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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco (now) and Erin Durkin in New York (earlier)

House subpoenas Don McGahn, ex-White House counsel, in wake of Mueller report – as it happened

Don McGahn has been asked to turn over documents by 7 May and testify in public on 21 May.
Don McGahn has been asked to turn over documents by 7 May and testify in public on 21 May. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AP

Summary

That’s all from me on this Monday. Here’s a rundown of the top stories in politics:

  • The House judiciary committee subpoenaed former White House counsel Don McGahn
  • Donald Trump sued House Oversight committee chair Elijah Cummings in a bid to block a subpoena of his financial records.
  • Elizabeth Warren unveiled her proposal for free college and canceling student debt
  • Massachusetts Representative Seth Moulton launched a presidential campaign
  • Herman Cain dropped out of the running for a seat on the Federal Reserve

Have a good evening!

A few more details on the Democratic caucus conference call, via Lauren Gambino.

According to a source on the call, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made the following comments during the nearly 90 minute discussion:

We have to save our democracy. This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy. If it is what we need to do to honor our responsibility to the Constitution – if that’s the place the facts take us, that’s the place we have to go … And I wish you would just read my letter because it, I think succinctly, presents some of the reasons I think – whether it’s articles of impeachment or investigations, it’s the same obtaining of facts. We don’t have to go to articles of impeachment to obtain the facts, the presentation of facts.

President Trump has signed a presidential memorandum directing the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to combat visa overstays.

The administration is considering suspending or limiting entry for individuals coming from countries with high rates of people overstaying visas, according to a press release from the White House.

The most recent report by the Center for Migration Studies, covering 2016-2017, found that overstaying a visa accounted for about 62% of newly undocumented people, compared to just 38% who “entered without inspection” – ie crossed the border without authorization.

Here’s my colleague Lauren Gambino reporting on an internal conference call among House Democrats:

Polls are beginning to come out, providing some insight into how the release of the redacted Mueller report is being viewed by the general public.

Trump’s approval rating dropped to 39% – the lowest of his presidency – in a new Politico/Morning Consult poll. The last time Trump’s rating was that low in the same poll was in the aftermath of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.

Another poll, by HuffPost/YouGov, which was conducted immediately after the release of the redacted report, found that 43% of Americans believe that Trump attempted to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation, compared to 34% who believe he did not.

USA Today’s Brad Heath pulled out an interesting tidbit from the details of that poll: nearly half of Republicans agree with the statement, “Nobody on President Trump’s campaign committed any crimes”, despite the fact that many people on Trump’s campaign have pleaded guilty to committing crimes. These include: former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former personal attorney Michael Cohen, and campaign advisers Rick Gates, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulous.

Here’s my colleague Tom McCarthy on what the McGahn subpoena could portend:

The subpoena of Don McGahn by the House Judiciary Committee could have the effect of bringing the Mueller report to life, in the sense that multiple key scenes from the report star McGahn. The former White House counsel could give a firsthand account of how Donald Trump allegedly broke the law in an effort to keep the Mueller investigation at bay.

If McGahn testifies in an open hearing about what Trump told him to do – namely, pressure deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to fire Robert Mueller, then publicly deny any such order had ever been given – that could make Trump look bad in a new way.

The request for documents in the subpoena is broad, and McGahn could be asked to testify about numerous other matters. That’s if it goes as well as it could for Democrats and others concerned about the special counsel’s findings.

On the other hand, McGahn could resist the subpoena. But he did sit for at least three voluntary interviews with Mueller’s team totaling 30 hours. His pattern of conduct to this point has been compliance.

There’s a scene in the Mueller report from a Saturday in June 2017. Trump is at Camp David and McGahn is at home in Virginia. The lawyer gets two calls from the president, which he later described to Mueller, whose report reads:

‘You gotta do this’,” McGahn recalls the president saying. “‘You gotta call Rod.’”

But McGahn did not call Rod.

McGahn considered the president’s request to be an inflection point and he wanted to hit the brakes.

Democratic members of the judiciary committee might want to hear more about that phone call and other interactions McGahn had with the president.

This is Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco picking up the live blog reins, by the way.

And here are some more details on the subpoena just issued to former White House counsel Don McGahn:

The subpoena names 36 categories of documents and communications that must be turned over, with topics including “The resignation or termination of Michael Flynn” (item No 4) and “Your resignation or termination, whether contemplated or actual” (item No 14).

Other items in the subpoena appear aimed at understanding what efforts to fight back against the Mueller investigation that may have been contemplated inside the White House, such as:

10. Reversing or attempting to reverse Jeff Session’s recusal from any matters ...

28. Prosecuting or investigating James Comey or Hillary Clinton.

29. Presidential pardons, whether possible or actual, for Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, or individuals involved in matters before the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

The full subpoena can be viewed here.

House Judiciary committee subpoenas former White House counsel

Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary committee, has issued a subpoena to former White House counsel Don McGahn for testimony and documents related to its investigation into potential obstruction of justice by Donald Trump.

“The Special Counsel’s report, even in redacted form, outlines substantial evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction and other abuses,” Nadler said in a statement. “It now falls to Congress to determine for itself the full scope of the misconduct and to decide what steps to take in the exercise of our duties of oversight, legislation and constitutional accountability.”

The committee is requesting McGahn turn over documents by 7 May and testify in public on 21 May.

“His testimony will help shed further light on the President’s attacks on the rule of law, and his attempts to cover up those actions by lying to the American people and requesting others do the same,” the statement continues. “The Special Counsel and his team made clear that based on their investigation, they were unable to ‘reach [the] judgment . . . .that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice.’ As a co-equal branch of government, Congress has a constitutional obligation to hold the President accountable, and the planned hearings will be an important part of that process.”

The subpoenas can be seen here.

Summary

  • Democrats grappled with their next steps after the release of the Mueller report, acknowledging divisions over whether to pursue the impeachment of Donald Trump. In a letter to colleagues, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advised caution on impeachment, but vowed that Democrats would continue to hold hearings and “uncover the truth.” Democrats have a conference call scheduled for 5pm.
  • Donald Trump sued to block a subpoena for his financial records, issued by the House Oversight Committee to his accounting firm. Committee chairman Elijah Cummings called the suit baseless.
  • Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton launched his presidential bid.
  • Donald Trump reversed course and said he would not appoint Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve board, saying Cain had asked to bow out.

Updated

Herman Cain explains his reasons for withdrawing from consideration for the Federal Reserve. For one thing, he said it would have been a big pay cut.

“I also started wondering if I’d be giving up too much influence to get a little bit of policy impact,” Cain wrote. “With my current media activities, I can reach close to 4 million people a month with the ideas I believe in. If I gave that up for one seat on the Fed board, would that be a good trade-off?”

The US is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution on combatting the use of rape as a weapon of war, the Guardian’s Julian Borger reports.

The US is objecting to language that says survivors of sexual violence should have access to comprehensive health services, including sexual and reproductive health. It’s part of a hard line taken by the Trump administration in recent months, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions.

Democratic presidential candidate Wayne Messam said Monday he supports impeaching Donald Trump, becoming the third Democratic primary contender to do so.

“I believe the President should be placed under impeachment proceedings and let the weight of the full report carry out the justice the American people deserve,” Messam, the mayor of Miramar, Fl., told the Hill.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and former housing secretary Julian Castro have called for Trump’s impeachment.

Updated

Washington Gov. and presidential hopeful Jay Inslee is asking other candidates in the field to support a primary debate focused entirely on climate change.

Inslee has made climate change his signature issue. He posted a letter to fellow Democratic contenders Monday urging them to tell the Democratic National Committee to dedicate a debate to the issue.

“We need a full debate on climate change. Climate change is at the heart of every issue that matters to voters, and voters deserve to hear what 2020 presidential candidates plan to do about it,” Inslee wrote.

Donald Trump claims that “the people who were closest to me” were not called to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators.

He doesn’t name names, but the Mueller report did rely on dozens of hours of witness accounts from Trump’s advisers. They include former White House counsel Don McGahn, former chief of staff Reince Priebus, and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

CNN will host a marathon of presidential town halls tonight, featuring Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg.

Actress Susan Sarandon made a donation to former Senator Mike Gravel, one of the lesser known names in the Democratic presidential race.

“The more Dem voices in the primary, the better!” she said in a tweet.

Donald Trump has been tweeting Fox News clips all day. By our count this is number 5.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed Monday to be the “grim reaper” for progressive policies.

“If I’m still the majority leader in the Senate think of me as the Grim Reaper. None of that stuff is going to pass,” the Republican said at an event in his home state of Kentucky, the Hill reported.

McConnell promised to stand in the way of policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All even if Democrats defeat Donald Trump and retain control of the House.

“I guarantee you that if I’m the last man standing and I’m still the majority leader, it ain’t happening. I can promise you,” he said.

Former Vice President Joe Biden is planning a trip to Iowa next week, according to CNN.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is proposing $550 fees to own and carry a gun.

It now only costs $27 for a a firearm identification card, a permit to own a gun, and a permit to carry, the New York Times reports, unchanged since the 1960s. Under Murphy’s proposal, an ID card would cost $100, a permit to own a gun would be $50, and a permit to carry would be $400.

“There’s no war on responsible gun owners,” he told the Times. “We can support the efforts of the attorney general, state troopers, county and local law enforcement, to do the stuff we need to do: track crime, track gun violence, combat trafficking of illegal guns.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden plans to shutter his charitable foundation when he enters the 2020 presidenital race, the New York Times reports.

By winding down the Biden Foundation, he may be hoping to avoid some of the conflict of interest questions that dogged Hillary Clinton about her family foundation during the 2016 election.

The Biden Foundation would likely suspend its activities immediately and then begin a longer process of gradually dismantling itself, according to the Times.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Democratic House members ahead of their conference call on responding to the Mueller report, per PBS.

“While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth. It is also important to know that the facts regarding holding the President accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings,” she wrote.

She added: “Whether currently indictable or not, it is clear that the President has, at a minimum, engaged in highly unethical and unscrupulous behavior which does not bring honor to the office he holds.”

Updated

The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee said he has reviewed a version of the Mueller report with fewer redactions, the Hill reports.

Democrats have demanded the full, unredacted report and declined an offer to a select group of lawmakers to view a less-redacted version than the one that was made public.

“Today I had the opportunity to view the Mueller report at the Department of Justice,” Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking Republican on the panel, said Monday. “I encourage Chairman Nadler and Democrat leaders to view this material as soon as possible — unless they’re afraid to acknowledge the facts this report outlines.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed legislation banning plastic bags in the state.

“You see plastic bags hanging in trees, blowing down the streets, in landfills and in our waterways, and there is no doubt they are doing tremendous damage,” Cuomo said. The ban was passed by the state legislature as part of the state budget. Cities and towns will have an option to impose a five cent fee for paper bags, which New York City voted to do last week.

A new poll shows Pete Buttigieg in third place among Democratic voters in New Hampshire, after Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

Philip Klein argues in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner that Elizabeth Warren’s plan to cancel student debt is a slap in the face to people who have worked hard to pay off their loans.

“The plan would be tremendously unfair to those who have been struggling for years to pay off their student loans,” he wrote. “There are those who have cut expenses to the bare bones to pay off loans while watching their friends with similar salaries eat out and travel and de-prioritize paying off loans. Those who were more responsible will feel justifiably enraged at the idea that those who may have been more profligate will now get a bailout from the government.”

The argument has drawn some mockery on Twitter.

A few of the people who did in fact disobey Donald Trump’s orders, according to the Mueller report:

House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings called a lawsuit against him by Donald Trump “baseless.”

Trump sued Monday to block the committee’s subpoena to an accounting firm for the president’s financial records.

“There is simply no valid legal basis to interfere with this duly authorized subpoena from Congress,” Cummings said Monday, according to Reuters. “This complaint reads more like political talking points than a reasoned legal brief, and it contains a litany of inaccurate information.”

“The White House is engaged in unprecedented stonewalling on all fronts, and they have refused to produce a single document or witness to the Oversight Committee during this entire year,” he added.

Donald Trump won’t name Herman Cain to the Federal Reserve board after all, saying that Cain asked him to nix the nomination.

A number of Republican senators had said they would not support Cain, making it unlikely he would have the necessary support to be confirmed. Cain’s 2012 presidential campaign collapsed amid allegations of sexual harassment.

Updated

A new Environmental Justice Caucus is being formed in the Senate, Yahoo News reports.

Democratic senators Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Tom Carper of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey will chair the new group.

“Oftentimes, black and brown communities are the ones that suffer the biggest consequences of pollution and a lack of enforcement on environmental issues,” Duckworth told Yahoo.

Donald Trump’s Federal Reserve pick Stephen Moore has written that women should be barred from from refereeing, announcing even selling beer at at men’s college basketball games, CNN reports.

He made the points in four different columns, asking if there was any area in life “where men can take vacation from women,” and calling it a “travesty” that men and women play sports together in recreational leagues.

During an Easter Egg roll at the White House, Donald Trump looked up from coloring cards with a group of kids and said that one of the children there told him to build the wall.

“I will. Oh, it’s happening. It’s being built now,” Trump said, according to a pool report. “Here’s a young guy who said, ‘Keep building that wall.’ Can you believe that? He’s going to be a conservative some day!”

Updated

The Supreme Court said Monday it will take up the questions of whether it’s illegal for employers to discriminate against LGBT workers.

The court agreed to hear three cases on the issue, BuzzFeed reports. At issue is whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s ban on discrimination on the basis of sex - in addition to race, religion, and national origin - applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In a New York case, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of a skydiving instructor who said he was fired because he was gay. But a court in Georgia reached the opposite conclusion, ruling against a child welfare services coordinator who said he was fired for being gay because they found the civil rights act does not apply to sexual orientation.

Updated

Donald Trump told reporters he is not worried about impeachment - “not even a little bit,” CNN reports.

Asked about findings in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that staffers had often failed to carry out his orders to undermine the investigations against him, Trump said, “Nobody disobeys my orders.”

Updated

After releasing a new plan to cancel student debt and make public colleges tuition free, Senator Elizabeth Warren was asked on CNN today if she can win by being the policy candidate. Her response:

Donald Trump called Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe this morning to express condolences to the people of Sri Lanka for the Easter day terrorist attacks that killed nearly 300 people, according to the White House.

Trump “pledged United States support to Sri Lanka in bringing the perpetrators to justice.”

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders went after reporter April Ryan after Ryan said she should be fired for lying to the public and press.

“When there is a lack of credibility there, you have to start, and start lopping the heads off,” Ryan said Friday on CNN. “It’s Fire-Me Thursday or Fire-Me Good Friday. She needs to go.”

On Fox News this morning, Sanders acted as if Ryan’s call for heads to roll was literally advocating for decapitation.

“I’ve had a lot of reporters say a lot of things about me. They’ve said I should be choked. They said I should deserve a lifetime of harassment. But I’ve certainly never had somebody say I should be decapitated. This takes us to a new low even for the liberal media,” she said.

Updated

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday to tout his city’s plan to combat climate change, but faced grilling about his daily 11 mile SUV trips to his Brooklyn gym.

“This is just part of my life. I come from that neighborhood in Brooklyn,” de Blasio said, adding that his security detail would follow him in their cars even if he took the subway. “I go there on a regular basis to stay connected to where I come from and not be in the bubble that I think for a lot of politicians is a huge problem.”

De Blasio is typically driven from the upper East Side, where he lives in Gracie Mansion, to a YMCA in Park Slope, Brooklyn each morning. While he has said the ritual is to help him stay connected, he has not always been willing to engage with citizens who try to talk to him about issues there.

The New York mayor is considering a run for president. The climate plan passed by the City Council last week will require large building to cut their emissions by 40% by 2030.

Asked if he would be “lucky 21” - the 21st Democrat to jump into the presidential field - de Blasio said, “I’m going to make a decision soon.”

“Donald Trump actually can win and Democrats have to be strong and clear and bold and progressive in our messages or we’re not going to make it,” he said.

Updated

As he announces his presidential campaign, Rep. Seth Moulton has withdrawn his candidacy for re-election to Congress, ProPublica reports.

He still could re-file at a later date, however.

Updated

Donald Trump tells Democrats not to impeach him.

And tweets another Fox News clip.

Updated

A federal appeals court rejected a petition from Chelsea Manning to be released from jail after she was held in contempt for refusing to testify before a grand jury.

“The court finds no error in the district court’s rulings and affirms its finding of civil contempt,” the appeals court wrote in its ruling Monday, Politico reports.

Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who turned over a massive trove of documents to Wikileaks, was ordered jailed after refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating the website.

Senator Amy Klobuchar announced five new staffers Monday for her presidential campaign, Politico reports.

She also named five senior advisers from outside consulting firms.

The staff hires are Tim Hogan, communications director; Lucinda Ware, national political director; Anjan Mukherjee, research director; and Mike McLaughlin, national field director.

Trump sues House Oversight chair

Donald Trump and his company sued House Oversight committee chairman Elijah Cummings Monday in a bid to block a congressional subpoena of his financial records, the Washington Post reports.

The suit asks a court to block Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, from complying with a subpoena it was issued last week.

The subpoena asks for years of Trump’s financial statements.

“Democrats are singularly obsessed with finding something they can use to damage the President politically,” the filing by Trump says, according to the Post.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has contributed another $5.5 million to the United Nations’ climate change program, to pay off what would have been the US contribution under the Paris agreement before the Trump administration withdrew.

Bloomberg promised in 2017 to personally fill the funding gap, and last year paid $4.5 million.

Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s campaign infrastructure is no match for his recent surge in popularity, the Associated Press reports.

The South Bend, Indiana mayor told the AP his supporters have mostly had to “organize themselves” so far. “We need to make sure we have the organizational strengths to sustain this wave of support that we’ve been getting for the last almost month and a half now,” he said. “It’s created some challenges to rise this far this fast, but I would put those in the category of a good problem to have.”

Buttigieg’s campaign had about a dozen paid staffers at the end of last month, according to campaign finance filings, but is now over 30 and expects to hit 50 by the end of the month. His campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl, is a high school friend with no experience in presidential politics.

The Trump administration will not renew waivers that allowed eight foreign governments to buy oil from Iran without facing sanctions.

“This decision is intended to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero, denying the regime its principal source of revenue,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Monday.

The waivers expire in May.

Oil prices have already soared after news emerged that the move was coming.

Donald Trump tweets a clip of a Fox News host arguing that Democrats will “never stop” focusing on Russian election interference because “they do not care about you or your life.”

“So true,” Trump wrote.

Iowa state Rep. Jennifer Konfrst endorsed Senator Cory Booker for president.

Elizabeth Warren proposes free college and student debt cancellation

Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed a $1.25 trillion plan to wipe out most student loan debt and make all public colleges tuition-free.

The plan would cancel debt, most of which is held by the federal government, up to $50,000 for people with household incomes under $100,000, and partially cancel debt for people who make up to $250,000.

The Massachusetts Democrat and presidential candidate would provide federal money to eliminate the cost of tuition and fees at every public two-year and four-year college in the country.

The proposal would be paid for by the new tax Warren has proposed for wealthy families.

It’s the latest ambitious policy proposal from Warren, who has also released detailed plans on childcare and housing and to break up big tech companies.

Warren also proposes a ban on federal money going to for-profit colleges.

“We got into this crisis because state governments and the federal government decided that instead of treating higher education like our public school system — free and accessible to all Americans — they’d rather cut taxes for billionaires and giant corporations and offload the cost of higher education onto students and their families. The student debt crisis is the direct result of this failed experiment,” she wrote in a post on Medium. “It’s time to end that experiment, to clean up the mess it’s caused, and to do better.”

An Earth Day message from Donald Trump gets in several references to the economy, jobs and natural resources but none to climate change.

“Environmental protection and economic prosperity go hand in hand. A strong market economy is essential to protecting our critical natural resources and fostering a legacy of conservation,” wrote Trump, whose administration has rolled back a host of environmental regulations.

Democrats pondering next steps after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report have scheduled a conference call for 5pm today to game out their options.

They’ll discuss whether to initiate impeachment proceedings, a step opposed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi but which some other Democrats have pushed for.

House Intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday the Democratic caucus will meet in the next few weeks to discuss whether to pursue impeachment. “We’re going to have a caucus about this over the next couple weeks to try to figure out what the best course is, not for the party, but what’s the best course for the country,” he said on Fox News Sunday.

Representative Seth Moulton launches campaign for president

We have another entrant to the crowded Democratic primary race this morning: Massachusetts representative Seth Moulton announced he is running for president.

“Decades of division and corruption have broken our democracy and robbed Americans of their voice. It’s all led to an administration that’s turned away from our values,” Moulton said in an announcement video. “The greatest generation saved our country from tyranny. It’s time for our generation to step up and do the same.”

Moulton is a decorated Marine veteran who served in Iraq and was elected to Congress in 2014. He led efforts to recruit other veterans to run for Congress, and was the face of an unsuccessful push to block Nancy Pelosi from becoming speaker when the Democrats took over the House.

He becomes the 19th Democrat to officially declare his candidacy.

Updated

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