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'
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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.
Pennsylvania Republican Guy Reschenthaler, who tried to put up a motion to subpoena the whistleblower earlier in the hearing, says the impeachment is a "sham," is "not compelling" and "not overwhelming."
He also called the hearings a "Schiff show."
Florida Democrat Val Demings says impeachment process has endured a "categorical blockade by a president willing to prevent any investigation into his wrongdoing."
Demings is asking the panel for precedent in Trump's "stonewall." They can't find any.
Gerhardt says Sondland's testimony was "chilling," made worse by the people he had implicated refusing to testify.
Virginia Republican Ben Cline said he wanted to serve on the House Judiciary for its storied history and history of people who served on it: "The committee they served is dead. ... This show has degenerated into a farce."
Meanwhile, Devin Nunes is in the building.
Ben Cline was upset that the committee was meeting in a different room, creating a dramatic image that impeachment proponents would feel shame under the eye of the portraits in that room.
The committee moved the location to make room for all the people attending.
Jim Jordan is back on the mic. He's arguing the line in Trump's call transcript — "do us a favour, though, because our country has been through a lot" — references the Mueller investigation. Suggesting it's anything else is "ridiculous," he says.
Republicans have been attacking Professor Karlan for a quip about the name of the president's son — that Trump can name him Barron but can't make him one. They've said she attacked him. She did not.
Now Melania Trump has weighed in.
Despite a video of world leaders apparently laughing at him, the president says he got nothing but "deep respect" at his Nato visit.
Joe Neguse says the president discouraged witnesses from testifying and made threats about those who did.
Then he asks Turley whether Nixon let his people testify. (He did.)
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