Michigan Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib told Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at
a testy hearing on Wednesday that he should seek "personal" legal
advice, effectively issuing a thinly veiled threat following his refusal
to turn President Trump's personal tax information over to Congress.
"I
would be remiss, as somebody that truly believes in the rule of law, as
somebody that has practiced law and is an attorney, I would advise you,
secretary, to get personal legal advice," Tlaib said, smirking
slightly. "The cover-up by this administration, it goes beyond just
providing the taxes.
"You can consult the Department of Justice
but you, personally, making decisions – not on the best part of the
American people, but to cover up the occupant of the White House – I
think you need to be very, very clear about what your role is and what
your responsibility is to the American people," she continued.
Tlaib
added: "So, secretary, please seek out legal advice, personally, of
what your obligations are, because the Department of Justice is not
protecting you, it's protecting the president."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed Tlaib's remarks, charging later Wednesday that the president was "engaged in a cover-up." Responding to Pelosi's claim in a fiery Rose Garden press conference, Trump said simply, "I don't do cover-ups," and called for an end to "phony investigations."
Trump
added that he had walked out of a meeting with Pelosi and Senate
Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and he asserted that pursuing
infrastructure legislation would be impossible while he was still under
aggressive investigation.
Mnuchin, for his part, testified he has no idea who wrote a confidential Internal Revenue Service legal memo that says that tax returns must be given to Congress unless the president asserts executive privilege.
Appearing
before the House Financial Services Committee, Mnuchin said he was not
aware of the existence of the memo until reporters from The Washington
Post asked about it.
Mnuchin said it was a draft document. He told
the committee he believed he was following the law by refusing to turn
over six years of Trump's tax returns, which have been requested by Ways
and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass.
Mnuchin said he expected the dispute to ultimately be decided by the courts.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the House
Committee on Financial Services on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. (AP
Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Mnuchin has refused to turn over the tax returns
despite a 1924 law that gives the chairs of the tax-writing committees
in Congress the power to request the returns of any taxpayer.
Mnuchin last Friday refused to obey a congressional subpoena to turn over the returns, saying the request "lacks a legitimate legislative purpose."
Mnuchin
told lawmakers that he had not had any discussions on the issue with
Trump, who has said repeatedly that he can't turn over his taxes because
he is under IRS audit. Trump has not asserted executive privilege to
protect the returns.
Neal has said he expects to bring a lawsuit to force the administration to comply with his subpoena.
When
a number of Democrats pressed Mnuchin on the 1924 law, Mnuchin said
that "weaponizing the IRS is a major concern of ours which affects
taxpayers of both parties."
"So, Secretary, please seek out legal advice, personally, of what your obligations are." — Michigan Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib
Mnuchin's
appearance Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee was a
continuation of a hearing that had ended with a tense standoff earlier in the month.
Back then, Mnuchin complained to Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters,
D-Calif., that the hearing was going on too long and forcing him to miss
a meeting with the head of a foreign country.
Waters and Mnuchin
were cordial with each other during Wednesday's hearing. Mnuchin stayed
until all lawmakers on the panel had the chance to ask their questions,
which covered a number of issues -- from Trump's taxes to the status of
the redesign of the $20 bill and the trade dispute with China.
The
administration increased tariffs on an initial $200 billion of Chinese
goods last week from 10 percent to 25 percent. But broadening the
tariffs to another $300 billion in goods will not go into effect until
after public hearings and a final decision by the administration. Fox News' Alex Pappas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is disputing five-term U.S. Rep. Justin Amash’s call for President Trump’s impeachment.
Joining
a growing chorus of Republicans, McCarthy said Tuesday that Rep. Amash,
R-Mich., was out of step with others in the Republican Party and with
the American people.
On “Sunday Morning Futures”
this past weekend McCarthy told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo, “What he
wants is attention in this process. He’s not a criminal attorney. He’s
never met Mueller. He’s never met Barr. And now he’s coming forward with
this?”
“It’s very disturbing,” McCarthy remarked. “This is
exactly what you would expect from Justin. He never supported the
president. And I think he’s just looking for attention.”
“Mr. Amash always has a different voting record than most of us, anyway,” McCarthy told reporters Tuesday.
In
a series of tweets Saturday, Amash said attempts to obstruct justice as
outlined in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election were “impeachable
conduct.” He also accused Attorney General William Barr of misleading
the public, prompting swift backlash from his fellow party-members.
Amash is the first Republican to call for President Trump’s impeachment.
“While
impeachment should be undertaken only in extraordinary circumstances,”
he tweeted, saying that unlike many of his colleagues he had read the
Mueller report in full, “the risk we face in an environment of extreme
partisanship is not that Congress will employ it as a remedy too often
but rather that Congress will employ it so rarely that it cannot deter
misconduct.”
Amash, who is a founding member of the conservative
House Freedom Caucus, told the Associated Press, “Their pressure doesn't
have influence on me. I really am not concerned about what Kevin
McCarthy thinks about it."
On Monday, the caucus voted to condemn Amash’s call for impeachment by a show of hands.
Representative
Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee
and a former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said that every member in
attendance was unified in their opposition toward Amash’s comments.
Jordan tweeted in a response Tuesday: “The @freedomcaucus is about
FREEDOM. This isn’t not about Amash. It’s not even about the President.
It’s about what Emmet Flood said: if the intel community can target the
President for political reasons, imagine what they can do to any one of
us.”
President Trump also fired back Sunday, tweeting: “Never a
fan of @justinamash, a total lightweight who opposes me and some of our
great Republican ideas and policies just for the sake of getting his
name out there through controversy.”
“If he actually read the
biased Mueller Report, “composed” by 18 Angry Dems who hated Trump, he
would see that it was nevertheless strong on NO COLLUSION and,
ultimately, NO OBSTRUCTION...” said Trump. “Anyway, how do you Obstruct
when there is no crime and, in fact, the crimes were committed by the
other side? Justin is a loser who sadly plays right into our opponents
(sic) hands!”
National GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel accused Amash of “parroting Democrats' talking points on Russia.”
Closer
to home, Michigan state representative Jim Lowe said that he would run
for Amash’s seat in the Republican primary next year. While Michigan GOP
Chairwoman Laura Cox attacked Amash's lack of loyalty tweeting, "Now,
in a desperate attempt to grab headlines and advance his own
presidential ambitions, Amash is peddling a narrative that has
repeatedly been proven false. Shameful."
Any moves on impeachment
would be a formal charge by the House. The Senate would then hold a
trial on whether to strip President Trump of his office. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi is holding her increasingly restless caucus to a
step-by-step process and say it would take more Republicans than just
Amash and broad public sentiment to trigger impeachment proceedings.
Russian “Bear” bombers flew near Alaska under fighter escort for the second time in two days.
The
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it had to
scramble two pair of U.S. F-22 fighter jets to intercept the Russian formation on Tuesday.
“The
Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and at no time
entered U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace,” NORAD said in a statement
posted on social media.
It’s not immediately clear how close the Russian bombers came to the United States.
The
incident occurred just a day after four nuclear-capable Russian bombers
and two Russian fighter jets were intercepted off the west coast of
Alaska by U.S. aircraft.
NORAD said Monday that its early warning
system identified the four Tupolev Tu-95 bombers and two Su-35 fighters
entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone, but noted that the
Russian aircraft never entered American or Canadian airspace.
The
statement said two of the Russian bombers initially were intercepted by
one pair of F-22 fighter jets, while another pair of F-22s intercepted
the other two bombers and the Su-35s later on. Further details of the
encounter were not provided.
Russia's Ministry of Defense said on
Twitter Tuesday that the U.S. planes accompanied the Russian aircraft
along part of their route.
Russia resumed long-range bomber patrols in 2007 and has averaged up to 7 flights a year, according to NORAD.
The
U.S. Air Forde regularly flies bombers and reconnaissance aircraft near
Russia throughout the year. In March, four B-52 bombers flew over the
Baltic Sea in Europe. Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.
The
subpoenas that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler issued
Tuesday represent a miscalculation at best, a former deputy independent
counsel for Ken Starr said Tuesday evening on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle."
“I just think that Nadler doesn’t know exactly what to do,” Solomon Wisenberg told host Laura Ingraham, referring to the subpoenaing of former White House
Communications Director Hope Hicks and former White House deputy
counsel Annie Donaldson. The latest subpoenas came after former White
House counsel Don McGhan defied his subpoena, opting not to appear at
Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing.
“I mean, I think they’ve
terribly misplayed their hand here," Wisenberg said, referring to House
Democrats. "These battles – these checks-and-balances battles – have
gone on throughout the history of the republic."
Wisenberg
explained that Congress has the right to subpoena and, in most cases,
the president can invoke executive privilege in order to prevent a
member of his administration from testifying before lawmakers.
A previous subpoena issued to Attorney General William Barr
was “improper” and "demagogic,” Wisenberg said, adding that there is a
“statute” covering the subpoena sent to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
“It says Congress can do this. Congress can go to the IRS and say, ‘Give us a tax return,’” Wisenberg said.
“You’ve
got to tell me if you’re talking to me about something, what’s the
particular thing you’re subpoenaing the person for? What are you trying
to do and what are they claiming. That doesn’t lend itself easily to
gross generalizations,” he added.
Attorney General William Barr on Tuesday said he has noticed a troubling trend of nationwide injunctions issued
by lower courts that have taken their toll on President Trump’s agenda
and threaten the political process for future administrations.
Barr,
who has been accused by Democrats of protecting Trump after the release
of the Mueller report, told the American Law Institute that there is a
new trend of judicial "willingness" to review executive action, which
injects courts into the political process.
He pointed to the
district court in California that in January 2018 issued a temporary
injunction to block the Trump administration from ending Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
DACA
has protected about 800,000 people who were brought to the U.S.
illegally as children or came with families who overstayed visas. The
Obama-era program includes hundreds of thousands of college-age
students.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup said at the time
that lawyers in favor of DACA demonstrated that the immigrants “were
likely to suffer serious, irreparable harm” without court action. The
judge also said the lawyers have a strong chance of succeeding at trial.
The
White House was swift to criticize these lower court injunctions and
called this particular decision “outrageous.” Vice President Mike Pence
recently said the administration will ask the Supreme Court to bar them.
"So
what have these nationwide injunction wrought? Dreamers remain in
limbo, the political process has been pre-empted, and we have had over a
year of bitter political division that included a government shutdown
of unprecedented length," Barr said.
Barr said nationwide
injunctions violate the separation of powers. He said that since Trump
took office, there have been 37 nationwide injunctions — more than one a
month -- against his office and he said there is likely no end in
sight. He said, by comparison, there were two instances where district
courts issued an injunction in President Obama’s first two years.
The
Associated Press wrote that this is “the latest example of Barr moving
to embrace Trump’s political talking points.” Its report pointed out the
Trump criticized these rulings at a rally earlier this month, saying,
“activist judges who issue nationwide injunctions based on their
personal beliefs, which undermine democracy and threaten the rule of
law.”
Barr has brushed aside criticism from Democrats that he is
in the president’s pocket. He told the Wall Street Journal in a recent
interview that he is defending the presidency, not Trump.
“If
you destroy the presidency and make it an errand boy for Congress,
we’re going to be a much weaker and more divided nation,” he said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fox News' host Sean Hannity
told his audience Monday that a barrage of news information will be
released in the coming days and weeks that will prove that "Trump-Russia collusion" was a "hoax from the get-go" and called for secret FBI transcripts to made public.
"At
this hour, your federal government is in possession of transcripts from
2016 featuring secretly recorded conversations between FBI informants
and one-time trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos," Hannity said in
his monologue.
"According
to those who have seen these transcripts, its contents are chock-full
of clear irrefutable, incontrovertible, exculpatory evidence proving
Trump-Russia collusion was always a hoax from the get-go. This includes
former congressman Trey Gowdy who is now calling these documents 'game
changing.'"
Gowdy, who appeared on "Sunday Morning Futures" told host Maria Bartiromo spoke about these potential transcripts.
“Some
of us have been fortunate enough to know whether or not those
transcripts exist. But they haven’t been made public, and I think one,
in particular ... has the potential to actually persuade people," Gowdy
said. “Very little in this Russia probe I’m afraid is going to persuade
people who hate Trump or love Trump. But there is some information in
these transcripts that has the potential to be a game-changer if it’s
ever made public.”
Hannity said "this material must be made available" explaining its importance.
Because
if Comey, Strzok, the highest level officials... the upper echelon, the
Intel community were withholding exculpatory evidence, let me tell you
this is bigger than we ever thought," Hannity said.
"It means the
of premeditated fraud, conspiracy against the FISA court, that means
there was a real attempt to steal a presidential election with Russian
lies paid for by Hillary and an effort when they lost, to unseat a duly
elected president of you, the people. Much worse than we ever knew."
President
Trump's former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus says the 2020
election will be the "biggest political battle in modern history."
"For
a Republican to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania at any given
presidential election will be tough. It will be a fight. This will not
be easy. It doesn't matter... This is going to be a fight," Priebus said
Monday on "The Ingraham Angle."
"The
Democrats are energized, the Republicans will be energized and this
will be the biggest political battle in modern history."
Trump focused on the economy at a fiery rally Monday at the Energy Aviation Hangar in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, just two days after 2020 Democrat presidential frontrunner Joe Biden held his own campaign rally in nearby Philadelphia.
Priebus,
the former Republican National Committee chairman, criticized the
Democratic presidential candidates platform, in particular Joe Biden, saying it will be tough to run against Trump's economic numbers.
"You
cannot win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania on a $93 trillion green
new deal, 600,000 per household, $32 trillion in a health care package.
It's not going to work. So the Trump campaign, I believe, is going to
jam down the throats of every person that is watching on television
these numbers," Priebus said.
In
a video posted on Saturday, Biden is seen fielding a question from a
member of the Youth Climate Strike, a group which organized over 100
marches worldwide by young people to protest climate change in March.
"You
know, I'm the guy that did all this stuff," Biden said. "Read
RealClearPolitics, it'll tell you how I started this whole thing back in
'87 on climate change." Fox News' Gregg Re and Anna Hopkins contributed to this report.
Attorney General William Barr said that his handling of the Mueller report and its aftermath is rooted in a desire to defend the power of the executive branch rather than personal support for President Trump.
"I
felt the rules were being changed to hurt Trump, and I thought it was
damaging for the presidency over the long haul," Barr told The Wall Street Journal
in El Salvador in an interview published Monday, where he traveled last
week to boost support for Trump's policies toward the violent street
gang MS-13.
"At every grave juncture the presidency has done what
it is supposed to do, which is to provide leadership and direction,"
Barr added. "If you destroy the presidency and make it an errand boy for
Congress, we’re going to be a much weaker and more divided nation."
Democrats
have accused Barr and Trump of trying to stonewall and obstruct
Congress' oversight duties a charge that was repeated Monday after Trump
directed former White House Counsel Don McGahn to defy a congressional
subpoena to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. That committee
voted earlier this month to hold Barr in contempt after he defied a
subpoena for an unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
report into Russian activities during the 2016 presidential campaign.
In
an interview with Fox News' Bill Hemmer last week, Barr described that
vote as "part of the usual ... political circus that's being played out.
It doesn't surprise me."
Barr has taken the opprobrium in stride,
going so far as to approach House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at a
Capitol Hill event last week and ask her if she had brought her
handcuffs.
Barr told Fox News last week that he had ordered an
investigation into the origins of the Russia probe because many of the
answers he had gotten were "inadequate."
"People
have to find out what the government was doing during that period," he
told "America's Newsroom" host Bill Hemmer. "If we're worried about
foreign influence, for the very same reason we should be worried about
whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on
the scale. I'm not saying that happened but its something we have to
look at."
Barr
specifically expressed a desire to focus on developments between
Election Day in 2016 and Trump's inauguration in 2017, saying “some very
strange developments” took place in that time.
"I think there's a
misconception out there that we know a lot about what happened,” he
said. “The fact of the matter is Bob Mueller did not look at the
government's activities. He was looking at whether or not the Trump
campaign had conspired with the Russians. But he was not going back and
looking at the counterintelligence program. And we have a number of
investigations underway that touch upon it." Fox News' Bill Hemmer and Liam Quinn contributed to this report.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the House
Committee on Financial Services on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. (AP
Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
