DeSantis news – latest: Florida governor most popular with rich Republicans as he defends move to fly migrants to California
DeSantis on campaign trail hoping to raise national profile as 2024 race hots up
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Your support makes all the difference.Florida governor Ron DeSantis appears to be the preferred Republican candidate among right-leaning millionaires, according to the latest CNBC Millionaire Survey, although his arch-rival and front-runner Donald Trump is seemingly also picking up support among wealthy Americans.
The poll shows that 32 per cent of Republicans with qualifying millionaire status currently support Mr DeSantis, a drop from 54 per cent at the end of 2022, while Mr Trump now has the backing of 28 per cent, up from 17 per cent last year.
Meanwhile, the governor has met with sheriffs in Arizona and defended his state’s recent decision to fly migrants from the US-Mexico border to Sacramento, California, a move widely derided as a cruel political stunt but which he insisted was above board because the west coast state had essentially invited them with its liberal immigration policies.
“I think the border should be closed. I don’t think we should have any of this,” Mr DeSantis said. “But if there’s a policy to have an open border, then I think the sanctuary jurisdictions should be the ones that have to bear that.”
Jack Smith’s investigations involving Trump have cost more than $9m
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of former President Donald Trump’s retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election have cost more than $9 million over the first several months, according to documents released Friday.
The special counsel’s office spent more than $5.4 million on things like employees’ salaries, travel and transportation, rent, supplies and materials from Smith’s appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 through the end of March, Justice Department statement of expenditures show.
Justice Department agencies spent another $3.8 million to support the special counsel. Those expenses include the cost of the protective details for the special counsel’s office as well as hours worked by agents and analysts on the probes.
Trump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts alleging he illegally kept classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and refused government demands to give them back. Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta — who was charged alongside the former president — have both pleaded not guilty.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and slammed the prosecution as an attempt to hurt his bid to reclaim the White House in 2024.
AP
DeSantis confronted with lagging poll numbers on Fox News
A host at the usually Ron DeSantis-friendly Fox News asked the Florida governor about his low poll numbers as former President Donald Trump still dominates the Republican primary polls.
Mr DeSantis is currently the runner-up in the GOP polling, but he’s behind Mr Trump by a substantial margin with recent polls showing Trump leading by 27 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Watch the clip here:
Fox News host doesn’t hold back on Ron DeSantis’ poll numbers
Florida governor says he’s ‘running to win in January or February ... not to juice polling now’
Trump slams DeSantis, declaring himself ‘most pro-farmer president’ ever
Campaigning in Iowa, former President Donald Trump attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an enemy of corn-based ethanol in his largest campaign event in the leadoff caucus state in nearly four months.
Trump, appearing Friday in Council Bluffs in the western part of the state, criticized his top 2024 Republican presidential rival for voting as a member of Congress to oppose the federal mandate for the fuel additive that Iowa leads the nation in producing.
Trump declared himself “the most pro-farmer president that you’ve ever had” at the event, which was aimed at promoting his administration’s agricultural record and touting his oversight of clawbacks of regulations on farmers. “I fought for Iowa ethanol like no president in history,” he said.
On a rainy Friday, Trump spoke to more than 1,000 Iowans and Nebraskans packed into the event hall inside Mid-America Center, with hundreds more huddled under umbrellas in line outside the arena.
As a congressman from Florida, DeSantis co-sponsored a bill in 2017 that would have immediately ended the renewable fuel standard, a position consistent with fiscal conservatives who see such mandates as government overreach.
“Iowa also needs to know that Ron DeSanctus totally despises Iowa ethanol and ethanol generally,” Trump said, intentionally mispronouncing his rival’s name as he routinely does. “He’s been fighting it for years. Don’t forget, as a congressman he was voting against it, and fighting for years to kill every single job.”
DeSantis’ campaign described the attack as a distortion. “As president, Governor Ron DeSantis will be a champion for farmers and use every tool available to open new markets,” campaign press secretary Bryan Griffin said in an emailed statement
AP
Voices: The Freedom Caucus booting Marjorie Taylor Greene looks worse for them than it does for her
Eric Garcia writes:
Ms Greene’s trash-talking members of the Freedom Caucus might have sealed her fate with the bomb-throwers – Mr Harris said her calling Rep Lauren Boebert (R-CO) a “little bitch” tickled many in and out of the Beltway. But the real divide is much deeper and shows how in the end, Ms Greene could be more effective at enacting a conservative agenda while the Freedom Caucus would prefer to simply complain and remain ideologically pure.
Read on...
The Freedom Caucus booting Marjorie Taylor Greene is worse for them than for her
Georgia Republican wants to enact her right-wing agenda. The Freedom Caucus wants to complain
What you need to know as the GOP gears up to investigate the Hunter Biden case
The Republican chairmen of three key House committees are joining forces to probe the Justice Department’s handling of charges against Hunter Biden after making sweeping claims about misconduct at the agency.
Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees opened a joint investigation into the federal case into President Joe Biden‘s youngest son days after it was announced last month that he will plead guilty to the misdemeanour tax offences as part of an agreement with the Justice Department.
Here’s what you need to know about the emerging investigation:
Top Republicans are gearing up to investigate the Hunter Biden case. Here's what to know.
The Republican chairmen of three key House committees are joining forces to probe the Justice Department’s handling of charges against Hunter Biden after making sweeping claims about misconduct at the agency
Judge rules Don Jr can be subpoenaed in Trump Organization case
A judge allowed for Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to introduce one of the former president’s sons as a witness in his case against the Trump Organization, according to his attorneys.
Mr Cohen’s team had asked to use testimony from Donald Trump Jr in his case, as he served as a Trump Organization executive vice president.
Kelly Rissman reports.
More bad news for Trump as judge rules his son can be subpoenaed in Cohen case
‘We would like to introduce testimony about what Mr Trump Jr. paid his lawyers in the exact same matters,’ said Michael Cohen’s attorney
Ethics board recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred for ‘destructive’ attempts to undermine 2020 results
A disciplinary committee in Washington DC has recommended Rudy Giuliani be disbarred in the nation’s capital for his spurious efforts to overturn the results for the 2020 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump.
Mr Giuliani had “no factual basis, and consequently no legitimate legal grounds” to challenge the results of the election in states that Mr Trump lost, while his “frivolous” pursuit to undermine the outcome and disenfranchise voters “seriously undermined the administration of justice,” according to the committee’s report.
Read more:
Disciplinary committee recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred
Bogus legal campaign to upend election had ‘no factual basis, and consequently no legitimate legal ground’
Chris Christie says Trump took secret documents so he could keep pretending he was president
Republican presdential hopeful Chris Christie took aim at his rival Donald Trump over the latter’s legal troubles - suggesting Mr Trump had held on to classfied documents because “he wants to pretend he’s still president”.
Mr Christie made the comments in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, in which a number of people who have had working relationships with Mr Trump weighed in on his legal issues.
The former president, who is running for a second term in the White House, has been indicted on 37 federal charges related to the mishandling of classified documents – some of which pertain to matters of national security. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has previously described the case against him as “a political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation”.
Read more:
Chris Christie says Trump took documents so he could keep pretending he was president
Republican presdential hopeful Chris Christie took aim at his rival Donald Trump over the latter’s legal troubles - suggesting Mr Trump had held on to classfied documents because “he wants to pretend he’s still president”.
Trump can give evidence in lawsuit from ex-FBI agent, judge says
A District of Columbia federal judge on Thursday said former president Donald Trump can be made to give evidence in a deposition as part of a lawsuit against the Department of Justice by ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok.
Mr Strzok, who served as the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division and supervised parts of the probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, filed a lawsuit against the department in August 2019, a year after he was fired from his position following what he described as “unrelenting pressure from President Trump and his political allies in Congress and the media” including “constant tweets and other disparaging statements by the President, as well as direct appeals from the President to then- Attorney General Jefferson Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray” to have him terminated.
While the government has said Mr Trump’s public statements had no bearing on the decision, Mr Strzok had sought to depose the ex-president as part of the discovery process.
Read more:
Trump can give evidence in lawsuit from ex-FBI agent, judge says
Judge Amy Berman Jackson said Mr Trump should be available because he has time to file other civil lawsuits
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