Redacted Mueller Report
Now that we have seen some of the Mueller report, it’s obvious Congress needs to see all of it. House Democrats subpoenaed the full unredacted report today, after Attorney General Barr refused to turn it over.
The redacted report paints a stunning picture of bottomless corruption. When a foreign adversary attacked our democracy, Trump and his team were thrilled to reap the benefits. When an investigation was launched to get to the bottom of that effort, he launched a two-year interference campaign to conceal the truth from the American people.
Trump has spent his entire presidency engaged in a nonstop campaign of obstruction, intimidation, and abuse of power. No one is above the law.
We needed a special counsel investigation because we couldn't trust Trump or his minions to present the facts to the American people -- this report, and Barr deliberately distorting significant portions of it, once again makes that clear.
The American people deserve to know the truth. It is imperative that the rest of the report and the underlying documents be made available to Congress and that Special Counsel Mueller testify before both chambers as soon as possible.
Democratic Party Agenda
Voters overwhelmingly rejected the Republican agenda that did nothing for them and failed to deliver for middle-class families.
The House of Representatives voted to reauthorize and expand the Violence Against Women Act.
Democrats are also working on legislative solutions to protect people with pre-existing conditions and lower health care costs.
House and Senate Democrats voted to condemn Trump’s decision to support a lawsuit to overturn the entire ACA.
After making historic gains in the House, Democrats immediately got to work for the people and already passed H.R. 1, the For the People Act.
The bill includes provisions to strengthen our election systems and make it easier, not harder, for people to vote.
The bill will also reduce the role of money in politics and restore transparency, accountability and unity to government.
The White House has threatened to veto, and McConnell has already refused to take up this bold, transformative legislation that puts the power back in the hands of the people and cleans up the corruption in Washington.
Here’s some of what else Democrats have done already to get to work for the people:
House and Senate Democrats introduced the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act to add protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
House Democrats introduced legislation to provide permanent legal protection and a pathway to citizenship for millions of Dreamers.
The Democratic-led House passed legislation to require background checks for all gun sales.
House Democrats passed legislation to help close the gender pay gap.
Democrats introduced legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Democrats launched an investigation into pharmaceutical companies raising prescription drug prices.
Democrats will work in a bipartisan way to deliver results on many other priorities:
We will fight for opportunity for everyone.
We will fight to lower the cost of prescription drugs.
We are going to fight for an infrastructure bill that addresses climate change and actually puts people to work.
DNC WAR ROOM
Trump Doubles Down on Failed Border Strategy
Trump’s cruel and chaotic border strategy has failed. Instead of addressing our broken immigration system, the Trump administration continues to pursue illegal and completely misguided policies that worsen the humanitarian crisis at the border and do nothing to make us safer.
In fact, Trump plans to double down on his chaotic anti-immigrant agenda -- from shutting down the border, to illegally denying entry to asylum seekers, to pressuring Congress to allow the Trump administration to detain immigrant children indefinitely.
Democrats are making clear that we need a better strategy at the border:
We need a fairer and more efficient process for considering asylum claims that protects those who are eligible and deters those who are not.
We need to use the substantial border funding provided in the last budget bill to build out the infrastructure at ports of entry, hire more immigration judges, and humanely screen and process families and children at the border.
We need to address the violence and economic and political instability that is causing people to flee their home countries in the first place. That includes working with our Central American partners to reinstate regional refugee and resettlement programs, without cutting off all access to asylum.
The last thing we need to do is give the Trump administration more authority or more funding to pursue its chaotic and dangerous immigration agenda. We urge Republicans to work with Democrats on smart strategies that put our security and humanity first.
Trump Tax Law
Trump promised his tax law would be a middle-class tax cut and would increase the average household income for working families by $4,000.
Instead, Trump gave massive tax cuts to the rich and big corporations, while many middle-class families have actually had to pay more in taxes.
Corporations used their massive tax breaks to benefit their CEOs and wealthy shareholders with record stock buybacks, while they actually laid off workers.
The Trump tax law remains incredibly unpopular because the American people know the truth: it’s not benefiting them.
More Americans say they’ve had to pay more in taxes than less.
Trump’s tax cuts are not delivering the results he promised:
The White House continues to claim that Trump’s tax cut is paying for itself, but the federal budget deficit widened to $691 billion in the first half of the fiscal year.
Business investment continues to trend down, despite the White House saying this was key to the tax cut trickling down to workers.
Through the first quarter of this year, inflation-adjusted weekly wages haven’t budged in nearly a year.
A recent report from the White House says the economy isn’t on track to reach the 3 percent growth Trump and his advisors repeatedly promised we’d easily hit if they passed their tax law.
Now, Trump’s top economic advisers are saying that Trump’s massive corporate tax cuts have been so successful that they want to give corporations even more handouts.
Economic growth is well below the 4-5 percent Trump promised, and below the 3.2 percent White House economists projected despite massive tax breaks that added $1.9 trillion to the deficit.
The economy only grew at 2.2% in the fourth quarter of last year.
We know that Trump won’t stand up for working families. Trump falsely blamed local union leaders and workers at the General Motors facility in Lordstown, Ohio for job cuts that he vowed to prevent.
Trump’s tax law actually incentivized corporations to offshore jobs.
GM saved hundreds of millions of dollars from Trump’s tax law, but used that money to benefit their wealthy shareholders while shuttering factories.
Trump’s Taxes
After Trump’s Treasury Department refused to meet House Democrats' deadline last week to release six years of Trump's personal and business tax returns from the IRS, the House Ways and Means Committee issued another request demanding Trump’s returns by April 23.
Trump’s legal team has already responded with a second letter to the Treasury Department, pressuring the IRS not to release Trump’s returns.
Despite Trump and his administration’s lies, the law is crystal clear: the House Ways and Means Committee has the authority to request Trump’s taxes. There is no room for ambiguity or interpretation.
Any attempt to block the release of Trump's tax returns is an unprecedented step that sets up a constitutional challenge. What is Trump trying to hide?
We already know that Trump has a long history of dodging taxes and committing fraud, including using shady tactics to reduce his tax bill and avoid tens of millions of dollars in estate taxes.
Trump has habitually provided false, flawed, and incomplete information to lenders, investors, and journalists about his finances. Or to put it another way: He's lied. A lot.
Americans deserve to know how Trump's financial interests affect how he governs. Trump promised on the campaign trail that he'd release his returns. And a majority still want him to release them.
For two years, Republicans refused to provide any oversight on Trump or his administration. Americans overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in the midterm elections, in part because they wanted to provide a check on the president.
The American people deserve to know what Trump is hiding, and Democrats are going to find out.
Lucas Acosta
Director of Broadcast Media
Democratic National Committee
19 April 2019
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