Trump news today: Key Trump lawyer Tim Parlatore quits legal team as Mar-a-Lago documents probe continues

The former president has been busy attempting to take “credit” for the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade last year by pointing out that he nominated the justices who did not agree with the 1973 precedent.

On Tuesday evening’s episode of Rob Schmitt Tonight on Newsmax, Mr Trump compared his action against abortion to Florida governor Ron DeSantis’, saying he has done more for pro-life people.

“I’m the one that got rid of Roe v Wade and everybody said that was an impossible thing to do,” Mr Trump boasted.

A key lawyer for former president Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he was leaving his legal team, a move that comes as a special counsel investigation into the retention of classified documents shows signs of being in its final stages.

Timothy Parlatore told the Associated Press that his departure had nothing to do with Mr Trump and was not a reflection on his view of the Justice Department’s investigation, which he has long called misguided and overly-aggressive, or on the strength of the government’s evidence. He said he believed he had served Mr Trump well.

Other lawyers, including former Justice Department prosecutor James Trusty, are continuing to represent Mr Trump in Washington investigations.

Donald Trump has been on yet another bizarre rant on Truth Social over the fallout from his controversial town hall hosted by CNN at a New Hampshire college last week.

“It’s really amazing to watch the head of CNN get absolutely lambasted for asking me to do a so-called Town Hall,” Mr Trump wrote, referring to the network’s CEO Chris Licht.

He continued: “In all fairness, nobody had any problems with what he wanted to do until after the show started, when they quickly realised that [Kaitlan] Collins was not exactly Barbara Walters, or even close. That’s when the trouble from the Radical Left started. Neurotic little AOC with the bad looking boyfriend, went crazy. He owns CNN, he’s in their head,’ they screamed. CNN, take the GREAT RATINGS!”

The top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, who has announced her resignation, tried to influence the outcome of a race for Boston’s district attorney and violated multiple policies, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog said in a report released on Wednesday.

The inspector general’s 161-page report alleges a broad array of misconduct by US attorney Rachael Rollins.

It accuses her of disclosing to a journalist non-public information about a Justice Department investigation, soliciting and accepting 30 free tickets to a Boston Celtics game and accepting payment from a sports and entertainment agency for travel and means.

The National Archives has been called more than 80 times in the past decade-plus about classified materials found in the papers of former members of Congress and other US officials, according to newly released congressional testimony.

That figure underscores the weaknesses in how the US government tracks and safeguards its most important secrets.

Investigations are underway into the classified materials found in the holdings of former president Donald Trump and in later searches of files held by president Joe Biden before he won the White House and those in the possession of Mr Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence.

In case you missed it, former president Donald Trump’s attorney Timothy Parlatore is leaving his legal team, CNN reported on Wednesday.

So far, governor Ron DeSantis has yet to actually announce his candidacy for president, despite the fact he all but certainly will jump in the ring.

But his decision to wait until the conclusion of Florida’s legislative session and to not directly attack former president Donald Trump has made him uniquely vulnerable to the former president’s barbs, writes our Washington bureau chief Eric Garcia.

As Kentucky governor Andy Beshear prepares for what could be the most hotly-contested election of the year, the first-term Democrat insisted on Wednesday that he would not cede so-called family values issues to his Republican opponent.

In his first sit-down interview since Tuesday’s primary, Mr Beshear also tried to contrast his steady leadership with the just-concluded bitter GOP campaign in which state attorney general Daniel Cameron prevailed in a 12-candidate field.

The governor told the Associated Press that he intends to make the general election race about helping families and not trying to “rile people up” and accused Mr Cameron of doing just that in his victory speech.

Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis will officially enter the 2024 US presidential race next week, according to two sources familiar with the decision, immediately becoming Donald Trump’s biggest rival for the Republican nomination and shaking up a contest that largely has been one-sided.

Mr DeSantis will likely file paperwork declaring his candidacy on 25 May to coincide with a donor meeting in Miami, with a more formal launch the week of 29 May, according to a source.

Mr Trump has in recent weeks stepped up his political attacks on the Florida governor and maintains a commanding lead in the 2024 Republican primary, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Mr DeSantis’ insistence on staying out of the race until the Florida legislature completed its spring session earlier this month rattled some high-profile Republican donors who had wanted him to jump in sooner rather than later to rebut the former president.

Those attacks have taken a toll on Mr DeSantis’ standing in national polls. But he and his advisers hoped to use the legislature session as a springboard to a campaign announcement and have stayed true to their timetable.

Republican lawmakers gave Mr DeSantis a bevy of conservative victories in recent months. They expanded the state’s school voucher programme, prohibited the use of public money in sustainable investing efforts, scrapped diversity programs at public universities, allowed for the permitless carry of concealed weapons and perhaps most notably, banned almost all abortions in the state.

Mr DeSantis has had help in readying the ground for his candidacy. A new political action committee supporting him, Never Back Down, which can raise unlimited funds, has been hiring staff in early voting states and running TV ads championing Mr DeSantis and knocking Mr Trump.

Mr DeSantis, 44, was re-elected as governor just last year, trouncing his Democratic opponent by nearly 20 percentage points.

Kaitlan Collins has been named as the new host of CNN’s 9pm primetime slot.

Collins’ appointment, revealed to staff in a memo by network boss Chris Licht, comes as the network was heavily criticised for last week’s town hall with Donald Trump.

Mr Licht said Collins’ CNN This Morning co-host Poppy Harlow will continue to anchor that show with a series of guest hosts.