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A US district judge has ordered Donald Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with a subpoena issued by House Democrats – originally in response to the Mueller report – that could see him testify to the impeachment inquiry.
In her ruling, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson asserted that "presidents are not kings" and ruled that Mr McGahn — whom the president pressured to deny that he wanted to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, according to the report — must appear before Congress.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, told reporters on Tuesday that "we not only have a right, we have a duty" to investigate those leads.
Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump was met with a chorus of boos from a crowd of young people at an opioid awareness event in Baltimore, which the president has previously called a "disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess".
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
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She later said, in a statement, that "we live in a democracy and everyone is entitled to their opinion."
She later joined Mr Trump outside the White House for the president's annual turkey "pardoning" ahead of Thanksgiving. Bread and Butter were both spared, but not before Mr Trump swiped at Congressional Democrats, Adam Schiff and members of the press.
Congress continued to push back at the administration, first in a House Budget Committee report that found the White House's Office of Management and Budget engaged in a "pattern of abuse" by withholding aid to Ukraine, and then in a lawsuit aimed at top administration officials over documents that Democrats believe will answer why the administration wanted to include citizenship status in the 2020 Census.
In other news, Mr Trump has reportedly appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner, already tasked with bringing peace to the Middle East, to oversee the construction of his US-Mexico border wall, as the row over his decision to absolve Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher of war crimes rumbles on.
White House on lockdown as 'fighter jets scrambled to unresponsive aircraft'
Some confusion about precisely what's going on at the moment but Capitol Hill is understood to have been evacuated and the White House placed on lockdown amid reports of an aircraft over the DC area not communicating with air traffic controllers.
Here's our breaking story. We'll have more updates for you as soon as they become available.
That appears to have been a false alarm. The lockdown has now been lifted at the White House and on Capitol Hill and the incident appears to have been sparked by a small plane crossing into restricted airspace. Phew!
This was the scene among the Washington press corps in what must have been a frightening moment for all concerned.
Woman caught trespassing at Mar-a-Lago sentenced to jail
A Chinese woman caught trespassing at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort has been jailed for eight months.
Yujing Zhang, 33, was found guilty of trespassing and lying to federal agents following a trial at which she acted as her own lawyer.
When Zhang was arrested on 30 March for sneaking into the Florida resort, she was carrying two passports and an electronic signal blocking Faraday bag containing four mobile phones, a computer and an external hard drive.
Zhang told the Secret Service agents who apprehended her she was simply there to use the pool.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: 'I don’t like being called a liar'
Trump's former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, now a full-time Fox pundit, gave an interview to The New York Times yesterday in which she said: "I don't like being called a liar. The other stuff bothered me far less."
Never mind her lying to Robert Mueller about FBI agents' doubts about James Comey ("a slip of the tongue"), she said this only yesterday and that can't be true either...
Speaking over breakfast tacos in a Little Rock diner with Annie Karni of The NYT, Sanders also said she feels like she has been "called" to run for governor of Arkansas and follow in her father Mike's footsteps.
“I’m just excited to have people clap when I come up to a podium,” she says.
That might *might* have happened at the White House if she'd ever held a press briefing.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren go after Michael Bloomberg
Recently declared 2020 candidate Michael Bloomberg has come under fire from Bernie Sanders.
“What he believes - and this is the arrogance of billionaires: ‘Hey, I can run for president because I’m worth $55bn (£42bn), and maybe I’ll take $1bn (£778m) out of that $55bn’ - not a lot, when you’re worth that much - and… start running a massive amount of TV ads in California and, in fact, all over this country,” the veteran Vermont senator commented in New Hampshire on Monday.
Elizabeth Warren also targeted Bloomberg in Iowa, accusing him of attempting to "buy the nomination".
Here's more on Warren from Andrew Buncombe in Des Moines.
Lindsey Graham refuses to back down on investigating Bidens
South Carolina senator and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham went viral last week when a vintage clip of him speaking about Joe Biden - and almost bursting into tears with admiration for the former vice president - began doing the rounds, contrasting his current Trump zealotry with his past decency.
He has since reiterated that affection on Twitter but made it abundantly clear he does not intend to give Biden an easy ride should the impeachment inquiry develop into a Senate trial.
Trump says he would 'actually like' his allies to testify to the impeachment inquiry
Responding to the McGahn ruling yesterday, Trump says he actually would be in favour of allies (or former allies) like John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry and Mick Mulvaney testifying to the impeachment inquiry but is holding them back because he is "fighting for future Presidents and the Office of President."
Pretty grandiose, especially as he admits in passing he withheld congressionally-approved military aid on the sly.
That last point ties into Curb Your Enthusiasm creator Larry David's superb recent spoof of Trump's "concern" with corruption in Ukraine in The New York Times.
Video of Trump struggling to hear reporters goes viral
As recounted in Bob Woodward's book Fear - and elsewhere - White House staff have repeatedly tried to talk Trump out of using Twitter so much but he always pushes back, insisting social media is his "megaphone" to ensure he gets heard.
Maybe he wouldn't need it so much if he stopped speaking to reporters next to Marine One, where the whirr of helicopters blades frequently drowns out both their questions and his answers.
Here's Greg Evans for Indy100 on a masterful compilation of Trump shouting "WHAT?" from The Daily Show.
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