A US district judge has ordered Donald Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with a subpoena issued by House Democrats – originally in response to the Mueller report – that could see him testify to the impeachment inquiry.
Louisiana senator John Kennedy, a key ally of President Trump, has meanwhile admitted he was wrong to push a debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, who hacked a Democratic National Committee server in 2016.
In other news, Mr Trump has reportedly appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner, already tasked with bringing peace to the Middle East, to oversee the construction of his US-Mexico border wall, as the row over his decision to absolve Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher of war crimes rumbles on.
Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
Trump creates task force on missing and murdered Native Americans
The president just signed an executive order that creates a Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, intended to address the spike of violence against Native people in the US.
The task force arrives as Attorney General William Barr plans a rollout of a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Initiative.
From AG Barr:
“American Indian and Alaska Native people suffer from unacceptable and disproportionately high levels of violence, which can have lasting impacts on families and communities. Native American women face particularly high rates of violence, with at least half suffering sexual or intimate-partner violence in their lifetime. Too many of these families have experienced the loss of loved ones who went missing or were murdered. President Trump establishing the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives will enable us to further strengthen the federal, state, and tribal law enforcement response to these continuing problems.”
AOC accuses Trump of 'jailing kids and making corruption a cause celebré'
Trump was busy attacking the "Do Nothing Democrats" again over the weekend, claiming the impeachment inquiry is derailing the passage of important legislation through Congress.
Pretty rich given that Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell prides himself on being the "Grim Reaper" of bills but hey ho.
This was AOC's response to the president.
Tucker Carlson: 'I'm rooting for Russia'
Fox News dolt Tucker Carlson said this on his show last night, attacking the House impeachment inquiry: "Why do I care what’s going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And I’m serious - why do I care. And why shouldn’t I root for Russia - which I am”.
Here's Vincent Wood with more context than this preppy buffoon deserves.
Team Trump running misleading Facebook adverts on impeachment
Trump appears to be running some incredibly misleading Facebook adverts, suggesting House Democrats have already voted in favour of his impeachment in order to whip up fury among his base.
While they did vote in favour of guidelines outlining the conduct of the inquiry back on 31 October that really isn't what's being suggested here.
Mike Pompeo: 'When the time is right, all good things happen'
Speaking at the State Department just now, Mike Pompeo has responded vaguely to Trump's not entirely convincing line that he'd love him to testify while continuing to aid the president by pushing Ukraine conspiracy theories.
House Oversight Committee suing Bill Barr, Wilbur Ross over subpoena-dodging
The House Oversight Committee has announced today it is suing attorney general William Barr and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross over their refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas relating to the panel's investigation into their failed attemot to add a controversial citizenship question to the 2020 census.
“Since the Supreme Court ruled against them - and the House of Representatives held them in contempt for blocking the committee’s investigation - attorney general Barr and commerce secretary Ross have doubled down on their open defiance of the rule of law and refused to produce even a single additional document in response to our Committee’s bipartisan subpoenas," said the Oversight Committee's new chairwoman Carolyn Maloney in a statement.
"President Trump and his aides are not above the law," Maloney added, echoing the sentiment of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson yesterday. "They cannot be allowed to disregard and degrade the authority of Congress to fulfill our core Constitutional legislative and oversight responsibilities.”
Video of Trump struggling to hear reporters goes viral
As recounted in Bob Woodward's book Fear - and elsewhere - White House staff have repeatedly tried to talk Trump out of using Twitter so much but he always pushes back, insisting social media is his "megaphone" to ensure he gets heard.
Maybe he wouldn't need it so much if he stopped speaking to reporters next to Marine One, where the whirr of helicopters blades frequently drowns out both their questions and his answers.
Here's Greg Evans for Indy100 on a masterful compilation of Trump shouting "WHAT?" from The Daily Show.
Trump says he would 'actually like' his allies to testify to the impeachment inquiry
Responding to the McGahn ruling yesterday, Trump says he actually would be in favour of allies (or former allies) like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry and Mick Mulvaney testifying to the impeachment inquiry but is holding them back because he is "fighting for future Presidents and the Office of President."
Pretty grandiose, especially as he admits in passing he withheld congressionally-approved military aid on the sly.
That last point ties into Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David's superb recent spoof of Trump's "concern" with corruption in Ukraine in The New York Times.
Half of Americans support impeaching Trump and removing him from office, says CNN poll
Trump and his allies in the right-wing media keep on claiming that support for impeaching the president is dwindling.
That does not appear to be so...
Lindsey Graham refuses to back down on investigating Bidens
South Carolina senator and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham went viral last week when a vintage clip of him speaking about Joe Biden - and almost bursting into tears with admiration for the former vice president - began doing the rounds, contrasting his current Trump zealotry with his past decency.
He has since reiterated that affection on Twitter but made it abundantly clear he does not intend to give Biden an easy ride should the impeachment inquiry develop into a Senate trial.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren go after Michael Bloomberg
Recently declared 2020 candidate Michael Bloomberg has come under fire from Bernie Sanders.
“What he believes - and this is the arrogance of billionaires: ‘Hey, I can run for president because I’m worth $55bn (£42bn), and maybe I’ll take $1bn (£778m) out of that $55bn’ - not a lot, when you’re worth that much - and… start running a massive amount of TV ads in California and, in fact, all over this country,” the veteran Vermont senator commented in New Hampshire on Monday.
Elizabeth Warren also targeted Bloomberg in Iowa, accusing him of attempting to "buy the nomination".
Here's more on Warren from Andrew Buncombe in Des Moines.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: 'I don’t like being called a liar'
Trump's former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now a full-time Fox pundit, gave an interview to The New York Times yesterday in which she said: "I don't like being called a liar. The other stuff bothered me far less."
Never mind her lying to Robert Mueller about FBI agents' doubts about James Comey ("a slip of the tongue"), she said this only yesterday and that can't be true either...
Speaking over breakfast tacos in a Little Rock diner with Annie Karni of The NYT, Sanders also said she feels like she has been "called" to run for governor of Arkansas and follow in her father Mike's footsteps.
“I’m just excited to have people clap when I come up to a podium,” she says.
That might *might* have happened at the White House if she'd ever held a press briefing.
Woman caught trespassing at Mar-a-Lago sentenced to jail
A Chinese woman caught trespassing at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has been jailed for eight months.
Yujing Zhang, 33, was found guilty of trespassing and lying to federal agents following a trial at which she acted as her own lawyer.
When Zhang was arrested on 30 March for sneaking into the Florida resort, she was carrying two passports and an electronic signal blocking Faraday bag containing four mobile phones, a computer and an external hard drive.
Zhang told the Secret Service agents who apprehended her she was simply there to use the pool.
Vittoria Elliott reports.
White House, Capitol Hill lockdown lifted
That appears to have been a false alarm. The lockdown has now been lifted at the White House and on Capitol Hill and the incident appears to have been sparked by a small plane crossing into restricted airspace. Phew!
This was the scene among the Washington press corps in what must have been a frightening moment for all concerned.
White House on lockdown as 'fighter jets scrambled to unresponsive aircraft'
Some confusion about precisely what's going on at the moment but Capitol Hill is understood to have been evacuated and the White House placed on lockdown amid reports of an aircraft over the DC area not communicating with air traffic controllers.
Here's our breaking story. We'll have more updates for you as soon as they become available.
John Dean: 'Trump's presidency is like a Mafia soap opera!'
Strong words here from Richard Nixon's White House counsel John Dean on Trump and Rudy Giuliani...
Trump meets Conan the heroic Special Forces dog who tracked down Baghdadi
The president and first lady yesterday finally met up with Conan the Special Forces dog who helped track down Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi at the White House yesterday.
While vice president Mike Pence seemed perfectly at ease with the heroic canine, Trump appeared anxious to keep his distance from the noble beast as much as possible.
He also joked to the assembled press corps: "It's trained that if you open your mouths you will be attacked. You ought to be very, very careful."
Here's Clark Mindock's report.
'Trump doesn't care about Navy SEALs. He cares about 2020'
For Indy Voices, Chris Stevenson argues Trump is not really interested in the individual cases of Lorance, Golsteyn and Gallagher or how their actions reflect on the reputation of the US armed forces, only how he can play the situation to his own political advantage.
Trump views military ‘as tool for massacres’, say outraged veterans
US military veterans are joining Richard V Spencer in condemning Trump's liberal use of pardons as a populist gesture to please his admirers on the right.
“By pardoning war criminals because Fox News told him to, Trump showed he sees our military as a tool for massacres, not as the professional, honourable force we aspire to be,” says Alexander McCoy, a former Marine and political director of the veteran group Common Defence. Ooof.
Here's Chris Riotta's report.
President 'planning to take absolved war criminals' on 2020 campaign trail
Trump's decision to absolve US Army Lt Clint Lorance, Green Beret major Matthew Golsteyn and Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher of war crimes continues to provoke sharp debate.
While the president insists...
...US Navy secretary Richard V Spencer - who lost his job in the bitter dispute over the matter - appeared on CBS last night to say that the message this sends out is "that you can get away with things".
After being forced out by defence secretary Mark Esper on Saturday, Spencer reminded Trump in his resignation letter. "The rule of law is what sets us apart from our adversaries."
The president now looks set to make things worse as it emerges he is determined to bring the three men along to his campaign rallies to help him whip up the crowd.
Samuel Osborne has this.
