Trump sues in New York to block public release of tax returns – live news

We’re seeing some newsy bits dribble out of the Congressional briefing with Intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday unveiled the Democrats long-awaited plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs. It is a rare priority shared by the Democratic-controlled House and the White House, giving this bill greater-than-zero odds of making its way to the president’s desk.

At a press conference on Thursday, Pelosi called the plan “transformative”.

“We do hope to have White House buy-in,” she added.

The plan is ambitious. It would allow Medicare to negotiate prices for 250 costly drugs. Under the bill, pharmaceutical companies that refuse to negotiate with the US Health and Human Services would face stiff penalties that start at 65% of the total sales from the drug.

The proposal would cap copays for seniors enrolled in Medicare’s Part D prescription drug plan at $2,000. There is currently no limit. And the price negotiated by HHS would be available to individuals on private insurance plans.

Despite Trump’s interest in this, House Republicans have panned the plan as “a socialist proposal to appease her most extreme members.”

There are so many “initial steps” in House Democrats’ delicate dance around impeachment.

But for those keeping up with this wild two-step, CNN is reporting that the House Judiciary Committee is preparing to possibly hold Corey Lewandowski in contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions in a theatrical performance before the panel earlier this week.

Donald Trump does no want his tax returns made public.

Now Trump is asking a federal judge to prevent New York prosecutors from obtaining eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns.

Trump’s attorneys filed a lawsuit Thursday in US District Court in New York.

According to the Associated Press, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow says the lawsuit is intended “to address the significant constitutional issues at stake in this case.”

Trump has sued multiple times to block the release of his tax returns. Earlier this year, the president filed a lawsuit against House Democrats and the state of New York over a new law passed that would allow tax officials to turn over the president’s state tax returns.

Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a chokehold by an NYPD officer, is testifying alongside civil rights leader Al Sharpton at a congressional hearing on policing.

In her testimony, Carr said it was “impossible to describe the pain” of losing her son. Carr lost her husband two months ago and her granddaughter, Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, died in 2017.

Of Erica, Carr said: “I say she died of a broken heart. These are the wounds of the seen and unseen from the police brutality. The loss of loved ones and no resources, no accountability. The entire family is traumatized.”

The New York City police officer whose chokehold led to Eric Garner’s death in 2014 was fired from the Police Department and stripped of his pension benefits on Monday, ending a bitter battle that had cast a shadow over the nation’s largest police force.

Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer whose chokehold led to Garner’s death in 2014, was fired last month from his job after the Staten Island district attorney and the Justice Department declined to charge him with a crime. He had been allowed to remain on the police force during the bitter, years-long legal battle. Garner’s death and his final words – “I can’t breathe” – became a rallying cry for police reform in New York and around the country.

Donald Trump has denied saying anything “inappropriate” to a foreign leader after a Washington Post report, confirmed by other news outlets, revealed that a whistleblower in the US intelligence community filed a formal complaint alleging that the president made a troubling “promise” to that leader.

In a series of tweets, Trump said he is aware that US intelligence agents and their foreign counterparts listen to these phone conversations and asked if there was “anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially “heavily populated’ call.”

In a separate tweet, Trump insinuated that the Post report was another example of “presidential harassment.”

We’re going to check in briefly on the confirmation hearing of Eugene Scalia taking place this morning before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, is facing sharp questions from Democrats who are uneasy with his career as an attorney for corporate clients.

Scalia, who was introduced to the committee by Transportation secretary, who was the former labor secretary under president George W Bush (and is the wife of the Senate majority leader) Elaine Chao, said in his opening remarks that his previous work as the department’s top lawyer proved that, once there, he “had new clients, new responsibilities and a public trust.”

The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, opposes his nomination. They have described Scalia as a “union-busting lawyer seeking new opportunities to ruthlessly advance corporate interests”.

Democrats have accused Republicans of rushing the confirmation hearing, giving them little time to scour his record. Senator Lamar Alexander, chair of the HELP committee, has defended the decision.

Senator Patty Murray, the ranking member of the HELP committee, described Scalia as an “elite corporate lawyer” in her opening statement.

Scalia’s nomination is opposed by the AFL-CIO. The labor federation has described him as a union-busting lawyer who has eroded labor rights and consumer protections.

Emily England Clyburn, wife House majority whip Jim Clyburn, has died at the age of 80. They met in jail after a civil rights protest and were married for nearly 60 years.

“Emily Clyburn was a champion of equality and opportunity who made a difference for countless young people in her beloved South Carolina,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “As a librarian, she intimately understood the power of learning to transform lives, and dedicated decades to ensuring that every child, servicemember, veteran and worker could access a good education that would allow him or her to climb the ladders of opportunity in America. Her extraordinary leadership, together with Jim, to increase learning opportunities at their beloved alma mater South Carolina State will stand always as an enduring tribute to her beautiful life and legacy.”

As expected, the Trump administration said on Thursday that it would revoke California’s authority to set its own vehicle emissions standards and bar states from establishing their own regulations.

The decision is likely to set off a furious legal battle.

“No state has the authority to opt out of the nation’s rules and no state has the right to impose its policies on everybody else in our whole country,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said at a press conference. “To do otherwise harms consumers and damages the American economy.”

She argued the administration is “standing up” for the American worker and the American consumer.

California, no stranger to taking on the president, said it’s prepared to fight the administration. “We’re prepared to do whatever it takes to save California’s long-standing authority to set vehicle emissions standards,” said Xavier Becerra, the state’s attorney general.

Governor Gavin Newsom invited Trump to join California in the 21st Century.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/17/trump-california-vehicle-emissions-standards-auto-industry

Donald Trump said the White House is not ready to propose gun control legislation after a series of mass shootings in August that revived efforts to push for action in Congress.

“We’re not moving on anything,” Trump told Fox News’ Ed Henry in an interview at the US-Mexico border. “We’re going very slowly in one way cause we want to make sure it’s right. We’re doing a very careful job.”

In the clip released this morning, Trump singled out presidential hopefulhttps://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1174665740961701892, who has unapologetically called for the mandatory buyback of assault weapons.

After a mass shooting that targeted Latino immigrants in his hometown of El Paso, O’Rourke has made gun violence his campaign’s top priority. On Wednesday, his campaign announced that it was launching a five-state campaign to “activate the country’s next wave of gun safety advocates” in the lead up to the Giffords/March for Our Lives presidential forum on 2 October.

“It will take each and every one of us to meet the challenge of ending gun violence in this country,” said Beto for America Campaign Manager Jen O’Malley Dillon. “That is why our campaign will not wait until the election to seek real change - to inspire, engage, and train the next wave of gun safety advocates who can join Beto in fighting for what we know is right: ambitious solutions that meet the courage of the American people and the magnitude of this crisis.”

But O’Rourke’s blunt admission that as president he would require Americans to give up their assault weapons has sparked blowback from Republicans and some Democrats.

West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, who is leading a long shot, bipartisan effort to pass background check legislation told reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday: “I can tell you one thing: Beto O’Rourke’s not taking my guns away from me. You tell Beto that, OK?”

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of politics. The temperature has finally dropped in Washington but expect a lot of heated exchanges on Capitol Hill where Donald Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, Eugene Scalia, the son of the late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia, appears today for his confirmation hearing. And that’s far from the only thing we’re watching today. Here’s what to expect.

• Late last night the Washington Post reported that at the center of a showdown between members of Congress and the US intelligence community was a whistleblower complaint asserting that Trump made a “troubling” promise with a foreign leader. The paper citied two former officials familiar with the matter and said it was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump had interacted with. In the weeks prior to the complaint, Trump held a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin and exchanged letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Intelligence community inspector general Michael Atkinson is due to appear before the House intelligence committee for a closed-door briefing on the handling of the whistleblower complaint at 9am.

• Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Al Sharpton, former tennis player James Blake and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, who died after being placed in a police chokehold, will testify to House judiciary committee on policing practices at 10am. At the same time, the House oversight committee will hold a hearing on the District of Columbia’s decades-long quest for statehood to once and for all end the injustice of “taxation without representation” for more than 700,000 people. (Full disclosure: yours truly is a tax-paying resident of the nation’s capital.) Shortly afterward, House speaker Nancy Pelosi will hold her weekly press conference to unveil legislation to negotiate lower drug prices for Americans. She’ll likely be asked about fresh reporting on tensions within leadership over the handling of the “impeachment investigation”.

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Transport are set to announce that they are revoking California’s waiver to set stricter car mileage standards than the federal government. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler will testify before the House committee on science and tech at the EPA at 10am.

• As the White House defends its widespread attack on federal efforts to combat climate change, MSNBC hosts a climate forum at Georgetown University with several candidates aspiring to replace Donald Trump. Among those who will speak on day one of the two-day forum are Democratic presidential hopefuls Michael Bennet, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, Bernie Sanders, John Delaney, Tim Ryan and Julián Castro. In the afternoon, Steve Bullock will hold a town hall with the American Federation of Teachers as part of a process to be considered for the union’s endorsement.

To top it off, Trump has no public events on his schedule. It’s a Washington cliché as old as covfefe, but when the president fades from public view, @realDonaldTrump springs to life.