Trump news: Hope Hicks accused of lying to Robert Mueller as president is blamed for Bush ‘heart attack’
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Your support makes all the difference.Hope Hicks has been accused of lying to Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election by a former spokesperson for Donald Trump’s legal team.
Mark Corallo said the former White House communications director lied to investigators from the special counsel’s office about discussions that were had with the president on Air Force One after the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting was made public through media reporting.
Mr Coral said Ms Hicks told him she “handled” the crafting of a statement responding to the press reports about the meeting, to which he replied: “I just I listened to her yell and then I said, ‘Well you know you’ve probably made yourself a witness in a federal criminal investigation. Way to go, young lady.'”
“I just pointed out that the statement that they put out on Air Force One was inaccurate,” he added, saying it would make the president’s team appear “like they were trying to hide something.”
Meanwhile, it remains unclear to what extent Ms Hicks’ cooperation played in Mr Mueller’s 2016 report, as Wednesday brought another tense day on Capitol Hill as lawmakers wrestled over the handling of the final conclusions produced by Mr Mueller and later summarised by Mr Trump’s appointed attorney general, William Barr.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her fellow Democrats not to accept the verdict of the attorney general earlier this week.
“We cannot make a judgment on the basis of an interpretation by a man who was hired for his job because he believes the president is above the law and he wrote a 19-page memo to demonstrate that,” She reportedly told party members behind closed doors on Tuesday, calling for calm and a return to policy battles.
With renewed impeachment talk in the air, the House Judiciary Committee has meanwhile voted unanimously in favour of a resolution calling on the Justice Department to release all FBI files relating to obstruction of justice, kick-starting the Democratic fightback in earnest.
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Read The Independent's live updates from Washington on Wednesday below.
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Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has taken to the Senate floor to rail against Donald Trump and his administration’s reignited attacks on the Affordable Care Act. Watch the New York Democrat’s speech below:
Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló has demanded Donald Trump stop “with the insults and demeaning mischaracterizations” after the president reportedly suggested cutting federal aid to the island.
"I want to be very clear: Not a single federal dollar has been used to make debt payments,” he said in a statement. “Mr. President: Enough with the insults and demeaning mischaracterizations. We are not your political adversaries; we are your citizens."
He also suggested the president may have declined a meeting with him, per the Washington Post.
There has not been any immediate bump in Donald Trump’s approval ratings following the release of Attorney General William Barr’s summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
He holds nearly 41.9 per cent of support according to an average of national polls conducted by Five Thirty Eight.
House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has declined to hold a vote on whether the Mueller report should be made public, creating a tense exchange on the Senate floor between him and his minority Democratic counterpart, Chuck Schumer:
Donald Trump has warned Russia to stop interfering in Venezuela as the US continues backing opposition leader Juan Guaido, who announced he was taking over the presidency from Nicolas Maduro earlier this year.
“Russia has to get out” of Venezuela, the president reportedly said on Wednesday.
Donald Trump is embarking on a trip to California next week as part of his re-election campaign efforts — and plans to charge a pretty penny to meet the US president.
An invitation to the upcoming event obtained by the local City News Service in Los Angeles, California showed tickets starting at $15,000 (£11,351) — and that price tag only includes dinner.
For those hoping to get a photograph with Mr Trump, the event will charge $50,000 (£37,845) per ticket.
And anyone who would like the chance to speak with Mr Trump as part of a roundtable discussion at the California event will have to pay $150,000 (£113,556).
Axios has a new scoop alleging Republican Kevin McCarthy has warned Donald Trump about his reignited efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
The House minority leader told the president over the phone his plans “made no sense,” according to the news outlet.
Here’s more on Donald Trump charging folks $150,000 (£113,556) to speak with him at an upcoming campaign event in California:
A government watchdog group has filed an ethics complaint after alleging at least seven officials from Donald Trump’s White House failed to disclose “arrangements for future employment” while announcing their terminations from the administration:
Barbara Bush says Donald Trump caused her “angst” during the 2016 election and led her to question whether she was still a Republican in the months before she died.
The late former first lady’s thoughts about Trump were revealed in excerpts published Wednesday in USA Today of an upcoming biography, “The Matriarch.”
In a February 2018 interview, Bush was asked if she still considered herself a Republican. She replied, “I’d probably say ‘no’ today.”
She died in April at age 92.
AP
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