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Judge's ruling allows banks to hand over Trump's financial records to Congress – as it happened

This article is more than 4 years old
 Updated 
in San Francisco (now) and in New York (earlier)
Wed 22 May 2019 20.17 EDTFirst published on Wed 22 May 2019 09.13 EDT
Donald Trump said on Wednesday: ‘There was no collusion, there was no obstruction.’ The Mueller report found 10 instances of potential obstruction.
Donald Trump said on Wednesday: ‘There was no collusion, there was no obstruction.’ The Mueller report found 10 instances of potential obstruction. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA
Donald Trump said on Wednesday: ‘There was no collusion, there was no obstruction.’ The Mueller report found 10 instances of potential obstruction. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

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Key events

Evening summary

  • Two of the nine financial institutions subpoenaed by House financial services committee for documents related to their dealings with the Trump Organization have already turned over some documents.
  • The Pentagon wants to send up to 10,000 more troops to the Middle East.
  • The House oversight and reform committee reached an agreement with President Trump’s attorneys to expedite the appeals process for a federal judge’s decision to uphold a congressional subpoena for eight years of Trump’s financial records.
  • A 10-year-old migrant girl died in government care last year.

Wells Fargo, TD Bank have handed Trump-related documents over to Congress

NBC News is reporting that Wells Fargo and TD Bank - two of the nine financial institutions subpoenaed by the House financial services committee for documents related to their dealings with the Trump Organization - have already turned over some records:

Wells Fargo provided the committee with a few thousand documents and TD Bank handed the committee a handful of documents, according to a source who has seen them. The committee, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is especially interested in the president’s business relationship with Russia and other foreign entities.

SCOOP: Wells Fargo, TD Bank have already given Trump-related financial documents to the House Financial Services Committee with @AlexNBCNews https://t.co/BrKccmBQjj

— Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) May 22, 2019
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The House oversight and reform committee reached an agreement with President Trump’s attorneys to expedite their appeal on the federal judge’s decision in favor of the the House’s subpoena of his accounting firm for eight years of his personal and business records.

BREAKING: Committee announces request to expedite appeal for subpoena of #President’s Financial Records. Full Release: https://t.co/JQzaVtBr9I pic.twitter.com/P2J9TzOKsx

— Oversight Committee (@OversightDems) May 22, 2019

From the committee’s statement: “Under the requested schedule, which was filed earlier today as a joint motion, written arguments could be submitted as early as June 12, with all briefings completed by July. If the Court approves this accelerated schedule, the Committee would agree to suspend the enforcement of its subpoena during the pendency of the appeal.”

“I was very encouraged earlier this week when the District Court issued its strong ruling supporting Congress’ right to conduct investigations, and I am encouraged that we have now been able to reach this agreement to seek an expedited appeal,” said committee chair Elijah Cummings. “I hope the Court approves our request so we can move forward and effectively discharge our responsibilities under the Constitution.”

Pentagon wants to send up to 10,000 more troops to Middle East

The Associated Press is reporting that the Pentagon will meet with White House officials Thursday morning to present plans “ to beef up defenses against potential Iranian threats”.

BREAKING: The Pentagon will present plans to the White House to send up to 10,000 more troops to the Middle East amid Iran tension, U.S. officials say. https://t.co/jqVsp13a53

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 22, 2019

Report: 10-year-old migrant child died last year in custody

CBS News is reporting that a sixth migrant child died last year in custody after crossing the US border - and authorities never reported her death.

BREAKING: CBS News has learned that a sixth migrant child died after crossing the U.S. border, an HHS official confirmed Wednesday.

The 10-year-old girl's death had not been previously reported https://t.co/tTc4EKUYi2 pic.twitter.com/6Fj3PcN4Uq

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 22, 2019

Arkansas appears to be the latest state that has an issue with a cartoon anthropomorphic rat marrying a cartoon anthropomorphic aardvark.

Or, I guess, the issue could be with the same-sex marriage.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is reporting that Arkansas Educational Television Network pulled the season premiere of “Arthur” that has the kids’ teacher, Mr. Ratburn, marrying his partner, an unnamed male aardvark.

“We previewed the episode in question because content decisions that affect our smallest viewers and their parents are a major concern for us,” the station’s marketing director told the newspaper. “While ideally parents watch our programming with their children and discuss it with them afterwards, the reality is that many children, some of them younger than age four, watch when a parent is not in the room. In realizing that many parents may not have been aware of the topics of the episode beforehand, we made the decision not to air it on our main channel.”

The decision to not air the episode comes after Alabama Public Television chose to run a rerun instead of the episode as well. The station’s executive director told AL.com, “Our feeling is that we basically have a trust with parents about our programming. This program doesn’t fit into that.”

Reminder that same-sex marriage has been legal in all 50 states for almost four years now.

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Hey everybody. Vivian Ho and the west coast bureau, taking over for Adam Gabbatt. Hope you’re all having a lovely Wednesday.

Summary

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled against Donald Trump, saying he won’t block recent Congressional subpoenas that are demanding his financial records from two banks. The decision means Deutsche Bank and Capital One may now release Trump’s financial records.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump said he will refuse to work with Democrats unless they drop their investigations into his administration and finances. In a meeting in the White House Rose Garden, Trump slammed Democrats and said he “can’t [negotiate] under these circumstances”.

But in a subsequent press conference, Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer said Trump was never serious about negotiating an infrastructure plan in the first place. Schumer pointed out that investigations were going on when he and Pelosi met with Trump three weeks ago – which hadn’t stopped Trump working with them.

The hacking of US election systems is “inevitable” and the real question is how the country responds, Trump administration officials said. Adam Hickey, a senior official in the Justice Department’s national security division, said: “If we undermine ourselves, the confidence in our systems, we will be doing our adversaries’ work for them.”

The hacking of US election systems is “inevitable” and the real question is how the country responds, Trump administration officials said Wednesday.

The Associated Press reports that Adam Hickey, a senior official in the Justice Department’s national security division, told a House Oversight and Reform subcommittee that hacking, including by foreign adversaries, was “inevitable” and that the big challenge would be “how we react to it”.

“We need to be focused on resilience,” Hickey said.

“It’s how we as a people respond when there’s a rumor or there’s a report that there’s been a breach. We need to take a breath. We need to have confidence.”

He added: “If we undermine ourselves, the confidence in our systems, we will be doing our adversaries’ work for them.”

The comments by representatives from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security underscored the challenges for federal and state governments in trying to ward off interference from Russia and other countries in the 2020 election.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has documented a sweeping effort by Moscow to meddle in the 2016 election in Donald Trump’s favor by hacking Democrats and spreading disinformation online, and FBI Director Chris Wray said in April that last November’s midterm election was a “dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020.”

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