Trump news: Angry president cuts short Nato summit trip and rages at Trudeau, as Congress launches next stage of impeachment after damning report
Three Constitutional scholars argued that the president committed 'high crimes and misdemeanours'
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.A trio of scholars agreed that Donald Trump’s alleged abuses of power in his dealings with Ukraine amounted to "high crimes and misdemeanours" as grounds for impeachment, according to the rules outlined in the US Constitution.
Four constitutional scholars testified to the House Judiciary Committee on its first day of public impeachment hearings, which provided expert analysis to determine Constitutional grounds for removing the president from office, a process that will be determined formally by a majority vote of Congress.
Michael Gerhardt, Pamela Karlan and Noah Feldman vehemently agreed that the president had committed impeachable offences, including abuses of power, bribery, the hampering of Congress, and the obstruction of justice.
Ms Karlan invoked the image of America as a "shining city on a hill" that, if unable to investigate foreign influence into its own democracy, would cease to be that example.
Jonathan Turley — who was summoned by Republicans — said the inquiry is "one of the thinnest records ever to go forward on impeachment."
Ms Karlan also apologised — after right-wing outrage, including a tweet from First Lady Melania Trump — for a play on words in which she said that the president could name his son Barron but could not make himself a baron.
In a White House statement, press secretary Stephanie Grisham said that "the only thing the three liberal professors established at Chairman Nadler’s hearing was their political bias against the president."
The hearing followed the release of a damning 300-page report from the House Intelligence Committee, summarising its findings and detailing “overwhelming evidence of misconduct” by Mr Trump and his inner circle over Ukraine, with call records dragging Rudy Giuliani and implicating Congressman Devin Nunes further into the scandal.
Meanwhile, the president suffered fresh humiliation after world leaders Boris Johnson, Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron were filmed apparently laughing behind his back at a Nato reception at Buckingham Palace in London.
The US president slammed the Canadian prime minister as "two-faced" to reporters shortly after, while announcing the abrupt cancellation of a press conference later that day, saying he would instead be returning home.
Follow our coverage as it happened.
Full quote from House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler on that moment: "I note that this is the moment in which the White House would have had an opportunity to question the witnesses, but they declined their invitation."
As The Independent's Andrew Feinberg notes, Donald Trump did the exact wrongdoing the Republicans' key witness is saying would result in an impeachable obstruction of justice -
Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, notes how she has been present for all three modern presidential impeachments. The congresswoman was a former Hill staff member during the impeachment of former President Richard Nixon. She later served in the House of Representatives during the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.
She now says Donald Trump tried to "convince a foreign ally to announce a political investigation into his rival".
The House Judiciary Committee is now taking a break from the public impeachment hearings.
It was meant to be a key moment of the Nato summit, its 70th and one of the most important in recent times: the head of the Alliance’s most powerful state delivering the closing words to the historic occasion.
Donald Trump’s press conference has been choreographed to be the final one in gathering, with Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron and the Alliance’s Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, the supporting acts leading up to it.
Members of the media had bagged seats at Press Conference Room Number One, at the Grove Hotel in Watford, the broadcasters rehearsed their questions. Diplomats and military officers said they, too, were going to turn up, keen to hear the president on a range of critical challenges from Russia and China to terrorism and cyber-conflicts.
But then, an hour before he was due to speak, it was announced that Mr Trump had cancelled his appearance, saying he had done “plenty of press conferences” already and would be heading home.
One of Donald Trump’s most common responses to intelligence briefings is to refuse to believe what officials are telling him, according to the former US deputy director of intelligence.
Susan Gordon, who resigned as deputy director in August 2019, has said Mr Trump would often question information given to him and suggested officials struggled to present briefings in a way he would understand.
“He is probably the first president that arrived with no framework and a world that has massively available information with infinite people offering opinion that oft-times sound the same,” Ms Gordon said.
The president is noted for sometimes promoting conspiracy theories, such as debunked claims about Barack Obama not being born in the US and baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud.
Ms Gordon also said intelligence officials had to present information in economic terms for Mr Trump to understand it.
Donald Trump is the first US president to have apparently sought personal favours from a foreign nation, the impeachment inquiry has been told.
Jerry Nadler, the Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee, opened proceedings in the latest phase of the impeachment probe, by claiming Mr Trump had acted in a way that was unprecedented.
“The facts before are us are undisputed. He did everything in his power to prevent the American people from learning about his conduct,” he said.
“But never before, in the history of the republic, have we been forced to consider the conduct of a president who appears to have solicited personal, political favours from a foreign government.”
He added: “Never before has a president engaged in a course of conduct that included all of the acts that most concerned the framers.”
A group of mental health professionals led by a trio of pre-eminent psychiatrists is urging the House Judiciary Committee to consider Donald Trump’s “dangerous” mental state arising from his “brittle sense of self-worth” as part of its inquiry into whether to approve articles of impeachment against him.
“We are speaking out at this time because we are convinced that, as the time of possible impeachment approaches, Donald Trump has the real potential to become ever more dangerous, a threat to the safety of our nation,” said Yale Medical School Professor Dr Bandy Lee, George Washington University Professor Dr John Zinner, and former CIA profiler Dr Jerrold Post in a statement which will be sent to House Judiciary Committee members on Thursday.
The statement will be accompanied by a petition with at least 350 signatures from mental health professionals endorsing their conclusions.
All three psychiatrists have said they are willing to testify as part of the impeachment inquiry.
The witnesses testifying in today's impeachment hearings have entered the room and the committee members are filing back in now. The Independent's Andrew Feinberg spotted one Democrat chatting up Professor Feldman just before the hearings were brought back into session:
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments