Archive for the ‘Mike Pence’ Category

Adam Schiff vows speedy, aggressive probe of Jan. 6 assault – Harvard Gazette

As a top adviser to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff has been a principal figure in some of the countrys most dramatic political and national security concerns, including the 2020 impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

A Framingham, Mass., native and 1985 Harvard Law School graduate, Schiff was first elected to Congress in 2000. His leadership of the intelligence committee put him squarely in the middle of Trumps clashes with U.S. intelligence, from the FBI investigation into Russias election interference to the impeachment of the president for his efforts to pressure Ukraine for political gain. The California Democrat is now a member of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Out with a bestselling memoir, Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, Schiff spoke to the Gazette Tuesday about the Jan. 6 committees work even as new information unfolds. Interview has been edited for clarity and length.

GAZETTE: There have been news reports this week that Republican members of Congress and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows participated in planning meetings with rioters before Jan. 6. And Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa write in their new book, Peril, that President Donald Trump called into a command center gathering at the Willard hotel on Jan. 5 that included Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, and attorney John Eastman, after Vice President Mike Pence had refused to go along with a plan to stop the electoral vote certification the next day. If those reports are accurate, what are the potential legal ramifications?

SCHIFF: There have been a whole host of troubling public reports about what was going on at the Willard hotel, about the possibility of granting mass pardons to people who might be engaging in the illegal activity, and were going to investigate all of it and work up a report, expose any malefactors to public scrutiny. If there are prosecutable crimes, that will be up to the Justice Department to decide. But in Congress, if any misconduct involves members, we have remedies of censure around ethics violations, and expulsion from the House.

Whether its people working for the campaign or the administration or playing some kind of dual role, were going to get to the bottom of it. Theres no daylight between Democrats and Republicans on the Select Committee when it comes to our quest for the truth. Weve cast a wide net, and we want to make sure that were aware of everything that went on. And were determined to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

GAZETTE: Does there need to be a special counsel?

SCHIFF: I havent opined on whether we need a special counsel or not. But I do think that the Justice Department needs to investigate any potential criminal misconduct, whether its by the former president or by others. I am concerned that I dont see that going on with respect to one thing in particular, which I consider deeply troubling, and that is: the former presidents efforts to get the secretary of state of Georgia to find 11,780 votes that dont exist, to essentially demand the secretary defraud the people of Georgia and in so doing, defraud the people of the United States. I dont think you can ignore that. And I think if anybody else had been on the phone and recorded making that kind of demand, they might be indicted by now.

We cannot have a system where a current president cant be prosecuted, and then, because we dont want to look backward, the former president cant be prosecuted; that theyre somehow too big to jail. Because, if we get to that point, then the president really does become above the law. Thats a dangerous proposition in the abstract; its even more dangerous, given the fact that Donald Trump is running for president again.

GAZETTE: If we take a step back, is Jan. 6 just one chapter in a much broader effort to stop Joe Biden from becoming president?

SCHIFF: It is. It begins with the effort to get Ukraine to smear Joe Biden, first by the presidents lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and others, and then by the president directly on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, trying to coerce Ukraine into initiating this bogus investigation of Joe Biden to help them cheat in the election. And then it continues with the withholding of military aid to further extort Ukraine into helping his misconduct succeed.

The failure of that led to other ways to cheat in the election, by first trying to persuade the country that any votes that came in after the polls were closed were somehow illegitimate because Trump felt the absentee vote was going to go against him. Then, all the bogus litigation and all the fraudulent filings in court. And when that didnt succeed, efforts to corral and corrupt local elections officials, and then state legislators, and secretaries of state. And then, finally, that violent assault on the Capitol.

But even then, people need to understand that Jan. 6 was not the end; Jan. 6 was just a violent wave point because the efforts to use the Big Lie continue. And it continues to usher in a new generation of Jim Crow laws around the country and to strip independent elections officials of their duties and give them over to partisan boards and partisan legislatures.

It seems what the former president learned from the failed insurrection was that next time he needed to be sure that he could find the secretary of state who would find 11,780 votes. If Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wouldnt do it, he seems intent on replacing him and every other one around the country with someone who will.

GAZETTE: The House voted to hold Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to turn over documents or appear for a deposition earlier this month. Bannon cited the former presidents likely invocation of executive privilege as his rationale. What level of cooperation is the committee receiving from the others whove been served, particularly former chief of staff Mark Meadows, advisers Dan Scavino and Kash Patel, who missed their subpoena deadlines, but whom the committee said it was engaging with, or cant you say?

SCHIFF: I cant say. I can say that there are a great number of people who are cooperating with us, who are providing us important information. With respect to particular witnesses, like the four that we subpoenaed together, they are engaging in different ways. Some may lead to successful testimony, and others we may need to pursue the same course we did with Steve Bannon. But I can tell you this: Were not going to wait forever. We moved with alacrity when it came to Steve Bannon, and were going to move quickly with those we determine are deliberately noncooperative.

GAZETTE: What will success look like for this committee if, after hearings and a report is issued even with damning evidence, youre still not able to reach or convince 35-40 percent of the country?

SCHIFF: We are going to proceed the way we have other investigations in the last few years, which is you begin by doing private interviews and depositions, and then you move to doing public hearings to help inform the public of what happened. Some of that you can do concurrently, like we did with the hearing with the four police officers.

Are there going to be some people whom we will not be able to reach even when presented with such obvious fact, as those police officers testified? It was no honeymoon; it was no typical tourist day. It was a brutal assault in which they were beaten and gouged. Will some people listen to that, or not listen to it and refuse to be moved? Yes. Now, because of Fox News and Newsmax and OAN, theres an entire alternate, non-factual world for people to live in. Im convinced that if Richard Nixon had had Fox News, he would have never been forced to leave the office. But what we can hope for in the select committee is to reach all those with an open mind, of which there are still many millions of Americans, and to do the most thorough job we can, and to write the most credible report we can. Thats all we can do, and hope that its enough to open peoples eyes to the threat.

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Adam Schiff vows speedy, aggressive probe of Jan. 6 assault - Harvard Gazette

Why Mike Pence’s Presidential Chances In 2024 Don’t Look Good

Of course, another name that has been thrown around for the GOP candidacy is former Vice President Mike Pence; however, just because his name has been tossed around for a 2024 presidential run doesn't mean he has a ton of support behind him. In fact, Raymond Harre, vice chair of the GOP in eastern Iowa's Scott County, revealed that he doesn't think Pence stands a chance against some of the other top GOP contenders especially if Donald Trump runs."I don't imagine he'd have a whole lot of support. There are some Trump supporters who think he's the Antichrist," he said (via Politico), adding that although Pence "did a good job as vice president," Harre doesn't "see him overcoming the negatives."

Republican Doug Gross, who served as chief of staff to former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, didn't mince words when it came to his feelings about Pence, echoing Harre's sentiments about Trump loyalists' views on Pence running for president. "It's just, where would you place him? ... With Trumpsters, he didn't perform when they really wanted him to perform, so he's DQ'd there. Then you go to the evangelicals, they have plenty of other choices."

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Why Mike Pence's Presidential Chances In 2024 Don't Look Good

Mike Pence, Who Tried His Best to Help Trump Overturn the Election, Wants to Be President in 2024 – Vanity Fair

Pitmans order blocks any officers of the state from enforcing the ban and explicitly prohibits said officers from accepting or docketing, maintaining, hearing, resolving, awarding damages in, enforcing judgments in, enforcing any administrative penalties in, and administering any lawsuit brought under the state law. CNN notes that The judge also ordered the state to take proactive steps to inform court officials, as well as private individuals seeking to enforce the ban, that the law is currently blocked under his order. In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrate the decision, saying, todays ruling enjoining the Texas law is a victory for women in Texas and for the rule of law.

Unfortunately, thanks to the uniquely fucked-up nature of the law, abortion providers might not yet feel comfortable performing the procedure just yet. Per Bloomberg:

Crucially, S.B. 8 strips abortion providers of protection for procedures they perform when the law is blocked by a court order that is later overturned. That would seem to blunt the effectiveness of the temporary injunction U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman issued Wednesday night in Austin, in a suit brought by the U.S. Justice Department.

Each provider will need to make their own determination of whether to provide in the face of the threat that they could be sued for serving their patients retroactively,Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Unions Reproductive Freedom Project, told Bloomberg. She added that the retroactive provision is another cruel tactic designed to harass and intimidate pregnant Texans and their providers. But as the district court recognized, the retroactivity provision is on shaky legal ground and some providers have explicitly said that they will provide under an injunction.

About an hour after Pitman issued his ruling, Texas attorney general Ken Paxtonlate of arguing that forcing pregnant people to travel out of state for abortions has been great for commercefiled a notice to appeal the order to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is viewed as one of the most conservative in the country. Hence, reactions like these:

Florida is still doing its thing

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Mike Pence, Who Tried His Best to Help Trump Overturn the Election, Wants to Be President in 2024 - Vanity Fair

Mike Pence Is Conveniently Trying to Turn the Page on January 6 – Vanity Fair

In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, Mike Pence declared January 6 to be a dark day in the history of the United States and condemned the violence that took place here. He went on to decry the unprecedented violence and vandalism, saying that those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol todaydid not win, before praising those who protected these hallowed halls. But during a Monday night appearance on Fox News, Pence, who is rumored to be entertaining a presidential run in 2024, appeared less bothered by those who participated in the insurrectionsome of whom were calling for his executionthan those covering it.

I know the media wants to distract from the Biden administrations failed agenda by focusing on one day in January, Pence told Sean Hannity. They want to use that one day to try and demean the character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported our administration in 2016 and 2020. Further stoking speculation of his own plans for a White House run, the former vice president added that he truly believes we ought to remain completely focused on the future, and thats where Im focused.

Pence sounded a lot like certain Republicans in Congress who, when not whitewashing the MAGA riot, have shown no appetite for revisiting it. But its hard to turn the page on the events of January 6, as revelations keep spilling from a flurry of news reports and books on Donald Trumps chaotic exit from the White House, including a memo from one of the former presidents lawyers detailing how he believed Pence could overturn the election. In Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa report that Pence considered how he could stop the certification of Joe Bidens victory, only to be told by former vice president Dan Quayle that he had no power to do so. According to the book, Pences refusal to overturn the election results prompted Trump to say, I dont want to be your friend anymore if you dont do this.

Yet on Monday night, Pence spoke warmly of his post-White House relationship with Trump. You cant spend almost five years in a political foxhole with somebody without developing a strong relationship, he said, adding: The president and I sat down a few days [after the riot] and talked through all of it. I can tell you that we parted amicably at the end of the administration and we talked a number of times since we both left office.

Stephanie Grisham, Trumps former White House press secretary and author of a new tell-all, called out Pences attempt to contort himself to get on Trumps good side, before pushing back against the idea that Pence and Trump actually had a serious discussion about the Capitol riot. I imagine Pence just went and said all the right things, Grisham told CNN on Tuesday. I guarantee you that, going forward, whenever Mike Pence and the former president are together, the president will continue to jab at him about how disloyal he was, and you just have to take ituntil you dont. In a reference to the pro-Trump rioters calling for Pences execution, Grisham noted that there were others whose lives were in danger on January 6. Not only was [Pence] there, but he was being rushed to somewhere safe with his family, she said. His family was in danger. I know that there were calls going to the White House saying, My family is in danger, whats going on?

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Mike Pence Is Conveniently Trying to Turn the Page on January 6 - Vanity Fair

‘Is there no low to which you will not stoop?’: Mike Pence flattened for siding with the ‘mob’ over the government – Raw Story

Trump properties sustained at least seven fires since he became president in 2017. There were other fires that date to before he assumed office. And his string of loser luck includes a 1989 helicopter crashthe only one of its kindthat killed three Trump casino executives whose lives Trump had insured for, he said at the time, $35 million.

Here is a catalog of the various fires that have occurred at Trump properties over the last few years:

Hudson Valley, 2021

Investigations are ongoing after a three-alarm fire broke out on Sept. 10 at a barn on Trump's private 300-acre, 18-hole Trump National Golf Course Hudson Valley in Dutchess County, New York, about 130 miles north of Manhattan.

On Sept. 14, the local East Fishkill Fire District chief, Frank Lacalamita, said:

"All I know is it's definitely not suspicious It's not like, 'Hey, listen someone did it.' It's not like that at all. The place has tons of cameras, there was nobody around there was nothing suspicious at all."

It took about two hours for 70 firefighters from at least seven local firehouses to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters found the 50-foot-by-100-foot barn structure that houses golf carts and their charging system engulfed in flames. The first responders finally cleared from the scene just before 1 a.m. on Sept. 11. Later that same day, Trump made a surprise visit to a New York City firehouse to make brief remarks and pose for pictures with 9/11 responders on the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers terrorist attacks. There did not appear to be any mention of his own fire hours earlier.

New York City, January 2018

In January 2018, a fire broke out on the Trump Tower roof in Manhattan. A New York Fire Department spokesman referred to it as a "quick, easy and routine" electrical fire.

New York City, April 2018

Three months later, on April 7, one resident was killed and three people were injured after an explosion on the 50th floor of Trump Tower. Six firefighters were injured battling the four-alarm fire. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro noted that the Trump Tower "upper floors, the resident floors, are not sprinklered."

The resident who died, Todd Brassner, 67, had tried to sell his $2.5 million condo unit, but after Trump became president there were no buyers. Rents plummeted in the 58-story concrete tower. The price fall began when Trump declared his candidacy in June 2015.

Commissioner Nigro said the blaze was a "very difficult fire," even though most of the damage was contained to Brassner's apartment 50C. Six firefighters sustained minor injuries but the lack of other injuries or damage seems incredibly lucky as reportedly the smoke alarms didn't function the night of the fire. Some residents complained that "the building did not announce there was a fire and they failed to say to evacuate."

One resident, Dennis Shields, a boyfriend of Bethenny Frankel of the Real Housewives faux-reality television shows, reported that he learned about the fire only because of a text from a childhood friend, Michael Cohen, who had been Trump's longtime attorney.

Shields said that "Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, texted me and he said, 'Are you in the building?' and I texted him back, 'Yes.' He said, 'You better get out, there's a fire'," Shields told CBS News.

Sprinklers were not required when Trump Tower was built in the early 1980s. However, in 1999, then-mayor Rudy Giuliani's administration pushed for legislation to require older buildings to retrofit with sprinklers. Trump was among the real estate developers who successfully lobbied against adding fire sprinklers in existing New York high-rises, including Trump Tower. As enacted in 1999, the legislation required retrofitting high-rises with sprinklers only when renovations totaled 50 percent or more of the building's value, effectively eliminating the requirement except when a high rise is gutted and rebuilt.

According to public records, there were only two other four-alarm fires in Manhattan in 2018. Nine days after the fire, the FDNY declared the fatal four-alarm Trump Tower fire accidental, caused by multiple overloaded power strips. Brassner's apartment lacked a smoke detector.

Brassner had amassed artwork and other collectibles at more than $3 million. That included a 1975 Warhol portrait of Brassner valued at $850,000. The condition of Brassner's 100 vintage electric guitars and works of art is unknown.

Despite the extensive art collection and expensive condo, Brassner regularly failed to pay common charges for his property on the 50th floor and the Trump condominium board regularly placed liens on his apartment until the fees were paid. Public records show that between 2003 until 2013 the Trump Condominium put a lien on the Brassner's property for unpaid common charges almost every year. The unpaid amounts varied from $4,387.92 to $21,668.03 per year.

After the fatal fire, the Trump Condominium board placed a new lien on Brassner's apartment, for $52,213.38 and sued his estate for $90,000. (Residential Board of Trump Tower Condominium v. Aaron Brassner, as executor of the estate of Todd R. Brassner, 159812/2018.)

Baku, Azerbaijan, April 2018

On April 28, 2018, a fire broke out at the Trump Tower in Baku. The blaze started at the top floor of the building and burned through about 20 stories before firefighters extinguished the flames by midafternoon. Hours later firefighters were called back to battle a second fire.

A Russian news portal posted a video showing that the fire rekindled in the evening, this time burning through much of the building.

After 10 years of construction with Ivanka Trump in charge for her father, the corruptly financed Baku Trump Tower was still not finished when it caught fire.

The New Yorker magazine reported in March 2017 that the tower appeared "to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard." The Trump Organization had extensive involvement and oversight on the project with Trump staff visiting monthly.

When the Trump Organization got involved in the project, they knowingly signed on even though any form of due diligence would have revealed that the project had been financially entangled with an Iranian family tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. In his reporting in The New Yorker, Adam Davidson wrote that he spoke with more than a dozen contractors who described behavior on the project as "nakedly corrupt."

One contractor confirmed his firm was always paid in cash, and that he witnessed other contractors being paid in the same way. He said, "They would give us a giant pile of cash," adding, "I got $180,000 one time, which I fit into my laptop bag, and $200,000 another time." Once, a colleague of his picked up a payment of $2 million. "He needed to bring a big duffel bag," McDonald recalled.

New York City, March 2017

Just six weeks after Trump became president, a fire broke out on the 47th floor of the Trump International Hotel overlooking Central Park and Columbus Circle. The high rise had been a corporate office before being retrofitted as a hotel with Trump's name on it. The fire was deemed not suspicious.

Las Vegas, April 2017

In April 2017, a 28-year old man was arrested at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas after officials found four separate devices used to ignite different firesone in the pool restroom area and on the 17th floor of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

The pool deck fire was confined to two toasters and "various combustible materials," the Fire Department said. The 17th-floor fire was, similarly, confined to two toasters and "various combustible materials," the Fire Department said.

Fire officials said toasters, towels and other materials set aflame on the 17th floor were quickly extinguished by hotel security personnel. Firefighters extinguished the restroom fire.

Clark County (Las Vegas) Fire Department spokesman John Steinbeck said the multiple devices were placed intentionally to set off fires, but the fires don't appear to be politically motivated.

Las Vegas, May 2017

Two months later, in May 2017, a tourist from Colorado was arrested for deliberately setting a fire near the lobby of the same Trump Las Vegas hotel. He dropped a burning paper towel into a restroom trash can. The judge ordered the 28-year-old man to be released from jail after five days behind bars and sentenced him to 50 hours of community service.

Other Fires in Trump's Orbit Prior to his Presidency

In addition to the fires at Trump's properties, some other fires have occurred in the wake of some of the more controversial time periods in Trump's life. These incidents seem to sit on the periphery of Trump's orbit.

Roy Cohn's Testimony Burned

In case you want to peruse Trump's testimony in the disbarment case of the infamous Roy Cohn, you are out of luck.

In January 2015, a CitiStorage facility in Brooklyn went up in flames. Among the records lost were Cohn's disbarment proceedings including the transcript of Trump's testimony where he attested to the good character of the ruthlessly villainous lawyer whom Trump has called his second father.

That fire in a 1.1 million cubic feet facility housed records from many government agencies, including the New York State court system, municipal Children's Services and the Health and Hospitals Corp., as well as medical records from several local hospitals and documents from law and financial services firms.

Arson or Accident?

A four-alarm fire erupted at Trump Tower in 1982 when it was under construction. The fire burned the top three floors, which were to become Trump's triplex residence.

Fire Chief John Fogarty said the blaze was "definitely, absolutely, positively arson." But seven hours later Deputy Fire Commissioner John Mulligan declared it accidental, caused by fires used to keep concrete warm. Trump Tower is made of concrete, not steel girders.

The Stormy Daniels Explosions

Back in 2009 Stormy Daniels, the stripper with whom Trump had what she characterized as a very quick sexual encounter in 2006, explored a run for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana. Two explosions persuaded her to back off. Daniels' real name is Stephanie Clifford.

An Audi belonging to Brian Welsh, a Democratic adviser to the Stormy Daniels Senate Exploratory Committee LLC., exploded just after a surveillance camera recorded a man opening the drivers' side door and throwing an object into the car. Welsh said he was uncertain if the explosion was connected to his work with Daniels.

Andrea Dube, who also worked on the Stormy Daniels political operation, tweeted that the same evening as the car bomb, the natural gas line feeding her home mysteriously exploded. The resulting fire nearly burning her house.

No matter how you look at it, that's a lot of fires afflicting Trump business interests.

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'Is there no low to which you will not stoop?': Mike Pence flattened for siding with the 'mob' over the government - Raw Story