Welcome to another week of US politics. This is our live coverage.
President Donald Trump has called for media organisations who are insufficiently complimentary towards him to lose their TV licences and be thrown off the air.
In a series of late-night posts on social media, Mr Trump claimed almost every story on a couple of particularly loathsome networks was negative.
“Despite a very high popularity and, according to many, among the greatest eight months in Presidential History, ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97 per cent BAD STORIES,” said the President.
“IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC. I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!! MAGA.”
That was not the end of the rant, but you get the picture.
Meanwhile CNN has revealed that Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, was an “honoured guest” of the Clintons at a conference in 2013, years after the allegations against them first arose.
The relevant event, in September of that year, was the Clinton Global Initiative Conference. Maxwell attended a luncheon on ocean conservation and was recognised as a “comittment to action” leader.
She was also on a list of people who got free access to the conference; a source familiar with said list told CNN that’s an indication she was personally recommended for it by either Bill or Hillary Clinton.
“There were more than 600 comps approved at CGI in 2013. The decisions on those comps were made, as they have been historically, at the staff level, which included the office of President Clinton,” they said.
Accusations regarding Maxwell’s role in procuring girls for Epstein to abuse first arose in 2009, four years before the conference. Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who is now deceased, claimed in court that Maxwell had recruited her as a teenager, groomed her, and participated in some sexual abuse herself.
Those allegations grew in prominence in 2011, when the scandal around Prince Andrew’s friendship with Epstein and Maxwell erupted.
