Kanye West releases 2024 campaign video after meeting with Trump
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox
Get our free Inside Washington email
A powerful House committee has finally obtained Donald Trump’s tax returns — six years’ worth — after a protracted legal battle that ended at the Supreme Court.
The US Treasury Department confirmed to CNN that it had completed a request from the House Ways and Means Committee to produce the forms. Lawmakers on the panel will now have until January to take any actions with the power of the committee’s chair before Republicans take power.
Meanwhile, criticism continues to pour in after the former president hosted a meeting at Mar-a-Lago with Kanye West, who has gone on an antisemitic rampage of late, and his associate Nick Fuentes, one of the US’s most notorious white supremacist activists.
On Tuesday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the meeting and said that it may have ruined Donald Trump’s chances in 2024.
“Anyone meeting with people advocating that point of view, in my judgment, are highly unlikely to ever be elected president of the United States.”
House Republican Leader took a weaker stance – condemning Mr Fuentes but refusing to condemn Mr Trump and falsely claiming that the former president had condemned the white supremacist “four times”. Mr Trump has not done so even once.
MyPillow Trump fanatic Lindell running for RNC chair
No-one in the Republican Party is safe from the ambition of Donald Trump’s followers, especially not when they’re perceived to be insufficiently loyal or effective in carrying out his wishes – and that includes Ronna McDaniel, the longtime RNC chair now up for re-election. She has a new challenger in the form of unhinged conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who reportedly advocated for the Trump administration to send in the military to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.
True to extremist form, he announced his long-shot run on Steve Bannon’s podcast.
Read more from John Bowden:
Lindell remains target of major lawsuit from voting machine manufacturer
Netanyahu condemns Trump’s Fuentes dinner
Returning Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu, a Trump ally of some standing, has not minced his words when it comes to the former president’s dinner with exuberant antisemite Nick Fuentes and disgraced rapper Kanye West.
“I condemned Kanye West’s antisemitic statements,” Mr Netanyahu told journalist Bari Weiss. “Straight away, I thought that was just wrong and misplaced. And I think that that’s what I would say about President Trump’s decision to dine with this person I think is wrong and misplaced. I think it’s a mistake. He shouldn’t do that.”
Herschel Walker struggles to explain why Trump is not campaigning for him in Georgia Senate runoff
Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker struggled to explain to why former president Donald Trump is not campaigning for him in the final week of Georgia’s Senate runoff race.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked why the former president will not rally with Mr Walker, when former president Barack Obama will campaign with Mr Walker’s Democratic opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, on Thursday.
His answer was less than convincing. Watch below:
‘He’s been doing other things for me,” GOP candidate says of Donald Trump
Herschel Walker says ‘I live in Texas’ in recording as Georgia Senate candidate’s residency status scrutinised
Herschel Walker, the scandal-plagued Republican candidate in a closely watched Senate runoff election in Georgia, said he lives in Texas in a newly unearthed recording.
In a January speech to the University of Georgia’s College Republicans, the former football star stated plainly, “I live in Texas,” despite competing against Democrat Raphael Warnock for Georgia’s US Senate seat.
It’s a new, bewildering angle to a race that has already dominated 2022 in terms of scandal and political intrigue.
Opponents on the right and left have questioned GOP candidate’s residency
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy
Members of a far-right anti-government militia group have been found guilty of seditious conspiracy against the United States in connection with the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021.
After a nearly two-month trial with testimony and arguments from federal prosecutors and defence attorneys, as well as the defendants themselves, Stewart Rhodes and Kelly Meggs were found guilty by a federal jury in Washington DC after three full days of deliberations.
Three other Oath Keepers associates were charged in the case but were found not guilty.
Read more about the trial involving the most serious charges to stem from the attack on Congress so far:
Far-right militia leader faces up to 20 years in prison after plotting to violently subvert 2020 election
A white nationalist and a 2024 rival: What happened at Trump’s dinner with Nick Fuentes and Kanye West?
Donald Trump once again finds himself in hot water – this time even incurring the disapproval of his fellow Republicans – for sitting down to dinner at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, with the increasingly wayward Kanye West and the rapper’s “campaign adviser” Nick Fuentes.
Now plotting a hopelessly unlikely presidential run in 2024 – theoretically pitching him against Mr Trump – West again sought out the one-term president and former luxury real estate magnate, this time for advice on that project.
Here’s what we know happened at that now infamous Mar-a-Lago summit:
Ex-president under fire over questionable guests at Mar-a-Lago
Jemele Hill savages Trump, GOP for Fuentes association
Commentator Jemele Hill, formerly of ESPN, ripped into the GOP and former President Donald Trump on Twitter for their association with Nick Fuentes, the avowed white nationalist and antisemite.
Ms Hill posted a clip of Mr Fuentes deriding to Black voters — and Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s desire to see Republicans do better with that demographic — using the n-word. The obscenely racist term “slipped out”, Mr Fuentes concedes seconds later.
“This is who Kanye West is working with. This is who Trump met with. This is who Reps Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep Paul Gosar are cozying up to,” she wrote.
Roger Stone attacks GOP congresswoman’s appearance over Trump disloyalty
Donald Trump’s longtime ally and adviser Roger Stone attacked the physical appearance of Rep Kat Cammack on Telegram after the Florida Republican congresswoman appeared to hedge between endorsing Donald Trump or Gov Ron DeSantis for her 2024 pick.
Nick Fuentes posts ‘I love Donald Trump’ as fallout continues over Mar-a-Lago dinner
White nationalist Nick Fuentes is disputing a claim from Kanye West’s campaign manager Milo Yiannopolous that he intended to politically damage Donald Trump by meeting with him at Mar-a-Lago.
The avowed racist denied that assertion on Telegram on Wednesday, stating: “My intention was not to hurt Trump by attending the dinner, that is fake news. I love Donald Trump.”
Read more in The Independent:
Holocaust denier’s presence at dinner was ‘to make Trump’s life miserable,’ claimed Milo Yiannopolous
The House Ways and Means Committee has Trump’s tax returns
A powerful House committee has obtained six years’ worth of Donald Trump’s tax returns, the Treasury Department confirmed on Wednesday.
The development brings an end to a six-year legal battle that reached the Supreme Court and ended in favour of House Democrats who have long pushed to investigate Mr Trump’s finances.
CNN first reported the news. Eric Garcia has more:
The House Ways & Means Committee has obtained six years of former president Donald Trump’s tax returns after a yearslong effort to obtain them, CNN reported.