Biden news: President meets with GOP on Covid bill as Democrats move to oust Marjorie Taylor Greene

Former president Donald Trump’s new political action committee received more than $30m (£21.85m) in the last weeks of 2020 after the US elections while he was repeatedly claiming voter fraud without any evidence.

The filings of Mr Trump's Save America political action committee with the Federal Election Commission, which cover activity between 24 November-31 December, shows that it started 2021 with $31.1m (£22.64) in cash reserves.

The former president is facing a second impeachment trial in the US Senate, but the filings show that Mr Trump, who received more votes in 2020 compared to his total votes in 2016, enjoys a solid financial backing from his supporters.

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The Scottish Greens have called on the government to investigate Donald Trump over investments the former US president has made in the country. 

Mr Trump owns a golf course in Scotland, and the Greens are calling for the invocation of an Unexplained Wealth Order, which would potentially force Mr Trump into revealing where the money to buy the property came from. 

Joe Biden wants a $1.9trn Covid relief deal.

Republicans want a package worth less than a third of that.

And while the president wants to work across the aisle to strike a bipartisan deal in keeping with his promise to “unify” the nation, Democrats on Capitol Hill are dialing up the pressure on him to abandon that fantasy and move forward without Republican obstructionists.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sunday gave his strongest indication yet that his caucus is prepared to take the plunge on a partisan Covid package with Mr Biden and House Democrats, who are also in the majority.

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Joe Biden’s public schedule shows the US president will this morning receive the presidential daily brief - a collation of the country’s most sensitive national security issues which Donald Trump all but gave up on in his last months as president - before he meets a number of GOP senators over Covid relief. 

Former prime minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev has branded Donald Trump's presidency as a “period of disappointment” saying political tensions in the US hindered the former president.

"The period of the previous administration’s work is the period of disappointment," Mr Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council,  said according to Tass, a Russian news agency.

"Donald Trump, already a former president of the United States, was indeed a friendly person and demonstrated in every possible way his intention to, as he put it, get along with the Russians - but failed," Mr Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council,  said according to Tass, a Russian news agency.

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Pressure could increase on the Scottish government to investigate Donald Trump’s financial dealings in the country when lawmakers in its parliament vote this week on whether to demand that ministers seek an Unexplained Wealth Order against the former US president. 

The Scotsman reports that an opposition debate on Wednesday will set out arguments for why the government should probe how Mr Trump’s holdings in Scotland were acquired. 

Though a vote would not be binding, it would increase pressure on first minister Nicola Sturgeon to act on what the Scottish Greens called “serious and evidenced concerns” surrounding Mr Trump’s purchase of his Turnberry golf resort.

The long-shot lawsuit from Texas, which sought to invalidate the results in four swing states, was not drafted by Republican attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, but by Donald Trump’s own lawyers, revealed a new report.  

The extensive New York Times report examined Mr Trump’s attempted coup to subvert the 2020 elections and the “77 democracy-bending days” when the former president propagated the voters fraud theory.  

The efforts by Mr Trump’s campaign to help prevent alleged voters fraud were red-flagged by several Republican attorneys general and their senior staff lawyers, the report said.  

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Micahel Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, has said the old boss “lied” about election fraud until he began to actually believe the vote had been stolen from him.

"No @LeaderMcConnell, open your ears and listen to what I have said," Mr Cohen tweeted in response to a news report that Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell considered Mr Trump really thought he had won the election.

"Trump repeated the lie over and over and over again until he finally believed his own lie. That’s the trait of a sociopath.”

Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has faced death threats, name-calling, and disownment from members of his family for being one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump earlier this month.

Mr Kinzinger was one of the first Republicans in Congress to forcefully condemn Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, denouncing the president’s disproven conspiracy theories about a “stolen election” and warning of the dangers of abetting such a movement.

The hate and vitriol has poured hard and steady on Mr Kinzinger after his vote on 13 January to impeach Mr Trump for “incitement to insurrection,” just a week after the then-president gave a speech to supporters who later invaded the US Capitol building.

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The Senate has delayed a vote to confirm Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, because of heavy snow forecast in the area.

According to Politico , the vote was originally scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Monday, but will now be moved to Tuesday, when the Senate votes to confirmation Pete Buttigieg’s nomination as Transportation secretary.

Washington DC has been under a winter storm watch since the weekend, with several inches of snow expected in the city, as Storm Orlena heads North East across the US.