President Donald Trump has again attacked the “witch hunt hoax” embroiling his administration following the sentencing of ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort, declaring the outcome proved “no collusion” with Russia as Democrats decried the lenience of Manafort’s 47-month sentence as a “miscarriage of justice”.
Departing for Alabama to tour the state’s devastation by a recent tornado, the president found time to denounce his opposition as an “anti-Israel, anti-Jewish” party over Congresswoman Ilhan Omar‘s comments on the influence of Israeli interest groups in Washington, despite the House having passed a resolution condemning prejudice of all kinds by 402 to 23.
Meanwhile, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Doug Collins, has sent a scathing letter to its chairman, Jerrold Nadler, attacking the panel’s motivations in investigating the president for abuse of power, saying: “Either you intend to impeach the president, for alleged crimes that have yet to be discovered, or you intend to embarrass him.”
Manafort, was sentenced on Thursday by a federal judge to nearly four years in prison for tax and bank fraud related to his work advising Ukrainian politicians. The charges were unrelated to his work on Mr Trump’s campaign or the focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The president repeated on Friday as he departed the White House to survey tornado damage in Alabama that Manafort’s case “had nothing to do with Russia.”
It has been a "very, very tough time" for Manafort, he added.
In Alabama, the president signed Bibles at a local Baptist church and took photos with survivors of the deadly tornado outbreak that killed nearly two dozen people.
Mr Trump used a felt pen to scratch out his signature on the cover of a little girl’s Bible, which is decorated with pink camouflage, and first lady Melania Trump then added her signature.
The president and first lady surveyed the damage on Friday, meeting with local officials and victims. They also visited a makeshift disaster relief center set up at the church.
Additional reporting by AP. Check out The Independent's live coverage from Friday below.
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
The news that President Trump's ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort was sentenced to just 47 months in prison out of a possible 24 years has Democrats spitting feathers this morning.
Manafort, 69, was found guilty of two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one count of failing to declare a foreign bank account last year but was given an extremely lenient sentence by US District Court judge TS Ellis III in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday.
The judge's contention that Manafort - sitting before him in a wheelchair as he recovered from the after-effects of gout - had "lived an otherwise blameless life" provoked particular fury.
Here's our report from Andrew Buncombe and Clark Mindock.
Trump's former campaign manager sentenced to 47 months in prison
Judge says veteran political operative had 'lived an otherwise blameless life'Meanwhile, Georgia congressman Doug Collins, the most senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, has written a scathing letter to the panel's chairman, Jerrold Nadler, over its newly-announced investigation into whether the president abused his powers of office and obstructed justice in discrediting FBI special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into possible Russian election meddling.
The body sent out letters to 81 members of Donald Trump's family, business associates and administration staff requesting information on aspects of his conduct.
"Your requests are part of a concerted effort to target and punish associates of the president," Mr Collins wrote to Mr Nadler in a 7 March letter released by the Republican's office.
"This effort to intimidate those who choose to associate with the president 'through actual or threatened imposition of government power or sanction' violates the First Amendment."
"Your 81 letters appear to be little more than a deep-sea fishing expedition with the purpose of exposing private matters and airing alleged dirty laundry rather than legislating."
"Such an investigation serves only one of two possible purposes: either you intend to impeach the president, for alleged crimes that have yet to be discovered, or you intend to embarrass him."
"It is my hope that your draconian inquisitions are not returning this committee to the dark days of 16th-century England," he concluded.
"It is my hope that your draconian inquisitions are not returning this committee to the dark days of 16th-century England," he concluded.
But back to Manafort for a second.
Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal was among the most dismayed at the light sentence, telling CNN's OutFront with Erin Burnett: "My takeaway is much the same, that the American people would be justified in feeling that there has been some miscarriage of justice here in the leniency of this sentence."
"It has to be a disappointment to the prosecution," he said.
House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff was equally indignant.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the verdict was indicative of a "broken system".
Presidential candidate and senator Cory Booker told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert he was "really ticked off" and, more damningly, that: "We have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent".
Monica Lewinsky and Edward Snowden also tweeted their outrage, the former saying she was threatened with 27 years over her efforts to conceal an affair with President Bill Clinton in 1996.
Here's Washington journalist Ed Krassenstein on what the Manafort sentencing tells us about Donald Trump.
Opinion: What the sentencing of Paul Manafort tells us about Donald Trump
Prosecutors in New York State are said to be strongly considering charging Manafort with state crimes which cannot be rescinded by a presidential pardonFurther outrage on Twitter to the Manafort sentencing takes up Cory Booker and Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez's criticism of the Dickensian US criminal justice system, with users pointing out the wildly disproportionate sentencing of African-Americans.
The cases of Crystal Mason of Texas, given five years in jail for voting in the 2016 presidential election after being convicted of tax fraud, and Kelontre Barefield of Ohio, given 34 years in prison for shooting a police dog, are being offered as unfavourable points of comparison with the wealthy, white-collar Manafort.
A little more on the significance of all this to Donald Trump.
What does jailing of Trump's former campaign chief mean for president?
Several allegations including Russian collusion could shadow 2020 election seasonThe House of Representatives yesterday finally heard and passed its resolution to condemn antisemitism and all other forms of racial prejudice following a row stirred by Democrat Ilhan Omar, who criticised the influence of lobbyists from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington.
President Trump gloried in the political advantage handed to him by the spat, taking the moral high-ground to call for Ms Omar to resign from Congress or step down from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and branding her apology insincere.
Here's Andrew Buncombe.
House votes to condemn antisemitism following Ilhan Omar controversy
Minnesota congresswoman not mentioned in resolutionThe vote passed in the House by a resounding 407-23.
In case you were interested, the 23 representatives to vote against the condemnation of antisemitism and racial prejudice were all Republicans and are listed below.
Andy Biggs (Arizona)
Mo Brooks (Alabama)
Ted Budd (North Carolina
Ken Buck (Colorado)
Michael Burgess (Texas)
Liz Cheney (Wyoming)
Chris Collins (New York)
Mike Conaway (Texas)
Rick Crawford (Arkansas)
Jeff Duncan (South Carolina)
Louie Gohmert (Texas)
Paul Gosar (Arizona)
Tom Graves (Georgia)
Pete King (New York)
Doug LaMalfa (California)
Thomas Massie (Kentucky)
Steven Palazzo (Mississippi)
Mike Rogers (Alabama)
Chip Roy (Texas)
Greg Steube (Florida)
Mark Walker (North Carolina)
Ted Yoho (Florida)
Lee Zeldin (New York)
The aforementioned Ms Ocasio-Cortez has meanwhile sent an email to her supporters drawing their attention to an apparently threatening line from a New York Times interview with Stephen Fiske of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the body criticised by Ilhan Omar.
“They are three people who, in my opinion, will not be around in several years," Mr Fiske said, presumably alluding to Ms Omar, Ms Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, a fellow Democrat who has backed the former on the lobbying issue.
"Rashida, Ilhan, and Alexandria have at times dared to question our foreign policy, and the influence of money in our political system. And now, lobbying groups across the board are working to punish them for it," Ms Ocasio-Cortez's team wrote in the email.
"Some members of Congress have even gone so far as to claim that 'questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable.' But that’s not how our legislative process is supposed to work," it continues, alluding to the tweet below by California respresentative Juan Vargas.
Taking a break from Fox News for once, the president was last night tweeting developments he regards as favourable from MSNBC.
Michael Cohen's lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a written statement yesterday that his client was "open to the ongoing 'dangling' of a possible pardon by Trump representatives privately and in the media" in the months after the FBI raided Cohen's home, office and hotel room in April 2018.
Here's Andrew Buncombe on the presidential pardoning intrigue swirling around Cohen.
Michael Cohen 'asked about presidential pardon'
Revelation comes Cohen sues Trump Organisation for millions of dollars in 'unpaid legal fees'Here's a profile of the man who could bring down the presidency. No, not Don Jr. Although...
In this instance we're taking about Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of the Trump Organisation, whose name was brought up by Michael Cohen 20 times before Congress last week, whose signature appears on any number of cheques and documents of interest and who has since received a letter from Jerrold Nadler and the House Judiciary Committee.
A company stalwart since 1973, Mr Weisselberg has been described as "not even remotely colourful, eyes cast down on the spreadsheet and the calculator - click, click, click" by Trump biographer Gwenda Blair. But then the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
Is this the man who will bring down Donald Trump?
The modest money man is no longer behind the scenesHere's Chris Riotta on Jared Kushner "going rogue" in Saudi Arabia. Is that entirely wise?
Jared Kushner goes rogue in Saudi Arabia, prompting national security concerns
'Who speaks for the government, the institutions or the family of the president?'The president is up and tweeting reassurances about the border wall...
...And applauding the good folk at Fox and Friends.
Speaking of the wall, the White House is quietly pressuring Republican senators not to back the Democrats' resolution of disapproval against President Trump's national emergency declaration in order to save the administration the embarrassment of having to veto it, according to CNN.
The president's decision to invoke emergency powers over the illegal immigration "crisis" on the southern border allows him to bypass Congress to reallocate federal funds in order to get his Mexico border wall built.
The resolution opposing the measure sailed through the Democrat-controlled House 245-182 and four Republican senators - Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul and Thom Tillis - have already said they will support it when it reaches the upper chamber.
Keen to avoid another negative narrative about Republican defiance, the White House has conveyed a "stern message" to party senators, reminding them of the support they will need when their 2020 re-election bids are underway.
The president tweeted this on Wednesday to the same end:
He's not even trying anymore. Quite what triggered this particular outburst is unclear at present, however.
The House Democrats are meanwhile reportedly debating whether to expand the scope of their inquiry into President Donald Trump's taxes to include his business tax returns along with his personal returns, a risky step seen by some as crucial to effective oversight.
The debate has intensified, aides told Reuters, since last week's testimony by former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, who alleged before the House Oversight and Reform Committee that President Trump altered his business asset values and slashed employee salaries to lower his taxes.
The testimony suggested that investigators in the House will need both his personal and business returns to fully assess Mr Trump's compliance with tax laws and understand the network of businesses he owns.
House Democrats are understood to have spent months laying the groundwork for an unprecedented request to Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin for Mr Trump's personal tax filings.
Adding his business returns could complicate an already legally-delicate effort, however. Donald Trump owns more than 550 companies and business entities, including the Trump Organisation, his financial disclosure reports show.
The White House has yet to comment.
Some more reaction to the Manafort sentencing.
President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani states: "The sentence was a lot less than the out of control Angry Democrat prosecutors wanted. They should be ashamed of their horrendous treatment of Paul Manafort who they pressured relentlessly because, unlike Michael Cohen, he wouldn't lie for them."
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, always a reliable contrarian, told reporters: "It did seem that the sentence maybe was much more than perhaps other people get for bigger crimes."
Satirist Stephen Colbert meanwhile told his audience in disgust: "The menopause lasts longer than that!"
Peter Stubley has more on the Democratic reaction to the verdict.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacks sentence handed to Trump campaign chief
'Justice isn’t blind, it’s bought,' says Democrat congresswomanFranklin Foer of The Atlantic magnificent here on the "otherwise blameless life" of Paul Manafort.
From promoting Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and brutal Angolan general Jonas Savimbi to fraternising with "a clique of former gangsters in Ukraine", the lobbyist's career has surely been anything but.
Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro has had her nomination for the State Department's International Women of Courage Award rescinded, apparently as a result of her criticism of President Trump's rhetoric on Twitter.
US rescinds journalist’s award 'because she criticised Trump'
Ms Aro was initially chosen for the award for her investigative reporting on online disinformation, election interference and propaganda, specifically for exposing Russian troll farmsPlease allow a moment for our liveblog to load
