Iowa's longest-serving Republican legislator leaves party because of Trump
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The Trump administration is being accused of “stonewalling” Congress by ignoring a deadline for the Treasury to hand over Donald Trump's tax returns and defying a subpoena requesting ex-personal security director Carl Kline appear before a House investigative committee.
“It appears that the president believes that the Constitution does not apply to his White House, that he may order officials at will to violate their legal obligations, and that he may obstruct attempts by Congress to conduct oversight,” said Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight Committee.
President Trump made his feelings on Democrat-led investigations in the wake of the Mueller report perfectly clear in an interview on Tuesday, stating: “There is no reason to go any further, and especially in Congress where it’s very partisan - obviously very partisan. I don’t want people testifying to a party, because that is what they’re doing if they do this.”
He continued to attack the special counsel and ongoing congressional investigations Wednesday, telling reporters before departing the White House his administration is "fighting all the subpoenas."
“We have been – I have been – the most transparent president and administration in the history of our country by far,” Mr Trump said.
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“We’re fighting all the subpoenas. These aren’t, like, impartial people. The Democrats are trying to win 2020," he added.
He added that he “thought after two years we’d be finished with it," referring to the investigations surrounding his campaign.
Meanwhile, Democrats have stepped up their enquiries in the aftermath of the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference.
One congressional subpoena the administration is expected to challenge has gone out to Don McGahn, former White House counsel who cooperated with Mr Mueller.
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And the White House is pushing back on other fronts, including House Democratic efforts to obtain Mr Trump’s tax returns and his business’ financial records.
Additional reporting by AP. Check out The Independent's live coverage from Washington below.
Trump remains as humourless and embittered towards the White House Correspondents' Dinner as ever and has now banned his staff from attending the Saturday night gala for the Washington press corps.
The president himself will duck out of the traditional presidential roast for the third consecutive year and will instead address a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. After Trump was excoriated by stand-up comedian Michelle Wolf last April, the White House has moved to break with custom and not have a comic compere this year, opting for historian Ron Chernow as host instead.
Seth Meyers and Barack Obama have had particular fun at Trump's expense in the past, with President Obama sending up the "birther" conspiracy theory peddled by Trump regarding his country of origin by playing a clip from Disney's The Lion King (1994) and predicting a Trump White House emblazoned with trashy signage and a jacuzzi out front for Playboy models.
With the Department of Homeland Security still in disarray following the resignation of Kirstjen Nielsen two weeks ago and Trump's "border czar" yet to be appointed, the shadowy hand of adviser Stephen Miller continues to be seen through the draconian anti-immigration measures under consideration.
Not content with separating the children of asylum seekers from their parents and detaining them in cages at the US-Mexico border, the Trump administration is apparently considering dispatching them to Guantanamo Bay, the military prison in Cuba that became notorious during George W Bush's War on Terror.
Speaking of Nielsen, The New York Times reports this morning she wanted to redirect the focus of the Department of Homeland Security towards preparing for new forms of Russian election interference in 2020 but was discouraged from doing so by the White House before being forced out.
Acting chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney warned her not to raise the question of cyber-defence with President Trump despite new evidence emerging of Russian hacking taking place during the 2018 midterms.
Activity originating from Eastern Europe "ranging from its search for new techniques to divide Americans using social media, to experiments by hackers, to rerouting internet traffic and infiltrating power grids" had become a concern for Nielsen, according to The Times.
All of which amounts to a great deal more than "buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent", as Jared Kusher disingenuously characterised it at the Time 100 Summit in New York on Tuesday.
Donald Trump's upcoming visit to the UK between 3 and 5 June has caused quite a stir since it was announced yesterday.
The inflatable Baby Trump will apparently take to the skies once more, further protests are planned and MPs from David Lammy to Emily Thornberry have expressed disgust at prime minister Theresa May toadying up to the White House in search of friendly post-Brexit trading and diplomatic relations.
Thornberry suggested in PMQs this morning Trump ought to be sat between naturalist David Attenborough and teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg to discuss climate change when he arrives in London.
The speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, is also under pressure to row back his stance on allowing Trump to address Parliament.
White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp is on holiday in Italy at present and claims she saw the Pope.
How nice.
She's still finding time to check her phone in the piazzas of the Eternal City though and is busying joining in with her boss's vile anti-immigration scaremongering.
Why not have an espresso old girl and leave us all alone?
In his latest tweet, Mr Trump has threatened to "head to the Supreme Court" to fight Democrats if they try to launch impeachment proceedings against him.
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