Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Was ‘Imminent Threat’ His Impeachment? Trump Reportedly Admitted Soleimani Killed to Appease GOP Senators 

Was ‘Imminent Threat’ His Impeachment? Trump Reportedly Admitted Soleimani Killed to Appease GOP Senators

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders both seized upon the report as evidence that Trump nearly sparked a catastrophic war for political gain.

byJake Johnson

Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders on Friday accused President Donald Trump of dragging the U.S. to the brink of war for political gain following a report that Trump privately admitted he ordered the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani to appease Republican senators who are crucial allies in his upcoming impeachment trial.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that following the drone strike on Soleimani last week, Trump told unspecified associates “he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate.”

It was unclear which GOP senators specifically Trump was attempting to satisfy, but the story does cite hawkish Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as proponents of the Soleimani strike.

“Once again, we see Trump making enormously consequential national security decisions based on his own personal political needs.”
—Sen. Bernie Sanders

Warren and Sanders, both contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, immediately seized upon the reporting as evidence that the president nearly sparked another devastating Middle East war to advance his own political agenda.

“Today’s reporting confirms what I said on Sunday—why did this strike happen on the eve of an impeachment trial?” Warren tweeted. “Trump is taking us to the edge of war for his own political benefit. It’s reckless and dangerous. We must speak out. No war with Iran.”

In a statement, Sanders warned that “once again, we have a president who is pushing us to the edge of war based on false claims.”

“Unbelievably, we find out that Trump himself told people he was under pressure to deal with Soleimani ‘from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate,’ according to the Wall Street Journal,” Sanders said. “Once again, we see Trump making enormously consequential national security decisions based on his own personal political needs.”

“As a United States senator,” Sanders added, “I will do everything I can to rein in this reckless president and prevent a war with Iran. I call on my colleagues to do the same.”

The Journal‘s report comes as the Trump administration continues to face scrutiny over its justification for assassinating Soleimani, who the White House claims was plotting “imminent” attacks against Americans.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted during a Fox News interview Thursday night that the administration doesn’t know when or where the supposed “imminent” attacks were going to take place.

In response to the Journal‘s reporting, Sanders foreign policy adviser Matt Duss tweeted, “The ‘imminent threat’ was impeachment.”

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Source: Was ‘Imminent Threat’ His Impeachment? Trump Reportedly Admitted Soleimani Killed to Appease GOP Senators | Common Dreams News

“You’re Not a Dictator”: Lawmakers and Experts Inform Trump He Can’t Declare War via Tweet 

“You’re Not a Dictator”: Lawmakers and Experts Inform Trump He Can’t Declare War via Tweet

“The Constitution doesn’t allow presidents to declare war over social media.”

By Eoin Higgins

Democratic lawmakers, anti-war advocates, and legal experts rebuked President Donald Trump after he announced on Twitter that he would be using the social media platform as the medium by which he would inform Congress of hypothetical, future military strikes against Iran.

“The Constitution doesn’t allow presidents to declare war over social media,” tweeted Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Caif.).

Khanna, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate, introduced a bill Friday to block funding for the president’s effort to continue the conflict with Iran which exploded on January 2 when Trump ordered a drone strike in Baghdad which killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani. 

“Congress must reassert its constitutional responsibility over war,” said Sanders. “The Senate and House must vote to immediately defund unauthorized military action against Iran.”

Trump announced Sunday that he would be making wartime declarations to Capitol Hill through Twitter.

“These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner,” the president tweeted. “Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”

Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.), who left the Republican Party last year over the president’s conduct, referred Trump to the constitutional limits of the presidency’s powers.

“Such legal notice was provided in 1789 but is given here again nevertheless,” tweeted Amash.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee also hit back against the president Sunday afternoon. “This Media Post will serve as a reminder that war powers reside in the Congress under the United States Constitution,” the committee’s official account tweeted. “And that you should read the War Powers Act. And that you’re not a dictator.”Yale Law School professor Oona Hathaway pointed out that Trump’s declaration “threatens to break several laws” by not notifying Congress in a correct way, refusing to consult with lawmakers before taking military action, and claiming there is no requirement for notification. “That any of this has to be said suggests just how insane this situation has become,” said Hathaway.

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Source: “You’re Not a Dictator”: Lawmakers and Experts Inform Trump He Can’t Declare War via Tweet | Common Dreams News

Trump, Granting Lobbyist Demands, Quietly Handed Billions More in Tax Breaks to Huge Corporations: Report 

Trump, Granting Lobbyist Demands, Quietly Handed Billions More in Tax Breaks to Huge Corporations: Report

“Trump is the most corrupt president in history, and here’s the latest example of how that corruption helps giant corporations.”

By Jake Johnson

A “disturbing” New York Times story published Monday detailed how President Donald Trump’s Treasury Department, led by former Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin, has quietly weakened elements of the 2017 tax law in recent months to make it even friendlier to wealthy individuals and massive corporations.

Lobbyists representing some of the largest corporations in the world, the Times reported, targeted two provisions in the original 2017 law designed to bring in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from companies that had been dodging U.S. taxes by stashing profits overseas.

“A tax law already disproportionately benefiting the richest of the rich has become an even greater windfall for the world’s largest companies and their shareholders.”
—David Enrich, New York Times

“The corporate lobbying campaign was a resounding success,” the Times noted. “Through a series of obscure regulations, the Treasury carved out exceptions to the law that mean many leading American and foreign companies will owe little or nothing in new taxes on offshore profits… Companies were effectively let off the hook for tens if not hundreds of billions of taxes that they would have been required to pay.”

The two provisions are known by the acronyms BEAT (base erosion and anti-abuse tax) and GILTI (global intangible low-taxed income). Shortly after Trump signed the $1.5 trillion tax bill—which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%—lobbyists from major American companies like Bank of America and General Electric as well as foreign banks swarmed the White House in an effort to gut the BEAT and GILTI taxes.

Trump’s Treasury Department largely granted the lobbyists’ wishes, turning what was already a massive corporate handout into an even more generous gift to big companies and banks.

The Times reported:

The Organization for International Investment—a powerful trade group for foreign multinationals like the Swiss food company Nestlé and the Dutch chemical maker LyondellBasell—objected to a Treasury proposal that would have prevented companies from using a complex currency-accounting maneuver to avoid the BEAT… This month, the Treasury issued the final version of some of the BEAT regulations. The Organization for International Investment got what it wanted.

The lobbying surrounding the GILTI was equally intense—and, once again, large companies won valuable concessions… News Corporation, Liberty Mutual, Anheuser-Busch, Comcast and P.&G. wrote letters or dispatched lobbyists to argue for the high-tax exception. After months of meetings with lobbyists, the Treasury announced in June 2019 that it was creating a version of the exception that the companies had sought.

David Enrich, financial editor for the Times, said the newspaper’s estimate that major companies received tens of billions of dollars in additional tax breaks thanks to the Treasury Department is “conservative.”

“The cumulative effect,” said Enrich, “is that a tax law already disproportionately benefiting the richest of the rich has become an even greater windfall for the world’s largest companies and their shareholders.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, tweeted in response to the Times story that “Trump is the most corrupt president in history, and here’s the latest example of how that corruption helps giant corporations at the expense of small businesses and working families.”

“Too many corporations are cashing in on all the benefits of America while skipping out on the bill,” said Warren. “Companies that make massive profits shouldn’t be paying less in federal income taxes than working families.”

As Hunter Blair of the Economic Policy Institute noted on the two-year anniversary of the passage of Trump’s tax cuts last week, “the $4,000 annual boost to average incomes that the White House Council of Economic Advisers promised to working families because of the [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] did not—and will not—happen.”

“While it’s been worse-than-advertised for working families,” Blair wrote, “the TCJA has been an even bigger boon to large corporations and rich households.”

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Source: Trump, Granting Lobbyist Demands, Quietly Handed Billions More in Tax Breaks to Huge Corporations: Report | Common Dreams News