Trump attacked the FBI in a tweet. The planhas flown through Congress in the month since a bill was introduced in the House, with Republicans united in their belief in the economic power of tax cuts and desperate for a legislative victory to appease restless campaign donors and base supporters. The tax cuts will reduce the corporate tax rate to 20 or 22 per cent from 35 per cent, and also deliver income tax cuts to families – though the extent of the tax relief will vary, with some better off and some worse off. Both the Senate and House bills will vary the range of deductions available for ordinary taxpayers, and are therefore projected to cut taxes initially for the bulk of middle-class taxpayers, yet raise them on millions of other middle-class families. The cuts are very unpopular, as most perceive them as favouring the rich and delivering little, or in some cases nothing, to middle income families.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll in early November found that only one-third of Americans support the tax plan, while half oppose it. Six in 10 said the legislation's tax cuts favour the rich. Most credible economic analyses say it will also add to the deficit. The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation projected it would add $US1 trillion to the deficit over a decade, disputing the insistence by Republicans that it would pay for itself through economic growth. As Republicans celebrated the tax cut vote over the weekend, the White House was dealing with the fallout from the guilty plea of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn to lying to the FBI about his Russian dealings. Trump unleashed a characteristic pre-dawn Twitter storm, attacking the FBI in a series of tweets which included a denial that he had asked former FBI chief James Comey to stop investigating Flynn. "Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!" he wrote.

It fell to Trump's senior legal adviser John Dowd to take the blame, admitting he had made a mistake and drafted a tweet to that effect sent out from Trump's account. Republicans, including Trump, also seized on reports about a senior FBI investigator Peter Strzok. Strzok had been working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Russia-Trump election collusion, but was removed from the investigation after allegedly exchanging anti-Trump tweets with another FBI officer with whom he was having an affair. The Republican head of a House of Representatives committee – which is running its own investigation into Russia-Trump matters – has added to the controversy by reportedly claiming the FBI and the Deputy Attorney-General were stonewalling his committee. Chairman Devan Nunes is said to be drafting a resolution alleging they are in contempt of Congress by failing to produce documents. Flynn's decision to cooperate with the Mueller investigation was widely seen as a sign of increasing legal peril for other White House aides and perhaps Trump himself, as the investigation has expanded beyond potential collusion with Russia to include obstruction of justice and financial crimes.

On tax, the Democrats are unable to stop or stall the bill because Republicans are employing a process that allows them to bypass a legislative filibuster. Democrats charged that the Senate bill had been loaded with last-minute favours for the rich and the well-connected at the expense of the middle class, and complained that the text of the bill had been released only hours before the vote, with handwritten changes scrawled in the margins. Lobbyists saw a list detailing the changes before they did, the Democrats said. "Is this really how the Republicans are going to rewrite the tax code?" asked Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader. "Scrawled like something on the back of a napkin? Behind closed doors? With the help of K Street lobbyists? If that's not a recipe for swindling the middle class and loosening loopholes for the wealthy, I don't know what is." New York Times, Agencies