Donald Trump said he would cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee’s sweeping investigation into his White House, campaign and businesses after the probe was announced on Monday.
When a reporter asked him Monday if he was going to cooperate with the investigation led by Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, the president replied: “I cooperate all the time with everybody. You know, the beautiful thing, no collusion. It’s all a hoax.”
The committee has sent requests to 81 people linked to Mr Trump and his associates. Mr Nadler said on Monday the investigation will be focused on possible obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power. That list features the president's own children, including Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, though it does not request information from Ivanka Trump.
Mr Nadler said Monday’s document requests are a way to “begin building the public record” and the committee has the responsibility to investigate.
The aggressive, broad investigation could set the stage for impeachment, although Democratic leaders have pledged to investigate all avenues and review Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report before taking drastic action.
Meanwhile, three house committees in total are asking the White House and the State Department for any information on private conversations between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin, including an interview with an interpreter who sat in on their one-on-one meeting in Helsinki last summer.
The broad requests from the House intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform committees ask for the substance of Mr Trump and the Russian president’s conversations in person and by phone, as well as for information on whether those conversations had any impact on US foreign policy.
The committees are also asking whether Mr Trump tried to conceal any conversations.
The committees asked for interviews with “linguists, translators or interpreters” who in any way listened to those conversations. Mr Trump and Mr Putin met privately in Helsinki in July for more than two hours with only interpreters present.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Check out The Independent's live coverage below:
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
President Trump is facing a new House Judiciary Committee investigation into whether or not he has abused the power of his office to hinder FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
"We are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption and into obstruction of justice," chairman Jerrold Nadler told ABC’s This Week. "We will do everything we can to get that evidence."
"It's very clear that the president obstructed justice," Mr Nadler said.
He pointed to what he considered several instances of obstruction of justice by the president, including the "1,100 times he referred to the Mueller investigation as a 'witch hunt"' as well as Mr Trump's abrupt firing of FBI director James Comey in 2017.
According to Mr Comey, President Trump had encouraged him to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Mr Trump denies the allegation.
Here’s Zamira Rahim.
Trump is facing a major new investigation into his 'abuse of power'
'It's our job to protect the rule of law,' committee chair saysJerrold Nadler’s panel is seeking to review documents from the Justice Department on, amongst others, the president's son Donald Trump Jr and Trump Organisation chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg.
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly and former White House counsel Don McGahn are also likely targets, he said.
Mr Nadler isn't calling the inquiry an impeachment investigation but said House Democrats, now in the majority, are simply doing "our job to protect the rule of law" after Republicans during the first two years of Mr Trump's term were "shielding the president from any proper accountability."
"We're far from making decisions" about impeachment, he said.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far refrained from encouraging impeachment calls by insisting Robert Mueller must be allowed to finish his work and present his findings publicly — though it's unclear whether the White House will permit his report’s full release.
Right on cue, President Trump blasted the new investigation in a brace of tweets on Sunday, calling it a partisan probe unfairly aimed at discrediting his win in the 2016 presidential election and again using the phrase “witch hunt”, rather proving Mr Nadler’s point.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff agreed with Speaker Pelosi's stance on impeachment when he appeared on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, also saying he thinks the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya offering "dirt" on presidential rival Hillary Clinton constitutes “direct evidence” of collusion on the part of the president’s team.
“I think there is direct evidence in the emails from the Russians through their intermediary offering dirt on Hillary Clinton as part of what is described in writing as the Russian government effort to help elect Donald Trump," Mr Schiff said.
“They offer that dirt. There is an acceptance of that offer in writing from the president’s son, Don Jr, and there is overt acts and furtherance of that… That to me is direct evidence.”
The new Judiciary Committee investigation again sees the newly-empowered House Democrats flexing their muscles in the wake of November’s mid-terms.
A number of House committees are now probing alleged coordination between Trump associates and Russia's efforts to sway the 2016 election, Mr Trump's tax returns and possible conflicts of interest involving the Trump family business and policy-making.
The House Oversight Committee, for one, has set a Monday deadline for the White House to turn over documents related to security clearances after The New York Times reported that the president ordered officials to grant his son-in-law Jared Kushner's clearance over the objections of national security officials.
Mr Nadler's added lines of inquiry also come as special counsel Robert Mueller is believed to be wrapping up his work into possible questions of Trump campaign collusion and obstruction in the Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In his testimony before Congress last week, ex-Trump fixer Michael Cohen acknowledged he did not witness or know directly of collusion between Trump aides and Russia but said he had his "suspicions."
House minority leader Kevin McCarthy - a California Republican, also a guest on This Week - has accused House Democrats of prejudging Donald Trump based purely on partisan politics.
"I think Congressman Nadler decided to impeach the president the day the president won the election," Mr McCarthy said. "Listen to exactly what he said. He talks about impeachment before he even became chairman and then he says, 'you've got to persuade people to get there.' There's nothing that the president did wrong."
"Show me where the president did anything to be impeached... Nadler is setting the framework now that the Democrats are not to believe the Mueller report," he said.
The president retweeted Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel's endorsement of Mr McCarthy's comments:
Meanwhile, President Trump has said that Michael Cohen's explosive appearance before the House Oversight Committee last week was to blame for the failure of his nuclear summit with North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
Mr Trump sent his national security adviser, John Bolton, to do the rounds of the talk shows on Sunday night, the latter appearing on Fox News Sunday, CNN's State of the Union and CBS's Face the Nation to paint the meeting as a success despite no agreement being secured.
"He's not desperate for a deal, not with North Korea, not with anybody if it's contrary to American national interests," Mr Bolton said.
Here's Chris Baynes.
Trump blames North Korea summit failure on Michael Cohen's testimony
President claims ex-lawyer's congressional hearing 'may have contributed' to breakdown of nuclear negotiationsA little CPAC recap, courtesy of Sarah Harvard.
“Unfortunately you put the wrong people in a couple of positions and they leave people for a long time that shouldn't be there and all of a sudden they're trying to take you out with bull****,” Mr Trump said in a two-hour “off-script” address in Maryland on Saturday night.
His rhetoric was rarely less than inflammatory: “Right now we have people in Congress that hate our country and you know that. And we can name every one of ’em if they want. They hate our country. Sad. It’s very sad. When I see some of the things being made, the statements being made, it’s very, very sad.”
He hugged the American flag as he arrived on stage at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Centre in National Harbour and went on to attack the Democrats’ Green New Deal proposal on climate change with a sarcastic endorsement.
Trump goes off-script and hugs US flag in expletive-laden CPAC speech
'When the wind stops blowing, that’s the end of your electric'In other news, President Trump has tweeted his support for the people of Alabama following the state's being struck by a devastating tornado that has already claimed at least 23 lives.
Here's our report on the natural disaster, courtesy of Tom Batchelor.
Alabama tornado kills at least 23 including children
Emergency workers pull bodies and injured out of rubbleFans of irony, be advised.
As Democrats launch yet another investigation into "abuses of power, into corruption and into obstruction of justice" with the explanation, "It's our job to protect the rule of law", the president's schedule has thrown up a beauty.
He's addressing the National Association of Attorneys General this afternoon.
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The president has been condemned by a former director of the US Office of Government Ethics for this tweet from Saturday, promoting his golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland:
“This is Trump’s most explicit commingling of personal interests and public office to date,” said Walter Shaub.
“This is the tone from the top that leads his appointees to violate ethics rules.
“This is shameless, corrupt and repugnant presidential profiteering. This is an invitation to graft.”
Here's our report.
Trump attacked by former ethics chief over 'shameless, corrupt and repugnant' tweet
'This is an invitation to graft,' says Walter ShaubHere's Clark Mindock on the Texans fighting Donald Trump's land seizures to build his US-Mexico border wall.
For the likes of Yvette Gaytan, born and raised along the Rio Grande, Mr Trump's illegal immigration crisis simply does not exist: it's the federal government that really poses a threat to their prosperity.
"A wall is just literally an illusion of safety. It’s like my fence. Yes, I have a fence around my house. It’s for the illusion of privacy, not security, because that is not going to stop anybody from coming in," she says.
"This is a complete b******t state of emergency," adds conservationist Marianna Trevino-Wright of the National Butterfly Centre in Mission.
The Trump administration is trying to seize private land – but Texas is fighting back
‘This is a complete b******t state of emergency,’ one south Texas landowner tells Clark MindockA group of children - including 11-year-old Levi Draheim - are suing the US government for failing to protect them against climate change in a case that could force the authorities to rapidly decarbonise the American economy.
Here's Tim Wyatt on further push-back against the Trump administration's regressive policies.
Children push ahead with historic lawsuit to force Trump administration to tackle climate change
Judge already ruled there could be constitutional right to a safe environmentA new article from Jane Mayer of The New Yorker alleges that Fox News had the story of the Stormy Daniels "hush money" payment before the election but suppressed it, telling reporter Diana Falzone: "Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert [Murdoch] wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go." Wow.
It also suggests President Trump ordered his economic adviser Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department into blocking the ATT-Time Warner merger as revenge on CNN.
And, less surprisingly, that he ranks his favourite reporters on a scale of one to 10: Bret Baier, Fox's chief political anchor, is a six, Sean Hannity a 10 and Steve Doocy of Fox and Friends a 12 (!)
Here's House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler's appearance on ABC's This Week, announcing the new abuse of power investigation.
The president's praise of his own Scottish golf resort on Twitter (see below) was a probable attempt to pressure the UK and explicitly tied "his personal business interests to American diplomacy", according to legal experts.
The tweet came just two days after judges ruled Mr Trump’s club must pay the Scottish government's legal costs following a two-year court battle over a major North Sea wind power development, which the claimant argued would spoil the view from the green if its wind turbines were built. Eleven duly went up last summer after the Supreme Court ruled against the billionaire.
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis.
Trump’s 'shameless and corrupt' tweet about his Scottish golf course an attempt to pressure UK, experts say
President 'explicitly tying his personal business interests to American diplomacy', Brian Klaas saysFormer Colorado governor John Hickenlooper has said on Monday he's running for president to challenge Donald Trump, casting himself as a can-do uniter who's used to overcoming adversity and accomplishing liberal goals in a politically divided state.
"I'm running for president because we need dreamers in Washington, but we also need to get things done," Mr Hickenlooper, 67, said in a video announcing his campaign . "I've proven again and again I can bring people together to produce the progressive change Washington has failed to deliver."
He becomes the second governor to enter the sprawling field, after Washington's Jay Inslee announced last week, and is trying to cast himself as a pragmatist who can also take on President Trump.
Though as governor Mr Hickenlooper prided himself for staying above partisan fights, he has argued his record as a former governor and big-city mayor distinguishes him from a broad field of Democratic presidential aspirants who are backing ambitious liberal plans on healthcare, taxes and the climate.
Mr Hickenlooper has held back on supporting Democratic rallying cries like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal to combat climate change. He once worked as a geologist for a petroleum company and was roundly criticised for telling a congressional panel he drank fracking fluid while arguing for the safety of the energy extraction technique.
It was after Mr Hickenlooper was laid off from his geologist position during the energy bust of the 1980s that he inadvertently started on his road to politics. He opened a brewpub in a then-desolate stretch of downtown Denver that unexpectedly took off. That enabled him to become wealthy by building a mini-empire of restaurants and bars. It also led to him making a quixotic run for Denver mayor in 1993.
Campaign ads featured Mr Hickenlooper feeding quarters into parking meters to protest the city's charging for Sunday parking downtown. He won handily.
As mayor, John Hickenlooper helped persuade dozens of suburban cities, sometimes led by Republicans, to back a tax hike to fund a light-rail network. He was filmed diving out of an aeroplane to advocate for a statewide ballot measure to suspend an anti-tax measure passed in the 1990s and allow the state budget to grow. When he ran for governor in 2010, he featured an ad of himself fully dressed, walking into a shower to scrub off negative attacks.
It's all part of his quirky political image - he vows not to run attack ads and has frequently made fun of his tendency to misspeak and wander off political message.
"As a skinny kid with Coke bottle glasses and a funny last name, I've stood up to my fair share of bullies," he says of Donald Trump.
The Trump administration is threatening to place additional financial restrictions on Cuba's military and intelligence services over the political turmoil still unfolding in Venezuela.
"Cuba's role in usurping democracy and fomenting repression in Venezuela is clear. That's why the US will continue to tighten financial restrictions on Cuba's military and intel services. The region's democracies should condemn the Cuba regime," White House national security adviser John Bolton said in a Twitter post.
The US has backed self-declared president Juan Guaido in Venezuela over elected incumbent Nicolas Maduro, who has presided over a corrupt and repressive administration and seen the country slide into hyperinflation-inspired economic chaos.
Maduro and his allies in Havana have accused the White House of reviving Cold War anti-Communist tactics to install a puppet president in South America in the shape of the youthful National Assembly president.
Donald Trump’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels may have first been reported by Fox News during the 2016 election — possibly derailing his shot at the presidency — had the network’s leadership not wanted him to win the White House.
The report, titled “The Making of the Fox News White House” and published by journalist Jane Meyer in The New Yorker on Monday morning, looks at the relationship between the president and his favourite news outlet from the beginning of his campaign onward.
Ms Meyer added new revelations to previous claims made by FoxNews.com reporter Diana Falzone, who previously sued the outlet for gender discrimination. Ms Falzone has claimed a story she reported in 2016 about Mr Trump’s alleged affair with the porn star and resulting illegal hush money payments made thereafter was never published by Fox News.
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