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READ: Testimony Released – White House Stopped Hope Hicks From Answering Judiciary Committee Questions 155 Times

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Former Trump White House Communications Director Hope Hicks was prevented from answering questions from the House Judiciary Committee 155 times, by a White House attorney who was present in the room for her closed door testimony Wednesday.

Chairman Jerry Nadler has just released the official transcript of the interview. It spans 273 pages.

“For example,” Talking Points Memo reports, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) Nadler “asked Hicks whether Corey Lewandowski was hired as an official in the White House.”

“White House attorney Michael Purpura immediately objected,” TPM notes, despite the question being a matter of public record, as Nadler said.

“Ms. Hicks may not be compelled to speak about events that occurred during her service as a senior adviser to the President.”

Nadler also points to these specific instances where Hicks was blocked from answering:

  • President Trump’s directive to Corey Lewandowski to deliver a message directing Attorney General Sessions to “unrecuse” from the Russia investigation and limit the Special Counsel investigation (p28-30), a request that Ms. Hicks admitted she found “odd” (p34). According to the Mueller Report, Ms. Hicks was directly involved in the incident when Mr. Lewandowski asked her to type up the President’s obstructive words.
  • President Trump’s effort to have White House Counsel Don McGahn remove the Special Counsel (p116).
  • The resignation of former National Security Advisory Michael Flynn (p201).
  • The recusal of Attorney General Sessions from the Russia investigation (p203).
  • The President’s firing of FBI Director James Comey (p203).
  • The President’s creation of a false statement in response to press coverage of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting (p205-206).

The full transcript can be viewed via Chairman Nadler’s House website, or via the direct link here.

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SCANDAL SWIRLING AROUND HOPE HICKS RIGHT NOW

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White House Teases Out What Trump Will Say in Rare Oval Office Address

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President Donald Trump has delivered only two Oval Office addresses this term, with a third set for Wednesday night. He announced the speech on social media but offered few details. The White House has since teased additional information, fueling speculation.

“My Fellow Americans: I will be giving an address to the nation tomorrow night, live from the White House, at 9 P.M. EST. I look forward to ‘seeing’ you then. It has been a great year for our Country, and the best is yet to come!” Trump wrote in a mixture of all-caps and standard lettering.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt subsequently offered a few more details, suggesting the speech will pump up the administration’s political messaging.

READ MORE: How Trump ‘Dramatically’ Expanded Presidential Power and Beat His First Term Record

“We greatly look forward to President Trump addressing the nation tomorrow night, 9 o’clock Eastern,” she told Fox News. “I hope your audience will tune in, and Americans across the country will tune in to hear from their president, as well, about the historic accomplishments that he has garnered for our country over the past year.”

“If you look at the security of our border, if you look at stopping Joe Biden’s inflation right in its tracks, bringing down gas prices to the lowest level in five years, President Trump will be talking about what’s to come. The best is truly yet to come, as he often says.”

Inflation is officially at about 3% currently, where it was for the month of January when Trump took office. As of Tuesday morning, unemployment jumped up to 4.6%, a four-year high. One economist warned the nation is in a “hiring recession.” Trump’s poll numbers, especially on the economy, are at or near his second-term lows.

READ MORE: ‘Intraparty Brawl’: Johnson Driving Moderate Republicans ‘Into the Arms of Democrats’

Leavitt added that the president will also give remarks “about all of his historic accomplishments over the past year, and maybe teasing some policy that will be coming in the new year, as well, as we head into this Christmas season.”

According to The Independent, Leavitt told reporters it would be a “really good speech.”

“He’s going to talk a lot about the accomplishments over the past 11 months, all that he’s done to bring our country back to greatness, and all he continues to plan to do to continue delivering for the American people over the next three years,” she said.

READ MORE: ‘Warning Sign’: Unemployment Jumps as Experts Sound Alarm on ‘Hiring Recession’

 

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How Trump ‘Dramatically’ Expanded Presidential Power and Beat His First Term Record

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On Monday, President Donald Trump signed his 221st executive order, surpassing his entire four-year first term record of 220. Unlike many other presidents who partnered with Congress to pass legislation to advance their agenda, President Trump has opted to “dramatically expand presidential authority with moves that have tested the bounds of the Constitution,” according to The Washington Post.

“American presidents have consolidated executive power to skirt Congress since the beginning of the 20th century. But Trump has accelerated the trend that intensified in recent decades amid a decline in legislative activity and rising partisan brinkmanship.”

Continuing at his current rate, Trump would finish this four-year term with more than 880 executive orders to his name.

According to The American Presidency Project, President Joe Biden signed a total of 162 executive orders in four years. President Barack Obama signed 276 across eight years. President George W. Bush signed 291 in eight years, and President Bill Clinton, 364.

READ MORE: ‘Intraparty Brawl’: Johnson Driving Moderate Republicans ‘Into the Arms of Democrats’

“Trump has used the orders to impose sweeping tariffs, seek retribution against his perceived enemies and weigh in on cultural issues big and small, from challenging immigration laws to regulating water pressure from showerheads,” the Post reported.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller has “major influence” over Trump’s executive orders. The Post reported that one White House official said that every executive order is “fully vetted and reviewed” by the White House Counsel, the president’s staff secretary’s office, and Miller.

Trump’s approach is distinguished by both the volume of executive orders and the scope. They reflect a strong effort to shift power away from Congress and toward the Oval Office — an expansion of presidential authority that courts are now being asked to rein in.

The courts, according to the Post, have stepped in numerous times, halting Trump “from unilaterally changing federal election-registration rules, banning care for transgender people and punishing law firms who have represented causes or clients that he opposes. A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical of Trump’s tariffs during oral arguments last month, and the high court said it would hear a case examining Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship.”

READ MORE: ‘Warning Sign’: Unemployment Jumps as Experts Sound Alarm on ‘Hiring Recession’

 

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‘Intraparty Brawl’: Johnson Driving Moderate Republicans ‘Into the Arms of Democrats’

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Moderate House Republicans concerned about re-election next year have been pushing for a vote to extend the Obamacare premium subsidies, but Speaker Mike Johnson is strongly opposed. House Democrats need only four Republicans to cross the aisle and sign their discharge petition, which would force a vote on the House floor — and Democrats may get exactly what they want.

That’s according to Punchbowl News and its co-founder, Jake Sherman.

“This week,” Sherman wrote, “was designed to give House Republicans a way to push back on Democratic attacks that they’re indifferent to skyrocketing health care costs hitting millions of Americans. Instead, the House GOP leadership has facilitated an untimely — and particularly nasty — intraparty brawl, pitting moderates against Republican Party leaders and further strengthening Democrats’ political hand as the Obamacare cliff looms.”

READ MORE: ‘Warning Sign’: Unemployment Jumps as Experts Sound Alarm on ‘Hiring Recession’

Speaker Johnson is “pushing” moderate Republicans “into the arms of Democrats,” Sherman added, “as the House Republican leadership refuses to allow the centrists a vote on extending the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies.”

One moderate Republican, Sherman also reported, U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) “stood up in a House Republican Conference meeting and said that not having an up-or-down vote on extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies is malpractice.”

He also reported that many moderate Republicans “share this sentiment.”

“They feel like they have to have a vote and the conference won’t give it to them. Driving them into the arms of democrats.”

Sherman explained that by refusing to allow the vote, Republicans have delivered a “political advantage” to the Democrats. If just four House Republicans sign Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition, “Democrats have exacted the precise policy win they’ve been seeking, even if that never becomes law.”

READ MORE: ‘Grifters’: A MAGA Civil War Is Eating Away at Its Own Power

 

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