Donald Trump balances a chocolate bar on child's head dressed as a minion at White House Halloween party
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The House impeachment inquiry investigating Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine heard on Tuesday that the White House cut key details from its transcript of the 25 July call between the president and Volodymyr Zelensky, including several references to 2020 rival Joe Biden and the Ukrainian gas company his son worked for.
The behind-closed-doors testimony of National Security Council expert Alexander Vindman was described afterwards as “extremely disturbing” by one exiting congresswoman in a hearing disrupted by a shouting match that erupted when House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff reportedly accused Republicans of trying to unmask the CIA whistleblower who first sounded the alarm.
In the prepared remarks, Mr Vindman said that if Mr Zelenskiy did as Mr Trump asked in the 25 July call and investigated Mr Biden, it would “undermine US national security.”
Mr Vindman, a veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart, was the first current White House official to testify in the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, which was largely prompted by a whistleblower report on the call between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskiy.
On the call, Mr Trump pressed Mr Zelenskiy to investigate Mr Biden, a former vice president and a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination to run against Trump in 2020.
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
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“I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine,” Mr Vindman said in his prepared statement.
Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, Mr Trump's nominee to be ambassador to Russia, told senators at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he did not know of any attempt by the president or others to press Ukraine to open a corruption probe into Joe Biden's son, Hunter.
He said he knew that Mr Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had spearheaded a campaign to oust Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post, but said he didn't know details, including why he was doing it.
"My knowledge in the spring and summer of this year about any involvement with Mr Giuliani was in connection with a campaign against our ambassador to Ukraine," Mr Sullivan said.
Mr Sullivan had the job of informing Ms Yovanovitch in late March that she was being recalled early from her post. He said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had told him only that Ms Yovanovitch had lost the confidence of the president. He said he was given no other explanation and told Ms Yovanovitch that he did not believe she had done anything to warrant her removal.
Mr Sullivan said he had reviewed a package of negative information about Ms Yovanovitch that was given to the department by "someone at the White House" after he and Mr Pompeo had inquired about complaints against her. But Mr Sullivan said he concluded it contained nothing that would warrant action against her.
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"It didn't provide to me a basis for taking action against our ambassador, but I wasn't aware of all that might be going on in the background and to be cautious I asked that the packet of materials ... be looked at by the inspector general and by the Justice Department," he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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US economic growth slowed in the third quarter of 2019, giving Trump a headache as he gears up for his 2020 re-election campaign.
GDP expanded at an annualised rate of 1.9 per cent growth in the third quarter of the year, according to the US Commerce Department, down marginally from 2 per cent in the previous three months and marking the third successive quarter of slowing growth.
As a publicity stunt to promote his no doubt godawful new "book", Don Jr is letting you pay for the privilege of sending a copy to his father's political foes.
It is, of course, anyone fool enough to pay the $21 (£16.30) who is really getting pranked here.
The Michigan auto shop owner who put up this Halloween display, in which a bloodied Trump is seen brandishing the severed head of Barack Obama, has conceded he may have "gone too far".
Dave Huff of Quality Coatings has assured The Detroit Free Press "no race ever went into this thing" and has since amended it, dropping the head in favour of binding the scarecrow in "PC Police" tape. All righty then!
Mediaite is reporting that Jennifer Van Laar, the RedState journalist who wrote the Katie Hill revenge porn story that ended her career as a congresswoman, has a long history of dirty tricks in California GOP politics and previously worked for Republican candidates who ran against her.
Dr Michael Baden, New York City's former chief medical examiner, says he believes billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was murdered, contradicting the offical verdict that the deceased took his own life in prison back in August.
Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that Epstein was "a terrific guy" while noting his taste for younger women before later attempting to distance himself from the disgraced hedge fund tycoon after his arrest for sex trafficking, only for video footage of the two of them drooling over cheerleaders at Mar-a-Lago to emerge.
But even this won't be enough to convince the administration to change its tune on climate change, judging by the standard of debate on Tucker Carlson last night.
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