Donald Trump is under renewed pressure as his impeachment reaches the Senate today after Lev Parnas, the business associate of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, gave an explosive interview to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night over the Ukraine scandal, dragging Mr Trump, vice president Mike Pence, attorney general William Barr and top Republican Devin Nunes further into the mud.
In worse news for the embattled Mr Trump, the US Government Accountability Office ruled on Thursday that the administration’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine was illegal, adding further weight to Democratic calls for new witnesses to be summoned to the Senate, not least officials from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The president is also facing fresh humiliation as a new book, A Very Stable Genius, accuses him of being “dangerously uninformed”, detailing his struggle to read the US Constitution and failure to understand such fundamental points of history as the significance of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbour during the Second World War.
Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
How to manage the press during impeachment: Ignore them?
That's at least according to this leaked card with suggestions on how to handle them. OK, in all fairness, they're wouldn't be completely ignoring them, just shrugging them off a bit.
Then again, at least claiming you're busy is better than this:
Liz Cheney will not run for Senate
Cheney, a Wyoming Republican and member of the GOP House leadership, had been seen as a likely contender for the seat. But, she announced on Thursday that she has no plans to toss her hat into that ring.
The decision keeps her out of a contentious primary in the deeply conservative state.
In a statement, she said she plans on running for re-election to the House to stop Pelosi and "socialist Democrats" who are "threatening our freedom and our Wyoming values every day."
"I believe I can have the biggest impact for the people of Wyoming by remaining in leadership in the House of Representatives and working to take our Republican majority back."
In a statement, she said she plans on running for re-election to the House to stop Pelosi and "socialist Democrats" who are "threatening our freedom and our Wyoming values every day."
"I believe I can have the biggest impact for the people of Wyoming by remaining in leadership in the House of Representatives and working to take our Republican majority back."
Pelosi slams Facebook for blind greed
The speaker of the House isn't content with just handing over Trump's impeachment this week, and has set her sights on Facebook as well.
During her weekly press briefing, Pelosi slammed Facebook executives for getting cozy with the Trump administration in recent years.
"All they want are their tax cuts and no anti-trust action against them, and they schmooze this administration in that regard."
The Senate officially takes up impeachment
Impeachment managers are now on the floor of the Senate, where they are presenting the impeachment charges against Trump.
House Intelligence chairman Adam Schiff is leading the charge by introducing the resolutions that have made the president only the third commander-in-chief to be impeached in American history.
Pelosi calls AG William Barr 'rogue' during weekly press conference
Nancy Pelosi was responding to the fresh allegations from Mr Parnas, and suggested Mr Barr may not investigate the claims because he himself is implicated.
"Does anyone think that the rogue AG is going to appoint a special prosecutor? No, because he's implicated in all of this. This is an example of all the president's henchmen. And I hope that the senators do not become part of the president's henchmen."
Donald Trump Jr asks internet to name 'single Democratic accomplishment', gets swamped
Another day, another vigorous self-own from Don Jr.
Greg Evans has the details for Indy100.
Vice president dragged into Trump impeachment scandal by indicted Giuliani associate
Mike Pence finds himself directly implicated in the president's Ukraine scam for the first time by Lev Parnas's comments to Rachel Maddow last night.
Chris Riotta has this.
Republican senator calls CNN reporter 'liberal hack' when asked about new impeachment witnesses
Arizona's Martha McSally clearly got out of bed on the wrong side this blessed Impeachment Day, judging by her hostility to poor old Manu Raju in the corridors of Congress this morning when he attempted to question her on impeachment.
Kellyanne Conway struggles to defend Trump from Parnas allegations in Fox interview
Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway has been giving an extremely vague and evasive interview on Fox News this morning - saying that Trump "might" raise Russia's hacking of Burisma when he next meets with Vladimir Putin (equally he might not) and that she has not seen the GAO's report on the withholding of Ukraine aid but says she is glad the country ultimately got their congressionally-approved aid to fight off Russian aggression.
Here she is ducking and diving to avoid repeated questions asking her to commit to an answer on whether Lev Parnas was lying or not:
The president himself has meanwhile been busy on Twitter attacking impeachment by quoting the same network's Laura Ingraham and dishing out five retweets to Republican senator Marsha Blackburn and three more to her colleague Lamar Alexander on an array of topics, from his trade deal with China to the US Mexico Canada Agreement. It's almost as though he desperately needed their support for something and is attempting to curry favour... Hmmm.
Here's another book recommendation from the man who found the Constitution of the country he leads a tough read.
'Hatred of Trump is spiritual warfare'
On Fox and Friends this morning, Christian author Stephen Strang - shilling his new book God, Trump and the 2020 Election - says criticism of the president amounts to "spiritual warfare".
In another strange development from Trump World, John Bolton has apparently been spotted walking the streets of Doha in Qatar.
The comment below absolutely killed me for some reason.
Trump 'threatened UK with auto tariffs unless it agreed to accuse Iran of breaking nuclear deal'
Yikes. The president reportedly threatened the UK with a 25 per cent tariff on its cars unless the British government officially accused Iran of breaking the 2015 nuclear deal.
The secret threat was made last week, according to The Washington Post, which cited unnamed European officials, and would have seen the tariff imposed on all European automobile imports to the US unless Britain, France and Germany agreed to the ultimatum.
It came days before the three EU powers on Tuesday triggered a dispute mechanism under the agreement, which amounts to a formal accusation against Tehran of violating its terms. It could lead to the reinstatement of UN sanctions, but is being framed by the Europeans as the last chance to save the nuclear deal.
Iran has responded to the story by accusing Europe of giving in to a "high school bully".
Tom Embury-Dennis has the full story.
Government Accountability Office concludes Trump decision to withhold Ukraine aid illegal
Independent congressional watchdog the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has ruled that the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB)'s move to withhold $391m (£302m) in military aid from Ukraine was, in fact, very much illegal, as the evidence continues to mount that the president himself was behind the conspiracy Giuliani, Parnas, Hyde and others were embroiled in.
"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law," the GAO wrote in its eight-page report on the matter.
The development places important (and extremely timely) weight behind the argument that the Senate impeachment trial must hear from new witnesses - not least OMB official Michael Duffey.
Giuliani associate insists Trump 'lying' and says he would be willing to testify at Senate impeachment trial
Lev Parnas has also been speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN, further outlining his role in the Ukraine scandal and repeated his contention that Trump is "lying" when he says the two did not know each other - and threatened to release a new picture of them together every time the president repeats the falsehood.
He also admits, sadly, that he once "idolised" Trump: "When the FBI came to my house to raid, my wife felt embarrassed because they said I had a shrine to him. I had pictures all over... I thought he was the saviour."
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham has meanwhile sought to downplay the significance of his bail, accusing him of seeking to save his own skin and saying he is "desperate to reduce his exposure to prison".
Mike Pence's chief of staff, Marc Short, has also responded to the allegations made by Parnas, telling CNN: "Democrat witnesses have testified under oath in direct contradiction to Lev Parnas statements last night. This is very simple: Lev Parnas is under a multi-count indictment and will say anything to anybody who will listen in hopes of staying out of prison."
Trump ignores environmental concerns over Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore
During his China trade deal signing yesterday, Trump took questions and pledged to make the Fourth of July great again by reinstating fireworks at Mount Rushmore after they were cancelled last year over forest fire concerns.
"What can burn? It's stone," he said.
Alex Woodward has this on what threatens to be some famous last words from the president, who remains apparently completely unmoved by the very real threat of wildfires, even after the devastation we've just seen in Australia since the turn of the year.
President hails China trade deal and attacks Democrat duplicity
Trump is up and bigging up his China trade deal.
He claims Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer loves it behind the scene while attacking it in public.
This was Schumer's response.
Revenge of the nerds: 'Shifty Schiff' set to prove himself Trump's most dangerous foe
The president has spent months ridiculing House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff - even selling T-shirts mocking his "pencil neck" - but the California Democrat has proven himself a dauntless opponent, leading the impeachment investigation from the House to the Senate.
Andrew Feinberg profiles him below.
The Strange Case of Mr Hyde
Chris Riotta has this profile of Rob Hyde, the landscape gardening impresario turned Trump donor who appears to have spent last spring spying on Yovanovitch in Kiev at the behest of Giuliani.
Lev Parnas says he is "drunk all the time" but not a threat while the big wigs of Trump World deny knowing him, despite every single one of them showing up on his Instagram.
Ukraine launches investigation into 'spying' on former ambassador by US president's associates
Ukraine has opened a criminal case into the possible illegal surveillance of former US ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, according to an interior ministry official.
Yovanovitch, who testified before the impeachment inquiry back in Novemnber, has called for an investigation into whether she was spied on before she was ousted by the president, as indicated by the texts and communications handed over to the House by ex-Rudy Giuliani accomplice Lev Parnas.
'End this crap as quickly as possible'
How are Republicans taking all of this? Not well, you will not be surprised to hear.
Lindsey Graham appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox show last night and commented: "The best thing for the American people is to end this crap as quickly as possible, to have a trial in the Senate, bipartisan acquittal of the president. And on 4 February, when the president comes into the House chamber to deliver the State of the Union, he will have been acquitted by the Senate."
That deadline is thought to be unrealistic though as the first phase of the trial alone - beginning today with the swearing-in of US chief justice John Roberts - is expected to consist of roughly two weeks of opening arguments and questions from senators.
The question of whether to call witnesses remains still unresolved, with the likes of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Graham reluctant to entertain new developments but senate Democrats led by Chuck Schumer determined to hear from the likes of John Bolton, Mick Mulvaney, Robert Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
Kentucky Republican senator Rand Paul has meawhile threatened GOP colleagues Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney and Lamar Alexander that he will force a vote on summoning Hunter Biden (a more polarising option) if they join the Democratic cause by insisting on hearing from Bolton et al, according to Politico.
This week's bombshells from Parnas threaten to change everything, however.
As ex-secretary of labour Robert Reich observes, that Maddow interview "makes Watergate look like child's play".
'You called me a liar on national TV'
The spat between Democratic 2020 rivals Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders refuses to go away and the leaked audio of their on-stage confrontation after Tuesday night's debate in Des Moines, Iowa, reveals the rival progressives still at odds over the disputed claim Warren was told by Bernie he didn't believe a woman could beat Trump in the polls.
“I think you just called me a liar on national TV,” Warren is heard telling Sanders.
As for Tom Steyer, the rose between two thorns....
Here's more from Zoe Tidman.
