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.
Today’s witnesses include Michael Gerhardt, Pamela Karlan and Jonathan Turley. They have taken their seats and the proceedings are set to begin with opening statements, the first from House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler.
The Independent's Andrew Feinberg has snapped this photo from inside the hearing room, showing props the Republican minority is planning on using during their questioning.
As Feinberg notes, the props include "a partial, out of context quote" from Texas Democrat Al Green.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler is beginning the hearings with an opening statement, but he is being interrupted by Republican Jim Sensenbrenner.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler starts the impeachment hearing by quoting former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian election meddling, adding "President Trump welcomed that interference".
The Democratic chairman is laying out a timeline of examples in which the president took "extraordinary steps" to obstruct investigations into his actions. Mr Nadler is also acknowledging how Mr Trump is the only president in history who has vowed not to comply with a single subpoena stemming from congressional investigations.
"He did everything in his power to prevent the American people from knowing about his" wrongdoing, Mr Nadler said.
The House chairman references the Mueller report on several occasions and says Donald Trump was "willing to compromise" national security for his "own personal gain".
"It does not matter" that the president eventually released the military aid to Ukraine, Jerrold Nadler says. "It matters that he got caught."
Jerrold Nadler says the impeachment inquiry is necessary because without it, Donald Trump “will try again" to stir interference in the 2020 election.
Jerrold Nadler says in his opening statement:
"But never before...have we been forced to consider the conduct of a president who appears to have solicited personal, political favors from a foreign government."
Ranking Republican member Doug Collins is now delivering his opening statement by blasting the impeachment inquiry process. He adds that "we're going to have a lot of interesting conversations about the Constitution" and more.
Republican Doug Collins is giving an...impassioned speech as his opening statement, and it seems really unclear what evidence he's attempting to undermine. Here's some analysis from The Independent's Andrew Feinberg:
"Wow. Judiciary Ranking Member Collins is speaking so fast it’s hard to understand his rambling opening statement, which appears to include a complaint about the chair in the Ways and Means Committee hearing room."
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