THE first public hearing of a US House Intelligence Committee investigation into allegations Russia interfered in last year’s elections in favour of President Trump will begin later this month.

The committee chairman, Republican congressman Devin Nunes, told reporters that the hearing will be held on March 20.

He said that it is his intention to hold more public hearings on the matter, given the interest it has aroused and with the aim of being transparent.

Called before the hearings as witnesses are FBI Director James Comey, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers, former CIA Director John Brennan and former National Intelligence Director James Clapper.

EXPLORE MORE: The man from Moscow behind President Trump’s woes

The US intelligence community has concluded that the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin undertook measures to influence the November 8 presidential election to favour President Donald Trump and harm the election chances of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Trump has denied any connections with the Kremlin and has called the accusations about his contacts with the Russians a “witch hunt.”

UKRAINE FEARS US-RUSSIA ‘BACKFLIP’

Ukraine’s foreign minister told US senators today that sanctions against Russia shouldn’t be eased and possibly should be ratcheted up as Moscow escalates its military aggression against its western neighbor.

Testifying with representatives from other Eastern European countries affected by Russia’s belligerence, Pavlo Klimkin told the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee that he’d just come from a meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who assured him the Trump administration will support Kiev in its standoff with Moscow.

But the signals President Donald Trump has sent since the 2016 presidential campaign have stoked unease in foreign capitals.

Trump has made clear he desires improved relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin while at the same time questioning the value of NATO and other longstanding alliances.

Concerned Trump may act on his own, a bipartisan group of senators is pushing legislation that would require the president to get approval from Congress before easing US economic and financial penalties against Moscow.

EX-SPY BEHIND TRUMP DOSSIER SPEAKS

THE former British intelligence officer behind a dossier of allegations about Donald Trump has broken his silence.

Christopher Steele, who runs London-based Orbis Business Intelligence, said he was returning to work and thanked people for their support.

“I’m really pleased to be back here working again at the Orbis’s offices in London today,” he said. “I’m now going to be focusing my efforts on supporting the broader interests of our company here.”

A former MI6 agent, Mr Steele was forced into hiding in January when he was named in connection with the report.

The dossier contained politically explosive claims that Russia was in possession of compromising information — known in Moscow as “Kompromat” — on Mr Trump, which could be used to blackmail or exert pressure on the new president.

It detailed allegations that the Trump team had multiple contacts with Russian officials during the election campaign, and that the billionaire tycoon had been cultivated by Moscow over a number of years as a possible presidential candidate, with the aim of encouraging splits within the West.

Among its more lurid allegations was a claim that the Russians held evidence of Mr Trump hiring prostitutes during a visit to Moscow to urinate on a hotel bed which he believed to have previously been slept in by Barack and Michelle Obama.

Mr Trump denounced the document as “fake news”, and its veracity had been widely questioned, with Vladimir Putin himself saying it contained “obvious fabrications”.

Mr Steele, who read from a prepared statement, did not wish to answer any further questions about the claims.

TRUMP BLASTS OBAMA IN TWITTER RANT

Mr Steele’s comments came as Mr Trump spent much of his morning blasting Mr Obama on Twitter.

Days after accusing Mr Obama of having his phone illegally tapped, Mr Trump attacked his predecessor on issues ranging from Guantánamo Bay to Obamacare.

About 31 minutes after Fox & Friends tweeted about 122 former Gitmo detainees having re-engaged in terrorism, Mr Trump was quick to point the finger at Mr Obama.

Former Gitmo detainee killed by a U.S. airstrike in Yemen; at least 122 former Gitmo detainees have re-engaged in terrorism pic.twitter.com/y9jb420fFZ — FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 7, 2017

“122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!” he wrote on Twitter.

122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017

However, The Hill points out that according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 113 of the 122 former detainees who have re-engaged in terrorism were released before January of 2009, when Mr Obama took office.

Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - is imploding fast! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017

Mr Trump then took aim at ObamaCare calling it “ a complete and total disaster” which is “imploding fast”.

The US President has put forward a new plan that would sink many of Mr Obama’s healthcare measures.

For eight years Russia "ran over" President Obama, got stronger and stronger, picked-off Crimea and added missiles. Weak! @foxandfriends — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2017

Mr Trump also tweeted his thoughts on Mr Obama’s position on Russia, calling him “weak” and claiming that the former cold war foe “got stronger and stronger, picked off Crimea and added missiles”.

It is hard to think that it was only this time last month that Mr Trump told Bill O’Reilly that he and Mr Obama had mutual respect for each other.

“It’s a very strange phenomenon,” he said. “We get along. I don’t know if he’ll admit this, but he likes me. I like him because I can feel it.”

TRUMP WELCOMES FIRST WAVE OF WHITE HOUSE TOURISTS

A jovial Mr Trump greeted the first wave of tourists to the White House since his inauguration Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton was there, too — at least in spirit.

Mr Trump emerged from behind a French screen to a throng of cheering tourists — many of them grade five students from Birmingham, Alabama — who had packed into the East Wing of the White House for a chance to catch a glimpse of the 45th president.

“Oh my god!” they shouted as the president stretched his arms open to announce his arrival.

Throughout Trump’s short appearance, it was hard not to notice the giant portrait of the former first lady — and Trump’s opponent in the hotly-contested election — prominently hanging beside him.

The White House has been closed for tours since inauguration day as the new administration sorted out staffing and other logistics needed to usher in visitors to the 217-year-old house.

Among the first group of tourists were a group of fifth graders from the Briarwood Christian School in Birmingham, Ala. Trump randomly pulled one young boy from the crowd — 10-year old Jack Cornish from Birmingham — hugging him and patting him on the shoulders before sending him back to the crowd of envious schoolmates.

One of them shouted, “You’re famous, Jack!” President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary opened the White House to tours the day after they moved in January 1993. The Clintons welcomed some 1,000 winners of a lottery drawing along with then-Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper.

George Washington’s portrait graced the event that day.

Under the Obama administration, the director of the White House Visitors Office welcomed some three million tourists.

TRUMP PRAISES HEALTHCARE BILL

It comes as Mr Trump and his top health official praised the new House Republican health care legislation Tuesday, even as surging conservative opposition complicated party leaders’ drive to sell the proposal to rank-and-file politicians and the public.

Mr Trump’s lauded the legislation as “our wonderful new Healthcare Bill”.

Shortly afterwards, Health Secretary Tom Price wrote to the chairmen of the two House committees that wrote the measures, saying “they align with the president’s goal of rescuing Americans from the failures of the Affordable Care Act,” former President Barack Obama’s prized 2010 law.

Yet by lunchtime, conservative politicians and others were blasting the bill, underscoring the challenge Republicans face in pushing one of their top priorities to passage.

The legislation would primarily affect some 20 million people who purchase their own private health plans directly from an insurer and the more than 70 million covered by Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income people.

In the first official though partial measurement to emerge of the bill’s financial impact, Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated it would cut more than 20 taxes imposed by Mr Obama’s law at a cost of nearly US$600 billion (A$800 billion) over a decade. The bulk of the savings would go to the wealthy. The estimate did not include the cost of tax credits the measure proposes to help people buy coverage.

Republicans say they’ve not yet received an estimate of the bill’s overall cost or the number of people it would cover from the Congressional Budget Office. “What Obamacare did was make insurance affordable but care impossible to actually afford,” White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney said on the Today Show in the US.

“The deductibles were simply too high. So people could say they have coverage but they couldn’t actually get the medical care they needed when they get sick.”

Obamacare plans did typically come with high deductibles, but the law also provided cost-sharing subsidies to people with modest incomes. Those subsidies will be eliminated under the Republican plan, and it’s unclear how high the deductibles would be under the new approach.