Michael Cohen’s lawyer told CNBC that his client will testify before three congressional committees before he enters prison on March 6.

“Those panels include the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, where Cohen’s testimony will be public. Cohen had previously indefinitely postponed his appearance at that committee due to fears for his family’s safety.”

“Cohen’s testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Intelligence Committee will be closed.”

Every Fourth of July there is a fireworks thing in D.C. And parade from downtown with, you know, bands and Uncle Sam guy and the drum and fife and all the rest of it. Today President Trump told reporters at the white house he is considering a new idea that has just occurred to him, a new idea for America which is that he is thinking over, he is considering that maybe from here on out there should be a parade and fireworks in Washington D.C. Every year on July 4th.

How about that? He mused about this idea to reporters today. He said quote, we’re thinking about doing something that will perhaps become a tradition. Proposing fireworks for the Fourth of July, even in D.C. It’s a bold idea for the president today presumably this will be followed by an executive order proclaiming from here on out we’ll start a new calendar year on the first day of January. What?

….

Also, he’s invented rap music and the idea of taking a vacation in the summer if you’re a school kid. I mean, I kid you not, the president today proposed to reporters in all seriousness from the White House that he’s thinking there should maybe be fireworks and a parade on the Fourth of July in Washington D.C. It could catch on, could become a tradition. The best news about this is that it’s not actually a terrible idea to have a parade and fireworks in Washington D.C. On the Fourth of July as evidenced by the fact, we always do it every year and nobody minds. People sort of like it. But what is going on in the head of the President Of The United States that he thinks this annual celebration should henceforth be attributed to him as if he dreamed it up. I mean, I try not to get caught up in this stuff and generally the stuff he says, but like the weird vagaries of the presidency are honestly really weird.

“I also am hopeful the president may sign it. I know it’s uphill still,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), the lead House sponsor, told The Hill in a phone interview. “You can’t be for withdrawal in Afghanistan and withdrawal in Syria and then say we need to escalate the war in Yemen. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Mike Allen: “House Democrats plan a vast probe of President Trump and Russia — with a heavy focus on money laundering — that will include multiple committees and dramatic public hearings, and could last into 2020.”

“The aggressive plans were outlined yesterday by a Democratic member of Congress at a roundtable for Washington reporters. The member said Congress plans interviews with new witnesses, and may go back to earlier witnesses who ‘stonewalled’ under the Republican majority.”

“The reporters, many of them steeped in the special counsel’s investigation, came away realizing that House Dems don’t plan to depend on Robert Mueller for the last word on interference in the 2016 election.”

A few things spring to mind.

Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.

For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.

So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.

I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.

But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.

And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.

Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.

Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.

And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.

Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.

He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.

He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.

That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.

There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.

After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.

God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.

He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.

In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:

'My God… what… have… I… created?

If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.

A new Washington Post-Schar School poll finds more Americans say they trust special counsel Robert Mueller’s version of the facts than President Trump’s, 56% to 33%.

And by nearly as wide a margin, more believe Mueller is mainly interested in “finding out the truth” than trying to “hurt Trump politically.”

Politico: “The White House is firming up plans to redirect unspent federal dollars as a way of funding President Trump’s border wall without taking the dramatic step of invoking a national emergency. Done by executive order, this plan would allow the White House to shift money from different budgetary accounts without congressional approval, circumventing Democrats who refuse to give Trump anything like the $5.7 billion he has demanded.”

“Nor would it require a controversial emergency declaration. The emerging consensus among acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and top budget officials is to shift money from two Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control projects in Northern California, as well as from disaster relief funds intended for California and Puerto Rico. The plan will also tap unspent Department of Defense funds for military construction, like family housing or infrastructure for military bases.”