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The Guardian - US
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Gabrielle Canon in Oakland (now) and Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington (earlier), Joanna Walters in New York (earlier) and Ben Jacobs in Washington (earlier)

Bernie Sanders to release 10 years of tax returns – as it happened

Tuesday night summary

That’s it for me tonight, folks! Thanks for reading along. Here’s what’s happened Tuesday evening:

  • Republicans are rejecting Trump’s choices for the Federal Reserve, amid concerns that the president could be trying to make the strictly non-partisan financial institution more political. Both his picks come with problems – Stephen Moore faces tax issues while Herman Cain is faces questions from Republicans.
  • House Democrats are determined to get all the details contained in the Mueller report. The attorney general, William Barr, told Congress today that he’d hand over a redacted version within a week, as committee chairs vowed to obtain the report in full.
  • Claire Grady, who was legally in succession to temporarily take over the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of Kirstjen Nielsen’s departure, has resigned, paving the way for Trump’s preferred appointee, the Customs and Border Protection director, Kevin McAleenan.

Updated

The president met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, and reportedly discussed human rights.

Yesterday, US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, issued travel bans against those believed to be connected to the violent murder of the dissident Saudi journalist, but included no rebuke against the crown prince who is believed to have ordered the attack.

The Trump Administration has faced harsh criticism for not condemning Saudi Arabia and cracking down on the country more strongly, for atrocities committed in Yemen and human rights abuses within its borders.

Acting Deputy Secretary for DHS has resigned, paving the way for Trump pick

Acting Deputy Secretary, Claire Grady — who would have filled the position left vacant by Kirstjen Nielsen — has resigned, clearing the way for Trump’s to pick, Kevin McAleenan to serve.

Shortly after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen shared she had resigned, Trump announced on Twitter he would temporarily fill the position with Customs and Border Patrol Director, McAleenan, ignoring the law of succession that would put Grady in charge.

Earlier today, Politico reported that that might mean Grady would soon be on the chopping block:

The legal hitch could lead Trump to fire Grady, since she appears to be an obstacle to McAleenan being able to assume the top role at the agency”.

Updated

A large number of high ranking positionsTrump’s Administration are currently governed by empty chairs. With the recent departure of Kirstjen Nielsen, people are starting to share their concern across Twitter.

“This is an Emergency,” actress Debra Messing tweeted today. “We need people to step forward and save our country”.

But it doesn’t seem to be bothering the President, who, the New York Times pointed out today, said he prefers “acting” titles.

‘I like acting. It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that?’ Mr. Trump told reporters in January before departing to Camp David. ‘I like acting. So we have a few that are acting. We have a great, great cabinet’.

These temporarily-filled positions are one way Trump can appoint whoever he wants without worry that they won’t be confirmed by the Senate.

Updated

During a testimony today, Attorney General William Barr told the Appropriations committee that he would not hand over the full Mueller report, but promised he would release a redacted version within the week. Disappointed Democrats, however, are determined to get more.

Jerry Nadler, who chairs the house Judiciary Committee said today he would subpoena the Justice Department for the full report, and House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff said he’s already made a formal request, according to CNN:

The multi-pronged approach is the clearest sign yet that Barr’s release of a redacted report will not stop the brewing showdown between House Democrats and the Trump administration over the 22-month special counsel investigation. The fight is almost assuredly going to wind up in court as Democrats seek to pry material from the Mueller investigation out of the Justice Department beyond what Barr says he will provide.

Barr laid down his marker at a Tuesday budget hearing, his first appearance before Congress since Mueller’s investigation wrapped last month. Barr said he was working to make as much information public as possible and that he would work with Nadler if he sought additional material.”

Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) — the middlemen between health insurers and pharmacies — were brought before the Senate Finance Committee today, as Congress continues seeking solutions for soaring drug prices.

In the third hearing this year, executives from CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx, AND Cigna testified, representing 76% of the market with over a billion prescriptions a year processed collectively, according to the AP.

The executives emphasized that their role helps keep drug prices down, a point lawmakers took issue with.

“Whether pharmacy benefit managers bring any real value to taxpayers is a mystery,” Senator Ron Wyden said during the hearing, accusing the companies of “gouging” their customers and working in “greater secrecy than HBO is guarding the ending of ‘Game of Thrones.”

Senator Debbie Stabenow meanwhile, called them “pretty bad negotiators”.

The executives allege that their work adds value and they hope to do more to decrease prices.

Per AP:

PBMs say they only offer rebates on around 8% of the prescriptions they process, and they pass along most of those discounts to payers like insurers or large employers. They said they want to offer more of those rebates directly to patients when they buy the drugs, an upfront approach to the discounts favored by President Donald Trump’s administration.

PBM executives also said they can’t make the details of their negotiations with drugmakers public because that would hurt their leverage for getting future discounts”.

Gabrielle Canon here, taking over for Sabrina Siddiqui.

Things are not looking good for Trump’s Federal Reserve pick, Herman Cain. The 2012 GOP presidential candidate and former pizza executive has yet to be officially nominated, but politicians from his own party are already pushing back.

“There are concerns that are being voiced to the administrations about qualifications,” Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota told Politico. “They’re probably going to hear from a number of our members about concerns that they have. Whether or not that gets them to make a course change or not, I don’t know.”

Trump’s other potential nominee, Stephen Moore, is also facing backlash after The Guardian exposed issues with his taxes and finances.

While Republicans have been quick to support Trump’s picks for other positions, Fed nominees are expected not to be partisan, and there are concerns that the president is trying to make the financial body more political.

Per Politico:

‘Do you seriously want a guy on the Fed that has a whole organization, the only purpose of it is to encourage Republicans to do whatever the president says he’d like you to do?’ said one Republican senator distressed about the nomination. The senator said confirming Cain would be ‘hard’ but his nomination alone ‘might confirm Stephen Moore’.

Cain’s group recently said Republicans that opposed the president’s emergency declaration were ‘traitors’ in a fundraising request”.

Ok folks, I’m handing over the blog to the great Gabrielle Canon on the West Coast. She’ll take you through the rest of the day. Until next time...!

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the Trump administration’s ‘chaos’ on immigration is a problem of the president’s own making.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Schumer said Trump “cannot keep changing personnel, changing strategy, tweeting your way through a problem as serious” as immigration.

“Chaos stems from one source and one source only,” the Democratic leader said.

“I hope that the president or some of the people around him will realize that his administration is far from a fine-tuned machine. It’s a slow-motion disaster that the American people see in action every day.”

House Dems cancel vote on budget

House Democratic leaders have canceled a planned vote on a budget proposal after amid internal opposition from moderates and progressives alike.

According to Politico, progressives believe the budget measure provides a disproportionate amount of funding to the Pentagon, as opposed to domestic programs; moderates, meanwhile, think the legislation is too costly.

The debate over the bill, which will set budget caps for the next year, is a test of the Democratic Party’s priorities as they mark 100 days in control he House majority.

The party is poised to huddle behind closed doors this week at an annual retreat just outside of Washington.

Looks like they’ve got their work cut out for them!

Bernie Sanders to release 10 years of tax returns

Faced with mounting pressure, Senator Bernie Sanders has pledged to release ten years of tax returns by Monday.

Sanders, the perceived frontrunner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, told the New York Times he would release the returns by Tax Day on 15 April.

“We wanted to release 10 years of tax returns. April 15, 2019, will be the 10th year, so I think you will see them,” Sanders said in an interview published Tuesday afternoon.

Sanders has been pressed in recent weeks on when he will release his tax returns, particularly as other Democratic candidates make their own financial records public. Reports have indicated that Sanders’ campaign has been less than forthcoming about the process, even as the senator insisted they will not contain any particularly noteworthy information.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks in Las Vegas, Nevada (AP Photo/John Locher)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks at a convention of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Monday, April 8, 2019, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) Photograph: John Locher/AP

The lack of clarity led to some comparisons between Sanders and Donald Trump, who in 2016 refused to release his tax returns – thus breaking a 40-year precedent of major-party candidates.

Sanders chafed at the notion that there were any parallels between him and the president.

“Not being a billionaire, not having investments in Saudi Arabia, wherever he has investments, all over the world, mine will be a little bit more boring,” he said.

“On the day in the very immediate future, certainly before April 15, we release ours, I hope that Donald Trump will do exactly the same,” Sanders added.

The senator also downplayed his own status as a millionaire and whether he was now part of the club he has railed against throughout his political career.

“I wrote a best-selling book,” Sanders said. “If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”

Updated

Speaking of hearings, sounds like Democrats aren’t exactly rolling out the red carpet for secretary of state Mike Pompeo...

Feisty!

“Sen. Leahy” refers to Patrick Leahy, the OG senator from Vermont (sorry Bernie). He’s also a massive Batman fan and has appeared in several of the caped crusader films, because sure, why not? (More on hat bit here...)

Lawmakers split amid hearing on hate crimes and white supremacists

My colleague Lois Beckett reports on a hearing in the House of Representatives on hate crimes and white nationalism:

A House Judiciary committee hearing today on hate crimes and the threat of white nationalism highlighted the Republican Party’s unwillingness to treat white supremacist terror as a serious threat.

The YouTube live stream of the hearing itself provided a dramatic example of how social media companies are struggling with how to deal with racism and hate on their platforms.

In the middle of the hearing, YouTube announced that it was disabling comments on its live stream, because of the proliferation of racist and anti-semitic remarks it had prompted.

But when one Democratic congressman cited this real-time incident as an example of the challenge companies are facing, a Republican congressman asked if the comments might just be “another hate hoax.”

The hearing came weeks after a white supremacist terror attack on two mosques in New Zealand, which left 50 people dead. The shooter, who appeared to be deeply familiar with the inside jokes and preoccupations of online white supremacist communities, live-streamed his murder of Muslim worshippers. Footage of the shooting spread swiftly on Facebook and YouTube.

While representatives from Facebook and Google had been called to answer Congressional questions about the ways that racist terrorists have used social media platforms for mobilization and recruitment, much of the hearing was derailed by partisan attacks from Republican lawmakers and their witnesses, including Twitter-famous conservative provocateur Candace Owens, who had been named in the manifesto of the New Zealand mosque shooter as one of his inspirations.

The reference to Owens, who is black, in an explicitly white nationalist manifesto was likely sarcastic, and an attempt to manipulate and confuse news coverage of the shooting. But Owens’ response to the use of her name in the manifesto-- she tweeted “LOL”--was criticized as inappropriate.

Owens, who previously appeared on the conspiracy website InfoWars, used her Congressional testimony today to cast doubt on how much white nationalism was a real threat, to accuse Democrats of fearmongering over white supremacist terror and racism as a way to win votes in 2020, and to promote her personal campaign of encouraging black Americans to leave the Democratic party, which she calls “Blexit.”

Owens testified alongside experts who track the proliferation of hate groups across the United States, and alongside Dr Mohammad Abu-Salha, a Muslim American whose two daughters and son-in-law were shot to death by a white man in North Carolina in 2015.

The man, a neighbor, had previously made it clear to his daughters, who wore head scarves, that they were unwelcome in the neighborhood, he said.

Some observers said the repeated questions to Dr. Abu-Salha about whether Islam teaches hate were a troubling, particularly in a hearing that followed a terror attack in which innocent Muslim worshippers were the the victims.

An investigative reporter who has covered white nationalism in America for years called the hearing “dispiriting,” and said it highlighted “how incapable” the government is when it comes to “confronting the crisis of fascist violence.”

Updated

Hello everyone! Sabrina Siddiqui here, taking over for the next few hours ... which in Trump’s Washington, already feels like days.

I would say let’s hope we’re soon heading into a quiet evening. But who am I kidding?

Stay tuned!

Hold on to your hats, folks, the afternoon is young. Handing over from a brief blogging stint out of New York to my colleague in Washington DC, Sabrina Siddiqui.

Updated

Summary

  • Attorney general William Barr was quizzed at a hearing on Capitol Hill and said he expects to issue the Mueller report to Congress – with color-coded redactions – within a week.
  • Senior Republicans are urging Donald Trump not to continue his purge of the top echelons of the Department of Homeland Security.
  • The president is denying that he will reinstate a family separations policy at the border, while others debunk his claims that it was all Obama’s doing anyway.
  • Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin says US bracing for Britain to crash out of the European Union with no deal, aka a “hard Brexit”.
  • A congressional hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism was trolled when a live stream of the proceedings was bombarded with racist and antisemitic comments from internet users.

Updated

John Kerry gives a huge shout out to AOC on climate change

To wit, in a busy day of hearings, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry earlier gave testimony on Capitol Hill and praised representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the much buzzed-about social media wizard, scourge of the right and freshman Democrat of New York.

“Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has...offered more leadership in one day or in one week than #PresidentTrump has in his lifetime on this,” Kerry said on climate change.

Some video below.

It’s been a busy day for congressional hearings.

Mnuchin mentioned Brexit earlier today at a hearing of the US House Committee on Financial Services.

The United States is monitoring the developments around United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and has been working with regulators to prepare for any market or trade disruptions, he said.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says US is preparing for a ‘hard Brexit’

Mnuchin has told politicians on Capitol Hill today that America is making preparations for Britain to crash out of the European Union without a deal, AKA a hard Brexit, calling it “a very realistic outcome”.

Hearing on Capitol Hill on hate crime and white nationalism becomes a bit too real.

A congressional hearing on online hate turned into a vivid demonstration of the problem earlier today when a YouTube live stream of the proceedings was bombarded with racist and antisemitic comments from internet users, the AP writes.

YouTube disabled the live chat section of the streaming video about 30 minutes into the hearing because of what it called “hateful comments.”

The incident came as executives from Google and Facebook appeared before the House judiciary committee to answer questions about the companies’ role in the spread of hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the US.

They were joined by leaders of such human rights organizations as the Anti-Defamation League and the Equal Justice Society, along with conservative commentator Candace Owens.

Neil Potts, Facebook director of public policy, and Alexandria Walden, counsel for free expression and human rights at Google, defended policies at the two companies that prohibit material that incites violence or hate. Google owns YouTube.

“There is no place for terrorism or hate on Facebook,” Potts testified. “We remove any content that incites violence.”

The hearing broke down into partisan disagreement among the lawmakers and among some of the witnesses, with Republican members of Congress denouncing as hate speech Democrat Ilhan Omar’s criticism of American supporters of Israel.

As the bickering went on, committee chairman Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York was handed a news report that included the hateful comments about the hearing on YouTube.

He read them aloud, along with the users’ screen names, as the room quieted.
“This just illustrates part of the problem we’re dealing with,” Nadler said.

The hearing was prompted by the mosque shootings last month in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 50 people dead.

The gunman live-streamed the attacks on Facebook and published a long post online that espoused white supremacist views.

But controversy over white nationalism and hate speech has dogged online platforms such as Facebook and Google’s YouTube for years.

Updated

Crisis at Department of Homeland Security

More top Republicans are expressing concern over vacancies at the DHS and cautioning Donald Trump to hold off on further shake-ups after the forced resignation of DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and talk of a purge in the upper ranks of various agencies under the department’s umbrella.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine said on Tuesday that, having participated in creating the department more than a decade ago, she knows “these are vital positions,” the Associated Press writes.

Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley made both a public and private plea to the White House not to dismiss career homeland security officials. He said he spoke to chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, but would only know if Trump heard the message “if they don’t get fired.”

As Trump considers replacements at DHS, Republican John Cornyn of Texas, said he hoped the administration would work in “collaboration, consultation” with the Senate before sending nominees for confirmation.

GOP Senator Susan Collins in the US Senate. Urged Trump on Tuesday not to purge DHS.
GOP Senator Susan Collins in the US Senate. Urged Trump on Tuesday not to purge DHS. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Updated

Here’s another family separations fact check:

Will Melania intervene if Trump returns to a policy of separating families at the border, as it appeared she did last year? And, in fact - has she already just intervened, this very day, as Trump denies trying to reboot the policy?

Rewind:

Donald Trump signed an executive order on June 20, 2018, ending family separations, after widespread uproar in the US and internationally.

Just a couple of days earlier, Melania Trump’s spokeswoman has said the first lady “hates to see children separated from their families”, in what at first appeared to be a rare public statement at odds with her husband’s policy.

Stephanie Grisham said the first lady believed “we need to be a country that follows all laws”, but also one “that governs with heart”. She added: “Mrs Trump … hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform.”

Donald and Melania Trump. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPIPHOTOGRAPH BY UPI / Barcroft Images
Donald and Melania Trump. Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPIPHOTOGRAPH BY UPI / Barcroft Images Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Images

Updated

Family separations in pictures.

Border Patrol Agents Detain Migrants Near US-Mexico BorderMCALLEN, TX - JUNE 12, 2018: A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images
Border Patrol Agents Detain Migrants Near US-Mexico Border
MCALLEN, TX - JUNE 12, 2018: A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the US-Mexico border. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

In case anyone has forgotten the chaos, the misery and outrage, we published a short series early last summer that we called The Guardian at the border, with reporters at the crisis points in Texas as families were being separated.

The parents were being cattle-driven through courts that were unable to process them fairly and their children, including babies, were being whisked away to detention in as varied settings as indoor cages, desert tent camps that grew and grew as separated children were mixed in with minors who had crossed the border unaccompanied, and foster homes of differing quality all across the country.

Poor records were kept that hampered reunions, with the risk of children being permanently separated from their parents and many more dealing with deep trauma.

This was the result of the implementation of a particular interpretation of policy and law by the Trump administration.

My colleague Oliver Laughland wrote from McAllen and Brownsville at the very eastern end of the US-Mexico border about families “going through hell”.

The United Nations denounced the policy as possibly amounting to torture.

Updated

A few moments ago, the NPR politics team tweeted: “FACT CHECK: Today, President Trump claimed the Obama administration started the policy of separating families at the southern U.S. border. That’s not true.”

For some desperately-needed context, here is just one of our analysis pieces from early last summer, at the height of the family separations scandal last time around, under the Trump administration.

The Guardian’s Amanda Holpuch and Lauren Gambino wrote some sharp analysis that explained the chaos last June.

Here’s the crucial excerpt:

Why are children being separated from their families?

In April (2018), the (then) US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, announced a “zero-tolerance” policy, stating “our goal is to prosecute every case that is brought to us”. Under the Trump administration’s new enforcement policy, every migrant who crosses the border illegally – even those seeking asylum in the US – is subject to criminal prosecution.

Since children are not allowed to be held in a federal jail, they are taken from their parents and placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Almost 2,000 children have been separated from their families at the US southern border over a six-week period during a crackdown on illegal entries, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

What happened to families before?

When an influx of families and unaccompanied children from Central America arrived at the border in 2014, Barack Obama’s administration detained families.

This was harshly criticized and a federal court in 2015 stopped the government from holding families for months without explanation. Instead, they were released while they waited for their immigration cases to be heard in court. Not everyone shows up for those court dates, leading the Trump administration to condemn what it calls a “catch and release” program.

Updated

Trump 'not restarting' child separations

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump said he would not restart child separation at the border and blamed Obama for the policy

“Just so you understand, President Obama separated the children. Those cages that were shown – I think they were very inappropriate – were by President Obama’s administration not by Trump. President Obama had child separation,” said the president said.

“Take a look. The press knows it. You know it. We all know it. I’m the one who stopped it. President Obama had child separation.”

Trump also said the policy was effective. “I’ll tell you something, once you don’t have it that’s why you have many more people coming. They are coming like it’s a picnic, like ‘let’s go to Disney Land.’ President Obama separated children. I was the one who that changed it.”

Updated

Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late John McCain, is not happy with Trump’s tweet paying tribute to American prisoners of war. Trump famously said McCain “was not a war hero” because he had been captured during the Vietnam War.

The New York Times has done an interesting study that shows those Democrats active on Twitter bear little resemblence to Democrats who actually vote.

The Times reports:

The outspoken group of Democratic-leaning voters on social media is outnumbered, roughly 2 to 1, by the more moderate, more diverse and less educated group of Democrats who typically don’t post political content online, according to data from the Hidden Tribes Project. This latter group has the numbers to decide the Democratic presidential nomination in favor of a relatively moderate establishment favorite, as it has often done in the past.

Even these results might understate the leftward lean of the most politically active, Democratic Twitter users, who often engage with political journalists and can have a powerful effect in shaping the conventional wisdom. In an informal poll of Democrats on one of our Twitter accounts on Monday, about 80 percent said they were liberal, and a similar percentage said they had a college degree. Only 20 percent said political correctness was a problem, and only 2 percent said they were black.

One potential nominee to be the next DHS Secretary is getting pushback from Republicans in his own state.

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas said of Kris Kobach, the controversial former Secretary of State in Kansas, that he was unconformable. “Don’t go there. We can’t confirm him” said Roberts.

Congress is moving towards passing legislation that would make it illegal for the IRS to create a system to allow Americans to file their taxes for free.

Pro Publica reports:

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.

“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center.

Updated

The AP also reports that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was noncommittal about the formal request from Congress to review Trump’s tax returns and said simply that he would “follow the law.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday that his department intends to “follow the law” and is reviewing a request by a top House Democrat to provide President Donald Trump’s tax returns to lawmakers.

Mnuchin also revealed that Treasury Department lawyers have talked to the White House counsel’s office about the question of releasing Trump’s returns, telling lawmakers that the consultations occurred before the request arrived last week. Mnuchin said the conversations were “purely informational” and he has not been briefed on their content.

But Mnuchin told a House panel that he personally has not had any communications with the president or his top staff about the department’s decision on whether to provide Trump’s tax returns under a nearly century-old that says the Treasury Department “shall furnish” them when requested.

“It is our intent to follow the law and that is in the process of being reviewed,” Mnuchin told a House Appropriations subcommittee with responsibility for his budget.

The AP reports Vladimir Putin commented on Barr’s release of a summary letter of the Mueller report today.

Russian President Vladimir Putin mocked U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation Tuesday, saying “a mountain gave birth to a mouse” and the probe validated the Kremlin’s continuous denials of collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign.

In his first comments since Mueller presented his investigation report last month, Putin said claims of a campaign conspiracy of Democrats reflected their failure to accept the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

“It was clear for us from the start that it would end like this,” the Russian leader said of the Trump-Russia investigation. “A mountain gave birth to a mouse.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is hoping to use a CNN town hall tonight as a breakout moment.

The AP reports:

Over four months, Kirsten Gillibrand has campaigned for the White House across eight states, pushed her rivals to release their tax returns and delivered a major speech outside a Trump-branded property in Manhattan.

What the New York senator hasn’t done: Break out of a crowded early field of Democratic candidates.

Gillibrand hopes her fortunes will change on Tuesday, when she participates in a town hall televised on CNN. She hopes the platform will give her a fresh opportunity to introduce herself to the voters and donors she’ll need to ensure her campaign stays on track, according to a person familiar with the campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.

The AP reports about another hearing on Capitol Hill today:

A Congressional committee hearing on white nationalism has begun with statements criticizing the spread of hate crimes in the U.S. and social media’s role in the spread.

The House Judiciary committee is hearing from Facebook and Google executives, as well as human rights leaders, about the spread of hate crimes and white nationalism in the U.S.

The hearing room and the hallway outside were thronged with young people, some wearing T-shirts with names of people said to have been victims of hate crimes.

Mohammad Abu-Salha, whose two daughters and son-in-law were shot and killed in a hate crime in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 2015, tells lawmakers that the government must stand up against bigotry and social media companies must stop “providing platforms and safe haven” for hate groups.

Barr has also said he won’t go to a judge to try to allow grand jury material to be unredacted in the Mueller Report. The attorney general has the right to make a request but indicated that he would not do so.

Barr says he doesn’t not know why members of Mueller’s team might be frustrated with him as reported in several outlets.

No I don’t. I suspect that they wanted more put out but in my view, I was not interested in putting out summaries.”

Barr declines to get into more detail about whether the Mueller report cleared Trump, as the president insists and relies on his letter.

Dan McCready, the Democrat running in the re-run election in North Carolina’s Ninth Congressional District, raised an eye-popping $1.6 million in the last quarter.

McCready, who was the Democratic nominee in the 2018 election which was thrown out due to voter fraud, will face a crowded Republican field. Mark Harris, the Republican candidate in 2018 whose campaign was mired by allegations of absentee ballot fraud, opted not to run again.

In questioning about efforts by the Trump administration to overturn the Affordable Care Act, Barr asks Democrat Matt Cartwright if he thinks the Trump Administration will prevail.

Barr notes that if the Trump administration is taking such an outrageous position in its effort to overturn the law (which most legal scholars believe) that there is nothing to worry about.

Barr does not commit to making the full Mueller report available to Congress.

Barr says that Mueller Report will be available for the public within a week and any redactions will be color coded to show why the material is redacted.

Attorney general William Barr says that he offered Robert Mueller the opportunity to review the summary letter he published on 24 March and Mueller declined.

Updated

Mike Pence’s press secretary has responded to presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s repeated criticism of Pence on the campaign trail.

Jack Young, the acting mayor of Baltimore, is meeting with Maryland’s congressional delegation this afternoon.

The meeting comes after the city council and the city’s delegation in Annapolis have all called on Mayor Catherine Pugh to resign over questions about her involvement in a children’s book corruption scandal.

After announcing his presidential candidate yesterday, Congressman Eric Swalwell announced a schedule that will include stops in all four early primary states over the next days as well as kickoff rally in his hometown of Dublin, California this weekend and a townhall on gun violence in Parkland, Florida tonight.

Donald Trump opined about his relationship with Jerry Nadler, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on Twitter this morning.

Former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville announced Saturday that he would run for the Republican Senate nomination in Alabama in 2020.

The seat is currently held by Democrat Doug Jones who defeated Roy Moore in the 2017 special election for Senate.

Tuberville coached Auburn from 1998-2008 and has recruited former White House press secretary Sean Spicer for his campaign.

Attorney General William Barr will testify before Congress this morning and is likely to face questions about the Mueller report in his first Capitol Hill testimony since his confirmation.

As the Associated Press reports, Barr isn’t coming to Congress to talk about the report (he’s there to talk about the Justice Department’s budget) but lawmakers are expected to ask about it anyway as they anxiously wait to see it in the coming days.

It’s a busy morning on Capitol Hill, with these other hearings taking place:

10am: The House judiciary committee holds a hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism, with testimony from Trump supporter Candace Owens of Turning Point USA, Facebook public policy director Neil Potts, Google public policy counsel Alexandria Walden and others.

10am: The Senate Homeland Security committee is having a hearing on ‘Unprecedented Migration at the US Southern Border’ with testimony from Customs and Border Protection official Randy Howe and others.

10am: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will testify to the House appropriations subcommittee on budget at 10am, then to annual House committee hearing on ‘The State of the International Financial System’ at 2pm.

Elsewhere, Republican congressman Devin Nunes filed a $150m defamation suit against McClatchy newspapers claiming one of its publications engaged in character assassination against him.

Jeanne Segal, a McClatchy spokeswoman, told the New York Times the suit is “wholly without merit and we stand behind the strong reporting of The Fresno Bee”.

Updated

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Savannah Chrisley Thought Whoopi Goldberg And Joy Behar Would Be ‘A Pain In (Her) A--’ While Guest Hosting The View
Reality star opens up about her experience with the co-hosts.
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
What happened with Androgenic? Unexpected on-camera moment goes viral within hours
A viral video showing Androgenic’s hat being pulled off sparked major debate online. Viewers questioned his image after seeing what appeared to be a receding hairline. The term “fraudmaxxer” trended on X, and some online rankings reportedly dropped him. While the video’s authenticity remains unverified, the incident has fueled discussion…
The Times of India
The Times of India
Nicki Minaj shares photo of ‘meaningful’ bible signed by Trump
The ‘God Bless The U.S.A.’ Bible is sold for $1,000 online
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Nutritionists Warn: The 3 Toddler Snacks Parents Waste $400+ on Yearly
Image source: Pexels.com
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