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‘I Can Speak From Personal Experience’: Just Two Weeks Ago Pence Called for Special Counsel for Biden Classified Docs

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It was just two weeks ago that former Vice President Mike Pence was demanding a special counsel be appointed to look into President Joe Biden‘s handling of classified documents, after a small number had been found in an office at the Penn-Biden Center. Now some are calling for DOJ to appoint a special counsel to investigate the former Trump vice president’s handling of classified documents, after CNN reported Tuesday on the dozen or so classified documents that were found in Pence’s Indiana home and turned over to the FBI and the National Archives.

Pence, who is expected to launch a 2024 presidential run, had taken to the right-wing media talk circuit, demanding “equal treatment” by the U.S. Dept. of Justice for President Biden, after Attorney General Merrick Garland had appointed a special counsel in November to investigate ex-president Donald Trump’s possibly criminal handling of classified documents.

Attorney General Garland ultimately, and exceptionally quickly, did appoint a special counsel to look into Biden’s classified documents handling, leading Pence to say he had been “deeply troubled” before that happened.

READ MORE: Watch: Top Trump Ally Lindsey Graham Defends Biden In Classified Docs Probe

“Look, there’s equal treatment in the law [that] is at the very center of the expectation of the American people,” Pence, calling for a special counsel to investigate Biden’s handling of classified documents, had told right wing personality Hugh Hewitt exactly two weeks ago, on January 10.

He also blasted the Biden administration for the DOJ executing a search warrant on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, last summer. And he criticized the media for what he wrongly called “turning a deaf ear” to the Biden classified documents issue, which is false.

“Well, as I said last summer when the home of a former president of the United States, you know, was raided by FBI agents, I was deeply troubled by that action at the time. And this double standard is just as troubling. You know, there’s that old saying that if they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all,” Pence told Hewitt, despite there being no double standard.

“And Hugh, this is, whether it be the administration or whether it be the media papering over this, look, it was a massive overreach by the FBI, a massive overreaction this summer to execute a search warrant at the personal residence of a former president of the United States, and I said so. But having now created that standard and now abandoned that standard when the current president of the United States is found to have had classified documents in his possession after leaving office, I think it just, I have no words right now. It’s just incredibly frustrating to me.”

READ MORE: ‘Marxists, Communists, Racists, and RINOS’: Trump Melts Down Hours Before Judge Will Rule on Releasing Grand Jury Report

He also continued to berate the Biden administration and the media.

“You know, the reality is that now they’ve, you know, what they have unleashed now has the threat of coming back on them,” he said of the Biden administration, for allowing DOJ to execute the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. “But the willingness of the national media to just turn away and turn a deaf ear to the Biden, to the disclosures that when Vice President Biden left office, he left with classified documents as well, it just shows you, it’s like I said before. If they didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all.”

Pence has repeatedly denied having any classified documents, which we now know was false.

Pence wasn’t done attacking President Biden.

Two days later, on Jan. 12,  he went on Fox News Business, using nearly the same language, telling former Trump White House official Larry Kudlow that “equal treatment under the law is at the very center of American jurisprudence,” and applauding the decision to appoint a special counsel to look into the Biden classified documents.

“And earlier this week, I called for that. I welcome the decision by Attorney General Garland, who will appoint a special counsel. If we have a special counsel reviewing classified materials that were found at Mar-a-Lago, we need to have a special counsel in this case, and that’s progress.”

Pence said he could “speak from personal experience” about the importance of properly handling classified documents.

“The handling of classified materials, and the nation’s secrets is very serious matter. And as a former Vice President of the United States I can speak from personal experience but the attention that ought to be paid to those materials when you’re in office, and after you leave office. And clearly, that did not take place in this case.”

The difference between the Biden classified documents issue and the Trump classified documents case is huge.

President Biden reported all classified documents found to DOJ and the National Archives and had then sent to NARA immediately.

Trump reportedly had classified documents and thousands of other items belonging to the federal government shipped from the White House to his residence and resort in Florida, Mar-a-Lago, and according to several former officials, helped pack some of the boxes himself.

READ MORE: DeSantis: One of the Reasons I Banned Black History Course Is It Includes ‘Indoctrination’ on ‘Queer Theory’ (Video)

He then spent over a year lying about what he had at Mar-a-Lago, and repeatedly refused to return the stolen items.

Some experts say a special counsel should be appointed for Pence’s handling of classified documents.

Law professor, MSNBC legal contributor, and former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance says, “No reason to treat Pence differently” from President Biden.

National security attorney Mark S. Zaid says Pence should allow the FBI “to voluntarily search his offices & residence for additional classified docs.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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‘This Isn’t Justice’: Legal Experts Blast Cannon for Postponing Trump Case Indefinitely

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U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon late Tuesday afternoon issued an indefinite postponement of the court date in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump on Espionage Act charges, in the indictment commonly referred to as the classified documents case.

Claiming it would be “imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court,” along with other matters, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, wrote: “the Court finds that the ends of justice served by this continuance…outweigh the best interest of the public and Defendants in a speedy trial.”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports, “It may be months before we know the new schedule.” Trial had been slated to begin May 20.

“With 13 days before her trial was supposed to kick off, Judge Cannon finally says what has been obvious to every legal journalist I know: She’s not just canceling the existing trial date; she’s also not picking a replacement,” MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin reports.

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

The 37 count indictment was brought after Trump removed well over 1000 items, including hundreds of classified documents, out of the White House, retained then refused to return them, allegedly violating several statutes under the Espionage Act.

“Trump mishandled classified documents that included information about the secretive U.S. nuclear program and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack,” according t0 the federal indictment, Reuters reported last year.

The trial now is not expected to conclude before the November presidential election this year.

This is news but it’s hardly unexpected,” declared professor of law, former U.S. Attorney, and MSNBC contributor Joyce Vance wrote. “Judge Cannon seems desperate to avoid trying this case. This isn’t justice. defendants aren’t the only ones with speedy trial act rights, we the people have them too.”

“After the election,” professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter commented, “if Trump wins Jack Smith gets fired, the case gets dismissed, and Judge Cannon is ready for SCOTUS.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

Attorney and author Luppe B. Luppen noted, “Judge Cannon’s rationale for indefinitely postponing Trump’s classified documents trial is that a large number of pretrial motions remain unresolved—a state of affairs she has literally engineered by failing to resolve them.”

Professor of law and noted election law expert Rick Hasen asked: “Is it too cynical to believe that Judge Cannon timed the announcement of the postponement of a Trump classified documents trial to take away from the salacious sex details from Stormy Daniels’ testimony today?”

National security attorney Brad Moss served up a “silver lining to Cannon not setting a new trial date: she isn’t blocking the DC or Georgia election cases from resuming in the late summer/early fall, pending SCOTUS ruling on immunity.”

Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf added, “Justice delayed is justice denied. Both the defendant and the public have the right to a trial ‘without unnecessary delay.’ (Sixth Amendment.) When does Jack Smith seek a remedy for the problem Judge Cannon clearly represents? Tick freaking tock.”

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

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Trump Battled to Go to Son’s Graduation – So Why Is He Speaking at a Fundraiser That Day?

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Last month Donald Trump falsely told reporters Justice Juan Merchan had blocked him from attending his youngest son’s high school graduation, refusing to give him the day off from his required attendance at his New York criminal court case.

Justice Merchan had actually told Trump he would take the request under advisement, but Trump quickly ran to reporters painting the judge as heartless.

On April 15 Trump said, “it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who’s worked very, very hard and he is a great student.”

“It looks like the judge isn’t going to allow me to escape this scam. It’s a scam trial,” Trump alleged.

The Associated Press reported, “Trump then furthered his criticism of the judge on his Truth Social platform, writing in one post both that he ‘will likely not be allowed to attend’ and that ‘the Judge, Juan Merchan, is preventing me from proudly attending my son’s Graduation.’ He wrote in another post less than two hours later that he is ‘being prohibited from attending.'”

READ MORE: Johnson Demands All Trump Prosecutions Cease, Vows to Use Congress ‘In Every Possible Way’

None of that was accurate.

Last week Judge Merchan granted Trump the day off from court to attend his son’s high school graduation.

But The Lincoln Project and others on Tuesday posted the announcement for “Minnesota’s 2024 Lincoln Reagan Dinner With Special Guest DONALD J. TRUMP” on Friday, May 17, 2024.

Trump, as The New Republic notes, will be the headline speaker at the event in Saint Paul, Minnesota, which starts at 5:00 PM.

The fundraiser offers supporters the opportunity to spend $100,000, which grants them “10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 3 Photo Opportunities with President Trump.”

Or, for example, for $50,000, a supporter can get a “Chairman’s Host Table – 10 VIP Dinner Seats | 10 VIP Reception Passes | 1 Photo Opportunity with President Trump.”

KARE reports “the visit is expected to be the former president’s first trip to Minnesota of the 2024 election cycle.”

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

Trump has strong motivation to head to Minnesota.

Over the weekend, as NBC News reports, “Top officials for former President Donald Trump’s campaign believe they can flip Democratic strongholds Minnesota and Virginia into his column in November, they told donors behind closed doors at a Republican National Committee retreat Saturday.”

Barron Trump’s graduation from Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida reportedly will be the same day, May 17. Depending on timing, It’s possible Trump could fly from Florida to Minnesota to get to the fundraiser by 5 PM.

Watch Trump’s remarks from April 15 below or at this link.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Delivers Demands to Johnson as Her Three-Person Posse Weakens

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Under her threat to call up her motion to oust Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) met with the Louisiana Republican for several hours on Monday, delivering her list of demands, while knowing that Democrats have vowed to ensure her efforts to have him removed will fail.

Congresswoman Greene, a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, tried to build a faction of disaffected House Republicans but only two other GOP lawmakers have signed on to her “motion to vacate.” One of them, Christian nationalist U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) did not show for her Monday meeting.

At the top of Greene’s list of demands is ending all aid to Ukraine, according to Punchbowl News. The second item is defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigations into Donald Trump. And lastly, promising to adhere to the so-called “Hastert Rule,” putting on the floor for a vote only legislation that is supported by the majority of the Republican majority.

“Of course, the Senate would never take this up, and President Joe Biden would never sign any such bill including this provision if it somehow landed on his desk. Senior House Republicans privately admit this,” Punchbowl News reports.

READ MORE: Judge Hands Trump ‘Incarceration’ Threat as Experts Say Next Time He’ll Toss Him in Jail

Calling these maneuvers “cosplay” and “mostly theater,” Punchbowl notes: “Greene doesn’t really see those political realities as hurdles — or care. She wants to cause legislative crises and get media coverage.”

Johnson has the support of Donald Trump, along with, for now, the support of House Democrats including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Greene and her number two supporter, U.S. Rep. Tim Massie (R-KY), possibly with Congressman Gosar – whose support for Greene’s motion to vacate appears to be wavering – are expected to meet again with Speaker Johnson on Tuesday.

The Guardian reports some observers are “suggesting the Georgia congresswoman is looking for an off-ramp,” and adds that Greene’s “lunchtime summit” could “finally offer clarity” on whether she “still intends to press ahead with her drive to oust speaker Mike Johnson, or accept a face-saving alternative that would give the impression of a win.”

Gosar’s apparent wavering has not gone unnoticed.

Punchbowl News’ Mica Soellner reports: “Rep. Paul Gosar tells me he’s still very much behind the MTV [motion to vacate] effort and missed today’s meeting due to a flight delay.”

READ MORE: Trump Threatens to Violate Gag Order and Go to Jail: ‘I’ll Do That Sacrifice Any Day’

He told Soellner: “If Marjorie wanted me to come, I would’ve been there.”

She notes Gosar did not commit to attending Tuesday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, from the non-Greene side of the House Republican conference, Fox News’ Chad Pergram reports on comments made by U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE).

Citing his Fox News colleague Brianna O’Neil’s reporting, he writes (not direct quotes): “GOP NE Rep Bacon on Greene’s efforts to remove Johnson: We don’t like it. We’d be angry about it because all it does is weaken all of us. And it’s it’s like 2 or 3 people working for the other side of the aisle…it appears to us, you know, the other side shooting this also foot right now over all the campus stuff. Joe Biden’s polling at 36%, the lowest of any president going back to 1952. So why jump in the way of that? And we’ve got 2 or 3 people are doing that. And it’s just a tactical and strategically. It’s not smart.”

Last week, Congresswoman Greene held a news conference and vowed to call up her motion to vacate, “next week, absolutely.”

On Monday, Greene alleged a “deal” has been made between Johnson and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.

READ MORE: ‘I’m Not Talking About That Meeting’: Noem Implies She May Have Met With Kim Jong Un

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