Fury erupts over Republican naming the alleged whistleblower who triggered the congressional investigation into Trump and Ukraine
Today’s markup has gone on for 12 hours at this point.
Related: Trump impeachment vote nears as Democrats prepare to deliver articles to House floor
Speaking on Fox News, Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he’s “going to coordinate with the president’s lawyers”.
Continue reading...Democratic congressional leaders have unveiled articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, a historic move set in motion by a whistleblower complaint warning the president was using the power of his office to solicit foreign interference in a US election.
Related: Democrats unveil articles of impeachment against Trump – live
Continue reading...The Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, Jerry Nadler, has not ruled out including evidence from the Mueller report in articles of impeachment against Donald Trump that could be published as early as next week.
On Sunday, Nadler told CNN’s State of the Union evidence showed the president’s conduct in the Ukraine scandal was part of “a pattern”, indicating “that the president put himself above this country several times”.
Continue reading...The House judiciary committee released a report on the constitutional grounds for impeachment on Saturday. Shortly after that, Donald Trump once again insisted the whole thing was a “witch hunt” and “a total hoax”.
Related: White House dismisses invitation to take part in key impeachment hearing
Continue reading...Calling the impeachment proceedings “completely baseless”, the White House on Friday dismissed a Democratic invitation for Donald Trump to participate in hearings in the House of Representatives, which the president has framed as a partisan escapade.
Related: Pressure builds for Giuliani as associate enters talks over potential plea deal
Continue reading...The former secretary of state under Obama said Biden’s ‘decency and the experiences that he brings to the table are critical to the moment’
House speaker Nancy Pelosi has pressed ahead with impeachment, saying: “The President leaves us no choice but to act … Our democracy is what is at stake.” The stakes could not be higher: has the US constitution, the basis of US democracy, been violated by Donald Trump? If so, can both the constitution and the president survive?
In a fractured, poisonous political climate, the Guardian will steer an independent, fact-based path through the impeachment hearings. The need for rigorous, robust reporting has never been greater.
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Bernie Sanders will join youth climate protesters planning sit-ins around the country tomorrow “at the offices of establishment Democrats who have yet to back the Green New Deal,” according to a press release from the Sunrise Movement.
We are the climate campaign.
Our Green New Deal is the only proposal put forth by any candidate that is bold enough to take on the crisis we face.
Thank you to @sunrisemvmt for your leadership! https://t.co/gAptQcEMm8
House speaker said inquiry revealed a failure by president to uphold the law and his actions are a ‘violation of the public trust’
Quoting from the Declaration of Independence and the founding fathers about the danger of a president one day betraying the country’s trust to foreign powers, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced on Thursday that she was directing the judiciary committee to draft articles of impeachment against Donald Trump.
“The president leaves us no choice but to act,” Pelosi said. “Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our founders and a heart full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.”
Continue reading...Pamela Karlan’s reference to Trump’s son Barron offered Republicans a chance to claim righteous outrage
Finally, a smoking pun. A simple play on words told us everything about the impeachment inquiry, the current mindset in Congress and the state of the nation.
The witness Pamela Karlan cracked a joke that delighted liberals and infuriated conservatives. Or rather, it delighted conservatives because it gave them a talking point to whip up outrage.
Continue reading...President’s allies expected to launch procedural objections during judiciary committee hearings
As round two of public impeachment hearings was set to begin on Wednesday, Republicans were expected to resort to procedural objections and high-temperature harangues in an effort to protect Donald Trump.
With the party-line 13-9 approval on Tuesday night by the House intelligence committee of a 300-page report by congressional Democrats describing how Trump abused the power of his office for personal and political gain, the impeachment inquiry has now moved into the hands of the judiciary committee, the last stop in the process before lawmakers would vote on impeaching Trump.
Continue reading...Republicans’ witness offered opposing view, saying that the impeachment process was being rushed
Impeachment experts testified before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday that Donald Trump’s misconduct offered a textbook case of impeachable offenses as prescribed by the constitution and applied over the course of US history.
Related: What's next for the Trump impeachment inquiry?
Continue reading...The US House intelligence committee voted on Tuesday evening to adopt Democrats’ damning 300-page impeachment report, moving the inquiry into Donald Trump into its next phase.
Trump “abused the power of his office for personal and political gain, at the expense of [US] national security”, congressional Democrats concluded in the report released on Tuesday, which laid out incriminating conclusions after two weeks of public hearings.
Continue reading...Report will convey argument that Trump abused power of the presidency by trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden and the 2016 election
Tom Steyer’s campaign said the billionaire activist has qualified for the December Democratic debate, making him the seventh presidential candidate to meet both the polling and donor requirements to participate.
“After terrific performances in the last two debates and a tremendous amount of earned media over the last month, Tom continues his surge in the early state polls which has led to an increased amount of donors over the last few weeks,” his campaign manager, Heather Hargreaves, said in a statement.
Good morning, live blog readers!
Donald Trump is at the Nato summit in London striking fear into stockbrokers’ hearts and insulting world leaders (as we’ve come to expect), but the impeachment inquiry is continuing unabated as the president is abroad.
Continue reading...Danielle Stella, a pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress, was banned from Twitter after her account published a violent comment about the Democrat she hopes to unseat next year, Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar.
Stella’s campaign Twitter account, @2020MNCongress, featured at least two posts involving the idea of Omar being hanged, according to the Washington Times, which broke the story of her suspension.
Continue reading...Sondland, a key figure in the impeachment inquiry, is alleged to have retaliated against three women after they rejected his advances
The US Navy has thrown out plans to review three officers under scrutiny following Donald Trump’s decision to intervene in a related case.
Trump issued a direct order to halt disciplinary measures against a Navy Seal accused of war crimes in Iraq. On Sunday, defense secretary Mark Esper fired the navy secretary Richard Spencer after Spencer resisted pressure to intervene in the case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher.
As part of a sting operation, federal agents enticed foreign-born students, mostly from India, to a Detroit school that marketed graduate programs in technology and computer science. The students paid about $12,000 in tuition and fees per year to attend the university, which was created in 2015.
The students had arrived legally in the U.S. on student visas, but since the University of Farmington was later revealed to be a creation of federal agents, they lost their immigration status after it was shut down in January. The school was located on Northwestern Highway near 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills and staffed with undercover agents posing as university officials...
Attorneys for the students arrested said they were unfairly trapped by the U.S. government since the Department of Homeland Security had said on its website that the university was legitimate. An accreditation agency that was working with the U.S. on its sting operation also listed the university as legitimate...
No one has filed a lawsuit or claim against the U.S. government for collecting the money or for allegedly entrapping the students.
Attorneys for ICE and the Department of Justice maintain that the students should have known it was not a legitimate university because it did not have classes in a physical location. Some CPT programs have classes combined with work programs at companies.
Related: How the US government created a fake university to snare immigrant students
Continue reading...A court ordered the former press secretary to defy a White House attempt to stop him testifying to Congress saying ‘The president is not a king’
When the FiveThirtyEight polling average on impeachment dipped by a few points last week, Trump’s allies rushed to claim that the slight decline was evidence of the American public turning against the inquiry.
But additional polls appear to have debunked that claim. It seems the recent damning testimony from current and former Trump officials like Gordon Sondland and Fiona Hill has not moved the needle much, with around half of Americans supporting the impeachment of the president.
Finally getting a few more impeachment polls and the notion that the numbers are moving against Democrats isn't looking so hot. +4 spread on supporting impeachment/removal, which is similar to the peak in October.https://t.co/Tj71WyGT4x pic.twitter.com/S7iUHaRdlX
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has announced he will deliver remarks to the media at 11 a.m. ET. It’s unclear whether Pompeo will also take questions from reporters, who would inevitably ask about the cabinet member’s role in the Ukraine controversy.
Continue reading...Federal judge rules McGahn must testify to House judiciary committee, putting pressure on other Trump officials tied to impeachment inquiry
A federal judge has ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn must testify before the House Judiciary Committee, a decision that could have major implications for the House’s impeachment probe.
BREAKING: A federal judge on Monday ordered Don McGahn must testify to Congress about his time as the Trump WH's top lawyer, a ruling that will add pressure on other Trump officials tied to the impeachment probe. Decision here: https://t.co/6FeuuCrO5g pic.twitter.com/sQ0PubTxqW
MONEY QUOTE: Jackson indicates that any "current or former" senior WH aide subpoenaed by a House committee must at least appear for testimony -- even if they claim privilege while testifying. pic.twitter.com/7DEYdItZLG
In the response to a freedom of information lawsuit by the Center for Public Integrity, an investigative journalism nonprofit, a federal judge has ordered the release of hundreds of pages of communications between Defense Department officials and others over stalled American aid to Ukraine.
Judge orders release of documents of communications between the Pentagon’s comptroller, DOD and White House OMB over the delay in stalled Ukraine aid. Must turn over 106 pages to Center for Public Integrity by Dec. 12. Another 100 by Dec. 20 in FOIA suit https://t.co/HuVEZOj3OG
Continue reading...Congressional Republicans dug deep in defense of Donald Trump over the weekend, frustrating Democratic hopes that the impeachment inquiry would build bipartisan support following weeks of testimony laying out how Trump attempted to extract a political “favor” from Ukraine in exchange for official acts.
Related: Trump impeachment: Schiff calls on Bolton to testify and slams Republicans
Continue reading...House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff blasted former national security adviser John Bolton on Sunday, for failing to appear for testimony in the impeachment inquiry while teasing a forthcoming memoir.
Related: Not just the facts: Republicans' top six impeachment falsehoods
Continue reading...President sounded off on public hearings on Fox & Friends, praised Giuliani as ‘one of the great crime fighters’ and called Pelosi ‘crazy as a bedbug’
Joe Biden had harsh words for his former Senate colleague Lindsey Graham, who has emerged as one of the president’s most prominenet defenders against the House impeachment inquiry.
“Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life,” Biden in a CNN interview. “I say Lindsey, I just -- I’m just embarrassed by what you’re doing, for you. I mean, my Lord.”
Biden tells @donlemon he's "embarrassed by" Graham's actions after senator asks Pompeo to turn over docs related to Hunter and Ukraine
"Lindsey is about to go down in a way that I think he’s going to regret his whole life," Biden says, adding Trump is "holding power" over him pic.twitter.com/sjNjQV7Ogp
John Hendrickson, who wrote the incredible Atlantic article on Joe Biden’s history with stuttering, said in an MSNBC interview that he has received dozens of emails thanking him for exploring the topic.
Hendrickson, who also stutters, said it was his “nightmare” to be doing a television interview and acknowledged he admired Biden for for participating in presidential debates despite his history of stuttering. “I admire his courage,” Hendrickson said.
.@JohnGHendy thought this conversation would be his nightmare.
He explained to me why his new piece in @TheAtlantic about how Joe Biden is handling the challenge of stuttering is so personal to him.
Watch this: pic.twitter.com/lNlqpovnJI
Maybe you’ve heard Biden talk about his boyhood stutter. A non-stutterer might not notice when he appears to get caught on words as an adult, because he usually maneuvers out of those moments quickly and expertly. But on other occasions, like [the July debate] in Detroit, Biden’s lingering stutter is hard to miss. He stutters—if slightly—on several sounds as we sit across from each other in his office. Before addressing the debate specifically, I mention what I’ve just heard. ‘I want to ask you, as, you know, a … stutterer to, uh, to a … stutterer. When you were … talking a couple minutes ago, it, it seemed to … my ear, my eye … did you have … trouble on s? Or on … m?’
Biden looks down. He pivots to the distant past, telling me that the letter s was hard when he was a kid. ‘But, you know, I haven’t stuttered in so long that it’s hhhhard for me to remember the specific—’ He pauses. ‘What I do remember is the feeling.’
Continue reading...The fifth day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump saw powerful testimony from Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official and former top Russia expert in the White House, and David Holmes, a state department aide in Kyiv.
Both spoke of Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, as Holmes described a cellphone conversation in which he overheard Trump ask Sondland about 'investigations' and heard Sondland tell Trump the Ukrainians had agreed to them.
Continue reading...