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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Vivian Ho in San Francisco (now) and Tom McCarthy in New York (earlier)

Report: Trump tax printouts show over $1bn in business losses over a decade – as it happened

Donald Trump arrives at an event to celebrate the anniversary of first lady Melania Trump’s ‘Be Best’ initiative in the Rose Garden at the White House.
Donald Trump arrives at an event to celebrate the anniversary of first lady Melania Trump’s ‘Be Best’ initiative in the Rose Garden at the White House. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Evening summary

What a way to end the day.

  • The New York Times obtains a decade of President Trump’s tax information and found that in that time, his businesses lost more than $1bn. The Times’ huge scoop comes as Democrats and the Trump administration fight over the release of this very information.
  • Turns out that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo abruptly canceled his trip to Germany because he was heading to Baghdad.
  • Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen says he helped evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. take care of some racy photographs.
  • The top Democrat and top Republican in the House intelligence committee have joined forces in their bid for Mueller evidence.
  • Tomorrow will be busy: House judiciary chair Jerry Nadler confirms that the contempt vote regarding attorney general William Barr is still scheduled.

“The Committee will have no choice but to resort to contempt proceedings to ensure that it has access to the information it requires to fulfill its constitutionally mandated duties.”

Some reaction to the New York Times blockbuster of a story that President Trump’s businesses lost more than $1 billion in a decade:

“Oh.”

Some context on the fight for President Trump’s tax returns:

NYT obtains a decade of Trump's taxes

The New York Times obtained printouts from President Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts for the years 1985 to 1994, and found that the president’s businesses lost more than $1 billion:

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.

Over all, Mr. Trump lost so much money that he was able to avoid paying income taxes for eight of the 10 years. It is not known whether the I.R.S. later required changes after audits.

According to the New York Times, a lawyer for the president claimed that the tax information was “demonstrably false”:

He cited no specific errors, but on Tuesday added that “I.R.S. transcripts, particularly before the days of electronic filing, are notoriously inaccurate” and “would not be able to provide a reasonable picture of any taxpayer’s return.”

Read the New York Times story here.

Updated

Congressmen Adam Schiff and Devin Nunes - the top Democrat and the top Republican of the House intelligence committee, respectively - have joined forces on the Mueller evidence.

All systems go:

Cohen says he helped keep racy photos of Falwell from going public

Reuters has an exclusive story taken from the recorded conversations of former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who began a three-year prison sentence this week for federal campaign violations and lying to Congress.

In the recorded audio, Cohen says he helped take care of some “personal” photographs belonging to evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr. - “the sort that would typically be kept ‘between husband and wife’”:

The Falwells enlisted Cohen’s help in 2015, according to the source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the year Trump announced his presidential candidacy. At the time, Cohen was Trump’s confidant and personal lawyer, and he worked for the Trump Organization.

The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”

Cohen would later prove successful in another matter involving Falwell, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Cohen helped persuade Falwell to issue his endorsement of Trump’s presidential candidacy at a critical moment, they said: just before the Iowa caucuses. Falwell subsequently barnstormed with Trump and vouched for the candidate’s Christian virtues.

Reuters has no evidence that Falwell’s endorsement of Trump was related to Cohen’s involvement in the photo matter. The source familiar with Cohen’s thinking insisted the endorsement and the help with the photographs were separate issues.

Just a reminder, Falwell is the one who, over the weekend, called for “two years” of “reparations” to be added to Trump’s presidency.

Agence France-Presse has more on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s sudden change of travel plans:

Reports: Pompeo arrives in Baghdad

The Hill is reporting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who abruptly canceled a meeting with German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has instead travelled to Iraq “amid escalating tensions with Iran”. The Hill cites local media outlets as their source.

From the Hill:

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill. The agency will often not confirm such trips until the secretary leaves a war zone, per security protocols.

The already dire relationship between Washington and Tehran further deteriorated this week after the Trump administration announced Sunday a U.S. carrier strike group is headed to the region in response to unspecified “troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.”

Reports emerged the following day of a possible response from Iran Wednesday that it will reduce its compliance with the Obama-era nuclear pact, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), from which President Trump withdrew the U.S. a year ago.

“As the one year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA fast approaches, Washington is ratcheting up the pressure on Iran through diplomatic, economic, and now even military means,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in an email to The Hill.

The administration doubled down on its criticism of Tehran in recent weeks, labeling Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a “foreign terrorist organization” and floating a new round of sanctions.

Iran responded by declaring U.S. forces in the Middle East a terrorist organization.

It appears that the Associated Press confirms the Hill’s reporting.

Updated

Some more updates on President Trump’s immigration meeting with Republican senators:

Hey all, Vivian Ho taking over for Tom McCarthy. Let’s see where the day takes us.

Summary

Here’s a summary of where things stand:

  • The White House ordered former counsel Don McGahn not to comply with a congressional subpoena for documents relating to the Robert Mueller investigation. Democrats vowed a legal challenge.
  • The move came after Donald Trump’s treasury secretary refused a request by Congress for Trump’s tax returns and the attorney general refused to testify before a House committee.
  • Democrats blasted senate majority Mitch McConnell for a floor speech declaring “case closed” on the Mueller investigation. “A stunning act of political cynicism,” top Democrats called it.
  • FBI director Christopher Wray pushed back on attorney general William Barr’s characterization of surveillance of the Trump campaign as “spying”. “That’s not the term I would use,” Wray said.
  • US secretary of state Mike Pompeo canceled a meeting with Angela Merkel at the last minute, citing undisclosed pressing matters elsewhere.
  • The US spiked an international accord on the Arctic with an objection to climate change language.
  • The Trump administration escalated its attack on asylum-seekers at the border, instructing officers to take a more skeptical and confrontational approach.
  • Senator Elizabeth Warren moved her call for impeachment hearings from the campaign trail to the floor of the US senate.

In their afternoon meeting about immigration, Trump and Republican senators talked about green cards but stayed away from the question of temporary guest workers, the Washington Post reports.

That’s the trick, innit, taking on the areas where people disagree...

Biden goes out on a limb and opposes deporting military veterans. Jennifer Epstein, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, is at Biden’s Henderson, Nevada, event:

Joe Biden is addressing a crowd in Henderson, Nevada, where a crowd member yells in reference – favorable reference – to women’s accounts of past unwanted touching by him.

Trump intensifies crackdown on asylum seekers

After introducing fees for asylum applications and imposing other burdens on refugees at the border, the Trump administration has issued new guidelines directing US asylum officers to “take a more skeptical and confrontational approach during interviews with migrants seeking refuge,” the Washington Post reports:

According to internal documents and staff emails obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post, the asylum officers will more aggressively challenge applicants whose claims of persecution contain discrepancies, and they will need to provide detailed justifications before concluding an applicant has a well-founded fear of harm if deported to their home country.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups sued the Trump administration last week over its policy to bar detained asylum seekers from asking a judge to grant them bond, the Guardian reported:

The ACLU, American Immigration Council (AIC) and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project filed a legal challenge over the policy in US district court in Seattle on Thursday. They say it puts thousands of people at risk of being detained for months or years while they wait for their cases to work their way through a backlogged immigration court system.

The attorney general, William Barr, announced in mid-April that asylum seekers who have shown they have a credible fear of returning to their country and are facing removal do not have the right to be released on bond by an immigration court judge while their cases are pending.

Usually, an asylum seeker who crosses between ports of entry would have the right to ask a judge to grant them bond for release. Under the new ruling, they will have to wait in detention until their case is adjudicated.

Updated

Here’s a fascinating piece by Paul Rosenzweig, who worked for independent counsel Kenneth Starr to lay out the case for the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Rosenzweig has participated in the open letter signed by hundreds of former prosecutors and justice department officials saying, pace the attorney general, that special counsel Robert Mueller had collected sufficient evidence for multiple felony obstruction-of-justice charges to be brought against Donald Trump.

“For me,” writes Rosenzweig, “the question was one of intellectual consistency. Having held President Bill Clinton to this standard 20 years ago, I could not, in good conscience, decline to apply the same standard to President Trump.”

Read the full piece here.

Updated

“You have to stop here, thank you.”

Bernie Sanders campaign unveils plan to prevent sexism among staff

Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign has unveiled sweeping new guidelines to combat sexual misconduct and discrimination among his campaign team. The move comes after months of talks with former staffers who felt mistreated during the senator’s 2016 White House bid.

The 17-page document, a copy of which was seen by the Guardian, is the result of an effort to reckon with a culture Sanders has acknowledged was “too white” and “too male”. It draws on the experiences of former staffers as well as research and industry best practices to compile what the authors hope will serve as a “blueprint” for other candidates and campaigns.

Part diagnosis and part prescription, the document lays out “guiding principles” as well as policies and “key learnings from inside and outside political campaign work – and from conversations with former staff who have shared often painful personal experiences and ideas to keep them from happening again”.

In Iowa on Sunday.
In Iowa on Sunday. Photograph: Jerry Mennenga/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock

It addresses issues including a lack of diversity among staff and leadership, pay disparity and sexual misconduct.

“While campaigns may be temporary,” the document states, “the choices candidates make about their workplace and their staff can have a lasting impact on careers and reputations.”

Read further:

Jill Biden on Anita Hill: 'it's time to move on'

Dr Jill Biden, wife of presidential candidate Joe, has joined her husband’s efforts to put the 1991 confirmation hearings of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill – which hearing Joe Biden presided over as chairman of the judiciary committee – behind him by declaring the episode behind us.

“It’s time to move on,” Biden tells NPR in a new interview:

Biden: I watched the hearings like most other Americans, and so I mean Joe said, as I did, we believed Anita Hill. He voted against Clarence Thomas. And as he has said, I mean he’s called Anita Hill, they’ve talked, they’ve spoken, and he said, you know, he feels badly. He apologized for the way the hearings were run. And so now it’s kind of — it’s time to move on.

NPR: Why did he wait until [just before] he was running for president to call her?

Biden: Well, I guess it was just not the right time maybe. So, he wanted to call her. I think he didn’t know whether she would take his call, and he was so happy that he she did take his call, and they spoke. And I think he was, you know, I think they came to an agreement.

NPR: Did you encourage him to make that overture?

Biden: No, that was his decision.

The Bidens last month.
The Bidens last month. Photograph: Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

Critics of Biden’s performance say he failed to call witnesses who could have corroborated Hill’s accusation while forcing Hill to describe in graphic detail the instances of harassment. “There was really a kind of repetition of the violation, but this time in public,” a gender studies professor told the Guardian last month.

Joe Biden has stopped short of offering an apology to Hill, saying instead, “I am sorry she was treated the way she was treated. I wish we could have figured out a better way to get this thing done. I did everything in my power to do what I thought was within the rules to try to stop things.”

Democrats call McConnell 'case closed' speech 'a stunning act of political cynicism'

House speaker Nancy Pelosi and senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have issued a joint letter calling McConnell’s “case closed” speech this morning “a stunning act of political cynicism and a brazen violation of the oath we all take”:

On Senate floor, Warren calls for impeachment

Warren brings her call for Trump’s impeachment from the campaign trail to the floor of the US senate:

Senator Elizabeth Warren, also a 2020 candidate, as much as calls the president a criminal, speaking this morning on the Senate floor:

As the White House stonewalls Congress in its effort to follow special counsel Robert Mueller’s road map to what many regard as Donald Trump’s criminal misconduct, Senator Kamala Harris, a candidate to unseat Trump in 2020, is preparing to introduce a law demanding transparency between the White House and attorney general on certain matters, she tells NBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

Meanwhile, back at Melania Trump’s Be Best event...

White House orders McGahn not to comply with subpoena

The White House has informed Congress that it has ordered former counsel Don McGahn not to hand over documents subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller.

In a letter to House judiciary committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, White House lawyer Pat Cipollone cited “significant Executive Branch confidentiality interests and executive privilege.”

McGahn in February 2018.
McGahn in February 2018. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

In a subpoena, Congress had requested documents from McGahn pertaining to 36 matters, including discrete episodes in the Russia affair ranging from the resignation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn to the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

Cipollone said McGahn “does not have the legal right to disclose these documents to third persons.”

In a follow-up letter to Congress, a lawyer for McGahn said he intended to follow the White House direction. “Where co-equal branches of government are making contradictory demands on Mr McGahn concerning the same set of documents,” the letter reads, “the appropriate response for Mr McGahn is to maintain the status quo unless and until the committee and the executive branch can reach an accommodation.”

The order came a day after the Treasury Department denied a Congressional request for Donald Trump’s tax returns. Both document denials appeared to be subject to immediate legal challenge by Democrats.

Testimony by McGahn was central to Mueller’s record of conduct by Trump that critics from both parties, including hundreds of former federal prosecutors, have said amounted to felony obstruction of justice.

Updated

ABC News has video coverage of the anniversary celebration for the Melania Trump “Be Best” anti-bullying program:

And speaking of Be Best – is that grammatical? Guardian style maven Tim Hill weighs in:

The name of this lofty and laudable effort? “Be Best.”

That’s right: “Be Best!” Not “Be the Best”, or “Be Your Best”, or “Be the Best You Can Be”. Not “Be Better” or “Be Safe”, or even “Don’t Be a Jerk” (which is an actual campaign launched in New York to promote safe cycling).

Donald Trump, who was there by his wife’s side in the Rose Garden, signed a proclamation that designates 7 May as “Be Best Day”. Roll it around on your tongue for a moment. Say it out loud. “Hey, friend, any plans for Be Best Day?” “Nah, I’ll probably just spend Be Best Day at home”.

“Be Best” just so plainly doesn’t hold up to the laws of English grammar, which require that a superlative adjective following an imperative verb be preceded by the definite article “the”. Be good – be better – be the best: that’s the rule. In the 1990s, the British military ran a TV ad campaign that ended with the slogan: “Army soldier: be the best.” Try it without the the. “Army soldier: be best.” It sounds like you’re translating from the Sanskrit.

Read further!

Updated

Nixon, again:

After not tweeting all morning, the president is warming up for a planned meeting this afternoon with Republican senators to talk immigration:

Trump and Republican senators are scheduled to meet to discuss a new White House immigration plan, the AP reports:

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway describes the plan as “fairly comprehensive,” saying it aims to beef up border security and maximize merit-based immigration. Conway says it will cover other changes favored by Trump, including ending some family migration and visa lottery programs.

Conway says the plan could also touch on the plight of thousands who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

The proposals are being developed by senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. A previous attempt by Trump to reach a comprehensive immigration deal with Congress collapsed.

Trump put immigration at the center of his presidential campaign, including a promise to build a wall on the U.S-Mexico border.

Wray: authorized surveillance is not 'spying'

FBI Director Chris Wray says “spying” is not the term he would use for court-authorized surveillance conducted by the bureau, the Associated Press reports:

Wray was asked at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Tuesday about Attorney General William Barr’s assertion last month that the Trump campaign had been spied on during the 2016 election.

Asked if he believes that the FBI is involved in spying when it conducts surveillance with a warrant, Wray replied, “That’s not the term I would use.”

He acknowledged that different people use different language, but that the key question for him is “making sure it’s done by the book.”

Wray declined to discuss the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign because it’s part of an ongoing Justice Department inspector general investigation.

Having fun on the Hill back in April.
Having fun on the Hill back in April. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

In testimony before the Senate last week, Barr refused to back down from his use of the word “spying” to describe surveillance of the Trump campaign, then engaged in extensive secret contacts with Russian operatives.

“I’m not going to abjure the use of the word spying,” Barr said, noting he previously worked for the CIA. “I don’t think the word spying has any pejorative connotation at all.”

Updated

Pompeo cancels talks with Merkel

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.

Journalists travelling with Pompeo were not informed where they were going instead of Berlin, with Pompeo’s staff saying they may not be able to reveal the next destination until after they had left. Their plane has been tracked heading east.

Pompeo rang the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, to explain the decision to drop his first meeting in Berlin as secretary of state, and promised to reschedule soon.

Norbert Röttgen, the chair of the German foreign affairs committee, described the cancellation as “very regrettable”, adding: “There is a lot to discuss about common challenges, but also about the internal relationship between Germany and the US. Even if there were unavoidable reasons for the cancellation, it unfortunately fits into the current climate in the relationship of the two governments.”

British and US sources said the Berlin cancellation did not mean talks planned for later on Wednesday between Pompeo, the UK prime minister, Theresa May, and the foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, would also be dropped.

Read further:

Schumer on Mueller fallout: 'it is not done'

Minority leader Chuck Schumer is replying to McConnell on the Senate floor. He accuses the majority leader of “whitewashing”.

He wants to move on? Schumer asks:

It’s sort of like Richard Nixon saying let’s move on at the height of the investigation of his wrongdoing. Of course he wants to move on. ...

He doesn’t want to move, on he wants to run away from these awful facts... foreign interference in our election, and a president who is lawless. ...

It is not done. This is very serious stuff.

How do you feel about polls?

P.S. McConnell’s done.

McConnell: 'case closed'

McConnell says the media is failing to spotlight the Trump administration’s tough stance against Russia.

This administration has taken the problem head-on, he says. He says the United States has imposed new sanctions, strengthened NATO and brushed back the Syrian president.

McConnell does not mention the personal reassurances extended by Trump to the Russian president in hourlong phone chats as recently as last week, Trump’s continued downplaying of Russian election tampering and Trump’s warm public words for Russia backed by unknown private concessions or invitations.

“Case closed,” McConnell says. “Case closed.”

He says Democrats are working through “five stages of grief.” It’s a pretty poisonous speech, smug, arch and superbly dismissive of any notion that the Trump administration is failing the country and the president is failing his oath.

McConnell refers to “laughable threats of impeachment” and says there is an “outrage industrial complex” engaged in by Democrats. The majority leader strongly suggests that anyone who thinks there is currently an ongoing national crisis is some kind of whackjob living in fantasyland. He says people who think so need to take a deep breath and come “back to reality”:

They’re grieving that the national crisis that they spent two years wishing for did not materialize.

McConnell calls Mueller fallout 'Groundhog Day spectacle'

Here’s McConnell. He says it’s more than six weeks since Mueller concluded his investigation of Russia’s election tampering and delivered his report.

McConnell’s saying the part of his remarks excerpted in our opening block. He’s accusing people who don’t think this chapter of history is yet closed, including hundreds of Republican former federal prosecutors who have signed an open letter calling the present an unindicted felon, of naked partisanship.

McConnell calls for an end to “this groundhog day spectacle, [to] stop endlessly relitigating a two-and-a-half-year-old election result and move forward.”

He said Trump’s critics made Mueller a secular saint. He’s laying it on thick, describing his pleasure at seeing his political opponents awakening to the dangers posed by Russia. Now he’s quoting Barack Obama.

Updated

They’re praying in the US senate, preparing to make speeches. We’re going to listen to McConnell talking about Mueller. If you would like to watch, a video stream of senate floor action is here. Click quick and catch Chuck Grassley reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

US balks at climate change language in joint Arctic plan

The United States has refused to sign an agreement on challenges in the Arctic due to discrepancies over climate change wording, diplomats said on Tuesday, jeopardizing cooperation in the polar region at the sharp edge of global warming, Reuters reports:

With Arctic temperatures rising at twice the rate of the rest of the globe, the melting ice is creating potential new shipping lanes and has opened much of the world’s last untapped reserves of oil and gas to commercial exploitation .

A meeting of eight nations bordering the Arctic in Rovaniemi in Finland on Tuesday was supposed to frame a two-year agenda to balance the challenge of global warming with sustainable development of mineral wealth.

But sources with knowledge of the discussions said the United States balked at signing a final declaration as it disagreed with wording that climate change was a serious threat to the Arctic.

It was the first time a declaration had been cancelled since the Arctic Council was formed in 1996.

Near Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada.
Near Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada. Photograph: Paul Souders/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo

White House confirms Orbán visit

A week after Hungary announced it, the White House has confirmed that Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having exhibited hostility to liberal democracy and the rule of law, will visit the White House on 13 May.

Orban at a press conference on Monday.
Orban at a press conference on Monday. Photograph: Attila Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images

The Guardian’s Shaun Walker reported:

Orbán’s spokesman Zoltán Kovács wrote on Twitter that “energy security, defense cooperation, bilateral relations and regional security” would be on the agenda.

Prime minister of Hungary since 2010, Orbán was shunned under Barack Obama’s administration, and the state department frequently and vehemently criticised his government for a weakening of democracy and rule of law, as well as concerns over media freedom and corruption.

Under the Trump administration, there has been a U-turn in rhetoric, symbolised by the appointment of David Cornstein, an 80-year-old jewellery magnate and long-time friend of Trump, as ambassador.

Read further:

The number of hate groups active in the United States hit a 20-year high last year, according to a survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group counted 1,020 active hate groups, up from 784 four years ago.

This week the Washingtonian has a wrenching first-person account of one family’s ordeal when their teenage son, after a crisis at school, links up with alt-right groups online. In What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right: A Washington family’s nightmare year, Anonymous writes:

Who was living upstairs in the room with the bunk beds, surrounded by glow-in-the-dark solar-system decals? I couldn’t understand how this had happened. The situation was ludicrously overdetermined, as contrived as a bad movie. My husband and I poured everything we had into nurturing an empathetic, observant child. Until then, it had seemed to be working. Teachers and family friends had always commented on Sam’s kindness and especially his gentleness toward the “underdog.” Then an internet chorus of alt-right sirens sings their song of American History X to my kid and he turns into the evil twin of Alex P. Keaton: merciless, intolerant, unwilling to extend the benefit of the doubt to anyone.

The pendulum had swung. And now it was stuck.

Read the full piece here.

McConnell to declare 'case closed' on Mueller

Hello and welcome to our daily live politics coverage.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell planned to take the Senate floor at about 10am and declare that special counsel Robert Mueller’s work is done and it is time for everyone – elected officials and the public alike – to move on.

“Case closed,” McConnell is expected to say, as dozens of former federal prosecutors continued to add their names to an open letter saying that the Mueller report describes misconduct by Trump that would warrant “multiple felony charges of obstruction of justice” were Trump not president.

McConnell is expected to address the Russian attack on the 2016 election described in Volume 1 of the Mueller report. Democrats have accused Trump of failing to protect future elections from a similar attack. Trump continues to defend Moscow, referring to the “Russian hoax” in an hourlong phone call with Russian president Vladimir Putin last week.

“Case closed,” McConnell plans to say, as Trump’s stonewalling of Congress over his tax returns resulted in a formal denial by the Treasury department Monday afternoon of a request for the documents by the House Ways and Means committee, and as Congress prepares to potentially hold the attorney general in contempt for his failure to appear to testify about the Mueller report.

Politico has this excerpt from McConnell’s planned speech:

This investigation went on for two years. It’s finally over. Many Americans were waiting to see how their elected officials would respond. With an exhaustive investigation complete, would the country finally unify to confront the real challenges before us? Would we finally be able to move on from partisan paralysis and breathless conspiracy theorizing?

“Or would we remain consumed by unhinged partisanship, and keep dividing ourselves to the point that Putin and his agents need only stand on the sidelines and watch as their job is done for them? Regrettably, I think the answer is obvious.”

Trump plans to attend an anniversary celebration for Melania Trump’s Be Best campaign at the White House at 11am. Later he was to meet with Senate Republicans.

Read our recent coverage of mainlines in US politics news:

Thanks for joining us this fine politics Tuesday.

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