Category Archives: US Politics

House Democrat subpoenas six years of Trump tax returns

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Committee chair Richard Neal says treasury secretary and IRS commissioner must provide documents by 17 May

A top House Democrat on Friday issued subpoenas for six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, giving the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, a deadline of next Friday to deliver them.

Richard Neal, the chairman of the House ways and means committee, , issued the subpoenas days after Mnuchin refused to comply with demands to turn over Trump’s returns. Mnuchin told the panel he wouldn’t provide Trump’s tax records because the panel’s request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose”, as supreme court precedent requires.

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Comey says Mueller’s evidence enough to charge Trump if he weren’t president

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The former FBI director says there were at least two incidents that prove criminal intent on the president’s part to obstruct justice

James Comey, the former director of the FBI, has said that the Mueller report contains sufficient evidence that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice that he would have been charged, were he not president.

Comey is the latest in a growing list of former federal prosecutors and senior judicial figures who have said that the factual details contained in Robert Mueller’s report into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race would be grounds for indicting Trump with multiple felony charges for obstruction. A joint letter to that effect has now been signed by 803 individuals.

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Trump condemned for laughing after supporter suggested shooting migrants – live

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The crowd cheered and Trump laughed when an audience member at a Florida rally said the best way to deal with migrants was to ‘shoot them’

Jill Biden said she would like to continue working as a teacher if her husband Joe wins the presidency.

“I would want to make sure that my students were safe, but boy, would I love to do it,” Jill Biden said in an interview with MSNBC.

The plan proposed today by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would cap credit card interest rates at 15%, Bloomberg News reports.

The legislation would also let post offices offer low-cost basic financial services, such as checking and savings accounts and loans.

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Donald Trump tells Iran ‘call me’ over lifting sanctions

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President suggests US could help revive Iran’s economy in return for no-nuclear weapons pledge

Donald Trump has offered Iran direct talks, saying its leaders should “call me” and suggested the US would help revive the country’s economy as long as Iran did not acquire nuclear weapons.

The impromptu offer by the US president, if serious, represents a dramatic lowering of the bar set by his administration for lifting extensive sanctions, including an oil embargo. Iran is already party to a 2015 agreement that strictly limits its nuclear programme and places it under close scrutiny. Trump withdrew the US from the Obama-era treaty a year ago.

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#ConstitutionalCrisis? Trump’s battle with Congress comes to a head

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The president’s claims of executive privilege over the Mueller report have set new alarm bells ringing for the fate of democracy

Police this week arrested an alleged arsonist who started a fire outside the National Archives building in Washington, claiming that voices told him to “burn buildings down”. The archives display a four-page handwritten document to countless tourists and schoolchildren: the US constitution.

While the physical object remains fragile but secure, the political framework it represents is facing one of the severest threats in its 232-year history. The arsonist is Donald Trump and he is getting ever closer with his tiki torch.

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‘They’ll be paying’: Trump blasts China as US prepares to raise trade tariffs

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US president tells rally China ‘broke the deal’ and publishes list of imported products that will face higher tariffs from Friday

Donald Trump has warned that China has “broke the deal … so they’ll be paying” as the US and China moved to within 36 hours of a full-scale trade war and the US trade representative’s office filed the formal paperwork needed to increase duties on $200bn (£153bn) of Chinese goods.

Speaking at a rally in Panama City, Florida, on Wednesday night, the US president accused China of going back on their deal. “By the way, you see the tariffs we’re doing?” he asked supporters. “Because they broke the deal. They broke the deal. So they’re flying in, the vice premier tomorrow’s flying in – good man – but they broke the deal. They can’t do that, so they’ll be paying.”

The president added: “If we don’t make the deal, nothing wrong with taking it over $100bn a year – $100bn, we never did that before.”

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Iran nuclear deal: what has Tehran said and what happens next?

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Hassan Rouhani’s move to alter commitments amid crippling US sanctions outlined

Iran has suspended commitments it made under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which lifted sanctions on the country in exchange for limits on Tehran’s nuclear programme. The deal was reached after years of negotiations.

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Corey Johnson ♥ NY (and even the city’s subway). Will he run for mayor?

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The speaker of the city council, 37, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2004, has overcome addiction and is mulling a mayoral run

Corey Johnson got his first brush with fame when, as the captain of his high school football team in a small town in Massachusetts, he came out as gay.

Related: The thorn in Trump's side: New York attorney general leads barrage of investigations

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Pompeo scraps Merkel talks due to ‘global security issues’

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Secretary of state abruptly pulls out of Berlin meeting and is silent on his next destination

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has abruptly cancelled a long-established plan to hold talks with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, in Berlin, citing unspecified “international security issues”.

The unusual last-minute schedule change follows brief talks between Pompeo and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of an Arctic Council meeting in Finland on Monday.

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Michael Cohen hints at more Trump revelations on way to prison – video

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Donald Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, began his three-year prison sentence on Monday. He is the third former Trump campaign aide to go to prison in the past 12 months. Outside his New York City apartment, Cohen promised: 'There still remains much to be told and I look forward to the day that I can share the truth'

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Who will win Iowa’s support in 2020? That depends on who’s really listening to us

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Joe Biden and 20 other Democrats are crawling over the state. But folks here would like to know: who’s in it for us?

Former vice-president Joe Biden returned to familiar turf in Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, Iowa, last week, fresh off his presidential announcement in Pittsburgh and enjoying a nice bump in some national polls.

He scored 35-40% support of Democrats just after jumping in, up 10 points from March. Bernie Sanders is maybe 10-15 points behind him. Truth be told, in Iowa half the likely caucus-goers eight months hence remain undecided. Many of Biden’s supporters in Iowa remain persuadable. The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll hasn’t weighed in since March.

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Markets tumble after Trump threatens to dramatically increase China tariffs

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Wall Street set for a fall after president says trade talks are going ‘too slowly’ and threatens to more than double tariffs

Global financial markets have been sent into a tailspin after Donald Trump risked jeopardising delicate trade talks with China by unexpectedly saying he would raise tariffs further on Chinese goods this week.

Stocks in China fell almost 6% on Monday morning as investors in Asia Pacific were caught off guard by the US president’s tweets and the alarm intensified as reports indicated that the government in Beijing might pull out of this week’s scheduled talks.

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Venezuela: Russia urges US to abandon ‘irresponsible’ plan to topple Maduro

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Secretary of state meanwhile slammed Russian meddling in the country: ‘We don’t want anyone messing around with Venezuela’

Washington and Moscow traded barbs over Venezuela on Sunday with Russia’s foreign minister urging the United States to abandon its “irresponsible” plan to depose Nicolás Maduro and his US counterpart slamming Russian meddling in the South American country.

Sergey Lavrov made the comments during a visit to Moscow by Venezuela’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza – an apparent bid to stress international support for Maduro following last week’s abortive uprising against him in Caracas.

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Mueller report: Trump dismisses ‘Russian hoax’ in call with Putin

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The report concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was ‘sweeping and systematic’

Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin discussed what Trump again dismissed as the “Russian hoax” in their first known phone call since the release of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russia’s extensive meddling during the 2016 election campaign.

In an hourlong “very good talk” on Friday, Russia’s president “sort of smiled” about Mueller’s conclusions, Trump told reporters at the White House.

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Trump and Putin discussed Mueller report during phone conversation, says White House – as it happened

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Sarah Sanders says pair had ‘very good’ talk on Friday morning in which Venezuela was also discussed

Here’s an updated recap of today’s political news as we close out the Friday night live politics blog:

The president elaborated his complaints about conservative “censorship” on social media, highlighting his concerns about the treatment of Diamond and Silk, two online commenters who have been championed by Republicans for being black women who support Trump, James Woods, and Paul Watson, a British editor of Infowars, Alex Jones’ conspiracy site.

Trump appeared on Infowars, which has promoted multiple conspiracy theories, including the conspiracy that the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting was a hoax, in 2015, and told host Alex Jones “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”

The wonderful Diamond and Silk have been treated so horribly by Facebook. They work so hard and what has been done to them is very sad - and we’re looking into. It’s getting worse and worse for Conservatives on social media!

So surprised to see Conservative thinkers like James Woods banned from Twitter, and Paul Watson banned from Facebook! https://t.co/eHX3Z5CMXb

He is very very very very very very very very very very very obviously an extremist. https://t.co/4pK2klhbqi

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Nancy Pelosi accuses Barr of lying to Congress: ‘That’s a crime’ – video

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The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, accused William Barr of lying to Congress on Thursday and said neither the attorney general nor the Republican president were above the law.

'That's a crime,' Pelosi said, although she did not specify the comment to which she was referring.

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Democrat mocks absent William Barr with fried chicken – video

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Steve Cohen, a representative from Tennessee, brings a bucket of fried chicken to Thursday morning’s House judiciary committee in a pointed message to the attorney general, who refused to appear for questioning after he testified before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday

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Pelosi says Barr lied to Congress: ‘That’s a crime’ – live

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House speaker criticized attorney general’s failure to show up for House hearing during her weekly press conference

President Trump is now touting a number of issues important to evangelical Christians, including ending the Johnson Amendment and saying “Merry Christmas.”

The Johnson Amendment prevented houses of worship with tax exempt status from endorsing political candidates. The Trump administration ended enforcement of that provision.

President Donald Trump is now speaking at the Rose Garden for the National Day of Prayer. Watch live here.

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‘Purposefully misleading’: US attorney general William Barr grilled by senators – video

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William Barr was defiant during his appearance before Congress on Wednesday, defending his handling of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. In uncomfortable testimony for Trump's chief legal officer, Democrats called for his resignation and accused him of deliberately misrepresenting Mueller's  findings in the president’s favour.

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Barr reportedly to skip House testimony after Senate grilling – live

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Trump’s attorney general testified before the Senate Wednesday after Mueller criticized his summary of the Trump-Russia investigation report

Here’s the full statement from House judiciary chair Jerry Nadler:

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler says if Attorney General William Barr doesn't provide the unredacted Mueller report to Congress in the next day or two, "the next step is seeking a contempt citation against the attorney general." https://t.co/muIkjgd0aT pic.twitter.com/s0q6kBctHw

Here’s attorney general William Barr’s full statement for why he won’t be testifying tomorrow before the House judiciary committee:

Barr’s statement makes clear that the sole basis for his refusal to testify before House Judiciary is that they intended to have a staff attorney ask questions.

Apparently Barr doesn’t want to face 30 minutes of well-crafted questions. pic.twitter.com/4pWMoFzKHp

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