Donald Trump Announces 2016 White House Bid

spaminator

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Tucker Carlson's scorn for Trump revealed in court papers
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
David Bauder And Nicholas Riccardi
Published Mar 08, 2023 • 4 minute read

NEW YORK – A defamation lawsuit is revealing scornful behind-the-scenes opinions by Fox News figures about Donald Trump, including a Tucker Carlson text message declaring “I hate him passionately.”


Carlson’s private text conversation was revealed in court papers at virtually the same time that the former president was hailing the Fox News host on social media. Trump said he was doing a “great job” in presenting excerpts of U.S. Capitol security video of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — though Carlson used the video to produce a false narrative of the attack.


The documents are also coming to light at a time of increased tension between Trump and the dominant media force appealing to conservatives as he campaigns to regain the presidency.

Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, claiming the network broadcast false claims that the company was responsible for fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The case is to go to trial this spring, and a trove of documents related to Fox’s actions after the election are being publicly released in advance.


A common theme emerging from the internal documents and depositions is that Fox executives and hosts doubted the election claims being peddled by Trump and his allies, but aired and emphasized them anyway. Fox was growing concerned about a decline in viewership as Trump supporters turned away from the network after it — correctly — called Joe Biden the presidential winner in Arizona on election night.

The exchanges include Carlson’s text conversation on Jan. 4, 2021, with an unknown person, in which the prime-time host expressed anger toward Trump.

Carlson said that “we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights” and that “I truly can’t wait.”

Carlson said he had no doubt that there was fraud in the 2020 election, but that Trump and his lawyers had so discredited their case — and media figures like himself — “that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”


Federal and state officials, courts, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, although Trump continues to falsely state that the presidency was stolen from him.

Addressing Trump’s four years as president, Carlson said, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

In another text exchange more than a month earlier, Carlson denigrated Trump’s business abilities: Trump(‘s talent, he said, is to “destroy things. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

Fox, in response to these and other court exhibits that were released late Tuesday, said that “Dominion has been caught red handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”


Fox’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, has a complex relationship with Trump: “I was not close to him,” Murdoch said in a deposition in the libel lawsuit.

Indeed, though Murdoch acknowledged talking to Trump occasionally, he said he also sought inside information from Sean Hannity, one of his network’s primetime hosts, because Hannity was the closest person at Fox to Trump.

Following Trump’s loss in November of 2020, Murdoch despaired of the president’s behavior.

“The real danger is what he might do as president,” Murdoch wrote in an email to a friend that month. “Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls! Don’t know about Melania, but kids no help.”

But Murdoch told his network’s officials that he also didn’t want to “antagonize” Trump: “He had a very large following, and they were probably mostly viewers of Fox, so it would have been stupid,” Murdoch said in a deposition in the Dominion case.


In separate questioning in the case, Murdoch acknowledged that he believed the 2020 presidential election ” was not stolen.”

On social media recently, Trump was critical of Fox when other court papers released in the Dominion case made clear that a number of the network’s executives and personalities privately believed the election fraud claims were bunk.

Trump and his team also have accused Fox of giving his latest campaign for the presidency little attention and favoring a potential challenger for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In a fiery speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee last week, Trump ally Steve Bannon complained that Fox had disrespected the former president.

“You’ve deemed Trump’s not going to be president,” Bannon said. “Well, we deem you’re not going to have a network.”

On Saturday afternoon. Fox News aired Trump’s speech to CPAC in its entirety.
 

pgs

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Tucker Carlson's scorn for Trump revealed in court papers
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
David Bauder And Nicholas Riccardi
Published Mar 08, 2023 • 4 minute read

NEW YORK – A defamation lawsuit is revealing scornful behind-the-scenes opinions by Fox News figures about Donald Trump, including a Tucker Carlson text message declaring “I hate him passionately.”


Carlson’s private text conversation was revealed in court papers at virtually the same time that the former president was hailing the Fox News host on social media. Trump said he was doing a “great job” in presenting excerpts of U.S. Capitol security video of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — though Carlson used the video to produce a false narrative of the attack.


The documents are also coming to light at a time of increased tension between Trump and the dominant media force appealing to conservatives as he campaigns to regain the presidency.

Voting machine manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems is suing Fox News for $1.6 billion, claiming the network broadcast false claims that the company was responsible for fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The case is to go to trial this spring, and a trove of documents related to Fox’s actions after the election are being publicly released in advance.


A common theme emerging from the internal documents and depositions is that Fox executives and hosts doubted the election claims being peddled by Trump and his allies, but aired and emphasized them anyway. Fox was growing concerned about a decline in viewership as Trump supporters turned away from the network after it — correctly — called Joe Biden the presidential winner in Arizona on election night.

The exchanges include Carlson’s text conversation on Jan. 4, 2021, with an unknown person, in which the prime-time host expressed anger toward Trump.

Carlson said that “we are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights” and that “I truly can’t wait.”

Carlson said he had no doubt that there was fraud in the 2020 election, but that Trump and his lawyers had so discredited their case — and media figures like himself — “that it’s infuriating. Absolutely enrages me.”


Federal and state officials, courts, exhaustive reviews in battleground states and Trump’s attorney general found no widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, although Trump continues to falsely state that the presidency was stolen from him.

Addressing Trump’s four years as president, Carlson said, “We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest. But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

In another text exchange more than a month earlier, Carlson denigrated Trump’s business abilities: Trump(‘s talent, he said, is to “destroy things. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

Fox, in response to these and other court exhibits that were released late Tuesday, said that “Dominion has been caught red handed using more distortions and misinformation in their PR campaign to smear Fox News and trample on free speech and freedom of the press. We already know they will say and do anything to try to win this case, but to twist and even misattribute quotes to the highest levels of our company is truly beyond the pale.”


Fox’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, has a complex relationship with Trump: “I was not close to him,” Murdoch said in a deposition in the libel lawsuit.

Indeed, though Murdoch acknowledged talking to Trump occasionally, he said he also sought inside information from Sean Hannity, one of his network’s primetime hosts, because Hannity was the closest person at Fox to Trump.

Following Trump’s loss in November of 2020, Murdoch despaired of the president’s behavior.

“The real danger is what he might do as president,” Murdoch wrote in an email to a friend that month. “Apparently not sleeping and bouncing off walls! Don’t know about Melania, but kids no help.”

But Murdoch told his network’s officials that he also didn’t want to “antagonize” Trump: “He had a very large following, and they were probably mostly viewers of Fox, so it would have been stupid,” Murdoch said in a deposition in the Dominion case.


In separate questioning in the case, Murdoch acknowledged that he believed the 2020 presidential election ” was not stolen.”

On social media recently, Trump was critical of Fox when other court papers released in the Dominion case made clear that a number of the network’s executives and personalities privately believed the election fraud claims were bunk.

Trump and his team also have accused Fox of giving his latest campaign for the presidency little attention and favoring a potential challenger for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In a fiery speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee last week, Trump ally Steve Bannon complained that Fox had disrespected the former president.

“You’ve deemed Trump’s not going to be president,” Bannon said. “Well, we deem you’re not going to have a network.”

On Saturday afternoon. Fox News aired Trump’s speech to CPAC in its entirety.
Who should be castrated Tucker or Trump ? Maybe both of those far right democracy hating losers .
 

spaminator

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 26, 2009
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Former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis censured for falsehoods about election
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Nicholas Riccardi
Published Mar 09, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read

DENVER — Jenna Ellis, a former attorney for Donald Trump ‘s reelection campaign and a prominent conservative media figure, has been censured by Colorado legal officials after admitting she made repeated false statements about the 2020 presidential election.


Ellis acknowledged making 10 “misrepresentations” on television and Twitter during Trump’s fight to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, according to the censure from the office of attorney regulation counsel in Colorado, where Ellis is from. The statements include claiming on Jeanine Pirro’s Fox News show on Dec. 5, 2020 that “we have over 500,000 votes (in Arizona) that were cast illegally” and telling the conservative network Newsmax on Dec. 15 that Trump was “the true and proper victor.”


On November 20, 2020, Ellis appeared on the Newsmax show of former Trump spokesman Sean Spicer and said: “with all those states (Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia) combined we know that the election was stolen from President Trump and we can prove that.”


Ellis was one of several prominent conservative voices who, in the final weeks of 2020, echoed Trump’s lies that the election was stolen from him. Those falsehoods helped fuel the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Respondent, through her conduct, undermined the American public’s confidence in the presidential election, violating her duty of candor to the public,” wrote Bryon M. Large, the disciplinary judge in the case.

Ellis becomes the latest pro-Trump attorney penalized for their attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Nine lawyers in Michigan in 2021 were ordered to pay US$175,000 in sanctions for a sham suit seeking to overturn the election in that swing state. The District of Columbia’s bar association disciplinary counsel in December called for the suspension of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s law license for pursuing a baseless lawsuit challenging Biden’s win in Pennsylvania.

Ellis is based in Washington, D.C., but is from Colorado and has also practised in the state. Through her attorney, Michael Melito, she stipulated to both the findings that she’d made misrepresentations and the censure.

On Twitter Wednesday, Ellis said: “This was politically motivated from the start from Democrats and Never Trumpers. They ultimately failed to destroy me and failed in their attempt to deprive me of my bar license. I’m glad to have this behind me and remain in good standing in the State of Colorado.”
 

spaminator

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Trump invited to testify before New York grand jury, lawyer says
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Michael R. Sisak
Published Mar 09, 2023 • 3 minute read

NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump has been invited to testify before a New York grand jury that has been investigating hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign, according to one of his lawyers.


Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina confirmed Thursday that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has invited the former president to testify next week as prosecutors near a decision on whether to proceed with what could be the first criminal case ever brought against a former U.S. president.


“To me, it’s much ado about nothing,” Tacopina told the Associated Press, adding he didn’t think prosecutors had committed “one way or another” on a decision on whether to charge Trump. He said there was no legal basis for a case.

“It’s just another example of them weaponizing the justice system against him. And it’s sort of unfair,” he said.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, declined to comment. Such an invitation to testify before a grand jury often indicates a decision on indictments is near.


The invitation to testify was first reported by The New York Times.

Any indictment would come as Trump is ramping up a run to regain the White House in 2024 while simultaneously battling legal problems on multiple fronts.

Trump, in a lengthy statement posted on his social media network, blasted the investigation as a “political Witch-Hunt trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party” and what he called a “corrupt, depraved, and weaponized justice system.”

“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said.

Meanwhile, the district attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, has said decisions are “imminent” in a two-year investigation into possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election by Trump and his allies. A U.S. Justice Department special counsel is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the election as well as the handling of classified documents at his Florida estate.


The New York grand jury has been probing Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she said she had with the Republican years earlier.

The money was paid out of the personal funds of Trump’s now-estranged lawyer, Michael Cohen, who then said he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization and also paid extra bonuses for a total that eventually rose to $420,000.

Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 that the payment, and another he helped arrange to the model Karen McDougal through the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid, amounted to an illegal campaign contribution.

Federal prosecutors at the time decided not to bring charges against Trump, who by then was president. The Manhattan district attorney’s office then launched its own investigation, which lingered for several years but has been gathering momentum in recent weeks.


Several figures close to Trump have been spotted in recent days entering Bragg’s office for meetings with prosecutors, including his former political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks.

Cohen has also met several times with prosecutors, saying after a recent visit that he thought the investigation was nearing a conclusion.

Under New York law, people who appear before a grand jury are given immunity from prosecution for things they say during their testimony, so potential targets of criminal investigations are generally invited to testify only if they waive that immunity. Lawyers generally advise clients not to do so if there is a potential for a criminal case.

It isn’t clear what charges prosecutors might be exploring.


Legal experts have said one potential crime could be the way the payments to Cohen were structured and falsely classified internally as being for a legal retainer. New York has a law against falsifying business records, but it is a misdemeanour unless the records fudging is done in conjunction with a more serious felony crime.

Tacopina said there was no crime.

“There’s no precedent for this. There’s no established case law on this campaign finance stuff. It’s ridiculous. And there’s no underlying crime,” he said.

Separately, the district attorney’s office has also spent years investigating whether Trump and his company inflated the value of some its assets in dealings with lenders and potential business partners. Those allegations are the subject of a civil lawsuit, filed by the state’s attorney general.
 

Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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Trump invited to testify before New York grand jury, lawyer says
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Michael R. Sisak
Published Mar 09, 2023 • 3 minute read

NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump has been invited to testify before a New York grand jury that has been investigating hush money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign, according to one of his lawyers.


Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina confirmed Thursday that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has invited the former president to testify next week as prosecutors near a decision on whether to proceed with what could be the first criminal case ever brought against a former U.S. president.


“To me, it’s much ado about nothing,” Tacopina told the Associated Press, adding he didn’t think prosecutors had committed “one way or another” on a decision on whether to charge Trump. He said there was no legal basis for a case.

“It’s just another example of them weaponizing the justice system against him. And it’s sort of unfair,” he said.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, declined to comment. Such an invitation to testify before a grand jury often indicates a decision on indictments is near.


The invitation to testify was first reported by The New York Times.

Any indictment would come as Trump is ramping up a run to regain the White House in 2024 while simultaneously battling legal problems on multiple fronts.

Trump, in a lengthy statement posted on his social media network, blasted the investigation as a “political Witch-Hunt trying to take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party” and what he called a “corrupt, depraved, and weaponized justice system.”

“I did absolutely nothing wrong,” he said.

Meanwhile, the district attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, has said decisions are “imminent” in a two-year investigation into possible illegal meddling in the 2020 election by Trump and his allies. A U.S. Justice Department special counsel is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the election as well as the handling of classified documents at his Florida estate.


The New York grand jury has been probing Trump’s involvement in a $130,000 payment made in 2016 to the porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her from going public about a sexual encounter she said she had with the Republican years earlier.

The money was paid out of the personal funds of Trump’s now-estranged lawyer, Michael Cohen, who then said he was reimbursed by the Trump Organization and also paid extra bonuses for a total that eventually rose to $420,000.

Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 that the payment, and another he helped arrange to the model Karen McDougal through the parent company of the National Enquirer tabloid, amounted to an illegal campaign contribution.

Federal prosecutors at the time decided not to bring charges against Trump, who by then was president. The Manhattan district attorney’s office then launched its own investigation, which lingered for several years but has been gathering momentum in recent weeks.


Several figures close to Trump have been spotted in recent days entering Bragg’s office for meetings with prosecutors, including his former political adviser Kellyanne Conway and former spokesperson Hope Hicks.

Cohen has also met several times with prosecutors, saying after a recent visit that he thought the investigation was nearing a conclusion.

Under New York law, people who appear before a grand jury are given immunity from prosecution for things they say during their testimony, so potential targets of criminal investigations are generally invited to testify only if they waive that immunity. Lawyers generally advise clients not to do so if there is a potential for a criminal case.

It isn’t clear what charges prosecutors might be exploring.


Legal experts have said one potential crime could be the way the payments to Cohen were structured and falsely classified internally as being for a legal retainer. New York has a law against falsifying business records, but it is a misdemeanour unless the records fudging is done in conjunction with a more serious felony crime.

Tacopina said there was no crime.

“There’s no precedent for this. There’s no established case law on this campaign finance stuff. It’s ridiculous. And there’s no underlying crime,” he said.

Separately, the district attorney’s office has also spent years investigating whether Trump and his company inflated the value of some its assets in dealings with lenders and potential business partners. Those allegations are the subject of a civil lawsuit, filed by the state’s attorney general.
I thought it was up to the banks to determine the value of property. Huh, who knew it was the Attorney General? When we applied for our mortgages, there were individuals who physically came to our home to see what our home was valued at and whether the mortgage would be covered if sold. Too easy. Did they just take Trump or his advisors at their word? Seems rather foolish considering one is talking about a much bigger amount than any of my mortgages. Just wondering how they do it in the U.S.
 

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
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It's up to the market to determine the value of property. "Value" can be defined as "what someone is willing to pay for something."
Not anymore. Vancouver has now given themselves the right to literally tax the air above your property. In a recent updating of tax laws they now tax on the allowable height of a building on a property, Instead of the height of the existing building.
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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Not anymore. Vancouver has now given themselves the right to literally tax the air above your property. In a recent updating of tax laws they now tax on the allowable height of a building on a property, Instead of the height of the existing building.
Creative taxation , after all who can spend your money faster .
 
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Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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Edmonton
It's up to the market to determine the value of property. "Value" can be defined as "what someone is willing to pay for something."
Exactly but there are people who are supposed to be able to determine just what that "market value" is at any particular time. Values go up and down, depending on the economy. Why is the A.G. getting involved?
 

spaminator

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Oct 26, 2009
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Trump cannot exclude 'Access Hollywood' tape from rape accuser's trial
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Jonathan Stempel
Published Mar 10, 2023 • 2 minute read

NEW YORK — A U.S. judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump’s effort to exclude an “Access Hollywood” tape of him making vulgar comments about women from a defamation lawsuit by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who says the former president raped her in the mid-1990s.


Carroll sought to introduce an excerpt from the tape, which was recorded in 2005 and where Trump boasted about forcing himself on women, as evidence that Trump had a propensity for sexual assaults comparable to hers.


U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said that while propensity evidence is ordinarily not admissible, a reasonable jury could find that Trump admitted in the tape “that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so.”


Trump has denied raping Carroll. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Carroll’s lawyers, through a spokesman, declined to comment.

The 23-page decision came in the first of Carroll’s two defamation lawsuits over her alleged encounter with Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.


Carroll sued Trump in 2019 after he told a reporter at the White House that he did not know Carroll, that she was not his type, and that she made up the rape claim to sell her memoir. She sued again in 2022 after Trump repeated his denials online.

In the “Access Hollywood” excerpt, Trump graphically described his unsuccessful attempt to have a sexual encounter with a married woman, and described himself as being attracted to beautiful women.

“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it,” Trump said. “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

The tape was released in October 2016 and threatened to upend Trump’s White House run. He defeated Hillary Clinton the following month to become president.


Kaplan also rejected Trump’s bid to exclude testimony from two other women who claimed he sexually assaulted them.

One, Jessica Leeds, said Trump groped her while seated beside her on a 1979 flight to New York from Texas.

The other, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump attacked her in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where she had traveled to interview him and his wife Melania for People magazine.


Trump has denied that both incidents occurred.

Carroll’s second lawsuit also includes a battery claim under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which lets sexual abuse victims sue their attackers even if statutes of limitations have run out. An April 25 trial is scheduled.

The cases are Carroll v. Trump, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Nos. 20-00731 and 22-10016.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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Exactly but there are people who are supposed to be able to determine just what that "market value" is at any particular time. Values go up and down, depending on the economy. Why is the A.G. getting involved?
Nope. The "market value" of something is the bank or speaker's estimate of the value. Essentially, it's what the speaker is willing to pay for (or lend money for or on) the property.

"Market value" is a fiction. It's like "national average" gas prices. Means absolutely nothing to you at the pump.
 
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Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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Edmonton
Nope. The "market value" of something is the bank or speaker's estimate of the value. Essentially, it's what the speaker is willing to pay for (or lend money for or on) the property.

"Market value" is a fiction. It's like "national average" gas prices. Means absolutely nothing to you at the pump.
Where the hell does "pump" fit in to "market value?" Market Value is what someone will pay for something. It's what the "economy" will bear at any given time.
 

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
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Where the hell does "pump" fit in to "market value?" Market Value is what someone will pay for something. It's what the "economy" will bear at any given time.
Not really. Market value really only applies to things you can negotiate the price on. Houses and vehicles are the two main areas for this. Anything that the seller sets the price on, take it or leave it is not market price.
 

spaminator

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Oct 26, 2009
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'History will hold Donald Trump accountable' for Jan. 6, Mike Pence says
'I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day'

Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Andrea Shalal and Trevor Hunnicutt and Gram Slattery
Published Mar 12, 2023 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence offered his most forceful rebuke to date of his one-time boss Donald Trump on Saturday, saying that history will hold him accountable for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.


Pence was in the Capitol when thousands of Trump supporters breached the building in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden.


As the vice president has the constitutional role of Senate president, Pence was presiding over what had always been the ceremonial task of approving the votes of the Electoral College to select the president and vice president.

Throughout the siege, Trump sent several tweets, one calling on Republicans to “fight” and others making false claims of voter fraud. He also criticized Pence for certifying the results.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence told assembled journalists and their guests at the Gridiron dinner, an annual white-tie event in Washington, D.C.


“I had no right to overturn the election, and his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know that history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Pence, who is considering a run for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, was whisked to safety by law enforcement during the attack.

He rarely addressed Jan. 6 in the months following the incident, but has since upped his criticism of the rioters and the behaviour of his former boss that day.

He has sharply criticized Trump’s conduct in recent media interviews, and in a memoir released in November, he accused Trump of endangering his family.

Still, Pence’s comments on Saturday were his most pointed to date.


“What happened that day was a disgrace,” he said. “And it mocks decency to portray it any other way. For as long as I live, I will never, ever diminish the injuries sustained, the lives lost, or the heroism of law enforcement on that tragic day.”

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside business hours.

Pence’s relationship with Trump has been complex since the two left office. He had criticized the former president’s behavior but refrained from the most stinging rebukes of Trump. He also declined to cooperate with the House of Representatives committee investigating the Capitol attack, describing the work done by the mainly Democratic body as partisan.

The former vice president’s comments on Saturday indicate he is willing to more forcefully distance himself from Trump as the 2024 campaign heats up – even if that means alienating the millions of Republican voters still loyal to the former president.

His remarks came just days after conservative television host Tucker Carlson aired security footage of the Capitol attack, claiming that many of the rioters were “orderly.”

Carlson’s depiction of Jan. 6 was sharply criticized by Democrats and several high-profile Republicans in the Senate, though many other Republicans – particularly in the House – shrugged off the episode.