Tag: Steven Mnuchin

Good Tuesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. Read about the campaigning. • Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin traveled to Saudi Arabia to discuss efforts to combat terrorist financing and spoke with the crown prince about the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. • Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia seems to end an important period of arms control and is causing new anxieties in Europe. • Two years ago, Mr. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz were far from friendly, describing each other with words like “unhinged” and “pathological liar.” But at a campaign rally for Mr. Cruz in Texas on Monday, they presented a united front. • Zak Ringelstein is a long-shot Democratic candidate for Maine senator. He was not home at the time. • With elections just around the corner, The Times has created a daily political analysis of the midterms called The Tip Sheet. Read today’s edition.

Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. Read about Republicans’ struggles in those states. • The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, which could roll back federal protections for transgender people. Read the story. • President Trump shifted his tone on Saudi Arabia again over the weekend, expressing doubt about the Saudi government’s claim that the journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed accidentally in a fistfight with Saudi operatives. Read more about Mr. Trump’s changing response. • Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended his decision to meet with Saudi officials this week, saying his aim was to reinforce ties at a critical moment. Now a Republican candidate for Senate in the state, his time in office has been costly for state taxpayers. Read about the debate.

Good Friday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • President Trump said he believed that the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was dead, and expressed confidence in intelligence reports that suggested a Saudi role. But he stopped short of saying the crown prince was responsible. Read the story. • The Heritage Foundation, a conservative group that has helped push courts to the right, also cultivates law students and young lawyers. But legal experts say its closed-door “training academy” has raised serious ethical questions. Here’s how the message is changing. • Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee for governor of Florida, is running as a progressive. • Pete Stauber, a candidate in Minnesota, could be the only Republican to win a Democratic House seat next month.

(WASHINGTON) — Two leading Senate Republicans on Sunday threatened tough punitive action by Congress against Saudi Arabia, including a possible halt of military sales, if missing journalist Jamal Khashoggi was indeed killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. “I don’t think any of our government officials should be going and pretending it’s business as usual until we know what’s happened here,” said Rubio, R-Fla. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow declined to speculate on what Trump might do, citing a “swift and transparent investigation” in the coming week. He also brushed aside the apparent threats from the oil-rich kingdom of economic retaliation if the U.S. were to impose strict measures and said Mnuchin intends to attend the Saudi conference to address terrorist financing. “The United States is the dominant energy player so we’re in pretty good shape, in my opinion, with our energy boom to cover any shortfalls. We’ll wait and see, but rest assured that when the president says we will take actions if we find out bad outcomes, he means it.” Trump pledged unspecified “severe punishment” in a “60 Minutes” interview airing Sunday should the U.S. determine Saudi involvement in the disappearance of Khashoggi, who had written columns critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. But Trump has said he does not want to halt a proposed $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia because, he maintained, it would harm U.S. manufacturers. “There’s not enough money in the world for us to buy back our credibility on human rights if we do not move forward and take swift action,” Rubio said. Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition of Gulf states in a military campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. “I do think that arms sales will be affected. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has reviewed the U.S. intelligence into what happened to Khashoggi, has said, “The likelihood is he was killed on the day he walked into the consulate.” Turkish officials say that they fear Saudi agents killed and dismembered Khashoggi after he entered the consulate and that they have audio and video recordings of it.

Saudi Arabia says it will hit back at 'threats' over Jamal Khashoggi Read more Mnuchin’s wavering, which was reported by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, was part of an ambivalent response by the Trump administration to claims by Turkish officials that a team of Saudi assassins killed and dismembered Khashoggi. Media and tech companies including Uber, Virgin and Viacom have withdrawn in protest at Khashoggi’s alleged killing. Financial companies mostly have not. Kudlow told ABC’s This Week that Mnuchin would “make up his mind as the week progresses and as new information surfaces”. “Everybody in the world wanted that order. “I tell you what we don’t want to do. I don’t want to lose an order like that.” Khashoggi’s fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, said on Saturday – the reporter’s 60th birthday – she would not accept an invitation to the White House if the administration does not take meaningful action. “I believe the Trump administration will do something, the president has said that,” Rubio told CNN’s State of the Union. That I can tell you with 100% certainty, with almost full unanimity across the board, Republicans and Democrats, there will be a very strong congressional response if in fact the Saudis lured [Khashoggi] into that consulate, murdered him, cut up his body and disposed of it, there will be a very strong congressional response.” Rubio said Mnuchin should not attend the Riyadh conference. “I don’t think any of our government officials should be going and pretending it’s business as usual until we know what’s happening.” Trump has praised the Saudi regime for cracking down on opponents and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has personal ties to crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Image WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives. “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.” Currently, capital gains taxes are determined by subtracting the original price of an asset from the price at which it was sold and taxing the difference, usually at 20 percent. It could also reinforce a liberal critique of Republican tax policy at a time when Republicans are struggling to sell middle-class voters on the benefits of the tax cuts that President Trump signed into law late last year. “Furthermore, Mr. Mnuchin thinks he can do it on his own, but everyone knows this must be done by legislation.” Capital gains taxes are overwhelmingly paid by high earners, and they were untouched in the $1.5 trillion tax law that Mr. Trump signed last year. “It would just be a very generous addition to the tax cuts they’ve already handed to the very wealthy,” said Alexandra Thornton, senior director of tax policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, “and it would play into the hands of their tax advisers, who would be well positioned to take advantage of the loopholes that were opened by it.” The decades-long push to change the taxation of investment income has spurred a legal debate over the original meaning of the word “cost” in the Revenue Act of 1918, and over the authority of the Treasury Department to interpret the word in regulations. Pushing Mr. Trump to make the change, Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, has cited a 2002 Supreme Court decision in a case between Verizon Communications and the Federal Communications Commission that said regulators have leeway in defining “cost” to make the case that the Treasury Department can act alone. “This would be in terms of its economic impact over the next several years, and long term, similar in size as the last tax cut,” Mr. Norquist said, suggesting that making the change would raise revenue for the government by creating new economic efficiencies and faster growth. “It is unlikely, however, that a significant, or any, effect on economic growth would occur from a stand-alone indexing proposal,” the report said. Michael Graetz, a tax law professor at Columbia University who worked in the Treasury Department’s tax policy office when the department determined that taxing capital gains could not be changed by regulation, said he still thought that the decision to change the law should fall to Congress. “Treasury does not have the unilateral authority to take our tax code and expose it to widespread gamesmanship,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee.

A senior State Department official acknowledged to reporters the US did not discuss any “Plan B” with European partners ahead of President Trump’s announcement Tuesday that the US would be pulling out of the Iran nuclear agreement. “We did not talk about a Plan B because we were focused on negotiating a supplemental agreement,” the official said. Two senior State Department officials said talks are ongoing with European allies and the US still hopes to reach a comprehensive deal on countering Iran’s malign activities through a “global effort,” but the officials did not rule out secondary sanctions targeting European companies. "That’s an intended consequence.” The officials said the US believes the Iran nuclear deal has given Iran room to increase its so-called “malign activities” in the Middle East since it was reached in 2015. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images) Former Vice President Joe Biden reacted today to President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran deal, calling it "a profound mistake." The fact is that the agreement has been working to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Erdo?an said Trump’s move will put the entire world economy at stake. However, the U.S. will lose in the end.” Erdo?an said Trump should have respected the agreement, signed by the previous administration. “This is not how the international mechanisms work," he said. You need to abide by that.” Republican Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN's Jake Tapper today that he doesn't think President Trump's decision to pull the US out of the Iran nuclear deal is "a wise move."

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talks with CNN's Jake Tapper about the GOP tax plan, the Russia investigation and Robert Mueller, and more.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's flights on military aircraft since March have cost $800,000, according to a report from the department's inspector general. The secretary has made nine requests to use military aircraft since assuming his position in the administration earlier this year, including a request for when he travels to the Middle East this month. However, the report did not find any instances in which Mnuchin used military aircraft for private travel. “What is of concern is a disconnect between the standard of proof called for” by the Office of Management and Budget “and the actual amount of proof provided by Treasury and accepted by the White House in justifying these trip requests,” the Treasury Department's inspector general wrote, according to The New York Times. The department's inspector general was also looking into why he requested a government plane to take him and his wife Louise Linton on their European honeymoon. The request was later withdrawn. Mnuchin has faced intense scrutiny for his travel ever since Linton posted a photo on Instagram of her exiting a military plane in August with hashtags identifying the high-end designers she was wearing. However, various other members of President Trump's Cabinet are in hot water for their travel spending as well. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price submitted his resignation last Friday after it was revealed he racked up more than $400,000 in private jet flights.