authority as president to declassify documents he removed from the White House and kept at his Palm Beach, Florida property long after his term expired on 20 January 2021.

The charges may drop as soon as tomorrow, further complicating Mr Trump’s 2024 campaign for the White House.

“No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong, but I have assumed for years that I am a Target of the WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI, starting with the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX, the ‘No Collusion’ Mueller Report, Impeachment HOAX #1, Impeachment HOAX #2, the PERFECT Ukraine phone call, and various other SCAMS & WITCH HUNTS. A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE & ELECTION INTERFERENCE AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS MUST MAKE THIS THEIR # 1 ISSUE!!!” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday afternoon.

The white-haired conservative Republican spoke in Ankeny, Iowa, on Wednesday as he officially began his quest for the White House. His campaign launch came less than 24 hours after another Republican, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, entered the race as well.

In Iowa, Mr Pence spoke about his longtime opposition to abortion rights and accused his former boss of backing away from the issue in the wake of the political fallout from the Dobbs decision that ended federal protections for abortion rights.

“After leading the most pro-life administration in American history, Donald Trump and others in this race are retreating from the cause of the unborn,” the former VP said.

“The sanctity of life has been our party’s calling for half a century — long before Donald Trump was ever a part of it. Now he treats it as an inconvenience, even blaming election losses on overturning Roe v Wade.”

Full story by John Bowden here:

Former vice president Mike Pence announced his candidacy for president on Wednesday with more attention from the press than it likely will receive from Republican voters.

On Wednesday night, he will appear on CNN for a town hall, and this weekend, he will venture to North Carolina to speak at the state party’s convention that will also feature the two top contenders for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov Ron DeSantis and his old boss, former president Donald Trump.

Of course, like any presidential candidate, Mr Pence has been setting himself up for a run, releasing a memoir last year and campaigning for various Republican candidates in the 2022 midterms.

Earlier this year, at the Gridiron Dinner, that formal gathering of the press and politicians that is sequestered from the public eye that I’m never cool enough to get an invitation for, he praised the media while lambasting the former president, attempting to once again separate himself from his former political benefactor.

The former vice president told a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, that he viewed the handling of classified material as “a very serious matter” but told host Dana Bash that federal prosecutors should leave Mr Trump alone.

“I would hope not, I really would,” he said when asked if the DoJ special counsel Jack Smith should indict Mr Trump over the documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

“I think it would be terribly divisive to the country at a time when the American people are hurting. This kind of action by the DoJ would only fuel further division in the country and send a terrible message to the wider world … I hope the DoJ thinks better of it and resolves this in a better way than an indictment,” he continued.

Despite that, Mr Pence told the audience that “no one is above the law”, and also admitted that he himself had no business having some classified documents at his home in Indiana.

Read the full story by Graeme Massie here:

A source familiar with the matter has said Mr Trump’s team was recently informed that he is a “target” of a Justice Department probe, which began in early 2022 after National Archives and Records Administration officials discovered more than 100 documents bearing classification markings in a set of 15 boxes of Trump administration records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, the century-old mansion turned private beach club where Mr Trump maintains his primary residence and post-presidential office.

Over the course of the last year, grand jurors have heard testimony from numerous associates of the ex-president, including nearly every employee of Mar-a-Lago, former administration officials who worked in Mr Trump’s post-presidential office and for his political operation, and former high-ranking administration officials such as his final White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

The Florida governor is the favourite GOP candidate among millionaires, but support for Donald Trump among the wealthy is growing, according to a new poll.

The CNBC Millionaire Survey shows that 32 per cent of Republicans with that status support the Florida governor, a drop from 54 per cent at the end of 2022.

Mr Trump now has the support of 28 per cent of Republican millionaires, up from 17 per cent last year, says the poll.

In fallout from the debt ceiling deal, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is suddenly confronting a new threat to his power as angry hard-right conservatives bring the House chamber to a halt, reviving their displeasure over the compromise struck with President Joe Biden and demanding deeper spending cuts ahead.

Barely a dozen Republicans, mainly members of the House Freedom Caucus, shuttered House business for a second day Thursday in protest of McCarthy’s leadership. Routine votes could not be taken, and a pair of pro-gas stove bills important to GOP activists stalled out. Some lawmakers asked if they could simply go home.

McCarthy brushed off the disruption as healthy political debate, part of his “risk taker” way of being a leader — not too different, he said, from the 15-vote spectacle it took in January for him to finally convince his colleagues to elect him as speaker. With a paper-thin GOP majority, any few Republicans have outsized sway.

A source familiar with the matter has said Mr Trump’s team was recently informed that he is a “target” of a Justice Department probe, which began in early 2022 after National Archives and Records Administration officials discovered more than 100 documents bearing classification markings in a set of 15 boxes of Trump administration records retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, the century-old mansion turned private beach club where Mr Trump maintains his primary residence and post-presidential office.

Over the course of the last year, grand jurors have heard testimony from numerous associates of the ex-president, including nearly every employee of Mar-a-Lago, former administration officials who worked in Mr Trump’s post-presidential office and for his political operation, and former high-ranking administration officials such as his final White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.

It is understood that prosecutors intend to ask grand jurors to vote on the indictment on Thursday, but that vote could be delayed as much as a week until the next meeting of the grand jury to allow for a complete presentation of evidence, or to allow investigators to gather more evidence for presentation of necessary.

A separate grand jury that is meeting in Florida has also been hearing evidence in the documents investigation. That grand jury was empaneled in part to overcome legal issues posed by the fact that some of the crimes allegedly committed by Mr Trump took place in that jurisdiction, not in Washington. Under federal law, prosecutors must bring charges against federal defendants in the jurisdiction where the crimes took place.