Billionaire Elon Musk said on Tuesday he will step down as chief executive of Twitter Inc
once he finds a replacement, but will still run some key divisions of the social media platform.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk wrote on Twitter.

Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter in October has been marked by chaos and controversy, with some investors questioning if he is too distracted to also properly run his electric vehicle automaker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), in which he is personally involved in production and engineering.

This is the first time Musk has mentioned stepping down as chief of the social media platform, after Twitter users voted for him to resign in a poll, which the billionaire launched on Sunday evening.

In the poll, 57.5% of around 17.5 million people voted “yes.” Musk had said on Sunday he would abide by the results. He has not provided a time frame for when he will step down and no successor has been named.

The poll results capped a whirlwind week that included changes to Twitter’s privacy policy and the suspension – and reinstatement – of journalists’ accounts that drew condemnation from news organizations, advocacy groups and officials across Europe.

Wall Street calls for Musk to step down had been growing for weeks and recently even Tesla bulls have questioned his focus on the social media platform and how it might distract him from running the EV maker.

Musk has himself said he had too much on his plate, and that he would look for a Twitter CEO. He said on Sunday, though, that there was no successor and that “no one wants the job who can actually keep Twitter alive.”

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(NewsNation) — Winter weather is hitting the U.S. hard just as people are traveling home for the holidays, and flights are already being canceled.

So what do you do when you find out your way home is no longer an option?

Rebook

The first option is to try a different flight to your destination, though that may mean adjusting your plans. If you think you might be impacted, it’s also worth looking ahead to see if the airline has already issued a travel waiver. Those allow you to rebook in the same flight class without any additional fees that might usually be charged when changing plans.

With so many travelers being impacted, it’s also critical to quickly book your new ticket since you’ll be competing for seats. Melanie Lieberman, global features editor with the Points Guy, said that means using any tools you can and thinking about alternate options ahead of time.

“So we want people to act fast and know exactly what their options are — alternative flights, alternative airports and get onto that standby list or get rebooked as quickly as possible,” she said.

Refund

If your flight is canceled and you don’t (or can’t) rebook, you are entitled to a refund. Airlines may offer credits or travel vouchers instead of cash. But you do have the right to ask for a cash refund and if the airline tries to refuse, you can file a complaint with the Department of Transportation.

Avoid Third Party Bookings

If you’ve already booked your flight through an online travel agency, you may have to go through that same agency to make any changes. Try to book your flights with the airline directly, to give you more flexibility when negotiating changes and compensation due to weather-related cancelations.

Beware of Scammers

If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Scammers are another reason to avoid third-party booking sites and deal directly with airlines. The Better Business Bureau has reported an increase in scams where people find airline tickets for great prices, only to get a call telling them there will be additional charges.

Fake cancellation scams are common, too, with scammers charging a fee to rebook a flight that wasn’t ever canceled in the first place. You can check flight status at sites such as Flight Aware or with your airline directly to make sure you’re getting the correct information.

While airlines are required to compensate you for a canceled flight, if your flight is delayed they are only obligated to book you on another flight to your destination. If your flight is significantly delayed, however, you are entitled to a refund.

Beijing faces a surge in severe COVID-19 cases over the next two weeks, a respiratory expert said, amid global concerns over possible mutations and knock-on effects for the world economy after the surprise ditching of China’s tough virus policies.

Following widespread protests, the country of 1.4 billion people this month began dismantling its “zero-COVID” regime of lockdowns and testing that had largely kept the virus away for three years, at great economic and psychological costs.

The easing coincided with a jump in COVID cases that experts say will likely gather pace through winter, with projections suggesting China could face more than a million deaths next year.

China, which uses a narrow definition of what can be classified as COVID fatalities, reported no new COVID deaths for Dec. 20, compared with five the previous day.

The nation’s overall fatalities since the pandemic began were revised to 5,241 after removing one death in Beijing.

That number might rise sharply in the near future, with state-run Global Times citing a leading Chinese respiratory expert predicting a spike in severe cases in the capital over the coming weeks.

“We must act quickly and prepare fever clinics, emergency and severe treatment resources,” Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital, told the newspaper.

Severe cases increased by 53 across China on Tuesday, versus an increase of 23 the previous day. China does not provide absolute figures of severe cases.

Wang expects a peak in cases in China in late January, with life likely to return to normal by end-February or early March.

Amid doubts over China’s very low COVID death toll by global standards, the National Health Commission on Tuesday clarified only people whose death is caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure after contracting the virus are classified as COVID deaths.

Heart attacks or cardiovascular disease causing death of infected people will not get that classification.

Benjamin Mazer, an assistant professor of pathology at Johns Hopkins University, said that classification would miss “a lot of cases,” especially as people who are vaccinated, including with the Chinese shots, are less likely to die of pneumonia.

Blood clots and sepsis – an extreme body response to infection – have caused countless deaths among COVID patients around the world.

“It doesn’t make sense to apply this sort of March 2020 mindset where it’s only COVID pneumonia that can kill you, when we know that in the post-vaccine era, there’s all sorts of medical complications,” Mazer said.

The NHC also played down concerns raised by the United States and some epidemiologists over the potential for the virus to mutate, saying the possibility of new strains that are more pathogenic is low.

Several leading scientists and World Health Organization advisors told Reuters it may be too early to declare the end of the global COVID pandemic emergency phase because of a potentially devastating wave to come in China.

As recently as September, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said “the end is in sight” for the pandemic. Last week, he told reporters in Geneva he was “hopeful” of an end to the emergency some time next year.

The United States on Tuesday indicated it stands ready to assist China with its outbreak, warning an uncontrolled spread in the world’s second-largest economy may have implications for global growth.

The full effects of ditching “zero-COVID” remain highly uncertain given China’s patchy vaccine coverage, fragile health system and the lack of clarity about the real extent of infections as cases start to surge.

Cities are ramping up efforts to expand intensive care units and build special clinics. Some hospitals have become inundated, and some cities are dealing with medicine and blood shortages.

Still, some local governments continue to relax rules to levels unthinkable only a few weeks ago, after a particularly rough year for tens of millions of Chinese who have endured prolonged isolation periods at home despite testing negative.

Staff at the Communist Party and government institutions or enterprises in the southwestern city of Chongqing who have mild COVID symptoms can go to work if they wear a mask, state-run China Daily reported.

Other Chinese media reported similar moves in several cities across different provinces.

A major near-term concern for economists is the impact a surge in infections might have on factory output and logistics as workers and truck drivers fall ill.

The World Bank on Tuesday cut its China growth outlook for this year and next, citing the abrupt loosening of COVID measures among other factors.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to travel to Washington, meet President Joe Biden and visit Congress on Wednesday, sources familiar with the matter said, in his first known overseas trip since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.

The United States is expected to announce a package of military assistance for Ukraine, valued at about $1.8 billion, U.S. officials said separately, on condition of anonymity.

The package would include aid and Patriot missiles but its value could still change, the officials added. One of the officials said the package could include guidance kits for air-launched missiles to help Ukraine strike targets with precision.

Zelenskiy and Biden are expected to meet at the White House, one of the sources said.

CNN reported that Zelenskiy was already on his way to Washington.

Zelenskiy’s spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. The president last left Ukraine for a Munich Security Conference on Feb. 19, according to his official schedule.

His trip abroad 10 months into the war was expected to include a visit to lawmakers at the U.S. Capitol, a source familiar with the planning said on Tuesday.

The trip had not been confirmed and security concerns could force a change in plans, the source said.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier on Tuesday, Pelosi said in a letter that there would be a session of Congress on Wednesday night which would have a “very special focus on democracy”.

Zelenskiy had earlier made a surprise trip to the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, his office said on Tuesday, underlining Russia’s stuttering but persistent attempts to capture it.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy referred to the visit as a trip to “Fortress Bakhmut” in Donetsk, a province Russia claimed in September. Most countries reject Russia’s claim as an illegal occupation.

Dressed in combat khaki, Zelenskiy handed out medals to soldiers in a tumble-down industrial complex to applause, video released by his office showed.

In contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded medals in the comfort of the Kremlin to the Russian-appointed leaders of four regions of Ukraine that Russia has claimed to have annexed since invading its neighbour.

Video footage released on Ukrinform TV, part of Ukraine’s state news agency, showed servicemen in Bakhmut handing Zelenskiy a Ukrainian flag with their signatures on it.

“We will turn it over to the Congress and to the U.S. president from the guys,” Zelenskiy said in the video, without giving any further details. “We are grateful for the support. But it’s not enough,” he added.

He has urged the troops to keep up their spirits as the battle for Bakhmut, one that has come to symbolise the grinding brutality of the war, enters its fifth month.

“The east is holding out because Bakhmut is fighting. In fierce battles and at the cost of many lives, freedom is being defended here for all of us,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Zelenskiy has repeated calls to the West for more weaponry including air defence systems after Russian drones hit energy targets in a third strike on power facilities in six days.

Washington is close to finalising plans to send the Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine, according to sources, but the Kremlin has warned the U.S.-supplied equipment would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes against Ukraine.

The U.S. Senate has advanced a government-funding bill that includes $44.9 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies. The money would be used for military training, equipment, logistics and intelligence support, as well as for replenishing U.S. equipment sent to Ukraine.

The World Bank on Tuesday said it had approved an additional financing package for Ukraine totalling $610 million to address urgent relief and recovery needs.

Kyiv has argued it needs Western help to strengthen its air defences as Russian strikes have repeatedly cut electricity and water supplies in subzero winter temperatures.

Ukrainian officials say Russia’s missiles and bombardments are aimed at breaking the will of civilians.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukrainians should prepare for new attacks by Russia on energy infrastructure because it wanted them to spend Christmas and the New Year in darkness.

Electricity supplier YASNO, which covers the area of the capital Kyiv, offered no immediate respite for residents.

“We are not even counting on a return to scheduled disconnections,” Sergey Kovalenko, YASNO chief executive, said in a Facebook post late on Tuesday.

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Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

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Poisonous plants and flowers can be very deceiving. Some appear beautiful, beguiling one’s faculties so that they invade the senses. And the one touching them or smelling them becomes enchanted and doesn’t notice it’s deadliness.

This is what happened to the GOP. When Donald Trump was first elected, they were swept away, so very happy that: “victory” was their own. They had not expected to win the 2016 election. No, they had become resigned to losing.

So they celebrated when they won, unaware that the level of toxicity from the poison was ever-rising. And their lives would never be the same again. Since the “Trump years,” the GOP has been losing. Over and over, every election cycle, they lose. Perhaps the poisonous plant cursed them.

All their haughtiness has long faded, replaced by a somewhat dour resignation as they just try to get through each election cycle and WIN — win SOMETHING. Anything. And perhaps equally as bad as adjusting to their new status as losers, being unable to win elections is the GOP’s new title: dimwitted.

This is what the Wall Street Journal chose to call them in a ferocious opinion piece. The WSJ editors let Republicans have it. They also speak of the absurdity of what’s going on in the fight to block Kevin McCarthy from becoming House Speaker. And then the went on to compliment Nancy Pelosi.

How that must sting for the GOP! The republican nemesis, complimented by the Wall Street Journal, who all but calls THEIR party a bunch of fools: “A narrow GOP majority of only 222-213 requires a leader who can enforce party discipline.” The Wall Street Journal says.

“That’s how Nancy Pelosi has been able to govern with the mirror-image majority in the last two years.”

“Too many House Republicans are too dimwitted to understand the uses of power and how to wield it.”

Wow. Every action causes a reaction, and there is no doubt the GOP has been good at reacting lately. The rot from the poison within GOP circles has infected them so badly that even when they win — as they did the House — they are doomed to screw it all up.

And they’re doomed to be labeled things like dimwitted. How cruel and undignified for them all. This never happened before Donald Trump. What the GOP thought would help them, what they were over the moon about, only came back to bite, and the bite was pretty lethal.

The post House Republican majority is falling apart already appeared first on Palmer Report.

Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

• Police are looking to question a member of Elon Musk’s security team, according to a statement.
• Musk last week claimed a “crazy stalker” had jumped on a car carrying his son in Los Angeles.
• But authorities said this week that a member of Musk’s security team was a suspect in the incident.

A member of Elon Musk’s security team is a suspect, and not a victim, police say, in an incident last week that the Twitter CEO characterized as a “crazy stalker” encounter.

On Tuesday the South Pasadena Police Department issued a statement detailing the episode that sparked a wild week of Twitter tension, confirming that an incident involving two vehicles was reported to authorities on Tuesday, December 13.

Musk tweeted last week that a “crazy stalker” had followed a car carrying his son in Los Angeles, “thinking it was me.” Musk alleged that the “stalker” had climbed onto the car in an attempt to stop it from moving. The billionaire tweeted an accompanying video that showed one of his security guards filming a man inside a vehicle and the car’s license plate. 

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 15, 2022

But a South Pasadena Police spokesperson said Tuesday that it was the 29-year-old Connecticut man in the other vehicle who called police to report an assault with a deadly weapon involving a car. When an officer arrived on the scene minutes later, “the victim” said he had just exited the freeway and stopped to use his phone in a parking lot when another vehicle pulled directly in front of him, blocking his path.

The driver of the second vehicle is believed to be a member of Musk’s security team, authorities said. The man who called police said the Musk staffer approached him and accused him of following him on the freeway, the statement said. Both parties proceeded to film each other.

As Musk’s security guard was leaving the parking lot, he “struck” the victim with his vehicle; he was gone by the time police arrived on the scene, according to authorities. 

“On Thursday, December 15, 2022, South Pasadena Police learned the suspect involved in this case is believed to be a member of Elon Musk’s security team,” the police statement said. “Detectives do not believe Mr. Musk was present during the confrontation.”

South Pasadena Police did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. Insider reached out to Musk for more information.

The police statement sheds new light on the incident that Musk quickly blamed on 20-year-old Jack Sweeney, who created a tool that automatically posted updates about Musk’s private jet’s location, prompting the Tesla CEO to threaten legal action against the college student.

Following the incident, Twitter abruptly changed its rules to forbid posting a person’s live location. Several journalists who tweeted about the jet tracker were suspended from the social media platform, with Musk alleging that they had “doxxed him” for posting tweets related to his flights and comparing the posts to “assassination coordinates.” 

While the incident’s timing and location cast doubt on the billionaire’s narrative — the encounter occurred 23 hours after @ElonJet had last shared Musk’s location and 26 miles away from LAX — police may still be looking into the 29-year-old man involved, Marc Madero, an LAPD detective told The Washington Post this past weekend. 

The outlet identified the man involved in the incident as Brando Collado, an Uber Eats driver, who expressed strange claims about the musician Grimes, Musk’s former girlfriend and mother of two of his kids, whose real name is Claire Elise Boucher. Collado said he knew that Boucher lived near where the incident occurred and suggested that she was communicating with him via discrete Instagram posts.

The Tuesday police statement said Collado never indicated that the altercation with Musk’s security guard was “anything more than coincidental.”

Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images

• Elon Musk announced that he would step down as the CEO of Twitter.
• Musk had polled his followers on whether he should give up leadership. 57.5% voted “yes.”
• His two months at the helm of the site have been characterized by chaos and contradictions.

Elon Musk announced Tuesday that he would step down as CEO of Twitter once he found someone ‘foolish’ enough to take over his role.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” Musk wrote on Twitter. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”

—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022

On Sunday, Musk ran a poll asking his followers whether or not he should step down as CEO of the social platform. 

“Should I step down as head of Twitter?,” Musk tweeted on Sunday afternoon. “I will abide by the results of this poll.” More than 17.5 million people voted in the poll, with 57.5% voting in favor of him stepping down.

Musk followed up the poll with tweets saying “As the saying goes, be careful what you wish, as you might get it,” and, “Those who want power are the ones who least deserve it.”

Musk’s Tuesday announcement he’s going to resign as Twitter’s CEO came after  CNBC first reported he was looking for someone to replace him as the head of the social media company. The search was already ongoing before Musk’s poll on whether he would step down, CNBC reported, citing unnamed sources.

Musk’s reign at the helm of the social-media platform has been characterized by chaos and contradictions, with thousands of staff members resigning, being fired, or being laid off. Advertisers have flocked from the site over concerns about content moderation, and Musk has seemingly introduced new policies on a whim, some of which he later U-turned.

Since taking ownership of the platform in late October, Musk has polled his users on various issues around the running of Twitter, such as reinstating the account of former president Donald Trump and bringing back video-sharing app Vine. Musk has used the mantra “vox populi, vox dei,” which translates from Latin as “voice of the people, voice of God.”

Critics used this phrase to mock him and accuse him of hypocrisy after he didn’t follow through on the results of a poll in which Twitter users voted in favor of him unsuspending accounts “who doxxed my exact location in real-time.” Accounts including @ElonJet, which published publicly-available information on the whereabouts of Musk’s private jet, and the personal account of its owner Jack Sweeney, remain suspended from the site.

Lawsuits, advertising boycotts, and a rise in hate speech

Musk, who had no previous experience in running a social-media platform, had a dramatic two months leading Twitter. He has fired staff, including former CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and employees who criticized him on Twitter and on Slack, and laid off thousands of other workers in drastic cost-cutting measures.

Musk also issued an ultimatum to staff, telling them they needed to be “extremely hardcore” and work “long hours at high intensity” to stay on at the company. Around half of Twitter’s remaining workforce didn’t commit to Musk’s vision for Twitter 2.0, a person familiar with its processes told Insider’s Kali Hays.

Some former Twitter workers have filed lawsuits against the company, accusing it of failing to give them the severance packages they were promised and of laying off an unfair share of women workers.

Musk has repeatedly vowed to promote free speech on the platform. But he has also disbanded Twitter’s Truth and Safety Council, which worked to prevent harassment on the site, and reinstated some blocked accounts. Some users and activist groups say there has been a rise in hate speech on the platform since Musk took over.

Amid these concerns over content-moderation, some of Twitter’s top advertisers have pulled ads from the platform. Given that Twitter historically gets around 90% of its revenue from ads, this could put more pressure on Musk’s revamped Twitter Blue subscription service, which charges users $8 a month to get a blue check next to their name and gives them access to more features on the site.

Fiji’s parliament has delayed its first sitting, where it had been expected a new prime minister would be sworn in to the Pacific islands nation for the first time in 16 years.

People’s Alliance leader Sitiveni Rabuka is expected to become prime minister, after three parties signed a coalition agreement on Tuesday after a hung election. The deal would dislodge Fiji First’s Frank Bainimarama, who has led Fiji since a 2006 coup. read more

The constitution requires lawmakers to elect the prime minister from the parliament floor if no one party has won more than 50% of seats.

Fiji parliament’s secretariat confirmed to Reuters in an email that parliament would not sit on Wednesday because Fiji’s President Wiliame Katonivere has not yet issued a proclamation.

The Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), a power-broker holding three seats in the hung parliament, on Tuesday signed a coalition agreement with Rabuka’s People’s Alliance and the National Federation Party.

SODELPA’s decision was made after a close vote that saw 16 of its board members in favour, while 14 had supported Bainimarama’s Fiji First.

SODELPA’s general secretary Lenaitasi Duru resigned over the outcome, and wrote to Fiji’s parliament and Katonivere requesting a delay in parliament’s return claiming SODELPA’s decision was “null and void”, TV network FBC reported.

In a statement on Wednesday Fiji’s police force called for calm and urged “all Fijians to respect the political process”.

“We are concerned about the number of reports of stoning incidents received last night targeting the homes and businesses of Fijians of Indian descent,” Commissioner of Police Brigadier General Sitiveni Qiliho said in the statement.

The Pacific island nation, with a population of 900,000, had a history of military coups before constitutional reform in 2013 to remove a race-based voting system that favoured indigenous Fijians over a large Indian ethnic group.

Bainimarama won democratic elections in 2014 and 2018 with the support of the Indian community, but has faced criticism over his government’s punitive media laws and pressure on the judiciary, and has not commented publicly since voting last week.

On Wednesday morning New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said New Zealand was yet to congratulate Rabuka as it waited until the “dust settles and there is finality over processes”.

“I have faith in Fiji’s ability to conduct the remaining stages of this process and stand ready to acknowledge their new leader,” she said.

In a tense election, a call by Rabuka for the militaryto intervene last week during vote counting was rebuffed, and Rabuka was questioned by police on Friday night and released without charge. read more

A U.S. House of Representatives committee voted on Tuesday to release partially redacted tax filings from former President Donald Trump and said tax authorities had failed to properly scrutinize his returns while he was in office.

The House Ways and Means Committee voted to release a summary of Trump’s tax returns between 2015 and 2021, the years when he was running for president and serving in the White House, panel members said.

That could lead to more unwelcome scrutiny for the former president as he mounts another White House bid.

But the committee also said the U.S. Internal Revenue Service did not follow its own rules when it failed to audit Trump’s tax returns during three of his four years in office. Members said Congress should pass a law to strengthen the presidential audit program.

“What people will likely be surprised about is the extent to which the IRS was not conforming to their own rules,” Democratic Representative Dan Kildee told reporters.

The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Committee chairman Richard Neal, a Democrat, said a redacted summary of Trump’s tax returns would be released within days. Democrats have little time to act, as Republicans are due to take control of the House in January.

It was not clear whether the material would shed light on potential conflicts between Trump’s real-estate holdings and his actions as president, or how much tax he paid on the hundreds of millions of dollars his businesses earned while he was president. Lawmakers said the returns were scant on details.

“I think you’ll be surprised by how little there is,” Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett told CNN.

Kevin Brady, the panel’s top Republican, told reporters that some of those returns were still being audited, so it was not clear how much tax Trump owed. Like other committee Republicans, he voted against their release on the grounds that it could set a bad precedent.

Two reports will be released later on Tuesday night, committee members said – one from the committee itself and one from the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan body that analyzes impacts of tax provisions in legislation. They will include a memo from Neal on the purpose of the original request for Trump’s tax returns, the audit notes and proposals for legislation to codify the presidential audit program into law, committee members said on Tuesday night.

Trump, unlike previous presidential candidates, refused to make his tax returns public as he sought to keep secret the details of his wealth and the activities of his real estate company, the Trump Organization, and he fought Democrats’ efforts to get access to them.

Trump has said that he cannot release his tax returns because they were being examined by the IRS. Tax experts have said that is not a valid excuse.

Neal declined to comment on whether Trump was being truthful or not.

Candidates are not required by law to release their tax returns, but previous presidential hopefuls of both parties have voluntarily done so for several decades.

Democrats on the committee said they need to see those records to assess whether the Internal Revenue Service is properly auditing presidential tax returns, and to gauge whether new legislation is needed.

Another House committee on Monday asked federal prosecutors to prosecute Trump for sparking the deadly Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021. Republicans are expected to dissolve or redirect that panel when they take control of the chamber.

Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021, reported heavy losses from his business enterprises over several years to offset hundreds of millions of dollars in income, according to news media reporting and trial testimony about his finances. That allowed him to pay very little in taxes.

The Trump Organization was found guilty on Dec. 6 in New York of carrying out a 15-year criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities. The company faces up to $1.6 million in fines, though Trump himself is not personally liable. He has said the case was politically motivated and the company plans to appeal.

He also faces a separate fraud suit in New York that accuses him of artificially inflating the value of his assets.

During his presidency, he faced persistent questions about conflicts of interest, as foreign dignitaries and Republican Party officials spent money in his luxury hotels.