Donald Trump’s Russian-born business associate Felix Sater testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, as the president resumed his row with UK ambassador to the US Sir Kim Darroch, and lashed out at the “mess” Theresa May has made of Brexit.
In one of his latest angry Twitter diatribe, the president called Sir Kim “wacky”, “a very stupid guy” and “a pompous fool” before laying into Ms May for going “her own foolish way” and ignoring his advice on Britain’s departure from the EU. “A disaster!” he concluded.
A meeting between his Commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and Liam Fox was later cancelled. It was not immediately clear why, but officials told The Independent that the Brexit-related deal was being rescheduled.
Mr Trump talked up his environmental credentials at the White House on Monday night, during which he was brutally fact-checked by Fox News (and others), before sitting down to dinner with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who was caught up in a prostitution scandal earlier this year, just days after his former friend Jeffrey Epstein was arrested and accused of sex crimes involving underage girls.
The US president later said that he and Mr Epstein had a falling out roughly 15 years ago. Mr Epstein is known for having a close relationship with Bill Clinton as well, and managed to get a favourable plea deal on previous charges in Florida, when he was being accused by Alexander Acosta. Mr Acosta is now the secretary of Labour.
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Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Donald Trump last night attended a dinner held at the Treasury in honour of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, White House officials confirmed an invite initially offered to the UK ambassador Sir Kim Darroch was rescinded, after memos detailing his unflattering views on President Trump were leaked.
More intriguingly, Trump was pictured sitting just one seat away from American businessman Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, who has been charged with soliciting prostitution after being caught earlier this year in a sting operation at a spa in Florida called Orchids of Asia.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, White House officials confirmed an invite initially offered to the UK ambassador Sir Kim Darroch was rescinded, after memos detailing his unflattering views on President Trump were leaked.
More intriguingly, Trump was pictured sitting just one seat away from American businessman Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots, who has been charged with soliciting prostitution after being caught earlier this year in a sting operation at a spa in Florida called Orchids of Asia.
The highly questionable decision to invite Kraft follows just two days after the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier, friend of the president and convicted sex offender, who is accused of fresh crimes that include molesting underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida.
This Trump quote from an October 2002 interview with New York magazine circulated online over the weekend, in which the then real estate mogul made light of his pal's interest in vulnerable young women.
Christine Pelosi, a Democratic National Committee staffer and daughter of House speaker Nancy Pelosi, warned over the weekend: "This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice.
"It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may - whether on Republicans or Democrats."
Here's 42nd president Bill Clinton distancing himself from Epstein (a step Trump has so far neglected to take)...
...And here's Andrew Buncombe's profile.
President Trump was on form on Twitter last night, evidently still annoyed about Sir Kim's leaked remarks on his "inept " administration, refusing to deal with the ambassador further and lashing out at the “mess” Theresa May has made of Brexit after ignoring his advice. He does still like the Queen though.
Here's Andrew Buncombe and Rob Merrick on the sudden souring of the "special relationship" just weeks after his largely friendly (if heavily protested) state visit.
Before his dinner with Kraft and the Emir of Qatar, Trump spoke in the East Room of the White House yesterday in defence of his administration's environmental record, not an easy task after two-and-a-half years of climate change denial, fossil fuel championing and regulatory rollbacks.
This claim that he invented the concept of forest management is surely among his all-time maddest.
Here he is going after the Democrats' "unthinkable" Green New Deal, which, he says, would "kill millions of jobs, it’ll crush the dreams of the poorest Americans and disproportionately harm minority communities."
Here's Clark Mindock with a timely reminder of his actual record on the subject.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has meanwhile signed new legislation that opens up the possibility of Congress gaining access to Trump’s state tax returns.
The bill was signed into law on Monday and would allow New York officials to release the historic financial records of public officials should they be requested by "congressional tax-related committees" citing a "specified and legitimate legislative purpose".
“This bill gives Congress the ability to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities, strengthen our democratic system and ensure that no one is above the law,” Cuomo, a Democrat who has positioned himself as a leading anti-Trump voice, said in a statement.
Nick Langworthy, the chairman of the New York state Republican Party, has attacked the move, saying it represents an overtly partisan attack on the president and won't stand up in court.
Here's an interesting new poll on attitudes in the US as to whether the country has a moral responsibility to accept refugees.
Among those with religious leanings, the study indicates that white Christians are the only demographic in which a majority disagree with the proposition that America must offer sanctuary to the needy, which surely flies in the face of both the teachings of one Jesus of Nazareth and the principles inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...."
Theresa May has given her "full support" to Sir Kim Darroch over the UK-US diplomatic row.
"We have made clear to the US how unfortunate this leak is. The selective extracts leaked do not reflect the closeness of, and the esteem in which we hold, the relationship," a Downing Street spokesman said this morning.
"At the same time, we have also underlined the importance of ambassadors being able to provide honest, unvarnished assessments of the politics in their country.
"Sir Kim Darroch continues to have the prime minister's full support."
Tory former foreign secretary Lord Hague agreed, telling the BBC: "You can't change an ambassador at the demand of a host country. It is their job to give an honest assessment of what is happening in that country."
Here's Chris Baynes on Sir Kim being frozen out in Washington.
Speaking of infamous British characters, far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson has appeared on InfoWars - that bastion of reason and measured debate - to make a desperate appeal for political asylum.
"I beg Donald Trump, I beg the American government, to look at my case. I need evacuation from this country because dark forces are at work," he told rabid conspiracy wrangler Alex Jones. "This is a direct appeal on behalf of my family - we love the United States, I have no future here. The country has fallen."
The hypocrisy of this self-styled English patriot turning tail to seek new opportunities overseas need hardly been underlined.
Here's Lizzie Dearden's report.
The victorious US Women's World Cup team will visit Congress at the invitation of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer after winning the tournament in France on Sunday.
“We don’t want to go to the White House, so I figure that’s why the invitation hasn’t come,” said star winger Megan Rapinoe, who has made her opinions on the prospect of a visit to the Trumps at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue abundantly clear.
Here's more from Jon Sharman.
Legendary Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has been having some fun at the president's expense, specifically over his Independence Day gaffe about the events of 1775.
"The president made a very good point in his speech the other night. If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us," Sir Mick told his audience in Massachusetts.
Here's Jacob Stolworthy's report.
Someone else with a stinging remark for President Trump yesterday was House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who accused of wanting to "make America white again" over his insistence on defying the Supreme Court to get a controversial citizenship question added to the 2020 census.
"You know his hat? 'Making America white again.' They want to make sure that people, certain people, are counted,” Pelosi said at a press conference on election security.
“It’s really disgraceful and it’s not what our founders had in mind.”
Trump posted a series of tweets attacking his beloved Fox News over the weekend and one of the president's least favourite anchors on the network, Shep Smith, has had his revenge by pointing out the numerous errors and untruths in his speech on the environment last night.
Sirena Bergman has more for Indy100.
Texas senator Ted Cruz was particularly exercised on the subject of Trump's (usually) very friendly ties to Fox when the pair were both running for the Republican presidential nomination back in 2016.
According to the new book American Carnage by Tim Alberta - an advanced copy of which was seen by The Guardian - Cruz is quoted expressing his fury about late Fox boss Roger Ailes, who died in May 2017, about his throwing the weight of the network behind Trump.
Ted Cruz (Michael Wyke/EPA)
"I think it was Roger’s dying wish to elect Donald Trump president," Cruz reportedly vented to friends.
"I didn’t anticipate that Trump would receive over three billion dollars in free media,” the senator is quoted as saying. "There is no precedent for that in the history of the United States of America."
Fox big beasts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have, incidentally, also been reminiscing over happier times.
A mild start to the day from President Trump.
Russian-born real estate developer Felix Sater, who worked on the proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow, is scheduled to testify before the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors on Tuesday morning.
Sater has rescheduled his appearance several times since he was first slated to appear in March.
Let's see if he remembers to put his alarm clock on this time.
Trump and Sater pictured together in September 2005 (Cyrus McCrimmon/AP)
Nancy Pelosi is calling on Trump's labour secretary Alex Acosta to resign over his handling of the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a US attorney for Florida's Southern District in 2008.
Acosta is understood to have negotiated a secret "non-prosecution" agreement with Epstein's legal team at the time, suspending a federal grand jury investigation into the accusations against him regarding the sex trafficking of underage girls, silencing 36 witnesses who would have spoken out against him in exchange for a guilty plea on two state prostitution charges. It was "the deal of a lifetime", according to The Miami Herald.
According to CNN, citing the White House, an internal review of Acosta's standing is under way. Attorney general William Barr has recused himself from the matter having previously worked with a law firm that represented Epstein.
Here's more on Barr from Tom Embury-Dennis.
Now that's more like it!
Trump has called Sir Kim Darroch "wacky", "a very stupid guy" and "a pompous fool" before laying angrily into Theresa May for going "her own foolish way" on Brexit. "A disaster!"
I suppose even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Here's more on the ranter-in-chief.
Trump said on Monday that Sir Kimwas "not well liked" in Washington but, as Politico points out, he was actually well known for hosting Trump administration elders at his receptions.
You might recall some of the names on this list, all of whom attended at least one bash laid on by Sir Kim over the last two years.
White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway
Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani
Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin
Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross
Former chief of staff Reince Priebus
Ex-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Ex-press secretary Sean Spicer
Former acting attorney general Matt Whitaker
Ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie
Ex-Team Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski
Former deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka
Vice presidential aide Marty Obst
