President Trump had not previously indicated that he might consider a higher corporate tax rate. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Hours after the pre-dawn passage of a $1.5 trillion tax cut, President Trump suggested for the first time Saturday that he would consider a higher corporate rate than the one Senate Republicans had just endorsed, in remarks that could complicate sensitive negotiations to pass a final bill.

On his way to New York for three fundraisers, Trump told reporters that the corporate tax rate in the GOP plan might end up rising to 22 percent from 20 percent.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate had fought hard to keep the corporate rate low, with the Senate late Friday rejecting a Republican-backed proposal to push it up to 21 percent in exchange for more working-family tax breaks.

The Senate passed the final version of its bill on a 51-to-49 vote just before 2 a.m. Saturday, with Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.) as the lone Republican voting against it on concerns that it would drive up the federal deficit. Democrats howled that the bill was not released until hours before passage, with lobbyist-driven handwriting still present on the final version.

Senate Republicans moved fast, in part, because they wanted to comply with Trump’s demand to send legislation for his signature by the end of the year.

The House and Senate intend to take steps as soon as Monday to set up a conference committee to negotiate the significant differences between the Senate plan and the version passed by the House last month. But Trump’s statement Saturday threatened to introduce a complication.

“Business tax all the way down from 35 to 20,” Trump told reporters, remarking on a core provision of the Senate bill. “It could be 22 when it all comes out, but it could also be 20. We’ll see what ultimately comes out.”

[Senate GOP tax bill passes in major victory for Trump, Republicans]

Moving the corporate tax rate up by 2 percentage points could raise $200 billion, money Trump might need to try to satisfy the concerns of Republicans frustrated that the plan does not reduce top individuals’ tax rates enough or of others such as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who argued that the bill should do more for low-income families.

Rubio complained Friday that colleagues would not even allow him to move the corporate rate to 20.94 percent, saying they acted as if this would be a “catastrophe.”

If the White House tries to lower the top tax rate for individuals, it would mark a sharp departure from several months ago, when then-chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon advocated for raising the top rate paid by the wealthiest Americans as a way to follow through on the populist principles Trump invoked in his campaign.

Lowering the corporate tax rate was a centerpiece of the plan, and Republicans have said that it will help businesses free up money to invest, grow and raise wages. They continually reshaped the tax-cut bills in the House and Senate to help businesses, even if it meant cutting back on tax benefits for individuals and families.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) dismissed suggestions that the corporate rate could rise to 22 percent, pointing to votes in both the House and Senate that would set it at 20 percent. “That would be a major change,” McConnell said in a telephone interview, adding that the vote showed he does not “have much of a margin.”

House conservatives have strongly opposed a higher corporate rate, with Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the Freedom Caucus, saying that anything above 20 percent would be unacceptable. It remained to be seen how the president’s endorsement of a higher rate might impact their stance.

“The Freedom Caucus was the first to embrace the president’s call for a 15 percent corporate rate and has been consistent in its position, calling for a rate as low as possible but no higher than 20 percent,” Meadows said in a text message. “I am certain he will be signing a tax relief package by Dec. 21, which will meet the pro-growth standard the Freedom Caucus has demanded for many months.”

Saturday’s vote was a bright victory for Trump amid the political troubles facing the White House on other fronts, as well as for Republicans after the collapse of their efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Business groups welcomed the Senate vote, which moved them a major step on the way to their long-standing goal of lower corporate taxes. The current U.S. statutory rate of 35 percent is the highest among major industrial economies, though many corporations pay a far lower rate.

“The decades-long drive toward meaningful tax reform is closer than ever to becoming a reality,” said Tom J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Momentum toward final passage is building rapidly.”

Key industries, including retailers and investment managers, are expected to benefit from the Senate bill. But others warned that the bill’s detailed provisions might offset any gains working Americans would enjoy via lower taxes.

Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the National Association of Realtors, said that new limits on the deductibility of mortgage interest could cause home prices to “fall by an average of more than 10 percent,” hitting high-cost areas even harder.

Likewise, the bill eliminates the current deduction for state and local income tax payments and permits taxpayers to write off only $10,000 of their property taxes. That will “reduce disposable income for many taxpayers, likely outweighing the positive effect of lower” tax rates upon consumer spending, Moody’s Investors Service said.

Republicans brushed aside those concerns.

“This is a big moment for American families and small businesses ready to turn the page on an Obama-era recovery that has been far too sluggish,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.)

Senate Republicans said that the tax cut ultimately will pay for itself through faster economic growth that will produce more government revenue, a claim that most independent economists and the nonpartisan congressional Joint Committee on Taxation reject. Even taking into account the effects of possible faster growth, the bill still would add $1 trillion to the $20 trillion national debt, according to the latest committee analysis.

Many economists also said that the tax cut is ill-timed, because the economy already is running hotter than the Federal Reserve believes is possible without eventually triggering higher inflation. The economic expansion is in its ninth year, making it one of the longest in U.S. history, and the jobless rate in October fell to 4.1 percent.

Later this month, the Fed is expected to raise rates for the third time in 2017. Most economists believe that the nation’s central bank will respond to the tax cut by raising interest rates more aggressively to head off incipient inflation.

“The worry for the Fed will be whether the economy might overheat, including the creation of bubbles in the stock market and among other asset classes,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com.

In last-minute actions, Republicans allowed taxpayers to use funds from college-savings plans for tuition at religious secondary schools and opted not to eliminate the alternative minimum tax. Instead, the AMT will be retained for corporations and limited to individuals earning $70,600 in taxable income and couples making $109,400.

Lawmakers also added a provision that provides favorable treatment for the oil and gas sector.

The president is betting that an eventual tax cut will pay off for Republicans in 2018. At a New York fundraiser Saturday, he said that Democrats had made a mistake by opposing the legislation.

“We got no Democrat help and I think that’s going to cost them very big in the election because they voted against tax cuts,” Trump said. “And I don’t think politically it’s good to vote against tax cuts.”

But the president is gambling that public opinion, which is hostile to the legislation, will reverse before Election Day. In a Quinnipiac University poll this month, 61 percent of voters said that the tax cut would mainly benefit the wealthy, while 24 percent said that it would help the middle class.

Paul Kane, Erica Werner and Heather Long contributed to this report.

President Trump talks to reporters Saturday about his fired national security adviser before leaving the White House for New York. (Shawn Thew/EPA)

President Trump issued a fresh denial Sunday that he asked former FBI director James B. Comey to halt an investigation into the conduct of his dismissed national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn,” Trump said in a pre-dawn message on Twitter. “Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!”

I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

The tweet was the latest in a running commentary on the case from Trump that began Saturday, a day after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his interactions with a Russian official.

Trump fired Flynn 25 days into this administration for misrepresenting the nature of his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador, to Vice President Pence and other administration officials.

Comey has alleged that the day after that, Trump urged him to be lenient with Flynn, producing notes that said Trump told him, “I hope you can let this go.”

Trump stoked the controversy with one of his Saturday tweets in which he said part of the rationale for firing Flynn was that he had lied to the FBI.

[Trump says he has nothing to fear from Flynn, then stokes new controversy with tweet]

“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” Trump wrote in that tweet.

But critics pounced Saturday on Trump, arguing that if he knew at the time of his conversation with Comey that Flynn had lied to the FBI and was under investigation, it may constitute an attempt to obstruct that investigation.

“Are you ADMITTING you knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when you asked Comey to back off Flynn?” Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, asked in a tweet Saturday afternoon.

Trump lawyer John Dowd drafted the president’s tweet, according to two people familiar with the message. Its authorship could reduce how significantly it communicates anything about when the president knew that Flynn had lied to the FBI, but it also raises questions about the public relations strategy of the president’s chief lawyer.

Two people close to the administration described the tweet simply as sloppy and unfortunate.

Dowd declined to answer questions about how and when Trump learned of Flynn’s alleged lies to the FBI, a deception that did not become public until several days after Flynn’s dismissal.

As Flynn pleaded guilty Friday, he made clear that he is now cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as Mueller probes Russian meddling in last year’s election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

Flynn’s decision to cooperate with Mueller 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.

The president continued tweeting about Flynn late Saturday. In one message, he complained that it was unfair for Flynn’s life to be “destroyed” for lying to the FBI, arguing that the agency pursued Democrat Hillary Clinton far less aggressively while investigating her use of a private email server as secretary of state.

Trump’s commentary on the case began Saturday morning, as he addressed reporters before leaving the White House for a fundraising trip to New York.

He said he was not worried about what Flynn might share now that he is cooperating with prosecutors, forcefully asserting that there was “absolutely no collusion” between his campaign and Russia.

[Top FBI official assigned to Mueller’s Russia probe said to have been removed after sending anti-Trump texts]

In other tweets Sunday, Trump also addressed news that Peter Strzok, the former top FBI official assigned to Mueller’s investigation was taken off that job this summer after his bosses discovered he and another member of Mueller’s team had exchanged politically charged texts disparaging Trump and supporting Clinton. Strzok was also a key player in the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI “agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.” Led Clinton Email probe. @foxandfriends Clinton money going to wife of another FBI agent in charge.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

“Tainted (no, very dishonest?)” Trump wrote in an apparent response to coverage on “Fox Friends” of Strzok’s role in the Clinton inquiry.

Trump also retweeted a pair of posts on the subject written by Paul Sperry, a media fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. One suggested that the current FBI director, Christopher A. Wray, should “clean house” due to the politicization of the agency.

Wray needs to clean house. Now we know the politicization even worse than McCabe’s ties to McAuliffe/Clinton. It also infected his top investigator PETER STRZOK, who sent texts bashing Trump praising Hillary during campaign. Strzok led Hillary probe supervised Trump probe! https://t.co/0y403oeqvX

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) December 2, 2017

A little later, Trump promised a better FBI under his leadership.

“After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters – worst in History!” Trump wrote. “But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.”

After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters – worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017

Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

After six months of work, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has indicted two advisers to President Trump and accepted guilty pleas from two others in exchange for their cooperation with his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election — a sign of mounting legal peril for the White House.

With the guilty plea Friday by former national security adviser Michael Flynn — one of Trump’s closest and most valued aides — the investigation has swept up an array of figures with intimate knowledge of the campaign, the transition and the White House.

It appears to have swiftly expanded beyond Russia’s interference in the campaign to encompass a range of activities, including contacts with Russian officials during the transition and alleged money laundering that took place long before Trump ran for office.

And Flynn’s agreement to fully cooperate with investigators suggests that Mueller is not done yet.

Both Flynn and George Papadopoulos, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign, acknowledged lying to the FBI about their contacts with the Russians. Now, both are cooperating with Mueller, according to prosecutors, potentially providing evidence against other Trump aides.

“Mueller has proceeded with professionalism, deliberation and without delay to build a case with a wall of substance,” said Richard Ben-Veniste, who was a lead member of the Watergate special prosecution team. “This plea today is another brick in that wall.”

Mueller has moved so swiftly that it has left Trump’s team grasping for answers about how far the probe might ultimately reach.

Along with Flynn and Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, have been charged with money laundering and other crimes related to political consulting they did in Ukraine prior to joining Trump’s effort. They pleaded not guilty.

On Friday, the news about Flynn’s deal broke after the regular senior staff meeting at the White House, startling top officials and leaving many feeling helpless.

“We don’t know really what is going on,” said one adviser who speaks to Trump often and requested anonymity to describe private conversations. “Who’s it going to implicate? What are they going to say?”

Flynn’s cooperation poses particular risks for the White House.

[Timeline: What Flynn copped to — and what he didn’t]

Unlike Papadopoulos, who had minimal contact with top aides and met Trump just once, Flynn was a key member of Trump’s inner circle, considered at one point for the vice-presidential nomination.

There have been signs for months that Trump was particularly nervous about the possibility of the investigation ensnaring his former national security adviser.

Former FBI director James B. Comey testified in June that Trump urged him in February to back off an investigation of Flynn. Their one-on-one conversation in the Oval Office came three weeks after Flynn was interviewed by FBI agents and lied about his foreign contacts.

If anyone on the campaign coordinated with the Russians in their efforts to interfere with the election, Flynn would probably have been aware.

Court documents filed Friday show that Flynn did not operate independently in his contacts during the transition with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — which he then lied about to federal agents.

According to the filings, Flynn consulted with multiple senior Trump officials during the transition. One adviser, described in court documents as a “very senior member” of the transition team, directed Flynn in December to reach out to Kislyak and lobby him about a United Nations resolution on Israeli settlements.

People familiar with the investigation identified the adviser as Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner lawyer Abbe Lowell declined to comment.

Likewise, Flynn spoke to Kislyak about new U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia by President Barack Obama in late December only after discussing the matter with a senior Trump official who had accompanied him on a trip to Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club, according to the documents.

The senior official was Flynn’s deputy, K.T. McFarland, according to two people familiar with the conversation. McFarland, who has been nominated to be ambassador to Singapore, did not respond to a request for comment.

Mueller is now expected to explore who knew what in the White House about Flynn’s interactions with the Russians — and whether any other Trump aides lied about that knowledge.

Legal experts said Mueller could be looking at whether Trump’s team violated a more-than-200-year-old law known as the Logan Act that prohibits private citizens from working with foreign governments against the U.S. government.

Court filings show that Flynn was actively working to undercut Obama’s foreign policy before formally entering government, in consultation with other Trump officials.

“It sure looks like this is a Logan Act violation,” said Stephen Vladeck, an expert in national security law at the University of Texas.

Still, use of the Logan Act, which has not been used to prosecute a U.S. citizen since the Civil War, would face strong legal challenges.

The constitutionality of the law — particularly whether it imposes unacceptable restrictions on freedom of speech — has never been tested. Vladeck also said defense lawyers could argue that presidential transition officials act with the authority of the U.S. government and are not subject to the law.

But Mueller has shown a willingness to be aggressive when it comes to using obscure federal statutes, as seen in his use of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which is rarely prosecuted in criminal cases. Mueller charged Manafort and Gates with violating that law.

Aside from the legal implications, Flynn’s account could ratchet up the political pressure on the White House, which will now face more questions about why incoming Vice President Pence, chief of staff Reince Priebus and then-spokesman Sean Spicer insisted that Flynn did not discuss sanctions with Kislyak when other senior officials knew otherwise.

At the time of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador, Obama was weighing how to respond to the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladi­mir Putin had ordered hacking and propaganda operations to help Trump win the White House.

In those same weeks, Obama’s team had been discussing what to do about the failure to jump-start Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. That question abruptly required an answer on Dec. 21, when Egypt unexpectedly introduced a U.N. Security Council resolution criticizing Israel for its West Bank settlements and called for a vote the next day.

On both issues, the policies chosen by Obama ran counter to those preferred by Trump and his team.

But long-standing U.S. tradition, supported by the Logan Act, has held that a president-elect take a back seat to the serving president until after taking the oath of office.

On Dec. 28, Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian intelligence officials from this country and the closure of two Russian diplomatic facilities as punishment for what U.S. intelligence said was Moscow’s interference in the election.

The next day, Dec. 29, court documents show that Flynn called Kislyak and asked that Russia avoid escalating tensions with the United States and refrain from responding in kind to Obama’s actions. Just one day later, Dec. 30, Putin announced that he would take no action, prompting Trump to tweet that Putin had made a “great move.”

“I always knew he was very smart,” Trump tweeted.

In mid-February, four days after The Washington Post reported that Flynn had discussed the sanctions with Kislyak, Trump fired him.

But the new court documents show that some Trump aides had been aware of the nature of Flynn’s contact with the Russian ambassador. He spoke to other aides before and after the conversation with Kislyak on Dec. 29, as well as after a conversation he had with Kislyak on Dec. 31 in which the ambassador said Putin had decided not to retaliate specifically in response to Flynn’s request.

Events surrounding the Dec. 23 Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements as illegal marked the most overt interference in U.S. foreign policy by the Trump team, and Trump personally, between his election and inauguration.

Egypt’s abrupt introduction of the resolution on Dec. 21 — and the scheduling of a vote for the next day — took much of the council, and the Obama administration, by surprise.

As Obama consulted with aides on the U.S. vote, Israeli officials mobilized to head off passage. Trump’s position was the same as Israel’s: The resolution should be vetoed, he tweeted before dawn on Dec. 22.

According to court documents, that same day, the senior official directed Flynn to contact foreign leaders, including from Russia, and urge them to do what Obama had decided the United States would not: oppose the resolution or at least delay it. Trump himself called Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi to discuss the resolution, the Egyptians announced at the time.

At first, Trump’s gambit appeared to have worked. Just before the vote was to take place, Egypt withdrew the resolution. But by the next morning, it had been reintroduced by New Zealand and other co-sponsors, and a vote was quickly held. The United States abstained, and the resolution was adopted with the vote of all other 14 Security Council members.

Trump publicly fumed, tweeting, “We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect.”

Alice Crites, Josh Dawsey and Jenna Johnson contributed to this report.