Trump news: Congress votes to subpoena full Mueller report from attorney-general, as senior Republicans turn on president's 'catastrophic' border closure plan
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Your support makes all the difference.The House Judiciary Committee approved subpoenas Wednesday for special counsel Robert Mueller’s full Russia report as Democrats pressure the Justice Department to release the document without redactions.
The committee voted 24-17 to give Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler permission to issue subpoenas to the Justice Department for the final report, its exhibits and any underlying evidence or materials prepared for the investigation.
Mr Nadler has not yet said if he’ll send the subpoenas, which would be the first step in a potentially long fight with the Justice Department over the materials.
The Judiciary panel also voted Wednesday to authorise subpoenas related to five of Donald Trump’s former top advisers, stepping up a separate, wide-ranging investigation into Trump and his personal and political dealings.
The vote further escalates the Democrats’ battle with the Justice Department over how much of the report they will be able to see, a fight that could eventually head to court if the two sides can’t settle their differences through negotiation. Democrats have said they will not accept redactions and want to see the evidence unfiltered by Mr Barr.
In the letter last week, Mr Barr said he is scrubbing the report to avoid disclosing any grand jury information or classified material, in addition to portions of the report that pertain to ongoing investigations or that “would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties.”
Democrats say they want access to all of that information, even if some of it can’t be disclosed to the public. Nadler said he will give Mr Barr time to change his mind on redactions, but if they cannot reach an agreement they will issue the subpoenas “in very short order.” He also said he is prepared to go to court to get the grand jury information.
Mr Trump is meanwhile being urged not to follow through on his threat to close the US border with Mexico as senior Republicans warn of the cost of prioritising security over trade and scramble for alternatives to tackling the illegal immigration “crisis”.
“Closing down the border would have potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country and I would hope we would not be doing that sort of thing,” said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday, a quote the president has since attacked The New York Times for publishing on Twitter.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load.
Andrew Yang, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, said he is the man to beat President Trump in the upcoming election.
Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will be making a three-day visit to Mexico amid President Trump's call to shutdown the southern border.
The president dabbed one of the first former prisoners released as part of the First Step Act during an event celebrating the bipartisan bill’s passing earlier this year:
Meanwhile, potentially one of Donald Trump’s biggest 2020 challengers Joe Biden has released a message confronting a controversy about touching women inappropriately head on:
The US president claiming — without any evidence — that a major source of renewable energy causes cancer would be the subject of scrutiny, fact-checking and serious questions pertaining to where he or she gets their information from in any other timeline.
In our world, however, it’s just another day with Donald Trump in the White House.
But the seriousness of this issue should not be overlooked. Mr Trump falsely claimed during a Republican fundraising event on Tuesday night that the noise from wind turbines “causes cancer,” while sprinkling in other misleading comments about wind energy, like turbines causing property values to plummet by 75 per cent upon their installation.
The Republican-led Senate changed the body’s rules on Wednesday to speed the process of confirming Donald Trump’s judicial appointees.
This is the third time in six year the majority party has detonated the so-called nuclear option.
Investigators are working to understand whether Chinese intelligence operations are at the heart of a possible intelligence-gathering activity in which a Chinese national was arrested at Mar-A-Lago:
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