TV News LIES

House Democratic leaders are calling for Attorney General William Barr to immediately appear for a hearing to explain his decision last month to release a top-line summary of Robert Mueller’s investigation without unveiling the full report.

It's a move that has given President Donald Trump a potent — and at times misleading — talking point about the conclusions of the nearly two-year Russia probe and left Democrats frustrated with Barr.

Barr's four-page memo said the special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow to sway the 2016 presidential election, but it also said that Mueller did not exonerate the president on obstruction of justice. However, Barr added that he would not charge the president with obstruction of justice. Trump has touted the letter as a complete vindication.

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Top Democratic lawmakers are preparing to request President Donald Trump’s personal tax returns, but some liberal lawmakers say they should also demand his business tax filings.

The business returns are much more likely to indicate conflicts of interest and other possible malfeasance Democrats hope to uncover, such as suspicious ties to Russian interests and whether he took aggressive steps to avoid paying taxes.

Trump’s financial disclosures show he has more than 500 partnerships and other types of businesses, and each of those would generally have its own tax return.

There are other types of returns Democrats could seek as well. They could demand returns from his trusts -- a check from Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen released earlier this month, that he said reimbursed him for hush payments to Stormy Daniels, was written out of the account of a revocable trust. Democrats might want First Lady Melania Trump’s returns, because if she and her husband file separately yet own a business together they could allocate income from it to her and not him.

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Michael Cohen offered riveting testimony about his allegations against President Trump on Wednesday, laying into his former boss as a “racist” and a “cheat” in a packed House Oversight and Reform Committee room.

A decidedly contrite Cohen said he was ashamed of things he had done as Trump's personal lawyer and fixer, saying he had paid for his loyalty dearly.

“I blindly followed his demands,” Cohen said in closing remarks after more than seven hours of testimony. “My loyalty to Mr. Trump has cost me everything.”

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A U.S. House panel investigating President Donald Trump wants to depose Trump’s long-time tax lawyer Sheri Dillon, as well as Stefan Passantino, former deputy White House Counsel in charge of compliance and ethics, according to letters sent to both of them on Wednesday and seen by Reuters.

House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat, said in the letters that the panel wants to ask about Trump’s legally mandated financial ethics disclosures.

The panel, the letters said, also seeks information about payments made before the 2016 presidential election by former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen to buy the silence of women who claimed they had affairs with the married Trump.

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Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee announced Tuesday they are launching an investigation into the Trump administration’s dealings with Saudi Arabia after several whistleblowers expressed concern about efforts to sell the kingdom nuclear technology.

The announcement came in conjunction with the release of a report by committee staff that said senior White House officials pushed for the sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia despite warnings from ethics advisers and national security officials to stop.

Congressional Democratic leadership ripped President Trump on Tuesday night, accusing him of trying to "stoke fear" with his calls for a wall on the Mexican border, which have led to a partial government shutdown. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), standing side by side in front of six American flags, offered a rebuttal to Trump immediately after his Oval Office address to the nation.