Trump news: President suffers double impeachment blow after court orders tax returns release and key witness agrees to testify

Michael McKinley, a senior adviser to secretary of state Mike Pompeo, has resigned.

A career diplomat and former ambassador to Peru, Colombia, Afghanistan and Brazil, MicKinley has been in his current role since May 2018 and is reportedly leaving over frustation within the State Department over Pompeo's failure to support his staff being dragged into the president's Ukraine drama. 

Attorney general William Barr is understood to have met privately with undead right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch in New York yesterday.

No one will say what was discussed but it surely had something to do with his outlets' coverage of the impeachment inquiry.

Trump was on conciliatory form last night with regard to Murdoch asset Fox News, praising his favourite anchors just days after a the network published a damaging poll indicating the majority of the American public are now in favour of the impeachment inquiry.

Trump is travelling down to Lousiana later today for another rally, this one on eve of the state's gubernatorial election, where his presecence will have less to do with supporting a candidate - as there is no clear front-runner - than with hitting out at Democratic incumbent John Bel Edwards.

The president's message to voters in Lake Charles will be less precise than traditional get-out-the-vote events. He'll seek to unite a squabbling Republican Party against the Deep South's only Democratic governor, trying to keep Edwards from a primary win, while not telling voters which GOP contender to back in Saturday's election.

"Republicans must get out and vote for either of our two incredible candidates," Trump said in one of several tweets about the Louisiana governor's race.

Republican loyalties are split among two major candidates: Ralph Abraham, a third-term congressman and physician from rural northeast Louisiana, and Eddie Rispone, a businessman and longtime political donor from Baton Rouge who is making his first bid for office. Abraham and Rispone each will attend the rally. Both claim long-term support from Trump, even as they quarrel over who backs the president more.

"The president deeply cares about Louisiana. Louisiana loves President Trump. It is a match that is literally made in heaven," Abraham said.

The president is not endorsing either candidate to maximise chances that Edwards will fall below the 50 per cent threshold needed to avoid a runoff, according to a White House aide and a campaign aide. Trump plans to endorse whichever GOP candidate makes it to a runoff against Edwards, the aides said.

In Louisiana, all candidates run against each other, regardless of party, on the same primary ballot. With polls showing Edwards well in the lead, national Republicans have bombarded the state with millions in advertising and visits from Trump, vice president Mike Pence and Don Jr to urge anti-Edwards votes and force a 16 November runoff.

"Trump is going to energise the base, the people, the conservatives, make them recognise that we need to do something different," Rispone said.

Pollster John Couvillon thinks such visits will have marginal impact, animating voters who already planned to show up at the polls. He thinks Edwards' bigger problem is the US House Democrats' impeachment inquiry, stirring up interest from voters in a red state who'll want to cast their ballots in opposition to anyone aligned with Democrats. "To some extent, you can't entirely escape what has become the stigma of the national Democratic Party here in Louisiana," Couvillon said.

Edwards isn't the type of liberal, anti-Trump Democrat with whom the president usually clashes. Louisiana's governor is an anti-abortion, pro-gun West Point graduate who avoids criticising Trump, talks about his strong rapport with the White House and calls the impeachment inquiry a distraction for Washington. He doesn't focus on party affiliation and tries to avoid national political feuds in a state Trump won by 20 points.

While Edwards' efforts to keep the president at bay in the governor's race have been unsuccessful, the Democratic incumbent isn't complaining about the rallies. Instead, he has downplayed them, calling it unsurprising that Trump backs members of his own party in the "hyperpartisan" environment of Washington. He said he would continue to "work well" with the president and focus on his own, bipartisan approach to governing.

"That's the way we have moved our state forward, gotten out of the ditch. I work well with Republicans, with Democrats and with independents, anybody who wants to show up and work in good faith with me," Edwards said. He'll need that crossover vote to win a second term.

Republicans nationally have targeted Edwards for ouster since his longshot election victory four years ago. But work to unify around one major contender failed, with the state's top-tier, well-known GOP officials passing on the race.

Neither Abraham nor Rispone has been able to break away as the top competitor, even as Rispone poured $11m (£8.7m) of his own personal wealth into the campaign.

Party leaders' efforts to keep the men from fighting each other have failed, raising concerns the backbiting could wound both GOP contenders and help Edwards. Republicans blame attacks among their own candidates for helping to elect Edwards four years ago.

AP

Vice president Pence says he will release transcripts of his phone calls with Ukraine and denied Trump asked for foreign help in his re-election efforts, despite the president appearing to do exactly that on the White House lawn just days ago. 

Here's Chris Riotta's report.

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, normally so loyal to Trump but who broke ranks this week to criticise his decision to pull US troops from the Syrian border, has been tricked into taking a prank phone call by Russian comedians Alexey Stolyarov and Vladimir Kuznetsov, the duo posing as Turkish defence minister Hulusi Akar.

Clark Mindock has more.

For Indy Voices, Hannah Selinger says it's support for impeachment among independents that should really worry Trump.

Stadium rock legends Queen follow Prince and Nickleback to become the latest musical acts to prohibit the Trump administration from using their songs on the campaign trail, in this case "We Will Rock You".

Clemence Michallon has more.

Trump's new national security adviser said on Thursday that he wants to reduce the White House foreign policy staff by half.

Robert O'Brien said that during the Obama administration the number of staffers swelled to more than 100.

He told employees at a National Security Council (NSC) town hall that he wants to bring the staff level back to where it was when Condoleezza Rice was national security adviser to George W Bush.

"That was about 100 staffers to give policy advice to the president and to help implement his decisions," O'Brien said on Fox Business's Lou Dobbs Tonight. "And that was with two wars going on" in Iraq and Afghanistan. It just ballooned into a massive, you know, bureaucracy... under the last administration," he continued.

The size of the NSC has fluctuated over the years. O'Brien did not it say how he planned to cut the staff. Many staffers are detailed to the NSC from other government agencies so the reductions could be made by not replacing them when their tours are over and they return to other agencies.

AP

Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, has come out in favour of the impeachment inquiry. Maybe the president calling Baltimore a "disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess" wasn't such a hot idea after all.

Gordon Sondland, Trump's ambassador to the EU, will now testifying to the House impeachment inquiry next week in defiance of the White House, according to a statement from his lawyer.