Trump news: White House 'faces serious consequences' over president's order that aides refuse to cooperate with investigations

Good morning and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of Donald Trump and his administration.

A US judge has ruled in favour of a House of Representatives committee seeking to obtain president Donald Trump's financial records from his accounting firm.

Washington district iudge Amit Mehta, who heard oral arguments in the case last week, said the Oversight Committee had "shown that it is not engaged in a pure fishing expedition for the president's financial records".

"It is simply not fathomable that a constitution that grants congress the power to remove a resident for reasons including criminal behavior would deny congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct - past or present - even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry," he said in Monday's ruling.

The documents from accountants Mazars LLP might assist congress in passing laws and performing other core functions, he added.

The judge also denied a request by Trump to stay his decision pending an appeal.

Mehta said Mazars had seven days to comply with the subpoena.

Donald Trump reckons he's so popular he could serve five terms as president, if not for that pesky US constitution.

Recalling his election victory in 2016, joked to a rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, last night: 

Now we're going to have a second time.

And then we'll drive them crazy. Ready?

And maybe if we really like it a lot and if things keep going like they're going, we'll go and we'll do what we have to do. We'll do a three and a four and a five.

The 22nd Amendment of the Constitution limits presidents to two terms in the White House, which I think we can all agree is probably for the best.

Top national security officials are heading to Capitol Hill today to discuss Donald Trump's bombast over Iran. 

The officials will hold separate behind-closed-doors briefings with Republicans and Democrats in congress, following weeks of escalating tensions in the Gulf that have raised alarms over possible military confrontation.

The Trump administration has been warned it cannot take the country into war without congressional approval.

The back-to-back briefings show the wariness among Democrats, and some Republicans, over the White House's sudden policy shifts in the Middle East. 

Trump on Monday threatened to meet any provocations by Iran with "great force," but also said he was willing to negotiate. 

Justin Amash, the first Republican in the US congress to say openly that Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses, has fired back at his critics in the party.

Standing behind his earlier remarks, Amash issued a string of tweets that challenged some of the most common arguments of those who defend Trump over special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.

Amash said people who claim Trump could not have intended to illegally obstruct Mueller's investigation relied on several falsehoods, including a claim that there were no underlying crimes.

"In fact, there were many crimes revealed by the investigation, some of which were charged, and some of which were not," he tweeted.

Responding to Amash's initial comments on Sunday, Trump tweeted that the representative for Michigan was "a total lightweight" and "a loser."

A former White House aide is to defy a request to testify before the US Congress after being ordered by Donald Trump to help stonewall investigations into the president.

A lawyer for Donald McGahn, former White House counsel, has confirmed he will follow the president's directive and skip the House Judiciary Committee hearing this week in defiance of a subpoena.

Democrat committee chairman Jerrold Nadler said would the committee would vote to hold McGahn in contempt and take the issue to court.

In a letter sent today, on the eve of the hearing, Nadler told McGahn: "You face serious consequences if you do not appear."

A further escalation of Donald Trump's trade war with China risks damaging the US and wider global economy, a major international organisation has warned.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) cautioned that if the dispute intensified, it could knock as much as 0.7 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) by 2021-22.

It comes as the Paris-based think tank cut its outlook for global growth to 3.2 per cent in 2019 and 3.4 per cent in 2020.

Growth in China and the United States could come in 0.2 per cent to 0.3 per cent lower on average by 2021 and 2022 if the countries do not resolve their long-running dispute, the OECD predicted.

In the worst-case scenario, America's GDP could be more than 0.8 per cent lower and Chinese GDP over 1.1 per cent lower if tensions escalate further, it added.

Iran's president Hassan Rouhani has called the US administration "novice politicians with naive ideas", saying Donald Trump had stepped back from his threats against Tehran after military aides advised him against a war with the Islamic Republic.

In a speech broadcast live on state television, Rouhani also claimed the unity of the Iranian nation changed Trump's decision to wage war.

Iranians are reportedly working hard to enrich uranium after Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal.

The news comes as the US and Iran have seen heightened tensions, with the president outright threatening Iran in the past week.

Here's our report:

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that it is "quite possible" that Iran is behind the sabotage of Gulf oil interests.

It's the latest sign of strife as the US and Iran have grown further and further apart, and as Donald Trump has threatened war.