Trump news: President accused of 'abuse of power' as he hits back against John Kelly in furious tweets

William Barr says president's 'bullying' and intervention in Roger Stone case makes it 'impossible' to do his job

Eric Swalwell says Trump's impeachment not off the table in Stone case

Donald Trump lashed out at his former chief of staff John Kelly while the White House welcomes back former communications director Hope Hicks after her stint at the parent company of Fox News.

The president has meanwhile been accused of spearheading a “descent into authoritarianism” by another possible rival, Elizabeth Warren, after admitting he asked his attorney general William Barr to intervene in the sentencing of Republican political trickster Roger Stone and refusing to rule out pardoning him.

Attorney General Barr warned that he won't be "bullied" by the president amid his attempts to make it "impossible" for him to do his job, he said. "I'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody ... whether it's Congress, a newspaper editorial board, or the president," Mr Barr told ABC News. "I'm gonna do what I think is right. And you know ... I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me."

Mr Barr has agreed to appear before the House Judiciary Committee next month to explain himself after chairman Jerrold Nadler wrote to him to express concern over his politicisation of the Justice Department at the president’s behest since taking office. “He’s an enabler,” commented Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. “That’s a kind word.”

Another top prosecutor from the office overseeing the case of longtime political operative Stone has resigned from the administration, days after the president withdrew Jessie Liu's nomination to the treasury department. Several prosecutors have fled Justice Department after the president's intervention in the latest criminal case involving his political allies.

The president also attacked 2020 contender Michael Bloomberg on Twitter, calling him “a 5’4 mass of dead energy”, only for the Democratic candidate to hit back and label the president “a carnival barking clown”, deriding his chequered real estate career as one defined by “stupid deals and incompetence”.

Mr Trump met with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Thursday to seemingly establish yet another "quid pro quo" by attempting to reach a deal on the state's immigration policies if he agreed to drop all investigations of the president's personal life and businesses.

New York's trusted traveller and Global Entry programmes was suspended by the administration over the so-called "Green Light Law," which allows undocumented people to apply for state driver's licenses and ID and bans federal agents from looking at state motor vehicle records.

In a rare show of bipartisanship in the Senate, Democrats were able to narrowly pass a resolution that limits the president's war powers with Iran, establishing that Mr Trump must receive congressional approval before military action in the country.

Follow coverage as it happened:

[13 February 2020 13:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

Rudy Giuliani challenged in latest chaotic Fox News interview

The president's personal attorney returned to Fox last night to tell host Shannon Bream that Barr's Justice Department had not set up an "intake process" to hear his assortment of wild Ukraine-related conspiracy theories after all.

"Not only am I not I'm not getting special treatment, I've been getting terrible treatment!" he declared.

Rudy laid into the "corrupt media" for refusing to take seriously his concerns about Joe Biden's supposedly corrupt intervention to remove Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin while serving as Barack Obama's vice president in 2016.

"Look, Biden is so guilty. It is so obvious this was a bribe," Giuliani raved. "You have to be a fool not to see it."

Bream's patient scepticism was a marvel to behold.

[13 February 2020 13:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

President resumes Stone meddling in early tweets

Here's Trump watching Fox and Friends and continuing to meddle in the Stone case, completely unabashed.

He has also mispelled Devin Nunes's name here, suggesting an unflattering degree of indifference towards the California congressman, conspiracy-pusher and loyalist who served as the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee through the impeachment process.

[13 February 2020 13:35 · Joe Sommerlad]

White House budget chief says he 'doesn't anticipate' further Ukraine aid blocks, not entirely reassuringly

Russ Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), appeared before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday and afterwards denied that the administration might again withhold military assistance from Kiev - in less than convincing terms.

“I am not going to take any tools that the president has off the table but I don’t anticipate anything on that front,” he told reporters.

Hmmm...

Inexplicably, congressmen inside the three-hour hearing did not directly bring up the department's role in freezing that pesky $391m (£302m) aid to Ukraine last summer even once, according to Politico.

Committee chairman John Yarmuth came closest when he asked what steps the OMB had taken to avoid the agency withholding "duly enacted appropriations", to which Vought answered: "We will continue to be transparent with regard to how we manage the people's money and... ensure that money is not wasted in the process."

“We believe that we need to abide by the appropriation passed by Congress.”

The redoubtable Hakeem Jeffries did at last try and put him to the sword on the president's latest budget proposal:

[13 February 2020 13:55 · Joe Sommerlad]

Indian city building wall ‘to block slum districts from Trump’s sight’ during visit

Trump is due to visit the city of Ahmedabad this month and, in preparation, local officials are taking a leaf out of the president's book and erecting a wall to block its slums from view, part of a "beautification and cleanliness" drive, they say.

[13 February 2020 14:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

Marie Yovanovitch handed top diplomacy award and given standing ovation in rebuke to Trump

The career US diplomat who was ousted from her post in Ukraine by President Trump, then was criticised by him as she testified at his impeachment hearings, warned that the State Department is facing a crisis with senior leaders who lack "vision."

Marie Yovanovitch, accepting an award at Georgetown University on Wednesday, portrayed the department as "in trouble" and under threat even as she sought to encourage her audience of mostly students not to give up on diplomacy as a career.

Yovanovitch urged students to follow in her footsteps because the US "needs diplomats that are ready and capable."

"This country needs a robust foreign policy," Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, said as she accepted the Trainor Award for excellence in diplomacy from the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.

But she noted that the State Department is being "hollowed out" under Trump and that the art of diplomacy has become less of a priority under his administration.

"Right now, the State Department is in trouble," Yovanovitch said in accepting the award. "Senior leaders lack policy vision, moral clarity and leadership.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has been criticized by former diplomats and others for not coming to the defense of Yovanovitch, a charge he has denied.

Yovanovitch praised the "quiet work of diplomacy" as a way to ensure peace and prosperity in the world.

"It sounds so old-fashioned in our high-tech world, but diplomacy is about human interaction, and creating relationships of trust is more important than ever," she said. "It's not as exciting as sending in the Marines, but it's cheaper and usually more effective in the long term."

The award, named for Raymond "Jit" Trainor, a former official at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, is presented annually to "an outstanding practitioner" of diplomacy. Recipients have included former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo and former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.

Thomas Pickering, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, said Yovanovitch showed courage not just at diplomatic posts in Russia and elsewhere but in her willingness to testify before Congress, when she was publicly denounced on Twitter by Trump.

"She has, in every sense of the word, acted in the highest tradition of those who serve our country," said Pickering, himself a recipient of the Trainor Award.

Yovanovitch was making her first public appearance since her testimony to Congress about her efforts to press the government of Ukraine to address longstanding US policy concerns about corruption. At that time a back-channel effort led by Trump's personal lawyer

Rudy Giuliani sought to push the government of the eastern European nation to dig up political dirt to help Trump's re-election. Giuliani was part of a campaign that led the Republican president to order Yovanovitch's removal from her post ahead of schedule last spring. Trump appeared to threaten her, saying she "would go through some things," in a July phone call with the leader of Ukraine that was at the centew of the impeachment case against Trump.

Yovanovitch made light of the call during the Georgetown ceremony in one of her few direct references to impeachment. "When you go through some things," she said, drawing laughter, "to fall back on cliche you have to dig deep a little bit." She did not address the back-channel efforts explicitly but warned about the state of diplomacy more broadly at a time when authoritarianism seems to be on the rise.

"To be blunt, an amoral, keep 'em guessing foreign policy that substitutes threats, fear and confusion for trust cannot work over the long haul," she said. Yovanovitch, who was removed from her post in May 2019 with no public explanation, described to Congress a "concerted campaign" against her based on "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives."

Trump publicly criticised her as she testified, saying on Twitter that "everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad." Yet, in a nearly 34-year career at the State Department, she received a series of promotions under both Republican and Democratic administrations, with positions that included ambassador to Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.

AP

[13 February 2020 14:25 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump trades vicious blows with 2020 contender Michael Bloomberg on social media

In the last hour, Trump has been raging at Michael Bloomberg on Twitter, saying the ex-New York City mayor and billionaire "is a LOSER who has money but can’t debate and has zero presence" and branding him "a 5'4 mass of dead energy".

The candidate's response is even more scorching.

Here's Chris Riotta with some timely background.

[13 February 2020 14:45 · Joe Sommerlad]

Trump repeatedly promotes tweets by sex therapist

If those Bloomberg exchanges on Twitter weren't mad enough for you, check out the president's repeated posts from California sex therapist Dr Dawn Michael AKA @SexCounseling.

[13 February 2020 15:05 · Chris Riotta]

  ↵The Independent's Washington Bureau Chief John Bennett has more on former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's unusually candid comments in New Jersey, along with a colourful response from White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham:

"I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President."

[13 February 2020 15:25 · Chris Riotta]

Marie Yovanovitch, ambassador ousted by Donald Trump, gets standing ovation while receiving diplomacy award

Marie Yovanovitch received a standing ovation from a crowd of diplomats while accepting an award at Georgetown University, where the ousted ambassador delivered a speech warning the State Department was “in trouble” under Donald Trump.

The former US ambassador to Ukraine was removed from her post in April 2019 following a covert effort by the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and others to have her taken out of the State Department. 

Shortly after, Mr Trump urged the newly-elected Ukrainian president to launch investigations into one of his 2020 political rivals, Joe Biden, as well as unfounded allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. 

Ms Yovanovitch, who then served as a key figure in the president’s impeachment, said on Wednesday that the State Department was being “hollowed out” while individuals who “lack policy vision, moral clarity and leadership skills” were taking over.

“Vacancies at all levels go unfilled,” she said, “and officers are increasingly wondering whether it is safe to express concerns about policy, even behind closed doors.”

Story to come...

[13 February 2020 15:53 · Chris Riotta]

Hope is back!

Hope Hicks, a former campaign aide and White House adviser to Donald Trump, is returning to the administration. Hicks became a key figure in Trump's Russia controversy and delivered evidence in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.