Trump news - live: President erupts over report his businesses lost $1bn, as Congress votes to hold Barr in contempt
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump lost $1.17bn (£897m) from real estate ventures between 1985 and 1994 and paid no income tax for eight years, according to The New York Times, reporting after the newspaper got hold of copies of his tax returns for the period.
The president predictably branded the story, ”A highly inaccurate Fake News hit job!”, the news coming at a time when his treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin was already under fire for refusing to release his boss’s tax returns for 2013 to 2018, setting up what promises to be a protracted legal battle with Democrats.
This latest act of stonewalling from the White House comes as the House Judiciary Committee moved to hold attorney general William Barr in contempt over the Mueller report.
The vote capped a day of ever-deepening dispute between congressional Democrats and the president, who for the first time invoked the principle of executive privilege, claiming the right to block lawmakers from the full report.
Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York declared the action by Mr Trump’s Justice Department a clear new sign of the president’s “blanket defiance” of Congress’ constitutional rights to conduct oversight.
“We did not relish doing this, but we have no choice,” Nadler said after the vote.
The White House’s blockade, he said, “is an attack on the ability of the American people to know what the executive branch is doing.” He said, “This cannot be.”
But Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said it was disappointing that members of Congress “have chosen to engage in such inappropriate political theatrics.”
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for the live blog to load
The New York Times reporters behind the explosive new report on the president’s taxes have hit back at his response to their story, saying they found that “most of it was just bad business” and not depreciation as he had largely attributed his billion dollar losses to:
Congress is set to vote momentarily on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to meet multiple deadlines to provide committees with Robert Mueller's full report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and its underlying evidence.
Donald Trump has been railing against China on Twitter again as officials from both nations seek to reportedly put the finishing touches on a new trade deal.
The House Judiciary Committee will vote any moment now on whether to hold the attorney general in contempt.
Below, read the letter from the Department of Justice saying William Barr would then be “compelled” to ask Donald Trump to invoke executive privilege over Robert Mueller’s report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The House Judiciary Committee is preparing to vote on whether to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress.
The vast majority of members on the House Judiciary Committee have so far voted in favour of holding the attorney general in contempt of Congress. Most have been Democrats so far.
The Republicans have all largely voted no to holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress.
The House Judiciary Committee has moved to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for ignoring a subpoena to provide the Special Counsel’s full report on Russian election interference and all of its underlying evidence.
Mr Barr defied the subpoena after the Department of Justice claimed there was no basis for the request and threatened to urge Donald Trump to invoke executive privilege over the report in a scathing letter sent to Congress.
Holding the attorney general in contempt lays the foundation for Congress to file a civil lawsuit, as well as a criminal referral to be sent to the US attorney’s office in Washington. However, the courts could simply order Congress and the Justice Department to solve the inter-branch dispute amongst themselves, constitutional law experts have told The Independent.
Wednesday marks the first time the Democratic-led House of Representatives has held a vote on and voted in favour of holding a member of the president’s administration in contempt of Congress.
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