Trump says tax returns release will ‘lead to horrible things for so many people’ – as it happened

It’s nearly 4pm in Washington DC. Here is a round-up of today’s developments on Trump’s tax returns and more:

• Despite Trump previously pledging that he would forgo his $400,000 salary if he became president, his tax returns indicate otherwise. According to Trump’s tax returns, he reported $0 in charitable giving in 2020 – his last year in office. In 2017, Trump donated $1.8 million and approximately half a million dollars in 2018 and 2019 each.

• The Biden administration on Friday finalized regulations to protect hundreds of thousands of streams, wetlands and other waterways across the country. The new rules repeal a Trump-era rule federal courts threw out and environmentalists said left waterways vulnerable to pollution.

• In addition to listing China as a foreign country that had a Trump-tied bank account, Trump also listed business income, taxes and expenses in several other countries on his tax returns. Those include Israel, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, India, Qatar, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, South Korea and Brazil, among others.

• Texas Democratic representative Lloyd Doggett has responded to the release of Tump’s tax returns, saying that “Americans should be outraged” by how little the former president paid in federal taxes in recent years.“I think it’s really outrageous… Here is the most powerful man in the world, the self-described clever genius who brags of his wealth almost daily and he did not pay taxes that the most modest wage earner in this country would pay,” he told MSNBC.

• Daniel Goldman, now a congressman-elect from New York but in a former role lead Democratic counsel in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, has a question about what the Trump tax returns released today show: “Trump had bank accounts in China while he was in office until 2018. Generally, you only have bank accounts in a foreign country if you are doing transactions in that country’s currency.”

• President Joe Biden is granting full pardons to six people, the White House has announced. In a statement released on Friday, a White House spokesperson said that the pardons are for six individuals “who have served their sentences and have demonstrated a commitment to improving their communities and the lives of those around them.”

• On Thursday, in a recount triggered by the closeness of the first count, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, Kris Mayes, was declared the winner for a second time, beating the Republican candidate, Abe Hamadeh. As the Associated Press reports, though, Mayes won the recount by less than she won the first count, finishing “280 votes ahead … down from a lead of 511 in the original count [with] the reason for the discrepancy not immediately clear.”

• Donald Trump’s tax returns indicate that he held overseas bank accounts while he was president. One page of the returns indicate the United Kingdom, Ireland, China and Saint Martin as foreign countries where Trump’s financial accounts were located. Tax records reviewed by the New York Times in 2020 revealed that Trump paid nearly $200,000 in taxes to China, according to the outlet.

• The House ways and means Republican leader Kevin Brady of Texas has responded to the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns, calling it a a “political weapon” and a “regrettable stain.” “Going forward, all future Chairs of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders or even the Supreme Court justices themselves,” he said.

• Democratic representative Don Beyer of Virginia has compared Donald Trump to former president Richard Nixon in light of Trump’s tax returns release. In a statement released on Friday regarding Trump’s returns, Beyer, who sits on the House ways and means committee, said: “Despite promising to release his tax returns, Donald Trump refused to do so, and abused the power of his office to block basic transparency on his finances and conflict of interest which no president since Nixon has foregone.”

• Donald Trump has responded to the release of his tax returns by Democrats on the House ways and means committee, saying that they “show how proudly successful I have been”. In a statement released by his campaign, Trump pushed back against the move, saying: “The Democrats should have never done it, the supreme court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people.” He continued: “The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”

• The release of Donald Trump’s tax returns follows a congressional report released earlier this month that revealed that Trump and his wife Melania did not pay any federal income tax in 2020. The report also found for a few years, the couple reported negative income and little or no tax liability. In addition, it found that the Internal Revenue Service failed to carry out mandatory audits of Trump during his first two years as president.

• House Democrats have released former president Donald Trump’s tax returns that span over six years. The release of the returns marks the latest blow for Trump who was impeached twice by the Democratic-led House and was later acquitted by the Senate. In a written statement, Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee said, “Our findings turned out to be simple — I.R.S. did not begin their mandatory audit of the former president until I made my initial request,” the New York Times reports.

• An Arizona man who participated in the January 6 riots told the January 6th Select Committee that the “crazy” conspiracy theories about him working with the government has deeply affected his life. In an interview released on Thursday, Ray Epps told the committee that he has received death threats and that his grandchildren were bullied at school following far-right conspiracy theories that he was working for the FBI.“The only time I’ve been involved with the government was when I was a Marine in the United States Marine Corps,” Epps, who was a supporter of Donald Trump, said.

• Donald Trump’s former communications director has called Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s last White House press secretary a “liar and an opportunist.” According to testimony released on Thursday, Alyssa Farah Griffin was asked by the January 6th Select Committee where McEnany “fell” after the 2020 election. In response, Farah Griffin said, “I’m a Christian woman…so I will say this. Kayleigh is a liar and an opportunist.”

That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we end today’s live blog on the politics of Capitol Hill and beyond. Have a great weekend!

Despite Trump previously pledging that he would forgo his $400,000 salary if he became president, his tax returns indicate otherwise.

According to Trump’s tax returns, he reported $0 in charitable giving in 2020 – his last year in office.

In 2017, Trump donated $1.8 million and approximately half a million dollars in 2018 and 2019 each, the tax returns indicate.

The Biden administration on Friday finalized regulations to protect hundreds of thousands of streams, wetlands and other waterways across the country.

The Associated Press reports:

The new rules repeal a Trump-era rule federal courts threw out and environmentalists said left waterways vulnerable to pollution.

The rule defines which “waters of the United States” are protected by the Clean Water Act. For decades, the term has been a flashpoint between environmental groups that want to broaden limits on pollution and farmers, builders and industry groups that say extending regulations too far is onerous for business.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Army said the reworked rule was based on definitions in place before 2015. Federal officials said they wrote a “durable definition” of waterways to reduce uncertainty.

More from the Associated Press here:

Here’s some interesting lunchtime reading from Andrew Lawrence about Maxwell Frost, the Florida congressman-elect who is set to become the first Gen Z member of Congress. Safe to say, Frost’s move to Washington has not proved entirely smooth sailing…

When the Guardian last visited 25-year-old Maxwell Alejandro Frost, in September, he was campaigning to become the first Gen Z member of the US Congress, and driving Uber shifts to make ends meet in the meantime.

In early November he defeated his Republican rival, Calvin Wimbish, by a considerable margin, winning 59% of the vote in Florida’s 10th congressional district, which includes Orlando and many of its surrounding theme parks.

Frost’s life has only become messier since. Chiefly, he has yet to sort out his living accommodation in Washington DC, and must decide whether to keep paying rent for the Orlando home he shares with two others, as well as working out how to foot these bills until his $174,000 (£142,000) federal salary kicks in.

He says: “I’ll probably crash on someone’s couch in DC for the first month at least.”

Even finding potential roommates among his fellow representatives brings unforeseen challenges for the congressman-elect, who has been back and forth for freshman orientations.

“A lot of people are looking to get their roommates before 3 January,” says Frost. “I just can’t operate on that timeline. Even after I start getting paid it’s not like I’m flush in one day. I have a lot of debt.”

Earlier this month he vented on Twitter about being turned down for a DC apartment due to bad credit: “This ain’t meant for people who don’t already have the money,” he wrote.

Read on:

In addition to listing China as a foreign country that had a Trump-tied bank account, Trump also listed business income, taxes and expenses in several other countries on his tax returns.

Those include Israel, Mexico, United Arab Emirates, India, Qatar, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, South Korea and Brazil, among others.

In response to the release, Democratic representative Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois tweeted:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Releasing six years’ worth of Donald Trump’s tax returns…should help us understand any connections to foreign entities that may have influenced his decision-making as president.”

Texas Democratic representative Lloyd Doggett has responded to the release of Tump’s tax returns, saying that “Americans should be outraged” by how little the former president paid in federal taxes in recent years.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I think it’s really outrageous…both with regard to Trump personally and with regard to Trump’s Internal Revenue Service administration. Here is the most powerful man in the world, the self-described clever genius who brags of his wealth almost daily and he did not pay taxes that the most modest wage earner in this country would pay,” Doggett told MSNBC.

“Nothing in one year, $75o dollars a year and others, all of this related to claims for big losses, big deductions, big credits, taking advantage of every loophole and because of the sorry job that Trump’s IRS did, we don’t know how many of these were legal loopholes, for the rich and how many of them were unjust and illegal” he said, adding, “Americans should be outraged by that.”

Daniel Goldman, now a congressman-elect from New York but in a former role lead Democratic counsel in Donald Trump’s first impeachment, has a question about what the Trump tax returns released today show:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Trump had bank accounts in China while he was in office until 2018. Generally, you only have bank accounts in a foreign country if you are doing transactions in that country’s currency.

What business was Trump doing in China while he was president?

On the subject of Republicans, China and investment arrangements, here’s some further reading from the Guardian’s Lloyd Green:

Our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, and Sam Levine have filed their first report on today’s main politics news, the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns were made public by a congressional panel on Friday, ending the former president’s long-running effort to break precedent and keep them secret.

The returns date from 2015 to 2020 and span nearly 6,000 pages, including more than 2,700 pages of individual returns from Trump and his wife, Melania, and more than 3,000 pages from Trump’s businesses. Sensitive information such as social security and bank account numbers have been redacted.

A House of Representatives report released earlier this month analyzed the documents and showed Trump and his wife Melania paid no federal income tax in 2020, the last full year he was in office. From 2015 to 2020, Donald and Melania Trump had several years in which they reported negative income and little or no tax liability.

The report also found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to conduct mandatory audits of Trump during his first two years in office. By contrast, there were audits of Joe Biden for the 2020 and 2021 tax years, according to the White House.

Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the ways and means committee, said in a statement: “A president is no ordinary taxpayer. They hold power and influence unlike any other American. And with great power comes even greater responsibility.”

He added: “We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president’s financial situation yet found no evidence of that. This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hoped to find.”

Full story:

President Joe Biden is granting full pardons to six people, the White House has announced.

In a statement released on Friday, a White House spokesperson said that the pardons are for six individuals “who have served their sentences and have demonstrated a commitment to improving their communities and the lives of those around them.”

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“President Biden believes America is a nation of second chances, and that offering meaningful opportunities for redemption and rehabilitation empowers those who have been incarcerated to become productive, law-abiding members of society,” the statement added.

“The President remains committed to providing second chances to individuals who have demonstrated their rehabilitation – something that elected officials on both sides of the aisle, faith leaders, civil rights advocates, and law enforcement leaders agree our criminal justice system should offer.”

The pardoned group include individuals who served in the US military, survived domestic abuse, and volunteer in their communities.

More elections news from Arizona, a swing state where pro-Trump Republicans have of late caused a lot of trouble with claims of electoral fraud in races in which they were beaten.

On Thursday, in a recount triggered by the closeness of the first count, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, Kris Mayes, was declared the winner for a second time, beating the Republican candidate, Abe Hamadeh.

As the Associated Press reports, though, Mayes won the recount by less than she won the first count, finishing “280 votes ahead … down from a lead of 511 in the original count [with] the reason for the discrepancy not immediately clear”.

In a statement, Mayes said she was “excited and ready to get to work as your next attorney general and vow to be your lawyer for the people”.

The AP continues:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Outside court, Mayes attorney Dan Barr said the results should give the public confidence in elections, despite the adjustments in vote totals as a result of the recount.

‘They didn’t just do a rubber stamp of what it was,’ Barr said. ‘They did a careful evaluation of the votes and they came up with a different result. And so I think people should have a lot of confidence in the process.’

Hamadeh said the discrepancies in the latest results from his race were shockingly high. ‘My legal team will be assessing our options to make sure every vote is counted,’ he said. Hamadeh hasn’t conceded to Mayes.

The Arizona governor’s race was also close, but not close enough to trigger a recount. The Democratic candidate, Katie Hobbs, won it, by a little more than 17,000 votes. The Republican candidate – the pro-Trump election denier Kari Lake – went to court over her defeat, but lost.

Some further reading:

Donald Trump’s tax returns indicate that he held overseas bank accounts while he was president.

One page of the returns indicate the United Kingdom, Ireland, China and Saint Martin as foreign countries where Trump’s financial accounts were located.

Tax records reviewed by the New York Times in 2020 revealed that Trump paid nearly $200,000 in taxes to China, according to the outlet.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Trump accused his oppponent Joe Biden of being “weak on China” and claimed that the Biden family was “selling out our country” to China.

The House ways and means Republican leader Kevin Brady of Texas has responded to the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns, calling it a a “political weapon” and a “regrettable stain.”

In a statement issued on Friday, Brady said:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“With the publicly released transcript of Democrats’ secret executive session, Americans now have confirmation that there was never a legislative purpose behind the public release of these confidential records and that the IRS was conducting audits prior to Democrats’ request.

“Despite these facts, Democrats have charged forward with an unprecedented decision to unleash a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond the former president, overturning decades of privacy protections for average Americans that have existed since Watergate.

“Going forward, all future Chairs of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee will have nearly unlimited power to target and make public the tax returns of private citizens, political enemies, business and labor leaders or even the Supreme Court justices themselves.

“This is a regrettable stain on the Ways and Means Committee and Congress, and will make American politics even more divisive and disheartening. In the long run, Democrats will come to regret it.”

Democratic representative Don Beyer of Virginia has compared Donald Trump to former president Richard Nixon in light of Trump’s tax returns release.

In a statement released on Friday regarding Trump’s returns, Beyer, who sits on the House ways and means committee, said:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Despite promising to release his tax returns, Donald Trump refused to do so, and abused the power of his office to block basic transparency on his finances and conflict of interest which no president since Nixon has foregone.”

Beyer went on to add:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Trump acted as though he had something to hide, a pattern consistent with the recent conviction of his family business for criminal tax fraud. As the public will now be able to see, Trump used questionable or poorly substantiated deductions and a number of other tax avoidance schemes as justification to pay little or no federal income tax in several of the years examined.”

Donald Trump has responded to the release of his tax returns by Democrats on the House ways and means committee, saying that they “show how proudly successful I have been”.

In a statement released by his campaign, Trump pushed back against the move, saying: “The Democrats should have never done it, the supreme court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people.”

He continued: “The great USA divide will now grow far worse. The radical, left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!

“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises.”

The release of Donald Trump’s tax returns follows a congressional report released earlier this month that revealed that Trump and his wife Melania did not pay any federal income tax in 2020.

The report also found for a few years, the couple reported negative income and little or no tax liability.

In addition, it found that the Internal Revenue Service failed to carry out mandatory audits of Trump during his first two years as president.

For more details, read Sam Levine’s reporting here:

Trump previously responded to the committee’s decision to release his returns, calling it an “outrageous abuse of power”.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“There is no legitimate legislative purpose for their action. And if you look at what they’ve done, it’s so sad for our country,” he said, adding, “It’s nothing but another deranged political witch hunt which has been going on from the day I came down an escalator in Trump Tower.”

House Democrats have released former president Donald Trump’s tax returns that span over six years.

The release of the returns marks the latest blow for Trump who was impeached twice by the Democratic-led House and was later acquitted by the Senate.

In a written statement, Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee said, “Our findings turned out to be simple — I.R.S. did not begin their mandatory audit of the former president until I made my initial request,” the New York Times reports.

Stay tuned for more details as we review the returns.

An Arizona man who participated in the January 6 riots told the January 6th Select Committee that the “crazy” conspiracy theories about him working with the government has deeply affected his life.

In an interview released on Thursday, Ray Epps told the committee that he has received death threats and that his grandchildren were bullied at school following far-right conspiracy theories that he was working for the FBI.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}”The only time I’ve been involved with the government was when I was a Marine in the United States Marine Corps,” Epps, who was a supporter of Donald Trump, said.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“We had a tour bus come by our home and our business with all these whacked out people in it…There are good people out there that was in Washington. Those aren’t the people that’s coming by our house. This attracts — when they do this sort of thing, this attracts all the crazies out there,” he added.

In his interview, Epps identified Republican representatives including Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene as congress members who helped spread the conspiracy theories about him.

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“I mean, it’s real crazy stuff, and [Massie] brought that kind of stuff to the floor of the House. When that happened, it just blew up. It got really, really bad…Him and, gosh, Gaetz and Greene, and, yeah, they’re just blowing this thing up. So it got really, really difficult after that. The crazies started coming out of the woodwork.”

Donald Trump’s former communications director has called Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s last White House press secretary a “liar and an opportunist.”

According to testimony released on Thursday, Alyssa Farah Griffin was asked by the January 6th Select Committee where McEnany “fell” after the 2020 election.

In response, Farah Griffin said, “I’m a Christian woman…so I will say this. Kayleigh is a liar and an opportunist.”

Farah Griffin went on to add that McEnany was a “smart woman” and “not an idiot.”

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“She knew we lost the election, but she made a calculation that she wanted to have a certain life post-Trump that required staying in his good graces. And that was more important to her than telling the truth to the American public.”

For more details on Farah Griffin’s testimony, check out Martin Pengelly’s reporting here:

Good morning, Guardian readers!

The House ways and means committee is scheduled to release the former president’s tax returns today, after the panel’s vote last week.

The documents are expected to include Trump’s tax returns from 2015 to 2021 and will be the first formal release of his financial records from his time as president. Last month, the Democrat-controlled committee obtained the returns as part of an investigation into Trump’s taxes, following a lengthy court battle that resulted in the supreme court ruling in the committee’s favor.

The committee’s report released last week revealed its findings that the Internal Revenue Service broke its own rules by not auditing Trump for three of the four years of his presidency. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns.

We will be bringing you the latest updates surrounding the release, so stay tuned.