Tag: U.S. House

Weeks of Talks Led a Reluctant Mueller to Testify

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — The agreement for Robert S. Mueller III to testify on Capitol Hill materialized after weeks of phone calls and meetings between House Democratic staff and associates of Mr. Mueller, who made clear his reluctance to enter the political war surrounding his investigation.

His intermediaries repeatedly delivered a message that Mr. Mueller, then the special counsel, conveyed last month in a rare public appearance: A prosecutor speaks through his indictments and the written word rather than the public spectacle of a congressional hearing. Mr. Mueller was so averse to being pulled into the political arena that he never spoke directly with lawmakers or their aides, according to a senior congressional official involved in the talks and others briefed on them.

His reticence mattered little in the end. Democrats were insistent that he had a responsibility to testify, though they agreed to combine questioning from two panels on one day. The protracted negotiations came to an abrupt stop late on Tuesday night when representatives for Mr. Mueller agreed that he would show up if the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees issued subpoenas for an appearance on July 17.

View the complete June 26 article by Nicholas Fandos and Eileen Sullivan on The Washington Post website here.

Robert Mueller agrees to publicly testify to Congress

Axios logoFormer special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees pursuant to a subpoena on July 17, Chairmen Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced Tuesday evening. The testimonies will be “back to back,” but separate, according to Schiff.

Why it matters: Mueller previously said he preferred not to testify and that his 400-page report would function as his testimony. After weeks of negotiations between the former special counsel’s team and House Democrats, a subpoena is what ultimately broke the deadlock.

“Pursuant to subpoenas issued by the House Judiciary and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence tonight, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has agreed to testify before both Committees on July 17 in open session.

View the complete June 25 article by Rebecca Falconer and Zachaery Basu on the Axios website here.

Scoop: Bipartisan senators want Big Tech to put a price on your data

Axios logoSenators Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) will introduce legislation on Monday to require Facebook, Google, Amazon and other major platforms to disclose the value of their users’ data, as first reported Sunday evening on “Axios on HBO.”

Why it matters: Our personal data is arguably our most valuable asset in the digital age, but internet users don’t have any way of knowing how much their data is actually worth.

The big picture: Two decades ago, consumers made a bargain — we traded our data in exchange for using “free” sites like Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube and Twitter. Warner says he wants consumers to be more informed about the real value of what they give up in the form of, for example, location data, relationship status, data about the apps we use, our age, gender and lifestyle.

View the complete June 23 article by Kim Hart on the Axios website here.

Hope Hicks refused to answer 155 questions during House testimony

Hope Hicks refused to answer 155 questions from House Democrats on Wednesday about her tenure as communications director in the Trump White House, according to a transcript of her closed-door testimony released Thursday.

The longtime confidante of President Donald Trump spent nearly eight hours clinging closely to White House attorneys’ demands that she refuse to answer every question about her time in the White House, as Democrats ticked through a lengthy, detailed and at times monotonous recitation of questions they knew the answer to: “Objection.”

The House Judiciary Committee’s interview yielded virtually no new information about Hicks’ role in the Trump campaign, and none at all about her testimony to former special counsel Robert Mueller centering on Trump’s repeated attempts to constrain or thwart Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

View the complete June 20 article by Andrew Desiderio and Kyle Cheney on the Politico website here.

GOP hopes dim on reclaiming House

The Hill logoThe 2020 election is more than a year away, but some Republican lawmakers are pessimistic about their chances of winning back the House.

President Trump’s approval ratings in key swing states are under water. Infighting on the GOP leadership team and a notable retirement have raised questions about the party’s campaign strategy.

And Republicans acknowledge that many of the at-risk Democratic freshmen in Trump districts are going to be difficult to beat as they resist calls for impeachment and stay focused on kitchen-table issues such as health care and infrastructure.

View the complete June 19 article by Scott Wong and Juliegrace Brufke on The Hill website here.

House Dems slam Hope Hicks and her White House lawyer for refusing to answer questions: ‘Ridiculous!’

AlterNet logoDemocratic lawmakers are already calling Hope Hicks’ congressional testimony “ridiculous.”

The former White House communications director complied with a subpoena Wednesday morning to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, but refused to answer any questions about her time serving under President Donald Trump.

A White House lawyer who accompanied Hicks, who left the government in early 2018, repeatedly objected to questions from congressional investigators.

Kyle Cheney

✔@kyledcheney

Replying to @kyledcheney

“It’s pretty ridiculous,” says Rep. @KarenBassTweets, saying the White House lawyer inside the Hope Hicks interview is objecting to lots of questions.

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View the complete June 19 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

White House blocks former Trump aide from answering House panel’s questions, angering Democrats

Washington Post logoThe White House on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s former aide Hope Hicks from answering dozens of questions from a House committee, an impasse that hands pro-impeachment Democrats another argument to start proceedings, even as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pushed back.

During a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee, a White House attorney and Justice Department lawyer argued that Hicks had immunity from questions about her West Wing tenure — although Hicks is a private citizen. The standoff — and the White House assertion of an exemption that Democrats said simply does not exist — immediately raised the prospect of the House asking a court to force her to testify.

The latest clash between House Democrats and the Trump administration in their ongoing war over Congress’s right to conduct oversight comes as nearly 70 House Democrats have called for an impeachment inquiry to begin. Indeed, some members of the Judiciary panel emerged from the nearly eight-hour session with Hicks predicting that the episode would only fortify their case that it was time to start proceedings.

View the complete June 19 article by Rachel Bade, Mike DeBonis and Hailey Fuchs on The Washington Post website here.

House minority leader’s attempt to pin Trump’s latest scandal on Democrats flops after reporter points out this simple fact

The leader of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives on Thursday tried to deflect from President Donald Trump’s recent comments about foreign election meddling by attacking Democrats over a controversial intelligence document.

But it was quickly pointed out that the salacious dossier, which accused Donald Trump of having ties to Russia, was first turned over to the FBI by late Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

“Let me be clear. I don’t want to see any foreign government try to interfere in our elections. We should all stand united to ensure integrity in our elections,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said at a press conference, before going on a rant about the unverified intelligence document, which is known as the Steele dossier.

View the complete June 13 article from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

House panel advances anti-money laundering bill with only some GOP support

Backers hope it’ll be enough to move in the Senate

After holding an anti-money laundering bill for a month in the hopes of winning over the committee’s top ranking Republican, the House Financial Services Committee advanced it without him on Wednesday, in a move that could ultimately undermine the odds of passing it through the Senate.

The legislation would require corporations and limited liability companies to report who actually owns them to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, in the hopes of curbing the use of anonymous shell companies for hiding illicit assets from criminal investigators and tax officials.

The bill’s sponsor, New York Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney, pulled the bill from the committee’s May markup session after ranking Republican Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina expressed reservations over requiring small businesses to report information to FinCEN without quantitative data from the agency demonstrating how that information would help law enforcement.

View the complete June 13 article by Jim Saksa on The Roll Call website here.

House Oversight votes to hold Barr, Ross in contempt

The House Oversight and Reform Committee voted largely along party lines on Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for failing to comply with congressional subpoenas.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) broke with his party to vote with the panel’s Democrats.

The high-stakes vote took place just hours after the Justice and Commerce departments announced that President Trump had asserted executive privilege over the subpoenaed documents, which were tied to the Trump administration’s addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

View the complete June 12 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.