A White House official who testified to the Justice Department regarding both Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials told the agency that the 45th president understood the process for correctly declassifying those papers, according to CNN. CNN reports that the official, whose name was not published, told prosecutors about a 2018 instance in which Mr Trump directed his team to go through the correct process for declassifying a document, a memo relating to the Russia investigation. That experience could undercut any potential arguments from Mr Trump’s lawyers insisting that their client did not know or care about learning the correct procedure; so far, Mr Trump has insisted that he had issued an order to automatically declassify any documents taken from the White House — an explanation rejected by former Trump White House staff. His attorneys have claimed that the classified documents were taken inadvertantly. In general, the former president has raged against the DoJ’s multiple investigations into his activities, which include his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and actions on January 6. He has consistently argued that the lack of scrutiny into Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials is evidence of a double standard, though notably Mr Biden’s team is reported to have been much more forthcoming once they discovered documents at their client’s residence and office at a DC-based think tank. Mr Trump’s team has been engaged in a dispute with the federal government over the full return of documents retained from the White House for months; just recently, the DoJ subpoenaed the Trump team for any documents regarding potential plans for an invasion of Iran. The sheer extent of Mr Trump’s trove and his continued insistance to be its rightful owner has proved to be a headache for the ex-president’s legal team as the DoJ’s special counsel overseeing the probe, Jack Smith, nears a decision on whether to file charges. The former president was first reported by The Independent this week to have received a letter indicating that he was the target of the investigation, and would likely soon be charged. That set off another wave of condemnations from the Mar-a-Lago monarch on Truth Social, as he rages that the investigations are a supposed attempt to block his return to power. “Wow, this is turning out to be the greatest & most vicious instance of ELECTION INTERFERENCE in the history of our Country. Remember, I’m leading DeSanctimonious BIG in the Polls but, more importantly, I’m leading Biden by a lot. Also, & perhaps most importantly, they are launching all of the many Fake Investigations against me RIGHT SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF MY CAMPAIGN, something which is unheard of & not supposed to happen. DOJ, FBI, NEW YORK A.G., NEW YORK D.A., ATLANTA D.A. FASCISTS ALL!” wrote Mr Trump on Wednesday. Read More Republicans abruptly drop plans to level contempt charges against FBI chief Christopher Wray Pence calls on DoJ not to indict Trump but stops short of saying he’d pardon him if elected in 2024 Trump’s ex-adviser Steve Bannon subpoenaed by Jack Smith’s Jan 6 probe, says report

Chris Christie is punching back at Donald Trump after the former president responded to his campaign announcement with a juvenile video edit making fun of Mr Christie’s weight. The former New Jersey governor appeared on CNN on Wednesday after launching his campaign with a town hall event at St Anselm College a night earlier. During his interview, he was questioned by The Lead host Jake Tapper about a video Mr Trump posted on Truth Social of Mr Christie delivering remarks edited to appear as if the candidate is holding a plate of food while he talks. Mr Christie responded that the move reinforced, for him, the childishness of his opponent. “It just renewed in my own mind what a child he is. He’s a baby. Whenever you want to criticise him, in any way, that’s the way he responds,” Mr Christie said. Likening that behaviour to that of a toddler, he added that Mr Trump should be “sent to [his] room, not to the White House”. “It’s so juvenile. He is such a spoiled baby,” Mr Christie continued. He then noted that he had been struggling with his weight and health for many years, quipping derisively that Mr Trump was “breaking news” with his response. Separately, Mr Trump accused the former governor of having a fixation on the word “small” during his town hall event in another Truth Social statement. “How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL? Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE? Actually, his speech was SMALL, and not very good. It rambled all over the place, and nobody had a clue of what he was talking about. Hard to watch, boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire,” barked the former president. “This time, it won’t be any different!” It was, generally, a sign of the aggressive tone that both Mr Christie and Mr Trump plan to adopt in the GOP primary, which has heated up this week with the addition of three separate candidates in the field. Comparatively, their fellow candidates in the Republican primary have shied away from directly attacking the former president or responding to his own jabs at them. Not so for the New Jerseyan two-time presidential candidate, who laid into his opponent during his appearance in New Hampshire this week and accused the entire Trump family of the same “grift” and corruption which they accuse the Biden family of undertaking. He also tore into the former president’s record, characterising Mr Trump as an inefficient president who failed to address a number of problems — but namely immigration reform — during his four years in the White House. Read More Mike Pence isn’t even a contender for 2024. Why are we pretending? Fox News host apologises for ‘milkshake’ Chris Christie comment Pence accuses Trump of treating abortion issue as an ‘inconvenience’ Trump ridicules Chris Christie’s weight in edited 2024 campaign launch video The Republican presidential field is largely set. Here are takeaways on where the contest stands. Doug Burgum, little-known governor of North Dakota, announces White House run

It’s been more than two decades since a state governor was elected to the White House, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the 2024 presidential race. Six current or former governors have entered the 2024 GOP primary so far. But no statehouse rivalry is more pronounced in US politics than the one between Florida governor and 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis, and his Democratic counterpart from California, governor Gavin Newsom. The two, both seen as serious presidential prospects, if not now then someday, have been trading barbs for years, and things have only heated up as a presidential election season approaches. Most recently, Mr Newsom lashed out at Mr DeSantis this, calling him a “small, pathetic man,” after Florida officials facilitated a large group of South American migrants being dropped off without warning at a Sacramento church, a repeat of the Florida governor’s highly controversial move to do the same in Martha’s Vineyard last year. The California governor said Florida officials could face kidnapping charges. It’s far from the first time the two men – each the leader of a large, economically important state, whose policies typify each party – have locked horns. Their battles have much to say about where each party is going, and the political fate of these two men could suggest which vision of politics and leadership the American people want more. In March, during a visit to California to speak at the Reagan Presidential Library, the Florida Republican blasted Mr Newsom for following the advice of public health experts at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing him of “subcontract[ing] ... leadership to health bureaucrats,” and claimed that Californians were flocking to Florida. “When the world went mad, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida stood as a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for people throughout the United States and indeed, throughout the world. We refused to let our state descend into some type of Faucian dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed, and their livelihoods were destroyed. We made sure people had a right to work and we got people back to work and businesses back open,” he said. The Florida governor also said the Californian’s leadership showed how Democrats “coddle the criminals and put the rights of the criminals over the safety of the public and the rights of victims.” Mr Newsom, for his part, has made a point of showing how on issues like Covid and gun crime, California is empirically a safer place to be. "Just look at the data – California residents are safer, healthier and more prosperous than those unfortunate enough to have you as their Governor," Mr Newsom told CBS News during the Florida governor’s visit. "Oh by the way, you’re going to get smoked by Trump." Mr Newsom has made his own high-profile incursions into his rival’s state, including donating thousands to Mr DeSantis’s rivals. In April, the California Democrat met with students of Florida’s New College, a public liberal arts college that has recently become a target in Mr DeSantis’s wide-ranging campaign to bend Florida’s education system in a hyper-conservative direction by limiting access to materials concerning gender and sexuality, as well as the history of racism. “I can’t believe what you’re dealing with. It’s just an unbelievable assault,” Mr Newsom said at an appearance at a library near campus. “It’s common with everything he’s doing, bullying and intimidating vulnerable communities. Weakness, Ron DeSantis, weakness masquerading as strength across the board.” Last summer, Mr Newsom had an even bigger provocation for Mr DeSantis, using extra campaign cash to release a 30-second ad in Florida urging residents of the Sunshine State to move to California. "Freedom, it’s under attack in your state,” the spot claimed. “Republican leaders, they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors," the governor said in a voiceover narration accompanying images of Mr DeSantis and former president Donald Trump. Indeed, the two states couldn’t be more different across a variety of areas, with Florida all but banning abortion, while California ceased doing business with Walgreens because the company wouldn’t sell abortion pills. In addition to a debate over their state’s respective policies, it seems a deep dislike of the other man has fueled the back-and-forth, with the Florida governor painting Mr Newsom as an out-of-touch hypocrite, while the California leader accuses the Republican of being a spiteful bigot and a “bully.” “As he was locking down his citizens, he would then go and have these extravagant dinners at the French Laundry to basically rub his citizens’ noses in the fact that he was treating them like peasants. You know in Florida we weren’t locking them down, we lifted our people up. We made sure to protect individuals’ freedoms,” Mr DeSantis said in July. That same summer, Mr Newsom flatly told an interviewer, “I don’t like DeSantis, the way he talked about Fauci,” after the Florida governor joked about throwing “that little elf” Dr Anthony Fauci into the Potomac River. “My entire life, I don’t like bullies…That’s being celebrated in American politics. DeSantis is the worst of it.” Things escalated further in September, with Mr Newsom challenging the Florida governor to a televised debate, further cementing an idea at the time that the men were running a kind of unofficial presidential campaign against each other, even though at that time Mr DeSantis hadn’t yet declared, and even though Mr Newsom would eventually endorse Joe Biden and formally swear off a primary challenge. The rivalry has extended outside of the presidential contest to the world of business. In May, the Walt Disney Company announced it was pulling out of a planned $1bn development in Florida, keeping thousands of jobs in California, as the Magic Kingdom feuded with Mr DeSantis over the state’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law and its decision to dissolve Disney’s special municipal district privileges in the state. But a political face-off between the two doesn’t seem too far away, and any contest would likely be even more intense than the shadow campaign the men have been running against each other for the previous two years. Mr Newsom has admitted a kind of grudging respect for Republicans like Mr DeSantis, who he feels have successfully convinced the country to go along with their vision on culture war issues. The California governor has argued Democrats have a serious “messaging problem.” “We allow these culture wars to take shape, and we are constantly on the back end,” Mr Newsom said. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a presidential run from Newsom, whose term ends in 2027, a “no-brainer.” With Mr DeSantis badly trailing Donald Trump in the polls, it seems a Newsom-DeSantis election may not be happening just yet, but may not be too far away in the future. Read More DeSantis news – latest: Texas sheriff backs Newsom and also recommends criminal charges over migrant flights Gavin Newsom suggests kidnap charges over Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights Ron DeSantis called out for ‘ignoring’ Hollywood beach shooting: ‘He doesn’t care’

The Department of Justice is preparing to ask a Washington DC grand jury to indict Donald Trump for violating the Espionage Act and for obstruction of justice over the discovery of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, the latest setback to hit his 2024 presidential campaign. The Independent has learned that prosecutors are ready to ask grand jurors to approve an indictment as soon as Thursday accusing the former president of violating a portion of the US criminal code known as Section 793, which prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” any “information respecting the national defence”. Mr Trump reacted angrily to the news on Wednesday, insisting: “No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong.” The dramatic development comes as Mark Meadows, Mr Trump’s former White House chief of staff, has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to several federal charges. Meanwhile, the Republican front-runner is facing further competition in his quest to return to the White House in 2024 as his estanged vice president Mike Pence and ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie join an increasingly crowded field. Read More Prosecutors ready to ask for Trump indictment on obstruction and Espionage Act charges Trump reacts with fury at news of possible indictment in classified documents case: ‘I’ve done NOTHING wrong’ Trump has been indicted: Here are the other major lawsuits and investigations he is also facing Furious Trump rant about Mark Meadows is widely shared – but it’s a convincing fake

Former US vice president Mike Pence officially announced that he is running for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, putting him up against former president Donald Trump. In a speech in Iowa on his 64th birthday, Mr Pence trod a fine line between embracing the record of the Trump administration and attacking Mr Trump for his role in the deadly Capitol riot of 6 January 2021. In a CNN town hall on Wednesday evening, Mr Pence reasserted his conservative culture war credentials on abortion, gun rights, crime, school choice, and climate change. When asked about his estranged former boss, he called on the Department of Justice not to prosecute Mr Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, immediately after saying that everyone should be treated equally under the law. Significantly, he refused to say he would pardon the ex-president if he won the White House. In an increasingly crowded GOP field, Mr Pence faces competition from the likes of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, senator Tim Scott and ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley. Today, Mike and former second lady Karen Pence celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary. Read More Mike Pence isn’t even a contender for 2024. Why are we pretending? Mike Pence suffered the wrath of Trump. Now the ex-vice president wants his old boss’s job in 2024 The Republican presidential field is largely set. Here are takeaways on where the contest stands.

In a victory for voting rights and Alabama voters, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the state likely violated the Voting Rights Act with a congressional redistricting plan that diluted the voting power of Black voters. The state likely discriminated against Black voters with a newly drafted map that packs most of the state’s Black residents into a single district, out of seven, despite Black residents making up 27 per cent of the state’s population. A key ruling in the case of Allen v Milligan means that the state will have to re-draw its congressional map to include a second majority-Black district. The surprise 5-4 decision on the conservative-majority panel was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by liberal Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor, with partial but crucial concurrence from conservative Brett Kavanaugh. In January, a lower court determined that the map significantly dilutes Black residents’ political power and ordered the state to draw new political boundaries that would create at least two districts in which Black voters would be more likely to elect a representative that more closely resembles the state’s demographics. The Voting Rights Act was drafted to prevent that kind of race-based dilution of Black voters. But attorneys for the state argued the opposite – that considering race to redraw political boundaries would mark an unconstitutional consideration of “racial targets” and “race-based sorting”, in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. A decision that sided with Alabama attorneys would have radically reduced Black voters’ political power and landed a critical blow to a state with a long history of racist violence and discrimination. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits voting laws and election policies from discriminating on the basis of race. The state’s suggestion that “race should play no role whatsoever” to determine whether redistricting plans violate Section 2 would “rewrite” the law and “overturn decades of settled precedent,” according to the map’s challengers. Attorneys for President Joe Biden’s administration argue that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act should be considered when “pervasive racial politics would otherwise deny minority voters equal electoral opportunities.” The map’s challengers argued that is precisely what is at stake in Alabama. This is a developing story Read More Main suspect in 2005 disappearance of Natalee Holloway due to be extradited to US Alabama senator says Space Command prefers Huntsville for HQ, but command has no comment Missouri governor signs ban on transgender health care, school sports

California Governor Gavin Newsom has called on states to join him to adopt a 28th Amendment to the US Constitution that would enshrine constitutional protections and gun safety measures while preserving the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. His proposal – which would require a convention of the states, with two-thirds of all state legislatures joining in support – would raise the federal minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21, mandate universal background checks and a “reasonable” waiting period for buying a gun, and prohibit all civilian purchases of assault weapons “that serve no other purpose than to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time – weapons of war our nation’s founders never foresaw,” according to the governor’s office. “Our ability to make a more perfect union is literally written into the Constitution,” according to a statement from the Democratic governor of the nation’s most-populous state. “The 28th Amendment will enshrine in the Constitution common sense gun safety measures that Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and gun owners overwhelmingly support – while leaving the [Second Amendment] unchanged and respecting America’s gun-owning tradition,” he added. It’s a long-shot effort in a nation dominated by Republican-led state legislatures and a resistance to adopting gun safety measures widely supported by most Americans. A federal ban on so-called assault weapons expired in 2004, and congressional Republicans have refused to revive it, even as public massacres and mass shootings with AR-style rifles have surged. More than 18,000 people have died from gun violence, including suicide, in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. There have been at least 279 mass shootings, in which at least four people were killed or wounded, as of 8 June. The nation is on pace to hit a record number of mass killings in 2023, with an average of one every week. This is a developing story Read More DeSantis defends flying migrants to California as he meets with sheriffs near border Florida officials share video boasting of role in California migrant flights Gavin Newsom suggests kidnap charges over Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights

Eight children have stabbed in a knife attack in a town in the French alps. Regional deputy Antoine Armand described the attack as "abominable" and said authorities were investigating. The French prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, is on her way to the scene.

A student's body was found at the base of cliffs amid a spate of attacks on gay men.

Ukraine has warned of the danger posed by exploding mines floating in floodwater from the Kakhovka dam disaster. "Water is disturbing mines that were laid earlier, causing them to explode," deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov told reporters earlier. “As a result of the flooding, infectious diseases and chemicals were getting into the water,” he said. Yesterday, Ukrainians fled to trees and rooftops to escape flooding caused by the collapse of the damm, which Kyiv says was blown up by Russia. Hundreds of thousands are said to be without normal access to clean drinking water following the breach, described by Ukraine officials as the biggest eco-diaster since Chernobyl. Read More Mapped: The damage caused by Ukraine’s devastated dam Nato countries ‘could send troops to Ukraine in coalition of the willing’ former alliance chief warns From Stalin to Putin, dam-busting has been a barbaric and brutally effective tactic for warmongers for decades Massive destruction after Ukraine dam collapse revealed in new satellite images

As it pushes to renew a cornerstone law that authorizes major surveillance programs, the Biden administration faces an American public that's broadly skeptical of common intelligence practices and of the need to sacrifice civil liberties for security. Congress in the coming months will debate whether to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Section 702 authorizes U.S. spy agencies to collect large amounts of foreign communications for intelligence purposes ranging from stopping spies to listening in on allies and foes. Those collection programs also sweep up U.S. citizen communications that can then be searched by intelligence and law enforcement officers. The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that Democrats and Republicans have similar views on surveillance tactics, while Republicans have become substantially less likely over the last decade to say it's at least sometimes necessary to sacrifice freedom in response to threats. U.S. intelligence officials say Section 702 is necessary to protect national security and to counter China, Russia and other adversaries. They credit the program with better informing U.S. diplomats and enabling operations like last year's strike to kill a key plotter of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But officials will have to overcome sharp divisions in Congress and bipartisan anger at the FBI, though most observers still believe Section 702 will be renewed in some form. Driving a political shift is increasing skepticism among Republican elected officials of the FBI and intelligence agencies. Conservatives have battered the FBI for misleading the primary surveillance court in its investigation into former President Donald Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Trump and other top Republicans often accuse the so-called government “deep state” of using its powers to target conservatives. Historically, “the left flank has been the more vocal objector to government surveillance on privacy and civil liberties grounds,” said Carter Burwell, who was chief counsel to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, when the law was last renewed in early 2018. ”Over the past five or 10 years, with the rise of the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, call it the antigovernment wing of the Republican Party, that is an equally vocal and powerful plurality," said Burwell, now a lawyer at the firm Debevoise & Plimpton. The poll asked U.S. adults whether they support several practices authorized by Section 702. It found that 28% of adults support the government listening to phone calls made outside of the U.S. without a warrant, while 44% oppose the practice. Views are similar about the U.S. reading emails sent between people outside of the U.S. without a warrant. The public was more receptive to surveillance of activity outside of the U.S. a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. That shifted significantly by the 20th anniversary of the attacks in 2021. In the latest poll, 48% of Americans this year said they believed it necessary to sacrifice their rights and freedoms to prevent terrorism, down from 54% in 2021 and nearly two-thirds in 2011. That shift was especially dramatic among Republicans, with just 44% saying that's sometimes necessary compared with 69% in 2011. Among Democrats, 55% still say so, similar to the 59% who said so in 2011. Sarah Apwisch, a 57-year-old from Three Rivers, Michigan, described herself as somewhat opposed to the monitoring of foreign emails and phone calls. A Democrat, Apwisch said she was “mostly pro-FBI” but concerned after years of negative stories about the bureau. “Honestly, I don’t want to hear anything about the FBI,” she said. “I want the FBI to go do their business and not be in the news because they’re doing their job well and not doing things that make waves. How they do that, I don’t know.” Apwisch also said she supports the FBI and other agencies trying to hunt down enemy spies, but was uncertain about whether the FBI should also use foreign intelligence to investigate other U.S. crimes. White adults were somewhat more likely to say they were opposed to various forms of surveillance — 48% said they opposed the government listening to foreign calls without a warrant — than Black or Hispanic adults, each at 34%. Rob Redding, a 47-year-old journalist who lives in New York City, said he was neutral about many surveillance practices — but said he felt that way because as a Black man, he didn't expect to have privacy. Redding mentioned the FBI's spying in the 1960s on Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders as well as officials in Black nationalist movements. “As a Black man in America, as someone who speaks out about the government all the time, I understand that Black people and especially Black leadership cannot trust America," Redding said. In Congress, some Democrats and Republicans have found common cause over their complaints about Section 702. Two lawmakers earlier this year issued a statement calling for an end to U.S. surveillance without a warrant. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., chairs the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus, while Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, is a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. “We must take this opportunity to reform Section 702 and overhaul privacy protections for Americans so that they truly protect the civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy rights that are foundational to our democracy,” Jayapal and Davidson said. Previous lawmaker efforts to require warrants for searching intelligence databases have failed. Intelligence officials argue they have ramped up training for agents searching the databases and tightened requirements to consult with lawyers on sensitive queries. Supporters of Section 702 argue most U.S. adults want the government to stop foreign adversaries even if they state misgivings about how American intelligence operates. Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel at the National Security Agency who is advocating for Section 702 to be extended, noted that while Congress has to be responsive to public opinion, “some of this gets pretty technical and isn’t easily understood by the public.” He said he still believed the law would be renewed with some amendments to bolster civil liberties protections and enshrine into law changes that the FBI has made in response to a series of wrongful uses of foreign intelligence. “At the end of the day, I think most members of Congress understand the value of the statute and understand that when we don’t have the statute, there is no substitute,” Gerstell said. ___ Associated Press writer Emily Swanson contributed to this report. ___ The poll of 1,081 adults was conducted March 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Haitians are dying of thirst and starvation in severely overcrowded jails As winter warms, farmers in southern US find ways to adapt Smoky haze blanketing US, Canada could last for days as wildfires rage, winds won't budge

Mike Pence says he wants to see an armed guard in every public school in America to try and prevent mass shootings rather than gun control measures. The former vice president told a CNN town hall that he believed there should be more gun-carrying security guards in American schools capable of taking down shooters. “We ought to fund an armed and trained security guard at every public school in America and we ought to do it now,” he told host Dana Bash. Bash pointed out that heavily-armed police had not prevented the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 students and two teachers were murdered. “That is why I always say trained and armed .... they have got to be trained. If it takes federal funding let’s do it,” said Mr Pence. “I just think we ought to end the conversation and Washington DC should stand up and provide the funding for a trained armed guard that can be part of the school community.” Mr Pence was also asked to justify his belief in expediting the death penalty for mass shooters, most of whom are killed or intend to die during the violence. “I follow these stories as closely as you do and of course our years in the White House we saw one tragedy after another and we see evidence in the aftermath that they went in without regard to whether they would survive, but I just believe in the deterrent of the law,” he said. “I believe that if perhaps we made it clear ... the Parkland shooter in Florida is going to spend the rest of his life in jail, that is not justice.” Mr Pence told the town hall that his “heart breaks” for Chicago, where his parents grew up, and the gun violence that has impacted the city. “We need to get serious and tough on violent crime and give our cities and states resources to restore law and order to our streets,” he said. Bash then had a surprising statistic for the former governor of Indiana. “I just want to say, because I’ve heard other people talk about Chicago, just for the record, the ATF data shows that more than half of the recovered guns used to commit crimes in Illinois in 2021, do you know where they came from? Indiana,” she told him. Read More Mike Pence news – live: At CNN town hall Pence says he won’t pardon Jan 6 protesters who called for his death Pence calls on DoJ not to indict Trump but stops short of saying he’d pardon him if elected in 2024 Mike Pence isn’t even a contender for 2024. Why are we pretending? Deputy Scot Peterson could have stopped Parkland school shooting but protected himself instead, trial hears