Archive for the ‘Donald Trump’ Category

Who Is Leaking Donald Trump’s Tax Returns? – NBCNews.com

Someone with access to all or parts of President Donald Trump's tax returns wants them made public. But who?

Tuesday's disclosure of two pages from Trump's 2005 federal returns marked the second time in the last seven months that portions of Trump's tax filings have been leaked to reporters.

In October, The New York Times published a story based on a leaked portion of Trump's 1995 state tax returns in multiple states, showing that he declared a massive $916 million loss that year that could have enabled him to avoid paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades. And on Tuesday, investigative reporter David Cay Johnston unveiled some details of Trump's 2005 federal income tax return on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show."

Trump promised during the 2016 presidential campaign to release his tax returns, but has repeatedly refused to do so, citing an IRS audit he has yet to show proof of.

Related: Trump paid $38 million in federal taxes

Here's what we know about how the leaks happened and what they tell us about who the leaker or leakers might be:

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Who Is Leaking Donald Trump's Tax Returns? - NBCNews.com

Donald Trump Condemns Snoop Dogg on Twitter for Satirical Video – New York Times


New York Times
Donald Trump Condemns Snoop Dogg on Twitter for Satirical Video
New York Times
The music video was for a remix of the song Lavender by the band BadBadNotGood. A satirical music video featuring the rapper Snoop Dogg and a clown called Ronald Klump is the latest piece of pop culture drawing the attention and ire of President ...
Donald Trump Lashes Out at Snoop Dogg Over Controversial Music VideoRollingStone.com
Donald Trump slams Snoop Dogg in early morning tweetCBS News
Donald Trump Sets His Twitter Fingers on Snoop Dogg and His Failing CareerVanity Fair
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Donald Trump Condemns Snoop Dogg on Twitter for Satirical Video - New York Times

Donald Trump, Netherlands, Federal Reserve: Your Wednesday Briefing – New York Times


New York Times
Donald Trump, Netherlands, Federal Reserve: Your Wednesday Briefing
New York Times
Voting in The Hague today. The Dutch elections are the first big test this year for the far right in Europe. Credit Peter Dejong/Associated Press. (Want to get this briefing by email? Here's the sign-up.) Good morning. Here's what you need to know ...

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Donald Trump, Netherlands, Federal Reserve: Your Wednesday Briefing - New York Times

Donald Trump’s itchy Twitter finger just alienated one of his most important allies – Washington Post

House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (Calif.) expressed doubt, March 15, about President Trump's claim of a 2016 wire tap at Trump Tower. (Reuters)

If there is one man on Capitol Hill that President Trump might want to stay in the good graces of, it's Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Nunes is the head of the House intelligence committee, which is in charge of investigating Russia's role in the 2016 election you know, the one Democrats think could prove collusion between the Trump campaign and a foreign power.

And until this week,that was a good setup for Trump. Nunes had beena member of his own transition team, after all, and he seemed to go out of his way to defend Trump in a way few others did,frankly.

That may no longer be the case.

Nunes delivered a reasonably strong rebuke of Trump on Wednesday for his tweet that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower, saying that if the tweet were to be taken literally, clearly the president was wrong (meaning Trump). The comment came a couple days after Nunes threatened to subpoena the Trump administration for failing to turn over evidence related to Trump's claim.

As I argued Tuesday, Nunes seems to be fed up with this story line, and he's suddenly willing to wield his authority in a way that Trump probably doesn't love. Or, at the very least, Nunes is now bowing to the reality of Trump's wayward and still evidence-free conspiracy theory.

And that's a clear reversal from where Nunes has been in recent weeks.

A month ago, when then-national security adviser Michael Flynn was in hot water, Nunes gave him a big if ill-timed vote of confidence. He said Flynn should not step down mere hours before Flynn was forced to do so.

No, I don't," Nunes told Fox News's Neil Cavuto. I have great confidence in Mike Flynn. Hes probably the best intelligence officer of his generation. And Neil, hes being attacked maliciously by the press, which is not uncommon in this town.

Two weeks later, Nunes shrugged off the idea that Trump might have asked Flynn to signal to the Russian ambassador that Trump would ease Obama's sanctions once Trump was in office. Even discussing those sanctionsduring Trump's transition period risked violating the law, and Flynn later misled the White House about it, leading to his resignation.

At the time, Nunes said he didn't think it was even plausible that Trump had directed Flynn to talk sanctions because Trump was so busy a curious argument, in my mind.

I would find that hard to believe because they were so busy, and I think these conversations were all very short, Nunes said.

Then, last week, Nunes seemed to poo-poothe same tweets he addressed Wednesday, suggesting that Trump should be excused for being a newcomer to politics and not having lawyers review every tweet. It was truly a wide-ranging defense.

The president is a neophyte to politics, Nunes said. Hes been doing this a little over a year. And I think a lot of the things that he says, you guys sometimes take literally. Sometimes he doesnt have 27 lawyers and staff looking at what he does which is, I think, at times refreshing and at times can also lead us to have to be sitting at a press conference like this, answering questions that you guys are asking. But at the end of the day, I think tweets are a very transparent way for a politician of any rank to communicate with their constituents. So I don't think we should attack the president for tweeting.

Fast forward to Wednesday, andNunes has now delivered perhaps the most significant contradiction to the White House's ongoing claim which Trump apparently still subscribes to that Obama surveilled him somehow.

We'll see where Nunes's relationship with Trump goes from here, but he's in a position of power. And perhaps he's finally realizing that.

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Donald Trump's itchy Twitter finger just alienated one of his most important allies - Washington Post

The Federal Reserve Gives Donald Trump His First Interest Rate Hike – Huffington Post

WASHINGTON The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, a sign of its continued confidence in the economy in the wake of President Donald Trumps inauguration.

The move, which reflects the Feds satisfaction with job growth and its mounting concern about inflation,is the first rate hike since Trump took office.

The central banks Federal Open Market Committee increased the target federal funds rate what banks charge one another for overnight lending by 0.25 percentage points, to a range of 0.75 percent to 1.0 percent.

Congress gave the Fed a dual mandate: to maximize employment, and to keep prices stable.The Fed raises the federal funds rate to tame inflation by putting downward pressure on job market growth.

When this form of interbank lending becomes more expensive, creditors tend to respond by increasing interest rates on home loans, auto loans, student loans, credit cards and a variety of other types of debt. As a result, the Feds quarter-percentage-point increase will likely squeeze borrowers and consumers, while upping the earnings of lenders and savers who rely on interest-bearing investments.

Although Wednesdays rate hike is just the third increase since the Fed lowered the influential rate to zero in December 2008, it is the second hike since December 2016, suggesting the Fed is finally accelerating its efforts to raise borrowing costs. Prior to December, the central bank had gone a year without raising the rate after global economic headwinds gave it caution.

Notwithstanding the long buildup, it is still too soon to raise the benchmark rate and risk putting the brakes on job growth, according to Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Its the wrong move, Baker said on Tuesday. Its based on some wrong views about the economy, particularly that were closer to full employment than I think we are. But a quarter-point doesnt have a huge impact on the economy.

Baker is one of many economists, most of them progressive, who believe the low headline unemployment rate masks underemployment and fails to convey the lower pay of the new jobs being created.

The national unemployment rate dropped to 4.7 percent in February as the economy created 235,000 jobs.

But the official unemployment rate fails to account for people working part-time involuntarily, or people who have given up looking for work altogether. A broader metric that counts those workers as unemployed shows a jobless rate of 9.2 percent.

In addition, many American workers are settling for lower-paying work. Sixty percent of the net new jobs created between December 2007 and December 2016 were in retail, hospitality and other service sectors that tend to pay less and provide fewer work hours than other sectors, according to an analysis by Dan Alpert, founder of Westwood Capital and a fellow at the Century Foundation.

Meanwhile, a measure of price inflation that excludes volatile food and energy prices rose 1.7 percent in the 12-month period ending in January still below the Feds 2-percent inflation target. Baker and like-minded economists prefer the risk of exceeding that target to the risk of prematurely depressing the job market.

Stephanie Kelton, an economist at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and an economic adviser to the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), agrees with Baker that the economy is still employing fewer people than it could.

But Kelton argues that there are limits to what the Fed should be expected to do to make up for the federal governments failure to boost growth through public spending. She is sympathetic to the idea that the Fed needs to raise rates so as not to deprive itself of the ability to stimulate the economy later.

Fed officials want some space, Kelton said. They want to be able to get away from zero with enough distance so when the next recession inevitably comes, theres some room to move down.

Economic observers now await the White Houses reaction to the Feds announcement. During the 2016 presidential campaign,Trump was critical of the Fed for failing to raise interest rates ahead of the November election, accusing Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen of artificially buoying the economy to benefit the incumbent Democrats.

But as Trump prepares a major package of tax cuts and a large infrastructure plan which even some of his critics believe could boost the economy further he could soon be on a collision course with the Fed for doing exactly what he claimed it should have done under President Barack Obama: raise interest rates.

Any of Trumps policies that create more jobs would likely prompt the Fed to increase the funds rate more rapidly. The contractionary impact of those hikes could offset any expansionary effect of Trumps agenda.

As with many issues, Trumps stance on the Fed has not been entirely consistent, and its possible he could embrace his old ideas if circumstances warrant it. Before Trump began arguing that Yellen was using low rates to inflate an economic bubble for political reasons, he hadexpressed support for her policies, claiming the low rates were good for U.S. exports.

Should Trump challenge the Federal Reserve for prioritizing concerns about inflation over allowing job growth to proceed unencumbered, he may find unlikely allies in progressive economists who have long taken issue with the Feds priorities.

At this point, I wont place bets on that. I guess well find out soon enough, Baker said.

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The Federal Reserve Gives Donald Trump His First Interest Rate Hike - Huffington Post