Trump news: Leading ally of president lashes out over impeachment as accuser claims to have documents corroborating sexual assault

Trump won't like this.

One of his preferred Fox pundits, Andrew Napolitano, has been on his favourite breakfast show to denounce Gaetz's Republican mob storming the House inquiry yesterday, saying the Democrats are playing by the rules, which were written by a Republican.

Completing the TV round-up, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham has also been on Fox this morning to say Trump loved Gaetz and Scalise's stunt yesterday and agreed with his statement that those who don't support him are "scum", sounding every bit the mouthpiece of a fascist superstate in a dystopian future.

A Wayne Johnson, a senior student loan official under Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos, appears to have had a road to Damascus moment and is resigning having decided that America's $1.5trn (£1.2trn) student debt portfolio should be wiped out, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"We run through the process of putting this debt burden on somebody… but it rides on their credit files - it rides on their back - for decades... The time has come for us to end and stop the insanity," says the man initially appointed in 2017 as chief operating officer of the Office of Federal Student Aid, before becoming its chief strategy and transformation officer.

Denouncing a "broken system", Johnson is also now advocating a tax credit of up to $50,000 (£38,870) for graduates who have already repaid their debt, which he regards as a crucial incentive to attracting wider support for canceling student debt.

South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham will apparently be introducing a Senate resolution cooked up with Mitch McConnell "condemning the House of Representatives’ closed door, illegitimate impeachment inquiry" at a press conference to be held at 3pm today local time, the latest Republican attempt to discredit Chairman Schiff's investigation.

A House equivalent put forward by Kevin McCarthy was already easily shot down earlier this week and the move appears to be the result of pressure being placed on the duo from Trump's inner circle.

More entertainingly, Graham has also got the hump with Obama's former national security adviser Susan Rice after she called him "a piece of s***" on a podcast. 

Here's a classic we haven't heard for a while.

This is presumably his endorsement of the pizza-fuelled melee we saw yesterday.

Some are seeking a subtle dig at the Senate in this tweet.

Remember Melania Trump?

The first lady is seldom seen or heard from these days, outside of breaking ground on a new White House tennis pavilion two weeks ago.

She did make her first solo trip to Capitol Hill yesterday, however, to mark the the one-year anniversary of a law to address the opioid epidemic. People magazine took the opportunity to ask her about the impeachment inquiry and did not get very far:

What she did not want to talk about, it seems, was the impeachment inquiry into her husband, President Donald Trump.

According to reporters at the event, she was asked at one point at the Capitol, after leaving the event, 'How is the impeachment inquiry affecting you and your family?'

She did not answer - though her husband, 73, has had many things to say, including this week controversially comparing the investigation to a 'lynching'.

This is exceptional stuff from New Jersey senator Cory Booker, it must be said. Absolutely eviscerating Breitbart.

The National Archives and Records Administration is launching an investigation into Trump's commerce secretary Wilbur Ross over the use of private email for official business, according to a letter made public this week.

That laughter in the dark you're hearing is Hillary Clinton.

Now what about Jared Kushner conducting his day-to-day affairs on WhatsApp?

Florida pastor Rick Wiles appeared on his TruNews programme this week to warn that "guys that know how to do violence" would hunt down and attack Democrats should Trump be removed from office.

His inflammatory remarks echo those made by his Texan counterpart Robert Jeffress last month on Fox, the latter warning of a "Civil War like fracture in this Nation" should the president be impeached, an alarming statement the man himself was only too happy to tweet in full, provoking widespread condemnation.

As Politico points out today, Trump has a struggle on his hands to maintain the support of the all-important Christian right, many of whom disapprove of his actions in Syria.

Influential televangelist Pat Robertson, for one, has warned Trump is "in danger of losing the mandate of heaven".

Here's Trump striking a defiant note on Isis after removing American forces from northern Syria with little thought for the prospect of the Islamist extremist group's resurgence without an opposition in place to stop them.