Trump impeachment news: Watergate prosecutor says evidence to remove president at 'tipping point', as John Bolton posts cryptic attack on White House
Trump says he 'wants a trial' in relation to impeachment proceedings against him
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Donald Trump gave a wild, 53-minute long interview with Fox and Friends on Friday morning, attacking the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry and spreading debunked conspiracy theories.
A group of Senate Republicans met Thursday with White House officials to discuss how a potential trial on articles of impeachment of Mr Trump could happen. “Frankly, I want a trial,” the president said during the interview.
The president also used it as an opportunity to complain that ex-Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch never hung his portrait in the US embassy in Kiev.
Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman has meanwhile told Newsweek that Gordon Sondland‘s explosive appearance on Wednesday represented a “tipping point” that will bring about the demise of the Trump presidency.
The comments came as the first daughter, Ivanka Trump, was ridiculed online for attempting to defend her father with a quote from 19th century diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville. The quote she shared said: “A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.”
As The Week noted, Tocqueville never said this, a judge named John Innes Clark did. Worse still for Ms. Trump, the quote was part of a larger passage explicitly defending the practice of impeaching the president for wrongdoing; Clark called impeachment, with its risk of partisan misuse, “justly though preferable” to leaving the president immune from consequence between elections.
Meanwhile, former National Security Adviser John Bolton made a dramatic return to Twitter following his unexplained hiatus since his resignation in September. Mr Bolton said the White House had blocked access to his account, suggesting the administration is fearful of what he might say. On Friday afternoon he tweeted: “To those who speculated I went into hiding, I’m sorry to disappoint!”
Mr Trump was asked whether he was involved in blocking Mr Bolton’s Twitter account. He replied: “No, of course not, I had a good relationship with John.”
Catch-up on events as they happened
Trump condemns Iranian regime after seven days of deadly protests
Trump has condemned the “death and tragedy that the Iranian Regime is causing” - finally addressing the violence after a seventh day of deadly protests came to an end in Iran.
His remarks were all very commendable but his call for transparency might have carried more weight if he'd released his tax returns or not stopped witnesses co-operating with the Mueller investigation or the House impeachment inquiry.
Here's Negar Mortazavi's report.
President to be interviewed on Fox
Trump will be calling in to Fox and Friends this morning to rant incoherently about how corrupt the Democrats are, how unfair the impeachment inquiry has been to him and how all of its witnesses are "Never Trumpers".
We will of course be covering it right here.
Spare a thought for this man at this difficult time.
Trump: 'Adam Schiff is a sick puppy'
The three stooges start by asking Trump whether the FBI is "out to get him" in response to a Washington Post story alleging that an an ex-FBI employee - thought to be Carter Page - may have altered a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) document connected to surveillance of a 2016 Trump campaign aide
"This was an overthrow attempt on the presidency... these people are sick", he responds to the soft ball question.
He's now on to the inquiry: "They look like fools over the last five days... Adam Schiff is a sick puppy."
Trump spins Ukraine conspiracy theories
The president is now accusing the Democratic National Committee of passing on their own hacked server to "a company co-founded by an American immigrant in Ukraine".
This is bewildering stuff already. Even Fox and Friends are asking for his sources.
Here's the inevitable fact check.
Trump says The Washington Post is 'a phony paper'
The attacks on the press are in.
He also misspoke embarrassingly here.
We're now on to Democratic corruption, the failings of the impeachment witnesses and Gordon Sondland having "Clinton lawyers".
Hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade all look visibly tense.
President pushes lie about ousted Ukraine prosector
Trump spreads this untruth about Viktor Shokin, Ukraine prosecutor general between 2015 and 2016, widely considered to be corrupt.
“Just look at the facts - look at what I’ve done to Ukraine giving them tank busters and Obama would give them pillows and blankets,” he says of Kiev.
The president is now defending Rudy Giuliani, calling him "a great crimefighter" and "a legend of our country" after distancing himself from Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland.
He's now complaining that Marie Yovanovitch to refused to hang his picture in the American embassy in Ukraine (!).
Now we get to the meat of it.
He says the ousted ambassador is "no angel", the same dismissal he made of the Kurds.
Trump wants Adam Schiff to testify on whistleblower at Senate trial
After gushing about New York Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who defended him at the inquiry this week, Trump returned to Schiff, who he says he wants to call as his first witness at a Senate impeachment trial.
Trump says he knows who the whistleblower is - "Everybody does!" - and wants them to appear before Congress too. He insists the person in question is a "political operative".
"Why did Shifty Schiff make up my statement?" he howls.
Trump: 'Nancy Pelosi is crazy as a bedbug'
The president improvises this bizarre insult...
...and then denies that he is expecting a vote in favour of his impeachment from the House of the Representatives.
He insists the inquiry is only helping him at the polls in swing states and that: "The people get it... This is a continuation of the witch hunt".
President denies freezing John Bolton's Twitter account
John Bolton has just returned to Twitter...
...but the president insists the two-month freeze on his account was not his doing.
In attacking Elizabeth Warren's call for his border wall to be taken down, he comes out with this doozy:
He's now reviewing the 2020 Democrats - repeating familiar lines on Biden ("cracking up"), Buttigieg ("Alfred E Neuman") and Warren ("Pochahontas").
Trump dismisses Michael Bloomberg's chances out of hand.
Fox and Friends host pushes back on Syria claim
Credit where it's due, Brian Kilmeade did correct the president just now, interjecting as this madcap conversation veers towards foreign policy.
The Middle East, the China trade war, Hong Kong, who knows where this is going next?
The absolute state of this...
Steve Doocy is now trying to stifle a laugh as Trump refers to George Conway as a "whack job".
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