Donald Trump news today: Trump defends Mike Pence over classified documents despite slamming Biden

Former Vice President Mike Pence will visit Florida International University in Miami on Friday 27 January.

The likely 2024 contender is ostensibly in the state as part of his book out for his memoir So Help Me God.

The House Committee on the Judiciary will hold its first hearing on the “Biden Border Crisis” on Wednesday 1 February at 10am.

Chairman Jim Jordan tweeted the announcement adding: “Ready to get to work.”

DirecTV has dropped pro-Trump far-right news channel Newsmax.

The network ceased to be aired by the platform at 11.59pm on Tuesday, with the platform saying that the carriage fees demanded by Newsmax to supplement advertising would have led to higher costs that would have had to be passed on to customers.

Newsmax disputes this saying that the claim is false and they have been “de-platformed” by DirecTV as conservative outlet One America News was in 2022.

Texas Republican Rep Wesley Hunt has taken up the fight on behalf of the network sending a letter of protest to the CEOs of DirecTV and parent AT&T, co-signed by a number of GOP lawmakers including Matt Gaetz, James Comer, and Lauren Boebert.

Newsmax is still available to stream online and through multiple other platforms including Amazon, Roku, and Google Play. The network refers to the move by DirecTV as “censorship”.

DirecTV maintains that it wanted to continue to offer the network on its platform.

Former Trump White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who hosts a podcast on which the Georgia Republican Representative has appeared, told NBC News that “this is no shrinking violet, she’s ambitious, she’s not shy about that, nor should she be”.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Former Lieutenant Governor of Georgia Geoff Duncan told CNN he believes there is enough evidence to indict former president Donald Trump in the state’s grand jury case on election fraud in 2020.

Mr Duncan, a new Republican political analyst for the network, was speaking on CNN This Morning.

Describing the investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as a “fact-finding mission”, Mr Duncan says there are three unique lanes being investigated — the phone call then-president Trump made to Brad Raffensperger saying he needed more votes; the basket of conspiracies to re-steer the election that could lead to a racketeering charge; and the fake electorate plan.

Asked by host Poppy Harlow how involved Mr Trump was in soliciting each of those, Mr Duncan replies that he was involved in all three.

Pressed by Don Lemon as to whether the former president could be indicted, Mr Duncan replies: “I think there’s enough information for him to be indicted.”

Full transcript and video available on Mediaite.

Andrew Feinberg filed this report yesterday on the latest in the probe when DA Willis asked that the special grand jury report on the case be kept under seal while a decision is made on criminal charges:

Georgia Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene is positioning herself to be Donald Trump’s 2024 running mate, NBC News reports citing two people who have spoken to her about her ambitions.

“This is no shrinking violet, she’s ambitious — she’s not shy about that, nor should she be,” said Steve Bannon, the former top Trump aide who hosts the War Room podcast, where Greene has been a guest.

A second source, with ties to former president Trump and who has advised Ms Greene, said her “whole vision is to be vice president”. They spoke anonymously to describe private conversations and added that he also believes she would be on Mr Trump’s shortlist.

The news comes after the bitter battle to make Kevin McCarthy speaker, in which Ms Greene appeared to adopt a stance aimed at bridging the divide between the hardline far right of the party with which she is traditionally associated, and more establishment Republicans such as Mr McCarthy.

Donald Trump issued a potentially revealing statement on Truth Social as news broke Tuesday that authorities in Fulton County, Georgia, are nearing a decision on charges for multiple members of his inner circle — including potentially Mr Trump himself.

The ex-president, out of nowhere, brought up his now-infamous 2 January 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he instructed the state elections chief to “find” more than 11,000 votes he would have needed to surpass Joe Biden’s total in the state.

“My phone call to the Secretary of State of Georgia, and a second call which the Marxists, Communists, Racists, and RINOS don’t even want to talk about, were “PERFECT” calls. Many people, including lawyers for both sides, were knowingly on the line. I was protesting a RIGGED & STOLEN Election, which evidence proves it was,” claimed the former president.

Read the full story here:

A Georgia prosecutor said that a decision was “imminent” around whether or not to bring charges against Donald Trump and his allies over their efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state.

A judge in Fulton County is currently hearing arguments about the public release of a grand jury report following an eight-month probe into Mr Trump’s alleged actions.

On Tuesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said she opposed the report being made public just yet, as she suggested that the special grand jury had recommended multiple indictments.

“Decisions are imminent,” she said.

“We want to make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think for future defendants to be treated fairly it’s not appropriate at this time to have this report released.”

The month before the riot at the US Capitol, members of the far-right nationalist gang the Proud Boys were growing increasingly angry about the outcome of the 2020 election and were expecting a “civil war,” a former member told jurors on Tuesday as he took the stand in the seditious conspiracy case against the group’s former leader.

Donald Trump leaped to Mike Pence’s defence on Tuesday after it emerged that classified documents had been found in the vice president’s Indiana home.

In a Truth Social post, Mr Trump called Mr Pence an “innocent man” and urged people to “leave him alone”.

“Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!” he wrote.

Whether or not Mr Trump’s defence of his former right-hand man was genuine, remains to be seen.

However, his comments are a marked difference from his response to the discovery of classified documents at President Joe Biden’s Wilmington home and an office he used in Washington DC.

Now, classified documents have been found at the homes of Mr Trump, Mr Biden and Mr Pence, prompting investigations into the matters.