Defence secretary Mark Esper was in a precarious position after opposing Donald Trump's embrace of the Insurrection Act, with the Pentagon reversing an earlier decision to remove troops after meetings with the White House.
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said he wouldn't have approved a surveillance warrant on a Trump campaign staffer if he had known about FBI misconduct, but former FBI chief Andrew McCabe said the claims were "completely false".
Trump responded to the response of religious leaders to his photo-op at St John's Church by saying religious leaders loved it, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany compared the moment to Winston Churchill inspecting bombing during the Blitz in World War II.
Meanwhile, as Barak Obama participated in a town hall on race and policing, Trump sat down for an interview with former press secretary Sean Spicer and said "something snapped" in the police officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd for almost nine minutes.
Trump attacks Biden for criticising his church photo op
Here's a story to catch you up on at least part of what's gone on overnight.
Donald Trump fired back at Joe Biden after the former vice president sharply criticised his use of a Washington DC church as part of his announcement that he was deploying US military assets to combat protesters in the capital city, writes John T Bennett.
“Sleepy Joe has been in politics for 40 years, and did nothing. Now he pretends to have the answers. He doesn’t even know the questions,” the president tweeted about six hours after Mr Biden gave one of the first major speeches of the 2020 general election.
Trump in campaign mode
The president stepped up his campaigning on Twitter last night by attacking his old foe, the "fake news" and/or "lamestream media".
He had apparently been riled by reports that his administration had ordered protesters dispersed from around the White House on Monday night to clear the way for his photo opportunity at St John's Church.
Bishops linked to the church, incidentally, were not happy about that stunt.
Mr Trump claimed a media-rioter-protester conspiracy was at play in one tweet.
And in two further tweets he appointed himself the heir to Abraham Lincoln's legacy, claiming he had done more for black Americans than any president since Honest Abe. "...AND THE BEST IS YET TO COME!" Mr Trump added.
(The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, 52 years before Mr Trump took office.)
Trump marvels at 'power of strength' deployed by China in crushing Tiananmen Square protest
Donald Trump gave a glimpse into his mindset towards mass protests when he said in 1990 that China showed "power of strength" in a "vicious" crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square, writes Justin J Vallejo.
Two decades later, armed riot police firing tear gas and rubber bullets cleared protesters away from Lafayette Square before Mr Trump on Monday walked from the White House to St John's Church for a photo-op with a Bible.
During the presidential debates in 2016, then-candidate Trump defended his comments on China by calling the Tiananmen Square protests "riots" and that "strong" wasn't an endorsement.
'Texas can take care of itself'
The president is awake early today.
He has praised Texas governor Greg Abbott's decision not to deploy military assets.
The state is "in great shape", Mr Trump tweeted.
Twitter suspends account that just copies Trump tweets
A Twitter account that copies everything that Donald Trump tweets was suspended 68 hours after its creation for violating the social media site’s rules about glorifying violence, writes Adam Smith.
The account, “@SuspendThePres”, was started as an experiment by user “@BizzareLazar” in order to determine whether Mr Trump was indeed violating Twitter’s terms of service. Twitter has faced criticism for not taking enough action against Mr Trump’s posts, and has introduced many new rules about the newsworthiness of his content in order to keep it on the platform.
Rosenstein to appear before Senate group investigating Russia probe
Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, is to appear before senators leading their own investigation into that probe.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator and a key Trump booster, is leading the new Senate investigation.
In December, the Justice Department inspector general found that authorities committed numerous errors during an investigation into election interference launched in 2016 and called "Crossfire Hurricane", including mistakes in seeking approval to surveil Carter Page, a Trump campaign adviser. The watchdog's report found no political bias.
Mr Mueller's work superseded "Crossfire Hurricane". His team found that Russia did seek to influence the 2016 poll but did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
Mr Trump has frequently derided Mr Mueller's investigation as a "biased witch hunt".
The president retweeted Texas senator Ted Cruz's preview of the hearing. Mr Cruz said he was hoping to find "the truth about the Obama Administration officials who weaponised the FBI and DOJ to target and entrap the incoming administration".
Retweet spree
The president is currently retweeting friendly senators who are aligned with him on the intelligence-led "unmasking" of Michael Flynn (Rand Paul, who opposes the process), and a robust law-and-order response to riots and looting (Ted Cruz, in favour).
Zuckerberg under fire for stance on Trump posts
Mark Zuckerberg says that inflammatory Donald Trump posts will not be hidden on Facebook – even as staff walkout and resign in protest against the decision, writes Andrew Griffin.
Facebook is continuing to host posts that spread misinformation about voting by mail and suggested that those participating in the protests that followed the death of George Floyd could be shot.
The decision to leave them online has led staff to quit over the issue, others to walkout and refuse to work, as well as bringing condemnation from civil-rights leaders who said his explanation for leaving the posts online was "incomprehensible".
Trump promotes NYPD union statement on protests/riots
The president has retweeted a columnist who claimed the NYPD is being made to "bend a knee to terrorists" in their approach to policing protests and rioting, in the latest of several deployments of similarly inflammatory rhetoric this morning.
The multi-tweet post links to a statement by Ed Mullins, the president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association union in New York City.
"I know we are losing the city," Mr Mullins wrote in the statement posted last night. "We have no leadership, no direction and no plan," he told fellow police sergeants.
"Help is coming and we will win this war on New York City," he added.
Claims of "war" and domestic terrorism, amplified by Mr Trump, appear to play into his campaign-mode communications tactics of the last few days.
Retweets give insight into presidential thinking
Mr Trump has been busily retweeting a conservative commentator called Buck Sexton this morning. The selection of day-old messages could help reveal what the president is thinking.
The tweets he has promoted include:
• "Go through CNN’s official twitter feed right now. It’s a master class in propaganda. You’ll get the impression all protests are peaceful, police violence is the real problem, and omg someone made a fake antifa account online Barely a mention of mass looting of NYC last night"
• "These are Democrats who are ruining cities across the country Yes, I mean the politicians in charge- but also the rioters. Any of them who votes, will be voting for Joe Biden Nobody in the media wants to say this, but we all know it’s true. And we shouldn’t let it go."
• "Getting real-time updates on a jewelry store looting from a friend watching it on his terrace down below at street level, police nowhere in sight Also just texted me “I think I smell a car burning” But remember, folks, this is about “justice” and if you don’t agree you’re bad"
Either as a culture-war/campaign tactic or because he genuinely believes it to be true, Mr Trump appears to be conflating protests with riots and looting, suggesting the same people are taking part in both.
That may well be right, in some cases, and wrong in others, but for an outside observer the picture is extremely confusing. Adding to the confusion is that in some places peaceful protesters have also been taking a stand against violent and disruptive people, and other entirely peaceful groups have been dealt with in a very heavy-handed manner.
Twitter is not the place for nuance, its users often say - but one very prominent user appears bent on erasing nuance entirely.
Republicans mainly silent on Trump's inflammatory rhetoric
As Donald Trump continues to underscore the need to "dominate" the streets of American cities with law enforcement — and potentially active military units — to root out violence at protests against police brutality protests that have swept the country, many Senate Republicans have struck more solemn notes stressing the need for reconciliation and racial unity, writes Griffin Connolly.
Yet nearly all of them initially declined to rebuke the president for his staged photo op at St John’s Episcopal Church on Monday shortly after horse-mounted law enforcement personnel used tear gas, rubber bullets, and flash bang grenades to disperse a crowd of peaceful protesters so Mr Trump could safely make his way to the famed church.
Intelligence assessment suggests need for caution on blaming organised extremists for violence
An intelligence assessment by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offers limited evidence that organised extremists are behind the violence gripping American cities, according to a report.
In part of a 1 June internal intelligence assessment of the protests viewed by Reuters, DHS officials said most of the violence appeared to have been driven by opportunists.
The assessment, prepared by the department's intelligence and analysis unit, said there was some evidence based on open-source and DHS reporting that the anarchist movement Antifa may be contributing to the violence, a view shared by some local police departments in public statements and interviews with Reuters.
Donald Trump has lashed out at the Antifa group in recent days and repeatedly blamed them outright for scenes of looting and violence against police.
Reuters reviewed only a portion of the document and could not determine if it addressed the tactics of the groups involved in the protests in greater detail elsewhere.
The part of the document seen by Reuters did not provide any specific evidence of extremist-driven violence, but noted that white supremacists were working online to increase tensions between protesters and law enforcement by calling for acts of violence against both groups. There was no evidence, however, that white supremacists were causing violence at any of the protests, the document said.
Trump privately backing away from threat to send in active-duty military
A day after threatening states that he would deploy the military to end protests and riots across the US, Donald Trump appeared to be privately backing way from the plan.
White House officials told the Associated Press that this week's response to demonstrations across the country indicated that local governments should be able to restore order themselves.
The shift came as protests in Washington and other cities over police brutality against minorities proceeded on Tuesday with relative calm, a striking contrast to the harsh crackdowns outside the White House on Monday night. The president wanted to make the aggressive action in the nation's capital an example for the rest of the country, a senior White House official said.
The Defence Department has drafted contingency plans for how to deploy active-duty military if needed. Pentagon documents reviewed by the Associated Press showed plans for soldiers from an Army division to protect the White House and other federal buildings if the security situation in the nation's capital were to deteriorate and the National Guard could not secure the facilities.
Interest in exerting that extraordinary federal authority appeared to be waning in the White House, however.
Additional reporting by AP
UK MP backs Trump on riot response
A Conservative MP has replied to a constituent asking him to condemn Donald Trump’s response to demonstrations that have spread across the United States, saying: “Arsonists and looters have it coming”, writes Ashley Cowburn.
The remarks from Desmond Swayne comes as the US president again risked inflaming tensions as protesters marked a ninth consecutive day of action demanding justice for George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck for more than eight minutes.
AP journalists abused by NYPD
Here's a bit of a counterweight to how Mr Trump and the police union mentioned earlier have described the way protests and riots are going in New York City.
The Associated Press reports that its journalists were accosted and verbally abused by NYPD officers while doing their jobs.
One officer told them to "get the f**k out of here, you piece of s**t", according to the news agency, despite being told that as journalists the group was exempt from the city's curfew.
The journalists were shoved around, one said.
The police department told AP it would review the incident.
'Trump's domestic troubles could weaken focus on Hong Kong'
The view from our Asia editor, in today's Editor's Letter.
The rapid spread of unrest in the US after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, threatens Hong Kong’s own protest movement, writes Adam Withnall.
With Trump so occupied with troubles at home, and seemingly set upon an authoritarian path of crushing them, it seems highly unlikely that Washington will be willing or able to maintain its focus on events more than 8,000 miles away.
China senses this, and is not hesitating to drive home its advantage. Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing leader, on Tuesday accused Mr Trump of “double standards” for the way he has handled Hong Kong’s protests on one hand, and the unrest sparked by George Floyd’s death on the other.
Striking image of protesters in Minneapolis
It's been a text-heavy day so far, so here is one of the stand-out images from yesterday's protests.
Pope Francis speaks out on Floyd death
Pope Francis has spoken out against racism and called on the United States to come together amid destruction that he said was “self-destructive and self-defeating”, writes Gino Spocchia.
The pope broke his silence on Wednesday after eight nights of protests over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, while in police custody.
Dedicating the entire English-language section of his weekly audience to the US, the pope said the 46-year-old’s death was “tragic”.
White House wanted to take over Washington DC police, mayor says
Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser has said Donald Trump's administration suggested that the federal government take over the Metropolitan Police Department amid the George Floyd protests, a proposal she strongly rejected.
Ms Bowser threatened to take legal action if the federal government attempted to do so, she said.
