Trump says tax returns release will ‘lead to horrible things for so many people’ – live

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House Democrats have released former president Donald Trump’s tax returns that span over six years.

The release of the returns marks the latest blow for Trump who was impeached twice by the Democratic-led House and was later acquitted by the Senate.

In a written statement, Representative Richard E. Neal of Massachusetts, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee said, “Our findings turned out to be simple — I.R.S. did not begin their mandatory audit of the former president until I made my initial request,” the New York Times reports.

Stay tuned for more details as we review the returns.

An Arizona man who participated in the January 6 riots told the January 6th Select Committee that the “crazy” conspiracy theories about him working with the government has deeply affected his life.

In an interview released on Thursday, Ray Epps told the committee that he has received death threats and that his grandchildren were bullied at school following far-right conspiracy theories that he was working for the FBI.

“The only time I’ve been involved with the government was when I was a Marine in the United States Marine Corps,” Epps, who was a supporter of Donald Trump, said.

“We had a tour bus come by our home and our business with all these whacked out people in it…There are good people out there that was in Washington. Those aren’t the people that’s coming by our house. This attracts — when they do this sort of thing, this attracts all the crazies out there,” he added.

In his interview, Epps identified Republican representatives including Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene as congress members who helped spread the conspiracy theories about him.

“I mean, it’s real crazy stuff, and [Massie] brought that kind of stuff to the floor of the House. When that happened, it just blew up. It got really, really bad…Him and, gosh, Gaetz and Greene, and, yeah, they’re just blowing this thing up. So it got really, really difficult after that. The crazies started coming out of the woodwork.”

Donald Trump’s former communications director has called Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s last White House press secretary a “liar and an opportunist.”

According to testimony released on Thursday, Alyssa Farah Griffin was asked by the January 6th Select Committee where McEnany “fell” after the 2020 election.

In response, Farah Griffin said, “I’m a Christian woman…so I will say this. Kayleigh is a liar and an opportunist.”

Farah Griffin went on to add that McEnany was a “smart woman” and “not an idiot.”

“She knew we lost the election, but she made a calculation that she wanted to have a certain life post-Trump that required staying in his good graces. And that was more important to her than telling the truth to the American public.”

For more details on Farah Griffin’s testimony, check out Martin Pengelly’s reporting here:

Good morning, Guardian readers!

The House ways and means committee is scheduled to release the former president’s tax returns today, after the panel’s vote last week.

The documents are expected to include Trump’s tax returns from 2015 to 2021 and will be the first formal release of his financial records from his time as president. Last month, the Democrat-controlled committee obtained the returns as part of an investigation into Trump’s taxes, following a lengthy court battle that resulted in the supreme court ruling in the committee’s favor.

The committee’s report released last week revealed its findings that the Internal Revenue Service broke its own rules by not auditing Trump for three of the four years of his presidency. As a presidential candidate in 2016, Trump broke decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns.

We will be bringing you the latest updates surrounding the release, so stay tuned.