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The Guardian - US
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Vivian Ho in Oakland (now) and Ben Jacobs in Washington and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)

House receives 'tens of thousands' of documents in Trump investigation - as it happened

Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on 14 March.
Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on 14 March. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Evening summary

Well. That was a day.

See you all tomorrow!

Devin Nunes sues Twitter, "@DevinNunesMom"

California Representative Devin Nunes filed a lawsuit against Twitter on Monday, accusing the social media giant of “shadow-banning conservatives” and ignoring complaints of abusive behavior.

Nunes, a Republican, is also taking action against three Twitter users: Elizabeth Mair, “@DevinNunesMom” and “DevinCow.” The lawsuit, which was first reported by Fox News, is seeking $250m in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

In the lawsuit, Nunes alleges that Twitter “shadow banned” his account “in order to restrict his free speech and to amplify the abusive and hateful content published and republished by Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom, Devin Nunes’ cow, Fire Devin Nunes, Devin Nunes Grapes, and others.” The lawsuit cites a Vice New report that found that Twitter’s new approach to fighting combating “troll-like behaviors” resulted in some Republicans becoming less visible on the platform.

“Access to Twitter is essential for meaningful participation in modern-day American Democracy,” the lawsuit states. “A candidate without Twitter is a losing candidate. The ability to use Twitter is a vital part of modern citizenship. A presence on Twitter is essential for an individual to run for office or engage in any level of political organizing in modern America.”

The lawsuit alleges that in “shadow-banning” Nunes’ account, Twitter was “selectively amplifying the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this action.”

The purpose of all this was “to influence the outcome of the 2018 Congressional election and to intimidate Plaintiff and interfere with his important investigation of corruption by the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election,” according to the lawsuit. Nunes won his reelection.

Twitter declined to comment. The account, @DevinNunesMom, appears to be suspended at the moment. Liz Mair took to Twitter to decline to comment.

Updated

Judiciary Committee receives "tens of thousands" of documents in Trump world investigation

The House Judiciary Committee provided a brief update in its document request to 81 individuals and organizations associated with President Trump:

At this point, the Committee has heard from a large number of the recipients, many of whom have either sent or agreed to send documents to the Committee. Those documents already number in the tens of thousands. The Committee continues to be in discussions with others, including some who have requested a subpoena from the Committee before they are comfortable supplying the information requested.

“I am encouraged by the responses we have received since sending these initial letters two weeks ago,” Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said in a statement. “It is my hope that we will receive cooperation from the remainder of the list, and will be working to find an appropriate accommodation with any individual who may be reluctant to cooperate with our investigation.”

Speaking of Cory Booker, writer Anna Fitzpatrick seems to have unearthed a steamy on-and-off-again, Ross-and-Rachel, will-they/won’t-they sort of relationship between the New Jersey senator and, well, not Rosario Dawson.

“Racists think he’s racist.” Senator Cory Booker, who is one of many in a crowded Democratic race for president, discusses President Trump on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

“His language is causing pain and fear,” Booker told MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews. “The way he’s talking is making people afraid.”

On his third stop on his three-state domestic tour, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo got candid before a crowd in Kansas.

PBS president and CEO Paul Kerger responded to President Trump’s proposal to once again cut funding for both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts:

“PBS and our 350 member stations across the country have earned bipartisan Congressional support over the years due to the high value the American people place on the services we provide their communities. For a modest investment of about $1.35 per citizen per year, public television provides school readiness for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning through high-quality content.

“For the 16th year in a row, Americans named PBS and member stations #1 in public trust among nationally known institutions. The same survey revealed that Americans rank PBS and our member stations second only to the country’s military defense in terms of value for taxpayer dollars. PBS and its supporters across every region of the country will continue to remind legislators that federal funding is critical for public television to do this essential work.”

Trump has tried to eliminate funding for public media before, but was unsuccessful. His previous attempts were met with outcry: Media Matters noted that eliminating CPB from the budget meant cutting funding to the only news organization that was reporting on climate change at the time, while the arts community pointed out that the National Endowment Fund made possible the careers such as that of Tarell Alvin McCraney, the writer behind the Oscar-winning film, “Moonlight”.

Hey all, Vivian Ho on the west coast, taking over for Ben Jacobs. Hope you’re all having a happy Monday.

Summary

  • Top congressional Democrats have requested that federal law enforcement agencies investigate Cindy Yang, the massage parlor owner who met with Trump at Mar A Lago. They say there are credible allegations of potential human trafficking and unlawful foreign lobbying.
  • President Donald Trump went on an early morning tweetstorm, claiming that the media was blaming him for the mass shooting in New Zealand
  • Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke announced that he had raise $6.1 million in the first 24 hours after announcing his presidential campaign, more than any other candidate.

Beto O’Rourke will make his first visit to New Hampshire tomorrow. The former Texas congressman will visit all ten counties in the Granite State over a three day period.

His first event will be in Keene, New Hampshire a liberal college town near the Vermont border.

The Daily Beast reports that the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the rise of white nationalism in coming weeks.

The hearing comes in the aftermath of the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand where 50 people were murdered by a white nationalist shooter.

A date for the hearing has not been set yet.

In a statement, the family of Alan Krueger said the Princeton economist took his own life. Krueger served as the top economist in the Obama Administration from 2011-2013.

Missouri Republican Roy Blunt was disinvited from a local county Republican event after voting to disapprove Trump’s declaration of a national emergency.

The two-term Senator had his invitation revoked to the Lincoln/Trump Day Dinner being held by the Christian County Republican Party in April.

In an email to Blunt obtained by the Kansas City Star, Wanda Mertens, the events chair for the county GOP, said “I am so disappointed in you now that I can hardly speak. Why could you not support my president in the emergency declaration? President Trump tried every available means to work the Senate to resolve the border issue and build the much needed wall. He is well within his presidential powers to do this.”

Trump budget proposal includes cutting Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding

The latest budget proposal from Donald Trump includes cutting all funding for both the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Trump has previously called for both to be eliminated in past budgets. They haven’t been.

The Hill reports:

The 2020 request, which was released in its entirety Monday, calls for scrapping $435 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $126 million from the NEA, leaving both with a few million dollars to manage an orderly shutdown.

Updated

State Representative Andrew McDaniel of Missouri has introduced a bill to require every resident of the state between ages of 18 and 35 to own an AR-15.

The bill provides tax credits for those Missourians who don’t currently own an AR-15 to purchase the semi-automatic weapon.

The bill is not expected to pass.

The New York Times reports that the Justice Department may soon decide to indict the first Democrat to be caught up in Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Gregory Craig, the former White House counsel for Barack Obama, may be indicted for failing to register as a foreign agent for work he did on behalf of Viktor Yanukovych, the former president of Ukraine.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort recently was sentenced to federal prison in part based on crimes committed while working for Yanukovych.

In a joint statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer requested the FBI start an investigation of Cindy Wang, the message parlor owner who was photographed with Trump at Mar A Lago.

“The facts in this situation are very concerning, and we urge Director Wray to adhere to the joint bicameral requests of the Democratic Senate ranking members and Democratic House chairmen and start an investigation.”

Three NFL players are spending their off-season interning on Capitol Hill.

New Orleans Saints wide receiver Austin Carr is interning for Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Kansas City Chiefs offensive tackle Ryan Hunter is interning for Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri and New York Giants safety Michael Thomas is interning for Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas.

The internships are part of the NFL’s externship program to prepare players for life after football.

Two former NFL players were elected to Congress in 2018. Republican Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Democrat Colin Aldred of Texas.

Bernie Sanders is using Beto O’Rourke’s fundraising totals to raise money of his own.

In a fundraising email to supporters, Sanders says in the subject line “Beto released his day 1 fundraising numbers and they were better than ours.But we probably had more donations”

O’Rourke’s campaign has not released any data about individual donations.

The former Texas congressman raised $6.1 million online in the first 24 hours since announcing his presidential campaign, more than any other Democratic hopeful so far.

Former President Barack Obama just issued a rare statement about the death of Alan Krueger, a Princeton professor who served as the top economist in the Obama Administration from 2011-2013.

Over the weekend, America lost a brilliant economist, and many of us lost a dear friend.

When I asked Alan Krueger to serve as my chief economist in the White House, he’d already had a stellar career inside and outside of government. He spent the first two years of my administration helping to engineer our response to the worst financial crisis in 80 years, and to successfully prevent the chaos from spiraling into a second Great Depression. During his tenure as the Chair of my Council of Economic Advisors, he helped us return the economy to growth and sustained job creation, to bring down the deficit in a responsible way, and to set the stage for wages to rise again.

But Alan was someone who was deeper than numbers on a screen and charts on a page. He saw economic policy not as a matter of abstract theories, but as a way to make people’s lives better. He believed that facts, reason, and evidence could make government more responsive, and his enthusiasm and curiosity was truly infectious. It’s part of what made him not only a great economist but a great teacher – someone who could make complicated subjects accessible and even fun. A landmark, real-world study on the positive impact of the minimum wage. His creation of the “Gatsby Curve” that illustrated the connection between concentrated wealth and social mobility between generations. A rollicking speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on how understanding the economics of rock and roll might help us solve one of his deepest concerns: rebuilding the middle class in a changing economy. Through it all, he had a perpetual smile and a gentle spirit – even when he was correcting you. That’s what made him Alan – a fundamentally good and decent man.

My thoughts today are with his wife, Lisa, their kids, Ben and Sydney, his many students and colleagues, and everyone who loved and will miss Alan Krueger.

Cory Booker is reminding Iowans of a long forgotten ghost town in the state.

The New Jersey senator’s family has roots in Buxton, a coal mining town in southern Iowa that once reached a population of 5000

As the Des Moines Register describes the town:

Within a few years, the town had at least 5,000 residents. More than half, including many community leaders, were black. The Iowa Bystander, a newspaper for black Iowans, described it as “The Negro Athens of the Northwest,” Chase wrote.

Other residents included immigrants from Sweden, Slovakia, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy.

Buxton soon had three elementary schools, a high school, several parks and a YMCA. Residents formed a brass band and several sports teams. They attended 11 churches, including eight predominantly black congregations. Alcohol was prohibited.

However, the coal soon ran out and the town was abandoned. Much of Booker’s family stayed in the area though and his grandmother was born in Des Moines.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has resigned from the board of the University of Maryland Medical System after it was revealed that she had made $500,000 by selling copies of her self-published children’s books to the hospital system.

The scandal has led at least one prominent local politician to call her to return money. Pugh had sold 100,000 copies of her Healthy Holly books to the hospital system while serving on its board. The Baltimore mayor had omitted the relationship on financial disclosure forms.

New York mayor Bill DeBlasio drew a sparse crowd on Sunday for a roundtable on opioids in New Hampshire.

The New York Post reports:

Only 20 people showed up Sunday to hear the leader of America’s largest city hold a roundtable on mental health — including the 14 people on the panel and just six in the audience.

There were also about six reporters on hand to make the room at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center look a bit less empty.

DeBlasio has long pondered a presidential bid and has traveled to Iowa and South Carolina as well as New Hampshire. However, his 2020 hopes have met with a skeptical reaction both with voters and with New York politicos.

Alan Krueger, a prominent economist who was the top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, has died at the age of 58.

Krueger, a Princeton professor, was chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Obama and also served as an assistant Treasury secretary.

Senator Joe Manchin says he will not support a bill to extend federal anti-discrimination protections to LGBT people.

Manchin is the only Democrat to oppose the bill and said he won’t support it unless changes are made to allow more local control, Politico reported.

“I strongly support equality for all people and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. No one should be afraid of losing their job or losing their housing because of their sexual orientation,” Manchin said. “I am not convinced that the Equality Act as written provides sufficient guidance to the local officials who will be responsible for implementing it, particularly with respect to students transitioning between genders in public schools.”

The Supreme Court has refused to hear the case of a Hawaiian bed and breakfast owner who was penalized for refusing to rent a room to a lesbian couple.

A Hawaii court found that Phyllis Young broke the state’s anti-discrimination law by refusing to rent to the lesbian couple in 2007, saying she would only allow a married man and woman to share a bedroom and citing her Christian beliefs.

The high court declined to hear her appeal and left the lower court ruling in place, Reuters reported.

Some sparring between Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro and Senator John Cornyn, who he considering challenging for his Senate seat.

The House Judiciary Committee is planning a hearing on the rise of white nationalism, the Daily Beast reports.

The hearing is likely to happen in early April, and the committee expects to bring in officials from within the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to testify on the rise of white nationalism and hate crimes and what the agencies are doing to combat it.

Meghan McCain stepped up her criticism Monday of Donald Trump, who went after her late father Senator John McCain this weekend, saying the president is living a “pathetic life.”

“He spends his weekend obsessing over great men because he knows it and I know it and all of you know it — he will never be a great man,” McCain said on The View, where she is a co-host.

She recalled spending weekends hiking or fishing with her dad, and then said of Trump, “You life is spent on your weekends not with your family, not with your friends but obsessing, obsessing over great men you could never live up to. That tells you everything you need to know about his pathetic life right now.”

“I genuinely feel bad for his family,” she added.

Former President George W. Bush presided over a swearing in ceremony for new US citizens Monday.

“Amid all the complications of policy, may we never forget that immigration is a blessing and a strength,” he said, according to Politico.

Donna Brazile, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, is joining Fox News, according to Politico.

Congressional Democrats have asked the FBI to investigate the massage parlor owner who offered to sell Chinese business executives access to Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club, Mother Jones reports.

Four House committees sent a letter Friday asking the FBI to conduct “criminal and counterintelligence investigations into credible allegations of potential human trafficking, as well as unlawful foreign lobbying, campaign finance and other activities by” Cindy Yang, who owned a Florida massage parlor where Patriots owner Robert Kraft allegedly solicited prostitution, for which he’s been arrested.

They also asked the FBI to look at counterintelligence risks “associated with any interactions between President Donald Trump and Ms. Yang,” according to Mother Jones.

Yang was photographed with Trump at a Super Bowl party at Mar-a-Lago last month.

Donald Trump continues his tweet storm, commenting on a new poll finding that 50% of Americans agree with Trump’s assertion that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is a “witch hunt.”

“Very few think it is legit! We will soon find out?” Trump said.

The USA Today poll did in fact find that half of respondents believe the probe is a witch hunt. It also found that 52% have little or no trust in the president’s denials that his 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow in the election that put him in the Oval Office.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider Virginia’s plea to reinstate the life-without-parole sentence of a man who as a teenager participated in sniper shootings that terrorized the Washington, D.C., region in 2002, the Associated Press reports:

The justices said they will take up the state’s appeal in the case of Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 when he and John Allen Muhammad fatally shot 10 people in Maryland, Virginia and Washington. Malvo was sentenced to life-without-parole terms in Virginia and in Maryland, and Muhammad was sentenced to death and was executed in 2009.

Malvo was sentenced to four life terms for crimes he committed in Virginia. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled last year that while Malvo’s life-without-parole sentences were legal when they were imposed, Supreme Court decisions that followed altered sentencing requirements for juvenile offenders.

The appeals court judges said a resentencing would determine whether Malvo qualifies as “one of the rare juvenile offenders” who can be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole because his “crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.” They said if his crimes instead “reflect the transient immaturity of youth” he’s entitled to a sentence short of life without parole.

The Supreme Court will review that decision. As is typical, the justices did not make any comment in agreeing to hear the case, which likely will be heard in the fall.

Documents related to the search warrant for an FBI raid of Michael Cohen’s home and office are set to be released on Tuesday.

Judge William Pauley ordered prosecutors Monday to release redacted versions of the documents, according to the Associated Press.

Media organizations had requested the records, which deal with FBI raids targeting Donald Trump’s former lawyer, who has been sentenced to prison for several federal crimes.

Donald Trump has the approval of 69% of white evangelical Protestants, the highest of any religious group, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center.

The approval rating is 48% for white mainline Protestants and 44% for white Catholics.

Most black protestants and nonwhite Catholics disapprove of Trump. Religiously unaffiliated Americans express among the lowest levels of approval of Trump’s performance, ranging from 17% to 27% in Pew’s surveys.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s schedules show that for five of the Fridays in a 31-week period, he was off or had no appointments, NBC News reports. For five more Fridays he left before 2 p.m. to head to the airport and fly to South Florida, where he owns a home.

Senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand will meet with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer today, according to National Journal.

Conservative writer David Frum weighs in on Donald Trump’s very prolific tweets over the weekend and today.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a radio interview sounds unimpressed by Beto O’Rourke, and also declines to endorse his home state Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.

Cuomo had been discussed as a potential 2020 candidate himself, but has said he won’t run.

Updated

The number of migrants apprehended at the southern border is expected to grow from 75,000 last month to 100,000 this month, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said, according to the New York Times.

Some more context on Donald Trump’s tweet complaining that he is being blamed for the New Zealand mosque shooting: Trump condemned the attack, but also said he does not believe that white nationalism is a growing threat. He made those comments shortly after describing immigration to the United States as an “invasion,” the same term the shooter used to describe Muslim immigrants.

The accused shooter sent a manifesto full of white supremacist ranting, in which he praised Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose” but said he did not support his policies.

The White House on Sunday pushed back against any attempt to link the gunman to Trump.

“The president is not a white supremacist,” White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said on Fox News Sunday. “I’m not sure how many times we have to say that.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to cast this person as a supporter of Donald Trump,” Mulvaney added. “This was a disturbed individual, an evil person.”

Appearing on Fox News Monday morning, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway called it “predictable and outrageous” for the shooter to be connected to Trump.

“The president condemns hate and evil and bigotry, and we will continue to do so,” she said.

“This man came with pre-receipts, if you will. He put out a 70-page manifesto and I guess everybody scoured it, searched for Donald Trump’s name, and there it is one time. But he also said he aligns closely with the ideology of China. He said he’s not a conservative, he’s not a Nazi. I think he refers to himself as an eco-naturalist or an eco-fascist. But people should read the entire [manifesto] in its entirety.”

Trump claims media blames him for New Zealand shooting

Still tweeting, Donald Trump is under the impression that the US media is blaming him for a deadly shooting attack on two New Zealand mosques.

Updated

George Conway, a Washington lawyer and husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, suggests some possible mental illness diagnoses for Donald Trump: narcissistic and anti-social personality disorder.

“Don’t assume that the things he says and does are part of a rational plan or strategy, because they seldom are. Consider them as a product of his pathologies, and they make perfect sense,” he said in a series of tweets this morning. “*All* Americans should be thinking seriously *now* about Trump’s mental condition and psychological state, including and especially the media, Congress—and the Vice President and Cabinet.”

His wife, of course, does not agree. Kellyanne Conway told reporters this morning she doesn’t “share” her husband’s concerns about the president’s mental state, according to CNN.

“I have four kids and I was getting them out of the house this morning to talk to the President about substance, so I may not be up to speed on all” of Trump’s tweets, she said.

Conway also said she “absolutely believes” Trump’s tweets are a good way to communicate directly with the public, CBS News reported.

“I would think those in the business of transparency and accountability should appreciate that,” she said.

Updated

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who is mulling a primary challenge to Donald Trump, tells the Washington Post that if he runs, he’ll pitch himself as the traditional Republican in the race.

“I come from the Ronald Reagan school of politics,” he said, emphasizing support for US allies and NATO.

He said he hasn’t decided whether to run and may wait until the fall to make a decision, awaiting the outcome of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

“The whole country is waiting for this to come out,” he said.

Donald Trump is attacking former Vice President Joe Biden as a “low I.Q. individual.”

He appears to be referring to comments over the weekend where Biden said he has the most progressive record of anyone running for president, before correcting himself as he has not yet jumped into the race.

Federal authorities raided the office of a Donald Trump fundraiser, Elliott Broidy, last summer as part of a money laundering probe, ProPublica reports.

Officials were seeking records of the Republican fundraiser’s dealings with foreign officials and Trump administration associates, according to a search warrant obtained by the news site.

Broidy was a major Trump campaign fundraiser and was the national deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee until last April. He stepped down after it was revealed he agreed to pay $1.6 million money to a former Playboy model to keep silent about their alleged affair - a deal negotiated by Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen. The woman has accused Broidy of physical abuse, coercing her into getting an abortion, and failing to disclose he had herpes.

Vice President Mike Pence will headline a re-election campaign kickoff for Senator Lindsey Graham later this month, the senator says in a tweet.

Donald Trump made a new plea for General Motors to reopen a shuttered plant in Lordstown, Ohio, saying Monday the company and the auto workers’ union should start talks “now.”

“General Motors and the UAW are going to start ‘talks’ in September/October. Why wait, start them now!” Trump said in a tweet Monday morning. “I want jobs to stay in the U.S.A. and want Lordstown (Ohio), in one of the best economies in our history, opened or sold to a company who will open it up fast!”

Trump encouraged the company to close plants in other countries. “Get that big, beautiful plant in Ohio open now. Close a plant in China or Mexico, where you invested so heavily pre-Trump, but not in the U.S.A. Bring jobs home!” he said.

In tweets on Sunday, Trump said he had spoken to GM CEO Mary Barra about the plant, and criticized both the company and a local union leader, David Green.

Beto O’Rourke raised $6.1m in the first 24 hours after he launched his presidential campaign, surpassing all other Democrats in the field who have released their figures.

The Texas Democrat’s campaign released the figures on Monday morning, according to NBC News. The $6,136,763 was all in online contributions.

“In just 24 hours, Americans across this country came together to prove that it is possible to run a true grassroots campaign for president — a campaign by all of us, for all of us, that answers not to the PACs, corporations, and special interests but to the people,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke, a former congressman who ran unsuccessfully for Senate last year, launched his presidential bid on Friday.

O’Rourke beat out the previous highest raiser, Senator Bernie Sanders, who brought in $5.9m in the first 24 hours of his own campaign, NBC reported.

Updated

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