Trump impeachment news: Democrats taunt president with his own words as historic Senate trial begins
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Donald Trump has again labelled his Senate impeachment trial a “witch hunt” and a “hoax” from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, before addressing the business summit with a blustering, hyperbolic speech laying out his supposed economic and environmental achievements.
Proceedings in the upper chamber of Congress will began in earnest on Tuesday after the president was charged with abuse of power and obstruction by the House of Representatives last month. The prosecution team from the House faced the president's legal counsel, making their first appearance in the impeachment proceedings, and debated trial rules proposed by Mitch McConnell, whose gauntlet called for a brief trial without testimony or evidence and would likely end up in the president's acquittal.
House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, leading the prosecution team, argued against the Senate Majority Leader's attempts to table efforts to subpoena White House documents.
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley called Democrats "an utter joke" after attempts to draw out White House counsel Pat Cipollone as a fact witness.
A new poll from CNN has meanwhile found that 51 per cent of Americans now support Mr Trump’s removal from office and 69 per cent want to hear testimony from new witnesses like ex-national security adviser John Bolton, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, top aide Rob Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
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Hillary Clinton says 'nobody likes' Bernie Sanders
The senator from Vermont has already fallen out with rivals Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden in the last week and now finds himself under attack from the former first lady, secretary of state and defeated 2016 candidate.
Hillarly calls Bernie a "career politician" in a new Hulu documentary about her life and decries the "Bernie Bros" who follow him and carry out "relentless attacks... particularly on women".
Bernie has since responded:
Here's more from Alex Woodward.
'The president is not really familiar with America's story'
Trump has made several attacks now on A Very Stable Genius, the new book by Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, most recently calling the authors "Two stone cold losers" and implying their newspaper is in the pocket of its owner, Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos.
The book contains anecdotes suggesting that Trump did not understand the significance of the bombing of Pearl Harbour and was unable to read the US Constitution when asked, complaining it was "like a foreign language" and is not going away any time soon.
In the latest leg of her media tour to promote the book, Leonnig tells New Day: "The president is not really familiar with America's story".
What a truly daming statement that is.
Iranian politician offers $3m reward for Trump assassination
Ahmad Hamzeh, an Iranian politician, has offered a $3m (£2.3m) reward for Trump's murder and said his country could counter the president's threats if it had nuclear weapons of its own, according to the ISNA news agency.
Good grief.
Chuck Schumer to pitch 'series of amendments' following Democratic outcry over McConnell's impeachment resolution
The Senate minority leader remains incensed at his Republican counterpart's tight schedule for the trial's proceedings, set to run on long into the night.
Jerry Nadler has meanwhile been arguing that White House counsel Pat Cipollone should recuse himself from the process because he is a "fact witness". A good point!
AOC criticises Democrats: ‘We don’t have a left-wing party in the United States'
Speaking to writer Ta-Nehisi Coates on Martin Luther King Day, popular New York progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned her fire on her own party (picking an odd time to do it) by saying characterising its current political leaning as “centre or centre-conservative”.
Alex Woodward has the full story.
Donald Trump met with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan during his sessions with world leaders in Davos.
He didn't answer whether he'd visit Pakistan, saying instead: "Well, we’re visiting right now, so we won’t have to. From the standpoint of our two countries, we’re getting along very well... We are very close right now because of the relationship we have.”
The Trump administration is looking into a revival of a travel ban affecting majority-Muslim countries, the president told the Wall Street Journal while he's in Davos. Trump didn't say which countries would be affected.
His confirmation follows reports that the White House was mulling an extension of the ban.
Here's a report from earlier this month:
The president's impeachment trial is beginning in the Senate.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is laying out his proposed rules for the proceedings. First, the case will be presented by the House managers, the prosecution team, followed by a response from the president's counsel. The Senate will then consider questions for either side, managed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Then, they'll consider "whether we feel any additional evidence or witnesses are necessary."
McConnell is slamming the impeachment proceedings in Congress and threatening to table any amendments to subpoena witnesses or documents at beginning of the trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will propose that, in a series of amendments related to subpoenas for White House documents that were previously blocked by the president during the congressional investigation.
Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump is avoiding questions about her father's impeachment, completely ignoring a question from CNN's Jim Acosta.
In his response, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attacked Mitch McConnell for establishing Senate rules that "seem to be designed by Trump, for Trump."
McConnell's resolution would "force presentations to take place at 2 or 3 in the morning, so the American public can't see them" and "will result in a rushed trial with little evidence in the dark of night, literally."
Schumer called them a "national disgrace" and one of the darkest moments in American history.
McConnell argued for the establishment of trial rules that he says were set up for the trial of Bill Clinton. When McConnell issued the rules less than 24 hours before presenting them to the Senate, the rules differed significantly than the precedent established in the Clinton case.
Among the changes: arguments must be made within two days, rather than no time limit, House findings will not automatically be entered into evidence, and there's no guarantee of witnesses.
Schumer said the rules establish "a rush to a pre-determined outcome."
He said: "History will be our final judge. Will Senators rise to the occasion?"
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