Thursday, Dec 18th
Last update08:26:17 AM GMT
Political Glance
Thousands of dollars in donations flowed to an undisclosed source at a Trump inaugural ball with links to China and dubious donors, but no financial records.
In the decked-out ballroom of a ritzy Washington hotel the night before Donald Trump took office, thousands of dollars flowed from political donors and a questionable casino company to an undisclosed bank account.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that his committee will call Attorney General William Barr to testify over “very concerning discrepancies and final decision making” at the Justice Department over special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
“In light of the very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department following the Special Counsel report, where Mueller did not exonerate the President, we will be calling Attorney General Barr in to testify before @HouseJudiciary in the near future,” Nadler tweeted Sunday.
It was the nation's first look at what special counsel Robert Mueller had concluded after investigating the president for years. And in the end, everyone seemed to have a different take, which largely came down along party lines.
On Sunday, Attorney General William Barr compiled a four-page letter that highlighted the findings of Mueller's investigation. The letter, which was sent to Congress, attempts to answer key questions that have hung over all of President Donald Trump's presidency, specifically whether the president committed the crime of obstruction of justice and colluded with Russia.
Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year-long investigation concluded without finding adequate evidence to show that officials with Donald Trump’s presidential 2016 campaign aided Russian attempts to interfere with the election.
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” the special counsel wrote in his findings, which Attorney General William Barr released Sunday in four-page summary form.
Mueller’s long-awaited findings also do not take a clear position on whether Trump obstructed justice.
President Donald Trump sent his annual budget vision to Congress on Monday, starting a new battle over how to fund the government that sets up the nation for an even more destructive shutdown when money runs out later this year.
The president’s plan seeks deep cuts from agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department. At the same time it would spend $8.6 billion on a border wall with Mexico and boost defense spending to $750 billion, both items sure to raise intense opposition from Democrats.
"It was not a campaign contribution, and there were no violations of the campaign finance laws by me. Fake News!" Trump tweeted.
Trump has denied having an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, and previously denied knowing about payments to her, referring questions about the matter to Michael Cohen – the ex-personal attorney who now says Trump authorized the payoffs.
Michael Bloomberg will not run for president in 2020, the billionaire businessman wrote in a statement posted online on Tuesday, ending months of speculation about the political future of one of the Democratic Party's top donors.
Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, had been toying with the idea of a presidential run for months and was floated as a candidate in every presidential cycle going back to 2008. As recently as the past two months, aides to Bloomberg had been interviewing potential staffers in Iowa and New Hampshire, early contests in the Democratic primary.
But, facing a packed field of Democratic contenders, Bloomberg, 77, wrote he was "clear-eyed" about the obstacles to securing the party's nomination.
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