FBI special counsel Robert Mueller could hand in his report into allegations members of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 US presidential election as early as next week, according to reports on Wednesday.
Donald Trump’s former confidant, flamboyant political consultant Roger Stone, is also due to appear in court after posting an image on Instagram appearing to threaten a US district judge overseeing his criminal trial, itself instigated by Mr Mueller’s investigation.
House Democrats will meanwhile file a resolution tomorrow against Mr Trump’s controversial decision to declare a national emergency over illegal immigration from the southwestern border in order to bypass Congress and get his wall built.
The president will reportedly meet “face-to-face” with North Korean regime leader Kim Jong Un during their second summit together arriving next week, CNN reported on Thursday.
Trump has just referred to Jussie Smollet's claims that two of his apparent supporters attacked the actor as "racist" and "dangerous" -
Donald Trump’s inauguration investigation has taken a new turn, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking into the inaugural committee’s dealings with vendors. Reports have raised questions about the validity of several vendors and their presence at the inauguration.
US officials have told Reuters the president plans to discuss with North Korean Regime Leader Kim Jong Un “what kind of future North Korea could enjoy” if the regime were to commit to full denuclearization along the Korean peninsula.
The tweets were just a pair of social media posts the president published on Thursday. Mr Trump also — once again — shared a video of barrier construction along the US-Mexico border in New Mexico.
“THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!” he wrote.
The president's tweets arrived as Finland is scheduled to host the largest mobile event in the world next week. The rest of the global economy has only just begun to adapt to 5G technology, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.
In a statement, Finland’s Minister of Transport and Communications Anne Berner said, “Finland plans to be a forerunner as a user and developer of 5G technology. Our Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, has created a 5G ecosystem that will accelerate the development of new innovations and services through collaboration with other 5G experiments.
The 6G technology Mr Trump is tweeting about is not due until at least 2030, according to Network World. The trade magazine spoke to Ari Pouttu, professor for Dependable Wireless at the University of Oulu in Finland, who said "6G will emerge around 2030 to satisfy the expectation not met with 5G" and "will eventually offer terabits per second." The technology remains in the very beginning stages of research and development.
The Academy of Finland, which is funded by the Finish government, has reportedly dedicated $290m (£221m) towards a new programme called 6Genesis, which will conduct developmental efforts towards 6G capabilities.
The president appears to be beginning his day with an early morning Twitter rant calling on American companies to become a leader in a technology that does not yet exist. Here's the latest:
The president appears to be unaware of his own administration's pro-LGBT+ campaign to prevent the criminalisation of homosexuality around the world, seeming baffled when asked about it by a reporter.
The initiative's chief architect, Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, will no doubt be frustrated by his boss's apparent indifference.
Here's Tom Embury-Dennis.
Trump appears unaware of his administration's own pro-LGBT+ campaign just two days after launch
'I don’t know which report you’re talking about,' US president tells reporterA little more on William Happer, the climate change denier Donald Trump has appointed to a panel advising on the impact of global warming on national security.
Here he is arguing, "the demonisation of carbon dioxide is just like the demonisation of the poor Jews under Hitler", on CNBC's Squawk Box in 2014.
As the 30 April deadline approaches for the US to withdraw its 2,000 troops from Syria following the "defeat" of Isis, America's European allies have unanimously refused to fill the gap with their own forces, The Washington Post reports.
French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said last week he was mystified by President Trump's decision to withdraw and, on Tuesday, the UK's foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said "there is no prospect of British forces replacing the Americans" in Syria.
Even Mr Trump's fellow Republicans are not on board with the decision.
Defence secretary Jim Mattis resigned over the plan in December and, as The Post reported this week, South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham unleashed hell on acting-defence secretary Patrick Shanahan on the matter at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
The withdrawal was "the dumbest f***ing idea I've ever heard", Mr Graham said, issuing a dire forecast warning that Isis would be allowed to regroup and rejuvenate, a Turkish attack on Syrian Democratic Forces would be inevitable and Iran would strengthen its influence in the region.
"I am now your adversary, not your friend," Mr Graham told the acting Pentagon chief.
In case you missed it, Michael Cohen has agreed to testify in public next Wednesday before Congress about his time working as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and fixer.
He was originally set to do so on 7 February but the appearance was cancelled by Mr Cohen's legal team, who accused the president and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, of making threats against the defendant's father-in-law.
Writing for CNN Politics, analyst Stephen Collinson warns Robert Mueller's Russia report, said to be forthcoming, will only mark the beginning of a new chapter for the saga.
Little is known about what the special counsel's dossier will actually contain or constitute, Mr Mueller having been so careful to avoid talking to the media for much of his investigation's duration.
Whatever happens, Mr Collinson says, the report will mark a turning point for the Trump administration: clear evidence of collusion with Russia would mean protracted impeachment proceedings, no case to answer would embolden a triumphant president and rally his support-base.
"Mueller's endgame is obscured because no one really knows exactly what he will report and the information that [attorney-general William] Barr will choose - or feel compelled - to share with Congress and the public on a scandal that has polarised the nation," says Mr Collinson.
"The uncertainty is almost certain to spark a new struggle between Congress, the White House and the Justice Department that could lead to litigation and has every chance of reaching all the way up to the Supreme Court."
What the famously-methodical Mr Mueller has achieved so far in cornering Trump allies is to weave "a tale of Kremlin troll farms, social media campaigns, spear phishing operations and computer hacking," he writes.
"He's uncovered a pattern of compulsive lying by people close to Trump, often about contacts with Russians, which have raised the key question: What are all of these presidential associates trying to hide?"
While concerns have been raised about the administration using legitimate legal means to withhold damaging information when the report is finally published, legal analyst Susan Hennessy has a warning for William Barr should that happen.
"If he tries to withhold even one word of the Mueller report from Congress, they are going to litigate this question to the absolute end of the earth," she told Wolf Blitzer on CNN's The Situation Room.
"I think Andrew McCabe has made a fool out of himself over the last couple of days. He really looks to me like sort of a poor man’s J Edgar Hoover."
So said President Trump yesterday when questioned by reporters during his meeting with Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Mr Trump has spent several days infuriated by comments made by Mr McCabe, who is currently on a media tour to promote his book The Threat about his firing from the FBI.
Mr McCabe's revelations that he discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove the president with senior bureau officials and that deputy attorney-general Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire in the White House caused particular consternation.
Here's Sarah Harvard and Jon Sharman on the president's taking credit for blocking Isis bride Hoda Muthana, 24, from returning to the US with her 18-month-old son.
A Yemeni diplomat's daughter born in Hackensack, New Jersey, and raised in Alabama, Muthnana left to join the Islamist militants in Syria in 2014 while she was a university student but now says she rejects the group's extremist ideology.
"I’m a normal human being who has been manipulated," she says. "I hope America doesn’t think I am a threat to them and I hope they accept me. I hope they excuse me because of how young and ignorant I was."
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced the decision to stop her return on Wednesday, saying she did not have US citizenship, but apparently it wasn't his call after all.
"We cannot get to a point where we simply strip citizenship from those who break the law. That's not what America is about," the family's lawyer, Hassan Shibly, told AFP.
Alabama woman who joined ISIS will not be allowed to return to US
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claims Hoda Muthana, 24, is not a US citizen, but her family's lawyer says she is a natural born citizen.Actor Alec Baldwin, who has regularly annoyed Donald Trump with his unflattering impersonation of him on NBC's satirical sketch show Saturday Night Live, has repeated his fears for his personal safety as a result of the president's tweets denouncing the programme.
Here's Jack Shepherd.
Alec Baldwin 'fears for his family’s safety' following Donald Trump threat
'Trump signals people, not necessarily what to do, but how to feel, and that’s the beginning'Another classic: President Trump's panel to examine the effect of climate change on national security will include at least one man who doesn't believe in global warming.
White House adviser William Happer, a physicist with no background in climate science, refutes the scientific community's consensus that carbon dioxide pollution is harmful to the planet.
"More CO2 will benefit the world," he told Greenpeace in an email.
"The only way to limit CO2 would be to stop using fossil fuels, which I think would be a profoundly immoral and irrational policy."
Trump panel examining whether global warming affects national security will include a climate change denier
William Happer rejects scientific consensus but has no formal climate science trainingAndrew Buncombe here with a disturbing report that killings by white supremacists in the US more than doubled last year.
“The organised hate movement may be showing signs of disappointment with Donald Trump, but the president, aided and abetted by Fox News, continues to push his noxious anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim ideas into the public consciousness — fueling fears of a forthcoming white-minority country,” the Southern Poverty Law Centre says in a strongly-worded statement.
Killings by white supremacists in US 'more than doubled last year'
Report says Donald Trump pushed 'noxious' anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim ideas during this periodDemocrats in the House of Representatives will file a resolution to block Donald Trump's national emergency declaration on Friday.
The opposition argues the president has overstated and misrepresented the extent of the problem of illegal immigration from Central America at the southwestern border in order to activate emergency powers, allowing him to bypass Congress and reallocate federal funding to realise his 2,000-mile border wall, his signature campaign promise.
A vote on the measure - dubbed the "resolution of disapproval" by its co-sponsor, Texas representative Joaquin Castro - isn't likely until mid-March, however, because of a timeline set by law.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi told colleagues in a letter on Wednesday that the House will "move swiftly" to pass the resolution and that it will be referred to the Senate and then sent on to President Trump.
"The president's decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated," she added.
Passage through the Republican-controlled Senate is not certain, but a veto by Mr Trump is.
The development follows the filing of a lawsuit by 16 states to challenge the same measure in court, an initiative spearhead by California, prompting the president to lash out at the Golden State's costly bullet train project, which he says has wasted almost $3.5bn (£2.7bn) in federal funds already.
The man himself has been busily tweeting about the progress of construction, which at least makes a change from endangering journalists.
Anyone at all acquainted with Roger Stone will know he has a reputation for sartorial extravagance, even writing a fashion column for the conservative website The Daily Caller.
CNN political analyst David Gergen caused a stir yesterday with a comment suggesting Mr Stone's status as a "dandy" could see him subjected to sexual violence should he go to prison.
"Roger Stone must worry if he goes there - he’s seen as something of a dandy. Will he be physically safe? Will he be subject to rape? There must be a lot of things that going through his mind. 'Oh my god what have I gotten myself into?' In light of that how odd, how perfectly odd, to even post this thing," Mr Gergen said.
Mr Stone issued an angry statement in response:
“Not only was CNN tipped off in advance of my arrest, allowed to video it from 25 feet away while the street was cleared, clearly had a draft copy of my indictment while it was still sealed, but now both Jake Tapper and David Gergen have salivated over the prospect that I could be raped in prison... These people are demons.”
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