House committee votes to advance Trump articles of impeachment – live

Judiciary committee approved two articles on party lines, setting up vote for full House next week

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There’s a workers’ strike at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, the location of next week’s Democratic debate - which has prompted, at this point, six of the seven candidates who’ve qualified to participate, to threaten to boycott the event.

They say they’ll refuse to cross the picket line. Out of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang and Amy Klobuchar, who are the seven who’ve qualified for the debate, all but Klobuchar are saying this afternoon that they stand in solidarity with the workers and won’t cross their picket line. Warren was first to announce her decision.

.@UniteHere11 is fighting for better wages and benefits—and I stand with them. The DNC should find a solution that lives up to our party's commitment to fight for working people. I will not cross the union's picket line even if it means missing the debate.

I take the debate stage to stand up for workers’ rights, not to undermine them.

I stand in solidarity with the workers of @UNITEHERE11 at Loyola Marymount University and I will not cross their picket line.

Representative Ilhan Omar is out campaigning with Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire today, per her Twitter account. They’re doing a town hall together.

In New Hampshire today with the one and only @BernieSanders!

Follow along on my Instagram story (@ilhanmn). pic.twitter.com/JsglilSDWn

A Green New Deal is the only plan bold enough to confront the climate crisis.

The political establishment may not understand that, but the young people of the @sunrisemvmt do.

Their leadership is going to save the planet. pic.twitter.com/88RJxxBDiB

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House committee votes to advance articles of impeachment against Trump

Judiciary committee voted on Friday morning to approve two articles on a straight party-line vote

On a straight party-line vote, the House judiciary committee voted on Friday morning to move two articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the House floor, in a crucial final stage before impeachment itself.

A full House vote on whether to impeach the president was expected to be taken as early as Wednesday. Trump would be the third president in American history to be impeached.

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‘No one is above the law’: Democrats unveil articles of impeachment against Trump – video

House Democrats have introduced two articles of impeachment against Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanours. At a press conference announcing the move, the House judiciary committee chair Jerry Nadler accused the president of betraying public trust and endangering US national security to benefit himself

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Impeachment inquiry: Nadler may add Mueller counts against Trump

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”.

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Trump impeachment inquiry: House judiciary committee releases report

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

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Impeachment hearing joke referencing Barron Trump draws angry response – video

Republican representative Matt Gaetz fiercely criticised the Stanford law school professor Pamela Karlan for a pun during the second round of the Trump impeachment hearings.

The Democrats' witness and impeachment expert had said: 'While the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.' She later apologised for her comment, which Melania Trump highlighted in a tweet


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Trump’s misconduct a textbook case of impeachable offenses, experts say in hearing

Republicans’ witness offered opposing view, saying that the impeachment process was being rushed

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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?

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Stakes rise for Republicans as Trump impeachment inquiry enters new phase

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.

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Kamala Harris: how the ‘female Obama’ started with a bang and went downhill

The California senator’s campaign began with a huge rally but factional infighting and lack of a clear message took their toll

Newspaper editors infamously prepare obituaries before their subjects have died, keeping them ominously in reserve until the moment of truth.

Related: Kamala Harris drops out of Democratic 2020 presidential race

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Adam Schiff accuses Trump of acting as if he is ‘above the law’ over Ukraine – video

Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House intelligence committee, has suggested Donald Trump undermined American national security and betrayed his oath of office, as Democrats announced the release of the report laying out the impeachment case against the president. Accusing Trump of using the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, Schiff said: 'This is the result of a president who believes he is ... beyond any form of accountability and indeed above the law' 

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Trump abused presidency for own gain, Democrats’ impeachment report concludes

  • Democrats vote to adopt the report, moving the inquiry forward
  • They say evidence shows president improperly pressured Ukraine to influence 2020 election
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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.

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Democrats expected to release Trump impeachment report – live news

Report will convey argument that Trump abused power of the presidency by trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden and the 2016 election

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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.

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Faith, but fury too, for Donald Trump at home

The US president arrives this week from a split nation amid signs of a Democratic revival

Reality. We all used to know what it meant. The world as it is. Objective facts that provide the foundation for rational – not emotional – judgments and actions.

But the old definition of reality has taken a serious beating during the nearly three years Donald Trump, the reality-show president, has been in office. Partly because Trump himself seems to live in a reality separate from the one most of us inhabit. Partly because too many people still can’t accept the objective facts of his presidency.

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Ilhan Omar’s Republican opponent banned from Twitter over ‘hanging’ post

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.

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Trump’s EU envoy Gordon Sondland accused of sexual misconduct – live

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

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The 2020 election has too many candidates – but there’s an easy fix | David Daley

None of the four top Democratic candidates poll consistently above 30% – ranked-choice voting, however, can determine who people actually support

Democrats in Iowa will caucus in early February, barely two months away, and finally cast the first votes of presidential nomination season.

There’s an elite tier of four candidates: former vice-president Joe Biden, South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. None of them, however, poll consistently above 30% in national surveys. Many Democrats see one or more of them as too old or too inexperienced; too far left or too moderate.

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Trump impeachment inquiry: justice department appeals ruling Don McGahn must testify – live news

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.

pic.twitter.com/Vw2uGpv8GO

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Don McGahn: former White House counsel must testify, judge rules – live

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

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Trump impeachment: Republicans dig in as hopes of bipartisan support dashed

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

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