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      Trump tax returns: key takeaways from the records release

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      AnalysisTrump tax returns: key takeaways from the records releaseAssociated Press in WashingtonThe former president had a bank account in China, failed to donate in 2020 and claims Democrats ‘weaponized’ his taxes In one of its last acts under Democratic control, the House of Representatives on Friday released six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns, dating to 2015, the year he announced his presidential bid.Trump tax returns show China bank account as six years of records releasedRead moreThe thousands of pages of returns were the subject of a prolonged legal battle after Trump broke precedent by not releasing his tax returns while running for, and then occupying, the White House.Here are some key takeaways from a review of the documents:Trump had a bank account in ChinaDuring a 2020 presidential debate, Trump was asked about having a bank account in China. He said he closed it before he began his campaign for the White House four years earlier.“The bank account was in 2013. It was closed in 2015, I believe,” Trump said. “I was thinking about doing a deal in China. Like millions of other people, I was thinking about it. I decided not to do it.”The tax returns contradict that account. Trump reported a bank account in China in his returns for 2015, 2016 and 2017.The returns show accounts in other foreign countries including the UK, Ireland and St Martin in the Caribbean. By 2018, Trump had apparently closed all his overseas accounts other than the one in the UK, home to one of his flagship golf properties.The returns do not detail the amount of money held in those accounts.No reported charitable giving in 2020In the final year of his presidency, Trump reported making no charitable donations. That was in contrast to the prior two years, when Trump reported about $500,000 (£414,060) worth of donations. It is unclear if any of the figures include his pledge to donate his $400,000 presidential salary back to the US government. He reported donating $1.1m in 2016 and $1.8m in 2017.Money from the arts worldTrump collected a $77,808 annual pension from the Screen Actors Guild and a $6,543 pension in 2017 from another film and TV union, and reported acting residuals as high as $14,141 in 2015, according to the tax returns.Trump has made cameo appearances in various movies, notably Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, but his biggest on-screen success came with his reality TV shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice.Trump reported paying a little more than $400,000 from 2015 to 2017 in “book writer” fees. In 2015, Trump published the book, Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again, with a ghostwriter. The same year, Trump reporting receiving $750,000 in fees for speaking engagements.Trump vows paybackTrump broke political tradition by not releasing his tax returns as a candidate or as president. Now Republicans warn that Democrats will pay a political price by releasing what is normally confidential information.Trump underscored that in a statement on Friday morning, after his returns were made public.Kayleigh McEnany a ‘liar and opportunist’, says former Trump aide Read more“The great USA divide will now grow far worse,” he said. “The Radical Left Democrats have weaponized everything, but remember, that is a dangerous two-way street!”Republicans on the House ways and means committee, which has jurisdiction over tax matters and released the Trump documents, warned that in the future the committee could release the returns of labor leaders or supreme court justices. Democrats countered with a proposal to require the release of tax returns by any presidential candidate – legislation that is unlikely to pass, given that Republicans take control of the House next week.Republicans cannot disclose Joe Biden’s tax returns – because they are already public. Biden resumed the longstanding bipartisan tradition of releasing his tax records, disclosing 22 years’ worth of filings during his 2020 campaign.TopicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS taxationUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesDemocratsanalysisReuse this content More

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

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      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.”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:Biden administration drafts new rules to protect streams and wetlandsRead moreHere’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:‘I’ll be crashing on someone’s couch till I get paid’: life as the first Gen Z congressmanRead moreIn 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.”Releasing six years’ worth of Donald Trump’s tax returns ensures transparency with the American people, and should help us understand any connections to foreign entities that may have influenced his decision-making as president. https://t.co/4jqYmofdf9— Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (@CongressmanRaja) December 30, 2022
      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.” “Here is the most powerful man in the world…and he did not pay the taxes that the most modest wage earner in this country would pay…Americans should be outraged by that”: Rep. Lloyd Doggett on Trump’s tax returns. pic.twitter.com/dWLS2FMpxo— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 30, 2022
      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:American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O’Keefe and a rightwing full court pressRead moreOur 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:Six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns made public by US House panelRead morePresident 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:Arizona judge declines to sanction Kari Lake for lawsuit challenging electionRead moreDonald 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. A bank account in China.#TrumpTaxReturns pic.twitter.com/CLdBvFhK9U— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) December 30, 2022
      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:Donald Trump’s tax returns released by US House committeeRead moreTrump 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:Kayleigh McEnany a ‘liar and opportunist’, says former Trump aide Read moreGood 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. More

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      Trump tax returns show China bank account as six years of records released

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      Trump tax returns show China bank account as six years of records releasedReturns date from 2015 to 2020 and span nearly 6,000 pages as former president rails against effort by ‘radical left Democrats’ Six years of Donald Trump’s tax returns were made public by a congressional committee on Friday, ending the former president’s long-running effort to break precedent and keep them secret.Trump says tax returns release will ‘lead to horrible things for so many people’ – liveRead moreThe documents, dating from 2015 to 2020, offer insights into the complex finances and foreign bank accounts of a man who was accused of abusing the presidency for personal profit and who has already announced another bid for the White House.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.The couple paid $641,931 in federal income taxes in 2015, the year Trump began his campaign for president. They paid $750 in 2016 and 2017, nearly $1m in 2018, $133,445 in 2019 and $0 in 2020, the year Trump unsuccessfully sought re-election.Such numbers reflect heavy business losses and undermine Trump’s self-perpetuated narrative of commercial wealth and success – a crucial part of his brand during his successful 2016 campaign.Trump reported bank accounts in Britain, China and Ireland from 2015 to 2017, and from 2018 only reported a bank account in Britain.During a presidential debate in 2020, Trump said the Chinese account “was closed in 2015, I believe” and insisted: “I closed it before I even ran for president, let alone became president.”Responding to the release on Friday, Daniel Goldman, a congressman-elect from New York who was counsel to House Democrats in Trump’s first impeachment, said: “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?”The returns also show Trump claimed foreign tax credits for taxes paid on business ventures around the world, including licensing arrangements for the use of his name on development projects and his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.During his first three years in office, Trump apparently fulfilled his campaign promise to give his salary to charity. But in 2020, he reported $0 in charitable giving.The returns span nearly 6,000 pages, including more than 2,700 pages of individual returns from Trump and Melania and more than 3,000 pages from Trump’s businesses. Sensitive information such as social security and bank account numbers have been redacted.Trump responded angrily to their release, saying in a statement: “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. 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!”Defending his business record, he added: “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 congressional report published last week also found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) failed to conduct mandatory audits of Trump in 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 on Friday: “A president is no ordinary taxpayer. They hold power and influence unlike any other American. And with great power comes even greater responsibility.“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.”Trump’s finances have been shrouded in mystery since the 1980s and his days as a New York property developer. In 2016, he became the first major-party candidate for president in four decades to refuse to release his tax returns. He continued to do so in office.In 2019, the House ways and means committee, which has the authority to see any taxpayer’s federal returns, requested the documents from the treasury department. The Trump administration refused to provide them, setting off a three-year legal battle. In November, the supreme court ruled that the committee could access the returns.Last week, the committee decided in a party-line vote to make the returns public. Democrats argued that transparency and the rule of law were at stake. Republicans said the release would set a dangerous precedent with regard to privacy protections.Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, presided over a pro forma House session on Friday as the returns were released, days before Democrats cede control to Republicans.Beyer 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 conflicts of interest which no president since Nixon has foregone.“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.”Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican, condemned the move, saying: “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.”Trump stalled efforts to put his taxes in the public domain. Running for president in 2016, he promised to release them once he had been audited. But later that year he appeared to take pride in not paying taxes.Kayleigh McEnany a ‘liar and opportunist’, says former Trump aide Read moreDuring a presidential debate, his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, said: “The only years that anybody’s ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn’t pay any federal income tax.”Trump replied: “That makes me smart.”But in 2018 the New York Times reported leaked records that showed Trump received a modern-day equivalent of at least $413m from his father’s property holdings, much of it coming from “tax dodges” in the 1990s.In 2020 the paper showed Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2017 and 2018, and no income taxes at all in 10 of 15 years because he generally lost more than he made.Trump continues to face major scrutiny about his business practices. Earlier this month, a New York jury found the Trump Organization guilty of 17 counts of criminal tax fraud. Though Trump was not part of the trial, prosecutors said he was aware of the off-the-books practices at issue. Lawyers for the Trump Organization blamed Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer.The New York attorney general, Letitia James, is suing Trump for fraud related to inflating his net worth. Trump and his company have denied wrongdoing.TopicsDonald TrumpMelania TrumpUS taxationRepublicansUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Do you have no shame?’: Tulsi Gabbard grills congressman-elect George Santos

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      ‘Do you have no shame?’: Tulsi Gabbard grills congressman-elect George SantosThe former presidential candidate called resume-inflating Santos’s claims ‘blatant lies’ in Fox News interview In a Fox News interview with former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday, Republican congressman-elect George Santos claimed he is not a “fraud” when questioned about the recent revelations – and his eventual admission – that his claims about his career and identity are riddled with lies and fabricated records.First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost says he’s part of the ‘mass shooting generation’Read moreThe Fox interview came the same day as fresh allegations that he falsely claimed a Jewish identity.Even though Santos told the New York Post that he never claimed to be Jewish, there is documentation proving otherwise. Santos had been loud about his identity as a “proud American Jew”, and enjoyed coverage in Jewish media where he was celebrated as the “only Jewish Republican member of New York’s House delegation”.He regularly attended events with rabbis and campaigned in Jewish neighborhoods, according to the New York Times.When asked about this, Santos told Gabbard that he has Jewish heritage but was raised Catholic. He said he has joked that he is “Jew-ish”.Santos, who has also admitted to lying about graduating from Baruch College and working at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, said he was not “a fake” and that “everybody wants to nitpick” at him now.But Gabbard put Santos on the spot by asking him how he defines “integrity”.Santos initially talked about the role of integrity for politicians, but Gabbard pushed back: “What does it mean though? … Because the meaning of the word actually matters in practice.”In Tuesday’s interview, he claimed he was courageous to be admitting this on national television, but fell short of an apology.He insisted that somehow this “courage” in his admission would make him fit to serve his district, to which Gabbard asked: “Do you have no shame?”“Do you have no shame [inaudible] the people who are now you’re asking to trust you to go and be their voice for them, their families and their kids in Washington?” she asked, after clarifying that what he keeps referring to as “embellishments” on his resume are much bigger, “blatant lies”.Santos responded, once again deflecting the answer, this time to Democrats and Joe Biden, who he claimed has been “lying to the American people for 40 years”.When Gabbard confronted him further about his lies regarding his work at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, and how he can expect his constituents to trust him, Santos said the lies on his resume are “debatable” and “not false at all”.He added that he could easily explain how things such as private equity work.“We can have this discussion that can go way above the American people’s head”, he said, “but that’s not what I campaigned on”.“Wow,” Gabbard responded. “You just kind of highlighted, I think my concerns and the concerns people at home have – you’re saying that this discussion will go way above the heads of the American people, basically insulting their intelligence.”As of Wednesday morning, Santos’s website no longer had information about his relations with Baruch College, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup.TopicsRepublicansHouse of RepresentativesNew YorkUS politicsUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      TikTok banned on devices issued by US House of Representatives

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      TikTok banned on devices issued by US House of RepresentativesPoliticians ordered to delete Chinese-owned social video app that House has said represents ‘high risk to users’ TikTok has been banned from any devices issued by the US House of Representatives, as political pressure continues to build on the Chinese-owned social video app.The order to delete the app was issued by Catherine Szpindor, the chief administrative officer (CAO) of the House, whose office had warned in August that the app represented a “high risk to users”.According to a memo obtained by NBC News, all lawmakers and staffers with House-issued mobile phones have been ordered to remove TikTok by Szpindor.“House staff are NOT allowed to download the TikTok app on any House mobile devices,” NBC quoted the memo as saying. “If you have the TikTok app on your House mobile device, you will be contacted to remove it.” The move was also reported by Reuters.In a statement the US house of representatives confirmed the ban, saying “we can confirm that the Committee on House Administration has authorized the CAO Office of Cybersecurity to initiate the removal of TikTok Social Media Service from all House-managed devices.”In August the CAO issued a “cyber advisory” labelling TikTok a high-risk app due to its “lack of transparency in how it protects customer data”. It said TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, “actively harvests content for identifiable data” and stores some user data in China. TikTok says its data is not held in China, but in the US and Singapore.The U.S. House of Representatives’ Chief Administrative Officer has issued a cyber advisory on TikTok, labeling it “high-risk” with personal info accessed from inside China:“we do not recommend the download or use of this application due to these security and privacy concerns.” pic.twitter.com/F87qwFiHhR— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) August 17, 2022
      The CAO move comes amid multiple attempts to restrict the use of TikTok by government and state employees.Last week Congress passed a $1.7tn spending bill, which includes a provision banning TikTok from government devices. The ban will take effect once President Joe Biden signs the legislation into law. According to Reuters, at least 19 US states have partially blocked the app from state-managed devices over security concerns. In a statement released after the Congress ban, TikTok said the move was a “political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests”.TikTok admits using its app to spy on reporters in effort to track leaksRead moreThis month the US senator Marco Rubio, a former Republican presidential contender, unveiled a legislative proposal to ban TikTok from the US entirely. Rubio said it was time to “ban Beijing-controlled TikTok for good”.Biden has revoked presidential orders targeting TikTok issued by his predecessor, Donald Trump, which included requiring TikTok to sell its US business. However, the US Committee on Foreign Investment, which scrutinises business deals with non-US companies, is also conducting a security review of TikTok.According to a recent Reuters report, TikTok is offering to operate more of its US business at arm’s length and subject it to outside scrutiny.The office of the House’s chief administrative officer and TikTok have been approached for comment.TopicsTikTokUS CongressUS politicsChinanewsReuse this content More

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      First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost says he’s part of the ‘mass shooting generation’

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      First Gen Z congressman Maxwell Frost says he’s part of the ‘mass shooting generation’ Maxwell Frost places curbing gun violence at the top of his political agenda, along with addressing the housing crisisMaxwell Frost might not yet have a permanent address in Washington DC, but that hasn’t stopped the hate mail from reaching him. “I got a letter the other day,” he says. “And when I opened it, it just said: ‘Fuck you.’”Frost expected there would be a fair amount of negative reaction after he became the first member of Gen Z to be voted into Congress in last month’s midterm elections.But a heavy campaign focus on gun safety measures has made the 25-year-old Democrat from Orlando, Florida, a marked man. The issue couldn’t be more important to Frost, who calls Gen Z “the mass shooting generation”.‘I’ve been Maced, I’ve been to jail …’ Can 25-year-old Maxwell Frost now be the first Gen Z member of Congress?Read more“It feels like I’ve been through more mass shooting drills than fire drills,” he says.Frost not only came of age with many of the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas 2018 high school shooting, but barnstormed the country with them to advocate for tougher gun controls.Shortly after Frost beat Republican rival Calvin Wimbish by a considerable margin in Florida’s 10th congressional district in November (which includes Frost’s Orlando home town and many of its surrounding theme parks), the gun-saturated country was rocked by seven more mass shootings in as many days.It’s why passing more substantive measures to curb gun violence is at the top of his list of priorities for his first six months in office.“I think we have an opportunity, even in a Republican Congress, to pass legislation that can help get money for community violence intervention programs that help end gun violence before it even happens,” he said.He further insists that any prospective legislation needs to have a mental health component.“Folks with serious mental health issues are often scapegoated as the reason why there’s gun violence,” Frost says. “But as someone who’s been doing the work, when you look into the numbers, having a serious mental health issue doesn’t make you more likely to shoot someone. It actually makes you more likely to be shot.”Frost intends to keep the pressure on both Republicans “who sweep the deaths of children under the rug” and on members of his own party who have been otherwise disinclined to take bold action. “I’d venture to say that gun control is the slowest-moving issue in the federal government that has the most media coverage when something happens,” he says. “I have to be the consistent voice.”You’d be hard-pressed to take in Frost’s sudden emergence on the national scene without harking back to the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AKA AOC) who, at age 29 in 2019, became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Like Frost, she boasts Latino heritage, has a working-class background, counts Bernie Sanders as a close mentor and espouses politics that lean left of most fellow Democrats. All of that has made AOC an easy enemy of the right as she joined up with Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and other young liberals since to alloy the informal progressive caucus known as the Squad.Frost would be a natural fit on that team. But he’s not in much hurry to join forces with them or any other groups right now. “You’re gonna have different allies in different battles and I think it’s really important,” says Frost, who still has plenty of love and admiration for the Squad. “I mean, Cori Bush slept on the Capitol steps and as a result of that, people weren’t evicted from their homes. That is a case study in how working-class people and organizers in Congress are good for our country.”Housing will be another focus of Frost’s first 100 days – one that his own situation, a limbo complicated by bad credit and a $174,000 (£143,687) federal salary that he won’t begin drawing until February, has thrust into the spotlight.“We have the worst affordable housing crisis in the country, per capita in central Florida as of a few months ago,” he says.Senator Chris Murphy: ‘victory after victory’ is coming for US gun safetyRead more“We need to do work to increase the power of renters in the marketplace and ensure that renting is actually accessible for people. It’s really hard right now and I know this personally not just from being houseless in DC, but also from being houseless for a month in central Florida and not having enough capital to move into a place.”He also thinks he can make a credible pitch for more funding for the arts, the cherished avocation that initially got him and his high school band to Washington DC to play in Barack Obama’s 2013 inauguration parade.“The arts are a huge part of my life,” he says. “I went to [an] arts middle school and high school. I work on music festivals and have my own here in Orlando, and I really believe in the power of the arts – and it’s not equitable for everybody right now.”All the while he intends to use his time in Congress to inspire young people to get involved in the political process, starting with making the federal government more approachable. “I want to do a kids’ day on the Hill,” he says. “I want to do concerts on the Hill – with young artists, so we can get young people super excited. I’ve been doing these blogs about what’s going on on the Hill. So just little things like that. I’m just really focused on stretching what it means to be a member of Congress.”TopicsDemocratsUS gun controlHousingUS politicsFloridaUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Will the January 6 report bring a second Christmas for US publishers?

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      Will the January 6 report bring a second Christmas for US publishers? Major imprints are racing to sell the committee’s work to the reading public, with help from reporters, panel members, David Remnick and even a former speechwriter to TrumpThe release of the final report of the House January 6 committee has sparked a deluge of publishing activity: seven editions of the 200,000 word document from six imprints, featuring contributions from the New Yorker editor, David Remnick, the House intelligence chair, Adam Schiff, plus six other journalists, another committee member, a former congresswoman and a former speechwriter to Donald Trump.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreThere are two reasons for this hyperactivity: the belief that the completion of the report is a significant historical event, and the conviction that here is a big chance to do well by doing good.The Mueller report sold 475,000 copies in various editions, according to NPD BookScan, so the book business is hoping it can do at least that well with the latest copy provided for free by the federal government.Harper Perennial says it is printing 250,000 copies of its version, which features a powerful introduction by Ari Melber, an MSNBC host, that reads like a smart prosecutor’s multi-part indictment. It helps that Melber’s marketing power is at least as great as his brain power. Pushing it on his nightly show, he has already gotten the book to the top of one Amazon bestseller list, long before it has reached any store.The lawyer turned TV personality does the best job of delineating the eight plots Trump and his allies pursued to try to overthrow the election, seven of which were clearly illegal or unconstitutional.“They attempted a coup,” Melber declares. “That is the most important fact about what happened.”Remnick and Jamie Raskin, like Schiff a committee member, teamed up to write an introduction and an afterword for the version being published by an imprint of Macmillan.Remnick gets straight to the heart of the matter: “Trump does little to conceal his most distinctive characteristics: his racism, misogyny, dishonesty, narcissism, incompetence, cruelty, instability, and corruption. And yet what has kept Trump afloat for so long, what has helped him evade ruin and prosecution, is perhaps his most salient quality: he is shameless.”Because so many of us have nearly lost our “ability to experience outrage”, Remnick concedes that “the prospect of engaging with this congressional inquiry … is sometimes a challenge to the spirit … And yet a citizenry that can no longer bring itself to pay attention to such an investigation or to absorb its astonishing findings risks moving even farther toward a disturbing ‘new normal’: a post-truth, post-democratic America.”Raskin sees the assault on the Capitol as the latest in a series of “systematic threats” to US democracy, including “massive voter suppression, gerrymandering of state and federal legislative districts, the use of the filibuster to block protection of voting rights, and right-wing judicial activism to undermine the Voting Rights Act”.His biggest goal is the elimination of electoral college, without any amendment to the constitution. That can be done through “the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among participating states that gives electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins the nationwide popular vote, and which has already been adopted by 15 states and the District of Columbia with 195 electoral votes, or 72% of the 270 votes needed” to put it into effect.Writing for Random House, Schiff excoriates Republicans for trying so hard to block certification of Biden’s victory even after the Capitol invasion – 147 Republicans including eight senators lodged objections early on the morning of January 7. But he is also careful to give credit to Republican witnesses who did so much to burnish the committee’s credibility.“These officials, Republicans all, not only held fast against enormous pressure from a president of their party but were willing to stand before the country and testify under oath,” Schiff writes.Schiff argues that the report is an undeniable brief for prosecution of Trump: “Bringing to justice a former president who, even now, advocates the suspension of our constitution is a perilous endeavor. Not doing so is far more dangerous.”For Skyhorse, the former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, the only contributor old enough to have voted to impeach Richard Nixon, echoes Schiff on this point.“Having had to vote to impeach a president when I was in Congress, I am certain that [the January 6 committee] did not make its criminal referrals to the justice department lightly. In the same vein, the DoJ should not treat it lightly – and I hope and believe the American people will not let that happen.”The Hachette book has the largest amount of additional material, including a first-person account of the Capitol attack by a New York Times reporter, Luke Broadwater. After making it to a secure area, Broadwater found he was “much more angry” than “afraid”. So were other more conservative reporters, disgusted by senators who encouraged the myth of election theft. Broadwater recalls “one shouting to a Republican as he passed by, ‘Are you proud of yourself, Senator?’”All of these books are serious efforts to put the committee’s exhaustive findings in a larger political and historical context, including the one published by Skyhorse with an introduction by Holtzman. But Skyhorse also maintains its maverick reputation as a publisher famous for picking up books others have spurned (Woody Allen’s memoir, for example) by publishing two versions of the new report, one with Holtzman’s foreword and another featuring Darren Beattie, a former speechwriter for Trump and Steven Miller.Tony Lyons, the US publisher who picks up books ‘cancelled’ by other pressesRead moreBeattie was fired by the Trump White House after it was reported that he attended a conference with Peter Brimelow, founder of the anti-immigrant website VDare, a “white nationalist” who “regularly publishes works by white supremacists, antisemites, and others on the radical right”, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.Beattie is horrified that the January 6 committee describes the assault on the Capitol as an outgrowth of white supremacy.“Far from serving as an objective fact-finding body, the January 6 committee functioned as such an egregiously performative, partisan kangaroo display as to make propagandists in North Korea blush,” he writes – with characteristic understatement.Beattie provides more comic relief with his approach to the alleged election fraud which is one of the main subjects of the report.“It would take us too far afield to consider the election fraud allegations in detail on the merits,” Beattie writes.Then he gives a long explanation of why no one should think Trump really believed he lost the election, just because that’s what his attorney general and so many others told him.“For all of the committee’s fixation on the term ‘Big Lie’, the committee presents precious little if any evidence that Donald Trump didn’t genuinely believe that election fraud ultimately tipped the balance against him.“… The committee’s first televised hearing repeated ad nauseam a video clip of Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr referring to Trump’s election fraud theories as ‘bullshit’.“Apart from Barr, the committee referenced numerous Trump associates who claim to have told the former president his election fraud theories were wrong. The simple fact that some of Trump’s senior staffers may have disagreed with Trump on the election issue is hardly proof that Trump was persuaded by them, and that therefore Trump’s efforts to ‘stop the steal’ amounted to a deliberate lie and malicious attempt to prevent the legitimate and peaceful transition of power.Republican senator called Giuliani ‘walking malpractice’, January 6 report saysRead more“Barr’s additional remark that Trump was ‘completely detached from reality’ when it came to the 2020 election unwittingly undermines the committee’s suggestion that Trump was lying about the matter.”Primetime hearings sometimes reached as many 18 million viewers, a number Remnick notes was “comparable to Sunday Night Football on NBC”. In the midterm elections, many exit polls found that the preservation of democracy was a key factor in the decision of many swing voters to vote against Republicans. It seems clear the investigation bolstered American democracy in more ways than one.While a hearty minority obviously remain as far down a rabbit hole as Trump’s former speechwriter, the results of the recent election bolster my conviction that sane Americans still constitute a small majority of American voters.So, like most of the contributors to these volumes, I think there is much to be grateful for in the work of the most successful congressional investigators since the Senate Watergate committee of 50 years ago. Or, as Remnick puts it, “If you are reaching for optimism – and despair is not an option – the existence and the depth of the committee’s project represents a kind of hope. It represents an insistence on truth and democratic principle.”TopicsBooksJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesPolitics booksfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Tlaib and MTG among more than 220 House proxy voters on spending bill

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      Tlaib and MTG among more than 220 House proxy voters on spending billRepublicans rail against pandemic-era rule as 226 House members from left to far right take chance not to vote in person Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, one of two Democrats to oppose the $1.7tn spending bill that averted a US government shutdown on Friday, did so by voting “present”. But Tlaib was not present at the Capitol, voting instead by proxy.House passes $1.7tn spending bill to avert US government shutdownRead moreProxy voting was instituted during the Covid pandemic and is due to come to an end on 3 January, in the new Congress with Republicans controlling the House.On Friday, as a huge winter storm bore down on Washington, threatening flights home for Christmas, 226 House members cast proxy votes on the omnibus bill.Republicans say they will get rid of proxy voting. According to the minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, “In 11 days … [we will] return the House back to a functioning constitutional body by repealing proxy voting once and for all.”On Friday, some on the right of the GOP, a faction McCarthy must woo if he is to win the speaker’s gavel, claimed the large number of proxy voters on the omnibus bill meant the required quorum was not achieved and the bill could thus be challenged. The chair rejected such claims.One high-profile rightwinger was among those who voted by proxy. As reported by Business Insider, a vacation in Costa Rica meant Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia skipped in-person voting on the spending bill and other events this week including the address to Congress by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.By Saturday, Greene was taking heat not just for proxy voting, having introduced a bill to ban the practice earlier this year, but for holidaying while other Georgians endured power outages and plunging temperatures.There was enough anger to go round. Politico observed that though it understood many members of Congress were not “super-thrilled to be in Washington with Christmas in two days … more than half of the chamber skipping out on the most basic duty members face – showing up to vote – is a poor showing, especially given the pandemic rationale under which the system is meant to be used”.The spending bill passed by 225-201, with Tlaib the lone “present” vote and four Republicans not voting.Tlaib said: “People are demanding we take meaningful action in providing relief and protection during this public health emergency. This bill does not go nearly far enough in providing that help and support.”She was joined by another high-profile progressive, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.The New Yorker said she voted no because the bill contained a “dramatic increase” in immigration-enforcement spending which “cuts against the promises our party has made to immigrant communities across the country”.Nine Republicans supported the bill. Seven are leaving Congress, among them Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the two anti-Trump Republicans on the House January 6 committee.January 6 report review: 845 pages, countless crimes, one simple truth – Trump did itRead moreBrian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Steve Womack of Arkansas supported the bill and will remain in Congress. In the new House, Politico said, “Democrats will surely be getting to know the two of them better”.McCarthy used a long speech on Friday to play to the right-wingers he needs to be speaker, railing against “a monstrosity” of a bill he said was filled with “leftwing pet projects” and “one of the most shameful acts I’ve ever seen in his body”.Nancy Pelosi responded with remarks she said were probably her last as speaker.“It was sad to hear the minority leader earlier say that this legislation is the most shameful thing to be seen on the House floor in this Congress,” the Democrat said.“I can’t help but wonder, had he forgotten January 6?”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS domestic policyUS politicsDemocratsRashida TlaibAlexandria Ocasio-CorteznewsReuse this content More