White House economic advisor says he expects there is ‘nothing to see’ over investigation into Powell – US politics live | Donald Trump
White House economic advisor says he expects there is ‘nothing to see’ when it comes to criminal investigation of Jerome Powell
Kevin Hassett, chair of the White House economic council, said that he expects there is “nothing to see here” when it comes to the ongoing criminal investigation of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell by the justice department. In an interview with Fox News, Hassett said that he wishes the Fed had been “more transparent” when it comes to Powell’s congressional testimony about the ongoing renovations to the central bank that are at the heart of the probe.
Hassett, who is a contender for the top job at the Fed when Powell leaves the role in May, said that, if offered, he would take the job with a commitment to “independence and transparency”.
“I think that’s something the Fed could have done better in the past,” he added.
Key events
Donald Trump will hold a rural health roundtable at the White House at 10am ET, and we’ll bring you the latest lines from that meeting. Notable, because this comes after the White House unveiled its “Great Healthcare Plan” this week – which experts the Guardian spoke to criticized as having “absolutely no detail”.
Trump will then travel to Palm Beach, Florida, where he’ll take part in a dedication ceremony for a stretch of road – that leads to his Mar-a-Lago estate – to be named in his honor.
Donald J Trump Boulevard, coming to a GPS near you …
After the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, calls are growing for accountability in the fatal shooting of Keith Porter Jr in Los Angeles.
Porter, a 43-year-old father of two, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer on New Year’s Eve outside his apartment complex.
While a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson said the off-duty immigration officer was “forced to defensively use his weapon” while responding to an “active shooter”, much about the incident remains unclear. There is no footage of the shooting and Porter’s family and local activists have argued that, contrary to the DHS’s portrayal of the events, Porter was not threatening anyone and was celebrating the new year.
The Guardian’s Sam Levin has more here:
More than 2,400 people have been arrested in the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota over the recent weeks – including some who had valid visas and a right to be in the US, according to local leaders who have been responding to constituents affected by the raids and lawyers representing immigrants.
Several refugees with legal status have also been arrested in recent days after the Trump administration said it would “re-examine thousands of refugee cases”, the Guardian has confirmed.
The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh and Rachel Leingang are in Minneapolis reporting on the families being ripped apart by these federal immigration operations. Read more here:
Here are some images coming in overnight on the wires from Minneapolis:
Minnesota leaders call for peace as Trump threatens Insurrection Act in response to ICE protests
Hello and thank you for joining us on the US politics live blog.
Tensions remain high in Minneapolis in the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good by a federal agent. About 3,000 immigration officers are either continuing their operations in Minnesota or are en route to deploy in the state.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Thursday against the Trump administration, accusing federal immigration authorities in Minnesota of racial profiling and unlawful arrests, as Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the widespread protests against the federal immigration operations.
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, has urged demonstrators to “speak out loudly, urgently but also peacefully” and made a direct appeal to the president to “turn the temperature down”.
“Stop this campaign of retribution,” Walz said in a statement. “This is not who we are.”
On Wednesday night, a federal officer shot a man in the leg during an enforcement operation in north Minneapolis, which sparked more protests.
After the shooting, Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, beseeched his constituents to “not take the bait” and respond with violence. “We cannot counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos,” he said.
In other developments:
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A group of US parliamentarians is visiting Copenhagen today for talks with senior Danish and Greenlandic officials. The Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers announced on Wednesday that they were forming a working group with the US to discuss their “fundamental” disagreements over Greenland – but on Thursday, Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, maintained that the purpose of this working group was “to continue to have technical talks on the acquisition of Greenland”. Our colleague Jakub Krupa has more on that over on the Europe live blog.
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In more immigration news, the death of a man who was being held at a federal detention camp in Texas in early January may be investigated as a homicide after the local medical examiner reportedly found the preliminary cause was “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression”.
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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met with Donald Trump at the White House and a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Afterward, she said that she had presented Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal.
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An appeals court dismissed Mahmoud Khalil’s lawsuit challenging his initial detention, and opened up the path for his rearrest. Khalil – a green card holder and Columbia graduate – was released from an immigration detention facility last year, after he was initially arrested for his role in pro-Palestinian protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
