3 Things To Know Today

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1 Attorney General Merrick Garland Stresses Special Counsel's Independence In Trump Case

Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters in his conference room yesterday that he appointed Jack Smith as the special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents to underscore the Justice Department’s “commitment to independence and accountability.” Garland said that Smith assembled a team of veteran prosecutors and agents to look into the case. Smith was allowed to decide if the facts of the Trump case were enough to move forward with a prosecution, which of course he did. Garland made the comments to the press in part to respond to allegations from Trump and his supporters that he and President Joe Biden had told Smith to charge the former president. Some of Trump’s Republican rivals are backing off from their defense of the former president, with former Vice-President Mike Pence saying that, while he thought the prosecution was politically motivated, he “could not defend” the charges if they’re true.

2 House Rejects Censure Of Adam Schiff Over Trump Investigations

20 Republicans voted yesterday to table the GOP-led resolution to censure California Rep. Adam Schiff for his role in congressional investigations of former President Donald Trump, bringing the movement to a close for now. House Democrats moved to table the resolution, which needed a simple majority to pass, and the Republican votes to table led to a 225 to 196 total. After the vote, Schiff told reporters, “I’m astounded by the vote. It was basically almost one out of every 10 Republicans voted against this resolution.” The resolution called for the House Ethics Committee to investigate Schiff, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, and said he should be fined $16 million if the committee found that he “lied, made misrepresentations, and abused sensitive information. Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said after the vote to table succeeded that she would try again next week, so the battle isn’t over. Rep. Luna introduced the resolution on Tuesday, the same day that Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony charges.

3 Federal Reserve Pauses Interest Rate Hikes, Warns There Will Most Likely Be More This Year

The Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it wouldn’t be hiking interest rates this month after 10 consecutive rate increases over the last 15 months. Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said at a press conference yesterday that, while they didn’t feel a hike was needed now, almost all of the members of the committee feel they’ll have to impose at least one additional rate hike this year. The decision came just a day after new data showed that consumer prices rose 4% last month compared to a year ago, which was lower than economists were expecting. Powell said that the median expectation for interest rates by the end of the year was 5.6%, which would be roughly half a percent higher than current rates. Powell told reporters that “inflation pressure continues to run high and the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go,” referring to the Fed’s target inflation rate of 2%.


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