Trump news: Mueller testimony says president could face criminal charges as Trump rails against 'disaster' hearing

Perhaps it's best not to get carried away - here's Max Burns for Indy Voices with a timely reality check.

Trump is up bright and early - I thought he wasn't going to be watching Mueller - to accuse the opposition of "illegally fabricating a crime" against a "very innocent" president.

But before we get down to Mueller in earnest, here are a few other stories from Washington.

The Senate yesterday passed a bill making a compensation fund for first responders to the terror attacks in New York City on 11 September 2001 effectively permanent after weeks of battles on Capitol Hill. 

The bill - championed by ex-Daily Show host Jon Stewart - would extend a fund created in the wake of the al-Qaeda atrocity through to 2092, essentially making it permanent. The $7.4bn (£5.9bn) fund is rapidly being depleted and administrators recently cut benefit payments by up to 70 per cent, provoking howls of protest.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House-passed bill would result in about $10.2bn (£8.2) in additional compensation payments over 10 years, including more than $4bn (£3.2bn) for claims already filed.

The 97-2 vote in the Senate sends the bill on to Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it.

Here's Chris Riotta's report.

The House overwhelmingly approved a resolution on Tuesday opposing an international effort to boycott Israel, a rare bipartisan vote as Democrats try to tamp down increasingly heated political rhetoric over differences with the longtime US ally. 

Democrats have been wrestling with the issue all year. Liberal politicians, most notably representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, two newly-elected Muslim Americans, have spoken out about the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, known as BDS, as they criticise Israel's treatment of Palestinians, particularly in the occupied territories. Republicans have amplified the views of the left flank to portray Democrats as deeply divided and at odds with Israel. 

Ahead of voting, the bill's chief backers warned against the stark framing as dangerous for both countries. 

"This issue has been politicised in a way that I find ugly and ultimately harmful to the US-Israel relationship," said congressman Eliot Engel, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The resolution passed on a vote of 398-17. 

House Democrats have been eager to vote to show support for Israel and, for those lawmakers from more conservative areas, to resist having the party be defined by its most liberal members. 

Steny Hoyer, the majority leader, had promised lawmakers the bill would come up for a vote before the August recess. It's a way to shield House Democrats from continued Republican efforts to attack them around the issue of Israel, according to a Hoyer aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations. 

Omar, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was among the only lawmakers to voice objection when the bill was included in a package the panel approved last week. 

"What are we doing to bring peace? I believe that simple question should guide every vote we take in this committee," said the freshman lawmaker, who came to the US as a refugee from Somalia when she was a child and became a US citizen.

Omar has been outspoken against Israel, once tweeting that lawmakers were supportive of the Jewish state because they were essentially being paid to do so. It was widely considered a slur that relied on a trope against Jewish people, and she later "unequivocally" apologised. 

Trump called her apology "lame" and Republicans have continued to stoke opposition to her views as part of the "squad" of liberal freshmen lawmakers. Trump stood by last week at a campaign rally as the crowd chanted about Omar, "Send her back." 

Omar, who was among a handful of Democrats who voted against the bill on Tuesday, said she supports the long-held US goal of a "two-state solution," one for Israel and one for Palestine. But she said during the committee hearing last week that "truly achieving peace" means "ending this occupation" of Israeli settlements. 

The House has struggled with the issue since the start of the year, after an earlier version passed the Senate. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had introduced it as the first bill of the new Congress, and brought it forward repeatedly for votes until it ultimately passed, also with robust bipartisan support. But the Senate bill, which was part of a broader foreign policy package, stalled in the House amid concerns over First Amendment rights and the ability of Americans to protest Israel's policies. 

The resolution puts the House on record opposing the BDS movement and its efforts to target US companies that do business with Israel. The movement has grown in recent years and Israel sees it as a threat. Supporters of Israel view it as an attempt to delegitimise the Jewish state. 

"We must reject the blatant anti-Semitics injected throughout BDS," said Republican congressman Lee Zeldin, a sponsor of the measure. 

The resolution has been pushed by AIPAC, the influential Israel lobby in Washington. J Street, a more liberal group in the progressive Jewish community, had opposed an earlier Senate version but supported the House's approach. 

To win over those in the House who had panned the Senate effort, the resolution beefed up First Amendment protections over the boycott. While the Senate bill affirmed the legal authority of state and local governments to restrict contracts or take other actions against entities that boycott Israel, the House bill affirms the constitutional right of Americans to engage in "free speech, including the right to protest or criticize the policies of the United States or foreign governments." 

AP

It took seven months but President Trump has finally got a Senate-confirmed secretary of defence to succeed Jim Mattis. 

Mark Esper, an Army veteran and former defense industry lobbyist, won Senate confirmation by a vote of 90-8 and was sworn in at the White House by Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito in a ceremony attended by Trump and several members of Esper's family. 

"He's going to be a great one," Trump said. 

Esper's swearing-in ended the longest period the Pentagon has gone without a confirmed leader in its history.

The turmoil atop the Pentagon began when Mattis stepped down last New Year's Eve after a series of policy disputes with Trump. He offered to stay two more months to get a successor in place and ensure continuity, but Trump said no. 

The president was high on Mattis at the start of his administration. He liked to call the retired Marine general "Mad Dog," but the affection waned and shortly before Mattis quit Trump referred to him as "sort of a Democrat." 

Even with Esper now in charge, the problem of leadership instability at the Pentagon is not fully resolved. There still is no Senate-confirmed deputy secretary of defence, though David Norquist was nominated for the post on Tuesday and is scheduled to have a confirmation hearing Wednesday. Norquist has been filling in as deputy since January; his regular job is Pentagon budget chief. 

The senior leadership vacancies increased again last week with the departure of David Trachtenberg, the Pentagon's second-ranking civilian policy official. 

Beyond that, the No. 2-ranking military officer, General Paul Selva, is retiring on Friday as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No Senate confirmation hearing has been set for the man picked by Trump to replace Selva: General John Hyten, who has been commander of American nuclear forces as head of US Strategic Command. 

A military officer has accused Hyten of sexual misconduct. An investigation found insufficient evidence to charge Hyten, but some members of Congress have raised questions about that process. It's unclear when or whether Hyten's nomination will proceed. 

At his confirmation hearing on 16 July, Esper promised that one of his first priorities would be to fix the problem of leadership vacancies. 

"I need to staff up the top tier of the Pentagon soonest," he said. 

Esper had been the Army secretary when Mattis resigned in December. On 1 January, the deputy defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, became the acting secretary. But after nearly six months as the fill-in, the former Boeing executive abruptly quit.

Esper then became the acting defense secretary, but once he was nominated last week, he had to step aside until after a Senate vote. So, for the past week, the Pentagon had been run by yet another fill-in: Navy secretary Richard V Spencer. 

Esper, who has a wide range of experience in defense matters, including time on Capitol Hill as a congressional staff member, has said he intends to continue the Trump administration's focus on improving the combat preparedness of the military, nurturing security alliances around the world and reforming Pentagon business practices. 

All eight senators who voted against Esper's nomination are Democrats. They include senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has sharply criticised Esper for declining to recuse himself from all matters involving his former employer, Raytheon, for the duration of his time as defence secretary. 

Democratic representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was encouraged by Esper's confirmation but worried by the continuing problem of vacancies in the Pentagon. 

"The complex challenges that we face around the globe are too serious for key positions at the Department of Defence to remain transient," Smith said. "Instead, our country needs predictable leadership at the Pentagon, capable of withstanding internal political pressure in what has been a historically turbulent administration." 

Esper was a lobbyist for Raytheon, a major defense contractor, for several years before becoming Army secretary. He told Warren that Defence Department ethics officials recommended he not make the recusal commitment she asked about, but pledged to abide by all ethics rules and regulations. 

AP

As the Democrats' 2020 presidential nominees prepare for their second round of televised debates, Hawaii congresswoman and war veteran Tulsi Gabbard has gone in hard on California senator Kamala Harris.

Gabbard appeared on the podcast Outkick the Coverage to slam Harris over her lack of experience in dealing with the military.

“I think one of the things I'm most concerned with is, Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander-in-chief, and I can say this from a personal perspective as a soldier. She's got no background or experience in foreign policy, and she lacks the temperament that is necessary for a commander in chief,” she said.

“I’ve seen the cost of war firsthand. I've experienced the consequences of what happens when we have presidents, as we have from both political parties in the White House, who lack experience, who lack that foreign policy understanding, who therefore fall under the influence of the foreign policy establishment, the military-industrial complex,” Gabbard said. “This is what's so dangerous. This is what we've seen occurring over time."

Harris's communications director wasted no time in hitting back.

For Indy Voices, here's Molly Jong-Fast on how Trump has finally found a successor to his feared attorney of the 1980s Roy Cohn - earlier chief counsel to senator Joseph McCarthy during the Communist Witch Hunt - and that man is none other than attorney general William Barr.

Mr Mueller is in the building, and heading on over to the hearing room where he is set to testify.

Also for Voices, here's Andrew Buncombe on Trump's offer to mediate and bring an end to the 70-year-long dispute over Kashmir.

Wow, big end of an era, if true: