President Donald Trump's lawyer has received requests for information from two congressional panels investigating alleged Russian political meddling.
Michael Cohen confirmed to US media that he had been asked to "provide information and testimony" about any contacts he had with the Kremlin.
Mr Cohen said he turned down the request because it was "overly broad" and "not capable of being answered".
Last week Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner was named in the Russia probe.
Mr Cohen is the latest Trump associate to rebuff the House and Senate investigations into the matter.
White House communications chief quits
"I declined the invitation to participate, as the request was poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered," he told ABC News.
He later told CNN that lawmakers "have yet to produce one single piece of credible evidence that would corroborate the Russia narrative".
The widening inquiry into Russia's alleged interference in the US election and whether Trump campaign officials colluded with the Kremlin is threatening to engulf his fledgling presidency.
His son-in-law is said to be under scrutiny as part of the FBI inquiry.
According to US media, Mr Kushner, a top White House aide, discussed setting up a back channel line of communication with Moscow's envoy to Washington during a December meeting.
In Tuesday's daily briefing, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer refused to be drawn on whether Mr Kushner had tried to set up such a secretive mode of contact.
Mr Spicer said the claims were based on reports "not substantiated by anything but anonymous sources".
White House rallies to Kushner's defence
How Trump's Russia trouble unfolded
The press secretary added, however, that "in general terms, back channels are an appropriate part of diplomacy".
Last week, Michael Flynn, Mr Trump's former national security adviser, said through his lawyer that he would refuse to hand over files relating to his contacts with Russians dating back to June 2015.
Similar congressional request for information have been sent to other former Trump aides, including Roger Stone, Paul Manafort and Carter Page.
Mr Manafort and Mr Stone have complied, but Mr Page is not thought to have responded yet.
Former entertainer Rolf Harris has been cleared of four sex assault charges after a jury could not reach verdicts.
Prosecutors ruled out a further retrial for Harris, who denied indecently assaulting three teenage girls at public events between 1971 and 1983.
On Tuesday, the jury at Southwark Crown Court was discharged after spending five hours deliberating.
In a statement read by his lawyer, Harris said: "I feel no sense of victory, only relief".
He added: "I'm 87 years old, my wife is in ill health and we simply want to spend our remaining time together in peace."
It had been a retrial for Harris on three counts after a jury in a previous trial failed to reached verdicts. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it would not seek a further retrial.
The fourth count was a new charge of indecent assault.
Prison release
The jury began deliberating on Friday but was unable to reach unanimous or majority 10-2 decisions on any of the charges.
Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said: "We have reviewed whether it would be appropriate to seek a further retrial on these allegations.
"We have come to the firm view that it would not."
Harris had been accused of groping a 14-year-old girl during a music event at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1971.
Two further charges related to alleged indecent assaults on a teenager in 1978, during filming for ITV celebrity show Star Games.
The fourth related to a 13-year-old girl who said he touched her breast after filming BBC children's TV programme Saturday Superstore in 1983.
Harris's lawyers said he did not remember any of the events in question.
He was released from Stafford Prison part-way through the trial, for an unconnected conviction in June 2014 of 12 counts of indecent assault.
Barack Obama: Most Americans want him back as President, poll shows
Donald Trump has been President for 13 days and yet more than half of Americans are missing former President Barack Obama, according to a new poll.
A total of 52 per cent of Americans are yearning for Mr Obama, found a survey from Public Policy Polling, while just 43 per cent are glad that Mr Trump is in the White House.
Furthermore, 40 per cent want the new President to be impeached, up from 35 per cent one week ago.
More than 500,000 people have also signed up to a petition by campaign group Impeach Trump Now on the basis that he has not taken a far enough step away from his real estate empire whilst in government.
U make me loving u every minutes of d day. » Nobody has ever love me the way u do. » U have bring joy,love,favor and blessing in my life. » Baby …u are my angel. My love my heart. My queen. My sweetheart. My dream and reality love. My one and only love and i love u so much my wife » You make me believe in soul mates. » You give meaning to my life. » I can’t imagine my life without you in it. you look so beautiful all the time? You make me feel so lucky when i think about u , feel u and believe am in love with u,,, » i feels I’m around you everyday when i haven't even see u. » You always know how to surprise me and make me happy my sweetheart. » You’re the reason my life feels so perfect.
More than four months into his term, how close is President Donald Trump to making good on his signature promise to build a wall between the United States and Mexico?
Let's take a look.
Has construction begun?
Doesn't look like it. On his fifth day in office, Trump ordered construction of the wall to begin using cash on hand. ProPublica reported last month that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had just $20 million in their coffers for the project, which isn't much when cost estimates for building a concrete wall range from $1 million to $21.6 million per mile.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer discusses the building of a proposed border wall with Mexico during his daily briefing at the White House on May 3, 2017 in Washington. File Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
The border between the United States and Mexico is more than 1,900 miles, and there's already 694 miles of existing fence. CBP did not respond to inquiries about whether any stretch of new wall has been built, although there are no signs of any activity. Repairs to 40 miles of older fencing were approved in the 2017 funding bill passed earlier this month, but funds for the concrete barrier that so energized Trump's voters have yet to materialize.
In March, CBP put out a call for proposals that asked for two different design options: the very solid, concrete type that Trump described on the trail, and the alternative-material, see-through wall favored by border experts. Finalists will be announced in June, and prototypes will be built shortly afterward.
For the project to truly get off the ground, Trump needs to convince either Mexico or Congress to give him the cash. Few lawmakers in either party have said that funding for the wall is a priority.
Is Mexico paying for the wall?
During the campaign, Trump promised that Mexico would fund it up front. Now, the president says Mexico will eventually pay for the wall, so any money Congress allocates is just a temporary expenditure.
But Mexico says nope.
"Mexico, of course, will not pay," Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said in January, reiterating what he has said repeatedly for the last two years, including to Trump directly during a campaign trail visit.
The president insists the U.S. can force Mexico to pay, perhaps by taxing remittances — cash residents send from America to friends or relatives in Mexico. One Republican representative has suggested taxing all transfers between America and Latin countries, NPR reported.
The Border Wall Funding Act of 2017, introduced on March 30 by Alabama Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, would put a 2 percent tax on all person-to-person wire transfers to Mexico, the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean. Remittances are a big deal; $28.5 billion flows into Mexico every year in remittances.
So, who is really going to pay for the wall?
Taxpayers are expected to pick up the initial tab and, barring a reversal from Mexico or a remittance tax, likely in the long run, too.
How much will it cost?
No one knows for sure, in part because the CBP has yet to chose a design. The Department of Homeland Security reportedly has estimated a wall would cost about $21.6 billion, not including maintenance, while Republican leader Mitch McConnell recently estimated it would cost up to $15 billion. Senate Democrats released a report last month estimating that it would cost about $70 billion to build, and $150 million a year to maintain.
Federal records show that existing fencing built a decade ago cost between $1 million and $3.9 million per mile, with the costs widely varying due to terrain and fencing type. The president's 2018 budget proposal asks Congress for around $21.6 million per mile to build 74 miles of his wall.
What will the wall look like?
Trump promised voters "a big, beautiful wall." But it might not look like a wall at all. It might look more like the 694 miles of fencing already built.
The CBP proposal requirements indicated that the wall would have to be at least 18 feet high and able to withstand significantly physical force, prevent climbing and tunneling and be aesthetically appealing on the American side.
The Wall Street Journal obtained a slew of the sketches, including one Parthenon-inspired design as well as a double-wire mesh fence design that would offer Americans, but not Mexicans, visibility to the other side.
There's some indication that fencing may indeed rule the day. Touting the funding secured to repair 40 miles of existing border fencing secured in the omnibus-spending bill Congress passed this month, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney showed images of 20-foot cyclone fencing and told reporters this kind of steel fencing might be the "wall" in the end.
"This is the wall that DHS said they wanted, sat in the Oval Office with the president, we talked about bricks and mortar, we talked about concrete, and this is what they wanted," Mulvaney said, noting that the DHS believes see-through fencing is safer for border agents. "It's also half of the cost, so we can build twice as much of it."
Who actually owns the border?
This is where things get messy.
Much of the nearly 2,000 mile-border is owned by private citizens and businesses, whose property will be bought out from under them by the federal government armed with eminent domain laws that can force owners into deals.
"Are people concerned about the federal government coming in and trying to grab their land? Yes, they are." Texas Rep. Will Hurd told NBC News. The Republican congressman's district stretches 820 miles along the southern border. "Private property rights are pretty damn important to us."
A December meeting between Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and one of the senior advisers in the Trump administration, and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak at Trump Tower focused on Syria, a source told Fox News Monday.
During the meeting the Russians broached the idea of coordinating a back channel between the Trump administration and Russia, not Kushner, a source close to Kushner told Fox News. That follows a recent report from The Washington Post alleging that Kushner wanted to develop a secure, private communications channel with Russia.
The idea of a permanent back channel was never discussed, according to the source. Instead, only a one-off for a call about Syria was raised in the conversation.
JARED KUSHNER WANTED SECRET COMMUNICATIONS CHANNEL WITH RUSSIA, NEW REPORT ALLEGES
Details of the meeting follow a NBC report that Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, is currently under FBI scrutiny as part of the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Kushner suggested the use of Russian diplomatic facilities as a way to shield pre-inauguration discussions with Kislyak from monitoring, according to The Post.
Kislyak allegedly then relayed the suggestion to his superiors in Moscow. That was based on intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials, although neither the meeting nor the communications of the Americans involved were under U.S. surveillance, officials told the Post.
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.
