Summary
That’s all from me folks! Have a great weekend!
- The House Ways and Means committee issued subpoenas for six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, setting up another showdown between the legislative and executive branches of the US government.
- Robert Mueller won’t be testifying in front of the House judiciary committee next week, but “he will come at some point,” committee chairman Jerrold Nadler reporters on Friday.
- The House passed a $17bn bill that will get assistance to disaster-struck communities, particularly in Puerto Rico. Donald Trump said the vote in favor was “great,” despite encouraging Republicans to not vote for it less than 24 hours earlier.
- Trump’s latest tariff hike on Chinese good went into effect, escalating the trade war with Beijing. Experts say the increase will hurt American consumers more than Chinese suppliers.
- HUD acknowledged the Trump administration could displace more than 55,000 children if plans to evict undocumented immigrants from public housing is successful.
- Actors and filmmakers are boycotting a major hub for television and film production in the US, Georgia, because of a strict abortion law passed there this week.
Here’s a response from Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House judiciary committee, who has subpoenaed McGahn for documents and testimony.
This is why it is critical for Mr. McGahn to come before our committee and answer questions for the American people. The President cannot keep McGahn from testifying. https://t.co/7ApcIpbvEc
— (((Rep. Nadler))) (@RepJerryNadler) May 10, 2019
The Wall Street Journal has more analysis of why Trump might have wanted McGahn to issue a statement saying that he did not believe Trump was attempting to obstruct justice when he asked McGahn to fire the special counsel:
A statement from Mr. McGahn declaring that he didn’t believe Mr. Trump committed a crime could have bolstered the White House’s broader public argument for Mr. Trump’s innocence, particularly as Congress continues to investigate Mr. Trump for obstruction and other matters related to the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and Moscow’s ties to the Trump campaign. Mr. Trump has publicly declared the Mueller report exonerates him and has denied obstructing justice.
Mr. Mueller in his report said he wasn’t exonerating Mr. Trump and wrote: “The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.” He said he decided not to make a decision on whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in part because of a Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
White House asked McGahn to clear Trump of obstruction - reports
The Trump administration asked former White House counsel Don McGahn to state publicly that the president did not obstruct justice after the release of the Mueller report, according to new reports by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
McGahn declined to make any such statement, according to the reports, angering Trump.
“We did not perceive it as any kind of threat or something sinister,” William A Burck, McGahn’s attorney, said in a statement to the Times. “It was a request, professionally and cordially made.”
Last week, the House Judiciary committee subpoenaed McGahn for documents and testimony related to an investigation into potential obstruction by Trump. On Tuesday, the White House informed Congress that it was ordering McGahn not to comply with the subpoena, citing executive privilege.
What happens if Mnuchin and Rettig don’t comply with the Ways and Means subpoena?
Per the Associated Press:
Neal is likely to file a lawsuit in federal court. He indicated earlier this week that he was leaning toward filing a court case immediately but changed course after meeting with lawyers for the House.
Neal originally demanded access to Trump’s tax returns in early April. He maintains that the committee is looking into the effectiveness of IRS mandatory audits of tax returns of all sitting presidents, a way to justify his claim that the panel has a potential legislative purpose. Democrats are confident in their legal justification and say Trump is stalling in an attempt to punt the issue past the 2020 election.
In rejecting Neal’s request earlier this week, Mnuchin said he relied on the advice of the Justice Department. He concluded that the Treasury Department is “not authorized to disclose the requested returns and return information.” Mnuchin has also said that Neal’s request would potentially weaponize private tax returns for political purposes.
“Your request is merely a means to access and make public the tax returns of a single individual for purely political purposes,” said ranking Ways and Means panel Republican Kevin Brady, R-Texas.
Richard Neal has released his letter to Mnuchin and Rettig here.
He states that the IRS has an “unambiguous legal obligation” to comply with his committee’s requests for information under the Internal Revenue Code.
“Compliance is not discretionary under any circumstance, even if the taxpayer is under audit,” he wrote. “The Committee never has been denied a request made under [the law].”
Ways and Means committee subpoenas Trump tax returns
Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco picking up the blog for the rest of Friday.
Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, has just issued subpoenas for six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, according to the Associated Press.
The subpoena gives Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and IRS commissioner Charles Rettig until next Friday to comply. Earlier this week, Mnuchin told the committee that he would not comply with the request.
Updated
Summary
- Robert Mueller won’t be testifying in front of the House judiciary committee next week, but “he will come at some point,” committee chairman Jerrold Nadler reporters on Friday.
- The House passed a $17bn bill that will get assistance to disaster-struck communities, particularly in Puerto Rico. Donald Trump said the vote in favor was “great,” despite encouraging Republicans to not vote for it less than 24 hours earlier.
- Trump’s latest tariff hike on Chinese good went into effect, escalating the trade war with Beijing. Experts say the increase will hurt American consumers more than Chinese suppliers.
- HUD acknowledged the Trump administration could displace more than 55,000 children if plans to evict undocumented immigrants from public housing is successful.
- Actors and filmmakers are boycotting a major hub for television and film production in the US, Georgia, because of a strict abortion law passed there this week.
Donald Trump has insisted that there is “no rush” to secure a deal with China despite growing business and Wall Street fears that the ratcheting up of US tariffs risks a full-blown trade war between the world’s two economic superpowers, writes the Guardian’s trade war team:
The increased tariffs apply only to goods leaving China after Friday’s deadline and will go into effect only once shipments reach the US, which could take two or three weeks, leaving room still for negotiations.
However, investors now face the prospect of a damaging trade war which many fear could destabilise the already slowing global economy and escalate tensions between the two superpowers over flash points such as the South China Sea and industrial espionage. Higher tariffs act like a tax, raising prices and cutting the spending power of consumers.
Trump has also said he is preparing the “paperwork” for tariffs of 25% on an additional $325bn worth of Chinese imports, which would mean almost all Chinese goods exported to the US would be levied. Chinese exports to the US accounted for about $540bn last year.
The US action followed several days in which Trump had lambasted China for backtracking on a deal negotiated over the past five months by making extensive changes to a draft 150-page agreement. Analysts say Beijing may have believed the US was in a weaker bargaining position, based on Trump’s calls to cut interest rates.
In an interview with Vox, sportswriter Rick Reilly laid out the most outrageous cheating story he came across when reporting for his book, Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, on the president’s relationship with golf.
Golf.com first reported how Trump “won” a 2018 club championship even though he was out of town because he demanded Ted Virtue, an investment firm CEO and the actual winner of the championship, play him for the title. According to Reilly, here’s how it all went down:
[Virtue] was playing with his kid, who I think is 10 or 11 years old. He [Trump] sees Ted on the 9th hole and decides to drive his cart over there. He tells Ted: Congrats on winning the club championship, but you didn’t really win it because I was out of town.
Ted tries to laugh it off, but Trump is dead serious. Trump says, “We’re going to play these last six holes for the championship.” And Ted’s like, “I’m playing with my son, but thanks anyway.” But Trump says, “No, your son can play too.” So they end up playing.
They get to a hole with a big pond on it. Both Ted and his son hit the ball on the green, and Trump hits his in the water. By the time they get to the hole, Trump is lining up the kid’s ball. Only now it’s his ball and the caddie has switched it. The kid’s like, “Daddy, that’s my ball.”
But Trump’s caddie goes, “No, this is the president’s ball; your ball went in the water.” Ted and his son look at each other confused, not sure if this is really happening. And Trump’s caddie says, “This is the president’s ball. I don’t know what to tell you.” Trump makes that putt, wins one up, and declares himself the club champion.
Advocacy groups are doubling-down on their criticism of a Trump adminstration plan to purge undocumented immigrants from public housing, following a report by the department for Housing and Urban Development (Hud) that found the policy would displace 55,000 children who are US citizens or legal residents.
Claudia Calhoon, senior director of immigrant integration policy at the New York Immigration Coalition, said the move was “another aggressive and cruel attempt to attack immigrant families.”
Without stable housing, immigrant New Yorkers will face yet another barrier to providing for their families and contributing to their communities. By stripping this basic need from families, it’s clear this administration is intent on using every avenue to stigmatize and destabilize immigrant communities.
Calhoon said the group plans to mobilize around the plan and encourage people to submit public comments in the next two months.
Pili Tobar, deputy director of America’s Voice, said Trump, advisor Stephen Miller and other officials are “hellbent on resurrecting last summer’s inhumane and disastrous family separation in whatever way they can.”
This new HUD proposal would force undocumented parents to ‘choose’ between family separation in order to keep a roof over their children’s heads or eviction and, possibly, homelessness to stay together as a family. And in many cases, there wouldn’t even be a ‘choice,’ if the only parent available to sign a lease is undocumented.
Diane Yentel, president and chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, told the Washington Post:
Tens of thousands of deeply poor kids, mostly U.S. citizens, could be evicted and made homeless because of this rule, and – by HUD’s own admission – there would be no benefit to families on the waiting list.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman to preside over the US House of Representatives today, gaveling from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s chair as part of a routine rotation for members of the House majority.
Today I presided over the House floor for the first time.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 10, 2019
Every day here is a sacred privilege + responsibility entrusted to me by my community. I never forget that, and moments like these drive it home.
Thank you to the people of NY14 + beyond. This House belongs to all of us. https://t.co/EPW5vP3lrP
In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian, Burt Bacharach explains how his new music is spurred by “the anguish of living in a Trump Land.”
Bacharach said:
He’s very dangerous. Every subpoena sent to the White House he ignores. He’s guilty of so much obstruction of justice. The good guys – the Democrats – have to stand united. It’s almost like Trump is making it so we have no choice but to start impeachment. We don’t want to. [Speaker of the House of Representatives] Nancy Pelosi – thank God for her. She’s keeping us together. We have to pick the right person. Keep your fingers crossed.
Here’s Bacharach performing at the White House in 2014:
Actors and filmmakers are boycotting a major hub for television and film production in the US, Georgia, because of a strict abortion law passed there this week.
Those signed onto the boycott include Nina Jacobson, producer of Crazy Rich Asians and the Hunger Games; David Simon, the creator of the Wire; and Mark Duplass, who has a multi film deal with Netflix.
On Tuesday, Georgia governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, banned abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected – which can be as early as six weeks, before many women even realize they are pregnant.
Other film production companies to boycott the state include Killer Films, which is behind films including Vox Lux, Carol and First Reformed.
Ditto https://t.co/ArJ1EYxSco
— nina jacobson (@ninajacobson) May 10, 2019
Killer Films will no longer consider Georgia as a viable shooting location until this ridiculous law is overturned.
— Christine Vachon (@kvpi) May 9, 2019
Not only would the Trump administration’s plan to push undocumented immigrants out of public housing displace 55,000 children, it would also cost the agency more money than its currently spending, according to the agency’s own analysis.
At the moment, many of these families are “mixed-status,” meaning people have different immigration statuses. For instance, a mother and father could be undocumented, with a US citizen child. As a citizen, the child qualifies for a housing subsidy that the parents do not.
So, if all the residents of public housing were citizens, the government would have to allocate more money for subsidies per family, costing an additional $193mn to $227mn, according to the agency report seen by the Washington Post.
Pentagon shifting $1.5bn to border wall
Acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, confirmed the Defense department is shifting $1.5bn to pay for construction of 80 miles of wall at the US-Mexico border.
This brings the total funds allocated from the Defense department to the border to $2.5bn.
“The funds were drawn from a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements, and therefore will have minimal impact on force readiness,” Shanahan said.
Some in Congress, including Republicans, have been critical of additional spending on the border, especially when it involves moving money from planned military spending.
The bulk of the money comes from the Afghan Security Forces Fund, which supports the Afghan army and security services, according to the AP. Money is also being from a project that destroys lethal chemical agents and chemical munitions as well as Air Force programs, according to the AP, citing anonymous officials.
Updated
The Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith, writes about how when it comes to inviting athletes to the White House, Trump has established two clear trends. The first, inspiring boycotts by athletes of color. The second, lavishing praise on sports in a way he does not for arts and culture - unlike his predecessors:
The White House sporting tradition began in earnest in 1924, when Calvin Coolidge hosted the Washington Senators baseball team. It was solidified by Ronald Reagan, who regularly hosted champions in the 1980s. There was a hiccup when the basketball player Larry Bird ducked the Boston Celtics’ White House visit in 1984, saying: “If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me.”
But Mark Weinberg, a former Reagan aide, recalled on Thursday: “The events were not about politics; they were just meant to celebrate achievement and the differences didn’t matter. The president did not view people through a prism of whether they agreed with him; politics stopped at the locker room door.”
Three Democrats of the House Judiciary Committee, including chairman Jerrold Nadler, introduced the No President is Above the Law Act, which would pause the statute of limitation — or the maximum amount of time a person can be prosecuted after committing a crime — for any federal offenses while a person is a sitting president.
The act is born out of “concerns with the Justice Department interpretation that a sitting president cannot be indicted,” Nadler said in a statement. He argues that it’s unjust if a president cannot be indicted for a federal crime once he’s out of office because his statute of limitation, which includes time as president, is up.
The act is an obvious poke at Trump, who is being pursued by courts like the southern district of New York, who is investigating Trump’s inauguration committee for potential violation of campaign finance laws.
Okay.
Great Republican vote today on Disaster Relief Bill. We will now work out a bipartisan solution that gets relief for our great States and Farmers. Thank you to all. Get me a Bill that I can quickly sign!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
House Republicans should not vote for the BAD DEMOCRAT Disaster Supplemental Bill which hurts our States, Farmers & Border Security. Up for vote tomorrow. We want to do much better than this. All sides keep working and send a good BILL for immediate signing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2019
Updated
Mueller will testify at 'some point'
Robert Mueller won’t be testifying in front of the House judiciary committee next week, but “he will come at some point,” committee chairman Jerrold Nadler told reporters on Friday.
The committee is still negotiating with the justice department for his appearance, the tentative date of which was originally set for 15 May.
The announcement is the latest development in House Democrats’ fight to hear from Mueller himself on the special counsel’s report. On Wednesday, House Democrats voted to hold US attorney general William Barr in contempt of Congress, citing his failure to give Congress the full, unredacted report.
Democrats are hoping Mueller can shed light on the special counsel’s investigation into instances Trump may have obstructed justice. In his report, Mueller did not role on whether Trump committed crimes of obstruction.
Updated
The House passed a $17bn bill that will get assistance to disaster-struck communities, particularly in Puerto Rico.
Congressional leaders have been negotiating over a logjam, which has received criticism from both sides of the aisle, in funding to areas that have been hit by natural disasters over the years.
In line with previous hostilities toward aid for Puerto Rico, Trump sent a warning to House Republicans late Thursday night, telling them to vote down the bill. But in a rare break from the president, 30 Republicans voted in support of the bill, and the measure passed 257-150.
House Republicans should not vote for the BAD DEMOCRAT Disaster Supplemental Bill which hurts our States, Farmers & Border Security. Up for vote tomorrow. We want to do much better than this. All sides keep working and send a good BILL for immediate signing!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2019
The bill now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate.
Elizabeth Warren made a stop on the trail this morning to talk about the opioid crisis.
The presidential hopeful visited Kermit, West Virginia, a small town that is a microcosm of the opioid crisis. Over the course of 10 months, a single pharmacy in Kermit was shipped over 3mn prescriptions. The town has since filed a lawsuit against four pharma companies.
Warren started off her talk asking the crowd to show if they know someone who has experienced addiction. Dozens of hands went up:
This is stunning. @ewarren leads off her talk on the opioid crisis here in Kermit, WV asking who knows someone who’s “been caught in the grips of addiction.” Dozens instantly raise their hands. pic.twitter.com/4y4ENA36vY
— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) May 10, 2019
On Twitter, Warren wrote that the crisis “has been driven by greed, pure and simple” and emphasized that her plan would make big pharma shore up money to cover addiction relief and healthcare.
Summary
A quick recap of what’s been happening this Friday morning:
- Trump’s latest tariff hike on Chinese good went into effect, escalating the trade war with Beijing. Experts say the increase will hurt American consumers more than Chinese suppliers.
- Maria Butina denied accusations that she tried to infiltrate US conservative groups to promote Russian interests. She told NPR in an exclusive interview that she was trying to be a “peace-builder” between the US and Russia.
- HUD acknowledged the Trump administration could displace more than 55,000 children if plans to evict undocumented immigrants from public housing is successful.
- Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, revealed Trump plans to divert another $1.5 billion from the defense department to build a border wall.
- US State Department announced that secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, will travel to Russia on Sunday for high-level talks.
Trade talks between the US and China will continue this morning, and what better way to mend diplomatic tussles than with some good ol’ donuts.
And before the officials arrived for the resumption of US/China trade talks, the doughnuts were brought in. Tariff-free. pic.twitter.com/76gvDCyjOz
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) May 10, 2019
Let’s hope this doesn’t end with a mid-morning sugar crash among the negotiators.
2020 hopeful Bernie Sanders said this morning he supports a Facebook co-founder’s call to break up the social media giant.
“We are living in an era of monopolies that dominate every aspect of our lives - including our government,” Sanders tweeted. “It’s time to take that power back.”
I applaud Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes for sounding the alarm on the dangers of unchecked corporate power. We are living in an era of monopolies that dominate every aspect of our lives—including our government. It’s time to take that power back. https://t.co/L3eEofZtnh
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) May 10, 2019
Facebook rejected the call on Thursday evening:
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and communication, said Zuckerberg supported better regulation of the internet and was meeting with government leaders this week to further this work.
“Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability,” he said. “But you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a successful American company. Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet.”
Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, has revealed the Trump adminstration’s plans to divert $1.5bn more from the military budget to the border wall.
Durbin is the ranking member of the Congressional committee that oversees Defense spending.
Roll Call reports that Durbin will have more information about this later today.
Today, the Defense Department will divert another $1.5 billion from our military to the "big & beautiful" border wall. The Pentagon has now reprogrammed 12 times more money to the wall than for repairs at Tyndall AFB, destroyed by Hurricane Michael. We should put troops first!
— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) May 10, 2019
The latest escalation in the trade war between China and the United States came Friday morning when Trump increased tariffs on $200bn worth of Chinese goods by 25% — up from 10%.
Tariffs weren’t the only thing Trump inflated today. The president flaunted the hike on Twitter this morning, but much of his thread stretches the truth.
Take this one on the benefits the United States will receive from the tariffs:
Talks with China continue in a very congenial manner - there is absolutely no need to rush - as Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products. These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
But tariffs on imported products are usually not paid directly to the US government. Typically, they get tacked onto the price of the product. This means that American consumers, rather than Chinese exporters, will bear the brunt of the new tariff through higher prices.
Experts and industry officials have pointed out that the tariffs will decrease US consumers purchasing power on a wide range of consumer products such as fruits, pet supplies, clothing and even toilet paper.
Trump also inflated the “Crazy Trade” deficit with China:
We have lost 500 Billion Dollars a year, for many years, on Crazy Trade with China. NO MORE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 10, 2019
As Washington Post correspondent Philip Bump pointed out this morning, the United States’ trade deficit — or the gap between goods US companies sell to China and Chinese goods sell to the US — with China has never been $500bn. In 2018, the deficit was $419bn.
Updated
With one disaster aid bill stalled in Congress, Senate Republicans are proposing a different bill to help states on the mainland and Puerto Rico.
Donald Trump has complained about efforts to provide more aid money for Puerto Rico, despite the island having only received $11.2bn of $40.8nm allocated for the recovery effort.
One long-term estimate has put the total cost at $91bn, a number the president has incorrectly used as the figure that has been spent there - an extraordinary misstatement, especially considering how that figure is in no way concrete.
“It is a more realistic offer than last time, but that’s not saying much,” one Democratic aide said.
Leaders of both parties are making a last-gasp push to distribute the money before Memorial Day as desperation grows in a half-dozen states from Iowa to California. But they keep running into hurdles, including from the president himself.
Trump was in Florida on Wednesday night promising to swiftly deliver disaster aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael last October. But he continues to dig in against new funding for Puerto Rico, incorrectly claiming at an impromptu news conference on Thursday that the territory had already secured $91 billion in aid for a massive hurricane with a death toll of 3,000 people.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) has acknowledged the Trump administration could displace more than 55,000 children if it carries out a plan to evict undocumented immigrants from public housing.
Those children are legal US residents or citizens, according to a Hud analysis of the plan.
Current rules bar undocumented immigrants from receiving federal housing subsidies but allow families of mixed-immigration status as long as one person — a child born in the United States or a citizen spouse — is eligible. The subsidies are prorated to cover only eligible residents.
The new rule, pushed by White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, would require every household member be of “eligible immigration status.”
Undocumented immigrants may no longer sign the leases of subsidized housing, even if their children are entitled to prorated benefits.
The US State department announced this morning that secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, will travel to Russia on Sunday for the highest-level formal talks with Russia in the past 10 months.
Pompeo will meet with president, Vladimir Putin, and foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.
The secretary is scheduled to arrive in Moscow on 13 May before traveling to Sochi, Russia on 14 May.
The state department said:
On May 13, he will arrive in Russia to meet with his team at US Embassy Moscow before meeting with U.S. business leaders and US exchange alumni. Secretary Pompeo will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Secretary Pompeo will travel to Sochi, Russia on May 14 to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin to discuss the full range of bilateral and multilateral challenges.
2020 Democratic hopeful Kamala Harris, a California senator, has written a Mother’s Day essay for Elle magazine about what it’s like to be a stepmom - or as she’s known in her household: “momala.”
Flash forward two years—and it truly felt like a flash—I was being sworn into the United States Senate. Cole had already graduated and was off at college, but Ella was just entering her senior year of high school in Los Angeles. This new job meant that I would be splitting time between California and Washington, D.C., and the hardest part was going to be being away from my Ella. I knew I was inevitably going to miss more than a few swim meets.
And as you might guess, it ended up being more than swim meets.
On June 8, 2017, FBI Director James Comey was asked to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee about his firing and the Russia investigation. It was the same day as Ella’s high school graduation, a scheduling conflict that I was acutely aware of, but that the Senate Intelligence Committee—and for that matter the rest of the country—was not.
NPR has also obtained documents about Maria Butina’s work with Alexander Torshin, then a Russian central banker, when they conducted outreach to the US Treasury department and the Federal Reserve in 2015.
Torshin has been sanctioned by the Treasury department and cannot return to the US.
NPR reports:
Treasury aide Erik Woodhouse consulted with a number of officials inside its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence and the White House’s National Security Council, but no red flags were raised about the meeting, which ultimately took place on April 7, 2015.
A few years later, after Butina was arrested, a Treasury Department staffer wrote about what took place.
According to that newly revealed account, the discussion wasn’t so much about banking as about denying Russia’s involvement in the shoot-down of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner and amplifying Torshin’s support for guns.
“The meeting was supposed to be about economics, but the guy just went on and on about how the Russians didn’t shoot down MH17 for an hour or so,” the Treasury Department official wrote, referring to the Malaysia Airlines flight.
“The guy was also a gun fanatic and said he was a ‘life member of the NRA.’ In fact I think he was even in town for personal business tied to the NRA.”
James Comey, the former director of the FBI, became the latest former federal prosecutor or senior judicial figure to say the Mueller report contains sufficient evidence that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice and would have been charged, if he was not president.
Comey said Thursday night he agreed with the conclusion outlined in a joint letter that has now been signed by 803 individuals who have said that the details in Robert Mueller’s report into Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential race would meet the threshold for multiple felony charges for obstruction.
“There are a whole lot of facts in Bob Mueller’s report that raise serious questions about whether there’s a chargeable case for obstruction and witness tampering against this president,” Comey said in a CNN town hall on Thursday.
Russian Maria Butina spoke exclusively to NPR from prison, where she is serving a sentence for conspiring to serve as a foreign agent in the US by infiltrating conservative groups such as the National Rifle Association
Butina was sentenced to 18 months in prison last month and said Thursday that she was not part of a vast Russian government effort to influence politics in the United States.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate to say that this was all one grand giant plan and I’m a part of some grand giant plan,” she said.
There is no proof of that. And I have no knowledge that there is a certain plan.
Butina, who has been in custody since her arrest last summer, said the only things she knew about election interference were what she has read in the news.
“I never hide my love to my motherland neither to this country ... I love both countries, and I was building peace.”
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s US politics live blog,
Maria Butina, the Russian gun-rights activist who tried to infiltrate US conservative groups to promote Russian political interests around the 2016 election, has denied the accusations against her in an interview from prison.
Butina told NPR she was not trying to influence the 2016 election, but to be a “peace-builder” between the US and Russia.
After months of trade negotiations, the Trump administration raised tariffs on Chinese goods overnight. While an earlier round of tariffs impacted wholesale businesses, this round is expected to rise the cost of goods for Americans.
Last night, the White House announced Donald Trump will nominate Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, to lead the Defense department.
And with 543 days to go until the 2020 presidential election, Democrats will continue to seek the spotlight in a crowded field.
We’ll have updates and analysis on all this and more throughout the day.
