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Mike Pence must testify about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, judge rules | CNN Politics

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Mike Pence must testify about conversations he had with Donald Trump leading up to January 6, judge rules | CNN Politics



CNN
 — 

A federal decide has determined that former Vice President Mike Pence should testify to a grand jury about conversations he had with Donald Trump main as much as January 6, 2021, based on a number of sources aware of a latest federal courtroom ruling.

However the decide mentioned – in a ruling that is still underneath seal – that Pence can nonetheless decline to reply questions associated to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election, based on one of many sources.

The ruling from chief decide James Boasberg of the US District Courtroom in Washington, DC, is a significant win for particular counsel Jack Smith, who’s spearheading the Justice Division investigation. Pence nonetheless has the flexibility to attraction.

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Within the lead-up to the congressional certification vote, Pence confronted huge strain from Trump and his allies to disrupt lawmakers’ plans to validate Joe Biden’s win. As president of the Senate, Pence was tasked with presiding over the certification proceedings.

Trump’s conversations with Trump within the days surrounding the revolt have been of eager curiosity to investigators probing the assault. Although Pence declined to testify earlier than the Home January 6 committee that investigated the revolt, individuals in Trump’s orbit informed the committee a couple of heated telephone name he had with Pence the day of the assault through which he lobbed insults at his vice chairman.

Pence and Trump didn’t communicate in the course of the assault on the Capitol itself, through which lots of Trump’s supporters angrily sought him out, and Pence narrowly escaped the mob heading to the Senate flooring.

Nicholas Luna, a former particular assistant to Trump, informed the committee he remembered Trump calling Pence a “wimp.” Luna mentioned he recalled one thing to the impact of Trump saying, “I made the improper choice 4 or 5 years in the past.”

And Julie Radford, Ivanka Trump’s former chief of employees, mentioned she recalled Ivanka Trump telling her that “her dad had simply had an upsetting dialog with the vice chairman.”

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Radford mentioned she was informed that Trump had referred to as Pence “the P-word,” referencing a derogatory time period.

For Pence’s half, lots of his public feedback about his conversations with Trump within the days earlier than and after the revolt have are available in a memoir he printed final 12 months.

Within the e book, Pence wrote that Trump informed him within the days earlier than the assault that he would encourage the hatred of a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals as a result of he was “too trustworthy” to aim to overturn the outcomes of the election.

The previous vice chairman additionally mentioned within the e book that he requested his normal counsel for a briefing on the procedures of the Electoral Depend Act after Trump in a December 5 telephone name “talked about difficult the election leads to the Home of Representatives for the primary time.”

Over lunch on December 21, Pence wrote, he tried to steer Trump to take heed to the White Home counsel’s group’s recommendation, quite than exterior legal professionals, a suggestion the then-president shot down.

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And Pence wrote that Trump informed him in a New 12 months’s Day telephone name: “You’re too trustworthy,” predicting that “a whole bunch of hundreds are gonna hate your guts” and “individuals are gonna suppose you’re silly.”

“Mr. President, I don’t query there have been irregularities and fraud,” Pence wrote that he informed Trump. “It’s only a query of who decides, and underneath the regulation that’s Congress.”

Smith is investigating the Trump-aligned effort to subvert the 2020 election. Smith subpoenaed Pence for testimony and paperwork earlier this 12 months.

Days after information broke of the subpoena, Pence and his advisers indicated that the previous vice chairman would problem the subpoena underneath the Structure’s Speech or Debate Clause, which shields lawmakers from sure regulation enforcement actions related to their legislative duties.

“I’m going to combat the Biden DOJ subpoena for me to look earlier than the grand jury as a result of I consider it’s unconstitutional and unprecedented,” Pence mentioned at an occasion in February. He has recommended that – as a result of he was additionally serving as president of the Senate in the course of the January 6 certification vote – the constitutional clause coated the conduct that investigators are .

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The problem in courtroom has performed out in secret.

Pence’s claims, as he has described them publicly, are seen as novel. His arguments attracted criticism from a broad vary of authorized students, together with former Decide Michael Luttig, a conservative authorized luminary who publicly argued that Pence ought to certify the electoral outcomes.

Whilst Pence has fought the subpoena, he has stood by his refusal to disrupt the congressional certification of Biden’s win, as Trump referred to as upon him to do.

This story has been up to date with further particulars.

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Read California’s Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Mobilization of the National Guard

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Read California’s Lawsuit Challenging Trump’s Mobilization of the National Guard

Case 3:25-cv-04870 Document 1 Filed 06/09/25

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INTRODUCTION

1. The Governor of the State of California and the State of California bring this action to

protect the State against the illegal actions of the President, Secretary of Defense, and Department
of Defense to deploy members of the California National Guard, without lawful authority, and in violation of the Constitution.
2. One of the cornerstones of our Nation and our democracy is that our people are

governed by civil, not military, rule. The Founders enshrined these principles in our

Constitution-

that a government should be accountable to its people, guided by the rule of law,

and one of civil authority, not military rule.

3. President Trump has repeatedly invoked emergency powers to exceed the bounds of lawful executive authority. On Saturday, June 7, he used a protest that local authorities had under control to make another unprecedented power grab, this time at the cost of the sovereignty of the State of California and in disregard of the authority and role of the Governor as commander-in- chief of the State’s National Guard.
4. The vehicle the President has sought to invoke for this unprecedented usurpation of state authority and resources is a statute, 10 U.S.C. § 12406, that has been invoked on its own only once before and for highly unusual circumstances not presented here. Invoking this statute, the President issued a Memorandum on June 7, 2025 (Trump Memo), “call[ing] into Federal service members and units of the National Guard.” Secretary of Defense Hegseth, in turn, issued a Memorandum (DOD Order) that same day to the Adjutant General of California, ordering 2,000 California National Guard members into federal service. And on June 9, 2025, Secretary Hegseth 22 issued another Memorandum (June 9 DOD Order) ordering an additional 2,000 California

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National Guard members into federal service.

5. These orders were issued despite the text of section 12406, which, among other things, requires that when the President calls members of a State National Guard into federal
service pursuant to that statute, those orders “shall be issued through the governors of the States.” 10 U.S.C. § 12406. Instead, Secretary Hegseth unlawfully bypassed the Governor of California, issuing an order that by statute must go through him.

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COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF

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UK pledges £11.5bn of new state funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant

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UK pledges £11.5bn of new state funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant

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The UK has ended years of uncertainty over the future of its nuclear industry by pledging £11.5bn of new state funding for the Sizewell C project in Suffolk, taking the total taxpayer investment in the site to £17.8bn. 

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce the record public investment in nuclear energy on Tuesday, telling attendees at the GMB Congress that she is ending “years of delay” over Sizewell, which will support the creation of 10,000 jobs. 

Although Reeves has had to make tough decisions in the government’s spending review on day-to-day departmental budgets, she was able to find the extra billions for Sizewell C through a change to her fiscal rules. This has made £113bn available for extra capital spending across government, funded by borrowing.

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The move marks a return to significant state funding for nuclear energy after the UK chose the private sector to finance and build its last project, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which is heavily delayed and over budget. The previous record public investment in nuclear energy was £2bn for the Sizewell B plant in 1987, or £7bn in today’s prices. 

The UK government already has a partnership with French state-owned energy group EDF, which has kept a 15 per cent stake in Sizewell C. The pair are now seeking financial commitments from several other investors before they can sign off a “final investment decision”, expected next month during an Anglo-French summit in London. 

The chancellor will promise £14.2bn of taxpayer funding for the 3.2 gigawatt plant over the current parliament, including a £2.7bn commitment she previously made in the autumn Budget. The Treasury had already committed £3.6bn over the past two years.

EDF has said the final investment decision will depend on securing private investment and on whether it can make its expected return on capital, but Simone Rossi, the company’s UK chief executive, said the project would benefit the UK’s “energy security and economic growth”. 

Private investors expected to bid for stakes in Sizewell C include Canadian pension fund CDPQ, Amber Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, pension fund USS, Schroders Greencoat, Equitix, Centrica and insurer Rothesay. The total cost of the project could be close to £40bn by the time it is built, industry figures believe.

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Ministers are encouraging the development of new nuclear power stations in the UK to provide future supplies of “baseload” electricity to balance the more intermittent supply of solar and wind power. 

But no new nuclear plant has opened in the UK since 1995 and most of the existing ageing fleet — apart from Sizewell B — is set to be phased out by the early 2030s. 

State-owned Great British Nuclear will soon announce the outcome of its competition to choose a company to start building a fleet of “small modular reactors”.  

The government said it would also invest more than £2.5bn in nuclear fusion over five years in what it called a “record investment” in the nascent technology. Melanie Windridge, head of advisory group Fusion Energy Insights, praised the government for recognising the “economic value of developing fusion in this country”. The sum is slightly less than the US is spending on fusion and one-third of China’s annual investment on the technology.

Additional reporting by Tom Wilson

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Trump mobilizes Marines for duty in Los Angeles

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Trump mobilizes Marines for duty in Los Angeles

National Guard troops stand outside the Metropolitan Detention Center on Sunday in Los Angeles. Tensions in the city remain high after the Trump administration called in the National Guard against the wishes of city leaders following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images


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Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Trump administration is mobilizing 700 Marines based out of Twentynine Palms, Calif., for Los Angeles, the scene of protests against immigration enforcement operations, a defense official has confirmed with NPR.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, says the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines is expected to operate in a “support role.”

Northern Command is expected to release more details on the deployment Thursday morning.

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Another U.S. official confirmed the news, noting the mobilization was not an invocation of the Insurrection Act.

The move came the same day California sued the Trump administration over the deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles.

In their lawsuit, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta said Trump’s activation of the Guard violated the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution because Newsom did not ask for the troops.

Trump on Truth social said Los Angeles would be “completely obliterated” without his deployment of the Guard.

Over the weekend, the White House said that active duty armed forces could be used to “augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property,” the same missions the Guard is performing.

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The administration has in total deployed 2,000 Guard personnel to the city.
 

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