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Mnuchin ‘Lied’ to Congress and ‘Broke the Law to Protect Trump’s Taxes’ Says Top House Democrat

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Former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is being accused – again – of lying to Congress and of breaking the law “to protect Trump’s taxes” by one of the top Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, which just won a nearly four-year fight to obtain the ex-president’s returns.

Tuesday night the Committee voted to release six years of Donald Trump’s taxes to the public, and while Americans are waiting for that to happen the Committee’s report has revealed several bombshells about Trump’s taxes, including that IRS did not perform mandatory audits of the sitting president’s returns.

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) Tuesday night posted video of him chastising then-Secretary Mnuchin during a congressional hearing in March of 2020. Pascrell is the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Oversight.

READ MORE: House Committee Votes to Release Trump’s Tax Returns – No Audits Performed for 3 Years of His Presidency Says Chair

“By refusing to turn over Donald Trump’s business and personal tax returns to this committee. I think you’re breaking the law. You have no legitimate legal rationale,” Pascrell told Mnuchin during the heated session.

Mnuchin, indignant, replied, “I am not breaking the law. You have a different interpretation. You’re not a judge and this will be determined by a court,” Mnuchin said.

“Neither are you,” Pascrell replied.

“Your stated reasons for stonewalling our requests,” Pascrell added, “you never cite any superseding legal basis. The only thing you suffer is smug rhetoric and staggering lies.”

As Pascrell accused Mnuchin of lying, the Treasury Secretary can be seen raising his eyebrows and writing a note.

After a few minutes of Pascrell reading federal law to Mnuchin he then criticized him for complying with two Republicans’ request for information on “Mr. Biden’s son’s tax returns,” presumably referring to Hunter Biden.

“We’ve learned recently that simultaneously you’ve been offering documents to the loyal opposition. When two Republican Senators asked you for the private financial information of Joe Biden’s family, your department practically tripped over themselves to provide it.”

READ MORE: ‘Hillary Clinton Was Right’: MSNBC’s Mika Blasts ‘Biggest Loser’ Trump Over Tax Bombshells

Pascrell also blasted Mnuchin for the response he received from him letter, chastising a Mnuchin subordinate who accused him in writing of being “intemperate.”

“Being lectured on civility from someone who works for the President, President Trump, is like taking chivalry lessons from Jack the Ripper. It is impossible to be polite to corruption and people who break the law.”

Tuesday night Congressman Pascrell reiterated his accusation that Mnuchin had broken the law and lied to Congress.

“Years ago I called out trump treasury head mnuchin for breaking the law to his face,” the New Jersey Democrat tweeted. “He lied on live TV. Tonight we learned I was right he broke the law to protect trump’s taxes.”

He also tweeted, “Tonight we learned the IRS failed to follow the law and did not audit donald trump for years. Oh yeah and trump was lying when he said he was under audit.”

“Republicans are fuming we just voted to publicly release trump’s tax returns. They’re making threats. Fact: in 2014 republicans voted to release the private tax info of 51 taxpayers as part of a sham probe. Republican lies and hypocrisy know no bounds,” Congressman Pascrell added.

Watch the video from 2020 below or at this link.

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Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

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Governor Bill Lee quickly drew tremendous outrage in the wake of a school mass shooting where six people including three young children were shot to death. Social media users criticized the Tennessee Republican, who had signed a permit-less gun carry law, for declaring he was “praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community,” without posting any mention of the mass shooting.

Tweeting he was “closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant,” Gov. Lee said, “As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”

There was no mention of any loss of life, and, as Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts passionately noted, the “situation” was a mass shooting.

“If thoughts and prayers alone worked to stop gun violence, there wouldn’t have been a shooting at a Christian elementary school. It’s your actions – including weakening the state’s gun laws – that’s killing kids in Tennessee,” Watts also tweeted. “SHAME ON YOU.”

Gov. Lee signed a permit-less carry bill into law in 2021, at a Beretta gun manufacturing plant.

According to the CDC, as of 2020 – one year before the permit-less carry bill was signed into law – Tennessee ranked tenth in the nation in per-capita firearm mortality.

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

Meanwhile, others took notice of the gun culture Gov. Lee has fostered in “The Volunteer State.”

MSNBC analyst and Bulwark writer Tim Miller commented, “Tennessee governor Bill Lee issued a statement recently about how the drag ban in Tennessee ‘protects children.’ If only he would have instead focused on laws that might have prevented the mass murder of children in his state today.”

Historian Kevin Kruse pointed to an article from last year, after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, titled: “Rep. Clemmons Seeks Renewed Gun Laws, Gov. Lee Requests Prayer.”

“You chose prayer over gun reforms last year after the Uvalde massacre,” Kruse wrote. “And now here we are.”

The progressive website Tennessee Holler pointed out that Gov. Lee, along with GOP lawmakers, “just appointed Jordan Mollenhour to the [state] board of education— whose company was sued for selling ammo to an underage mass killer (SANTA FE) and sold ammo to at least one more (AURORA) He has ZERO education experience.”

Let’s Give a Damn founder Nick Laparra tweeted, “We are 86 days into 2023. So far, 9859 people have died by gun violence and there have been 128 mass shootings. Meanwhile, @GovBillLee spends his days being outraged over drag queens and CRT and book bans. This is Bill Lee’s and the GOP’s fault.”

See the tweets and video above or at this link.

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

 

 

 

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Mystery Grand Jury Witness in Trump Hush Money Probe Is Former ‘Enquirer’ Publisher and Trump Ally

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Avid followers of the Manhattan District Attorney’s moves noted the grand jury had been called into service for Monday, and soon news leaked that yet another witness would be testifying in the probe into Donald Trump’s alleged hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Monday afternoon, NBC News’ Garrett Haake reported live on MSNBC that the mystery witness was David Pecker, the former tabloid publisher of the “National Enquirer,” who reportedly had been looking for stories in 2016 to protect Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Haake notes Monday was Pecker’s second appearance before the grand jury in the hush money case.

The New York Times also reported David Pecker as the grand jury witness, calling Pecker “a key player in the hush-money matter. He and the tabloid’s top editor helped broker the deal between the porn star, Stormy Daniels, and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s fixer at the time.”

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

“While the focus of Mr. Pecker’s testimony is unclear, he could provide valuable information for prosecutors. A longtime ally of Mr. Trump, he agreed to keep an eye out for potentially damaging stories about Mr. Trump during the 2016 campaign,” The Times reports. “For a brief time in October 2016, Ms. Daniels appeared to have just that kind of story. Her agent and lawyer discussed the possibility of selling exclusive rights to her story of a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump to The National Enquirer, which would then promise to never publish it, a practice known as ‘catch and kill.'”

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman weighed in, noting, “nothing about that decision [to have Pecker testify] suggests any change of heart on Bragg’s part to indict Trump.”

Former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, an NYU professor of law, notes that Pecker’s “testimony can show the [hush money] scheme was designed to affect outcome of election.”

“He reportedly communicated directly with Trump on payment,” Goodman adds.

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‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

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First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, speaking Monday afternoon at a National League of Cities conference, told attendees, “Our children deserve better,” as she broke the news of the Nashville school mass shooting at Covenant Presbyterian School where three children and three adults were shot dead.

“You know,” Dr. Biden, herself an educator and clearly pained by the news, began her remarks by saying, “I hate to say what I’m gonna say next because you know you’re so enthusiastic and with so much energy and hope and I feel it.”

“But while you’ve been in this room, I don’t know whether you’ve been on your phones but we just learned about another shooting in Tennessee, a school shooting and I am truly without words and our children deserve better, and we stand – all of us – we stand with Nashville in prayer.”

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

The First Lady, a former public high school English teacher and currently a professor of English at a community college, was speaking at the organization’s Congressional City Conference.

Watch Dr. Biden below or at this link.

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