Revealed: Freedom Caucus holding shutdown talks in townhouse owned by a 'convicted tax cheat'

Unless House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus can work out a funding agreement, the United States will likely suffer a federal government shutdown in less than two weeks.

On Tuesday night, September 19, Freedom Caucus members held budget talks. And the location, according to Daily Beast reporters Roger Sollenberger and Zachary Petrizzo, was a Washington, D.C. townhouse that is within walking distance of the U.S. Capitol Building — and is "owned by a convicted tax cheat."

The Freedom Caucus members, Sollenberger and Petrizzo report, "appear to" be using that townhouse as "an off-campus headquarters to stage their government shutdown meetings."

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According to the Beast reporters, these Freedom Caucus meetings "on a sleepy corner of a Capitol Hill block aren't just rattling Speaker Kevin McCarthy's cage."

"The group has also disrupted its new neighbors, many of them elderly, who often cross paths with politicians and powerbrokers living blocks away from Congress," Sollenberger and Petrizzo explain. "Some of the residents have complained to District of Columbia housing officials that the setup has caused a nuisance and is in violation of residential rules, arguing that the building — zoned as a home — functions exclusively as an office for business meetings and lobbying activity."

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Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).