Trump impeachment: President says he will ‘strongly consider’ testifying in inquiry

President responds to offer by Nancy Pelosi saying he may give evidence despite not wanting to give credibility to ‘witch-hunt’

Donald Trump has claimed he will “strongly consider” testifying to Congress in the ongoing impeachment inquiry to remove him.

He tweeted: “Our Crazy, Do Nothing (where’s USMCA, infrastructure, lower drug pricing & much more?) Speaker of the House, Nervous Nancy Pelosi, who is petrified by her Radical Left knowing she will soon be gone (they & Fake News Media are her BOSS), suggested on Sunday’s DEFACE THE NATION....

“....that I testify about the phony Impeachment Witch Hunt. She also said I could do it in writing. Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this No Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it!”

On Saturday Ms Pelosi, the Democratic House Speaker who launched the impeachment inquiry against Mr Trump in September, rejected his repeated claims that he is not being given due process and said he had “every opportunity” to present his case.

She told CBS’s Face the Nation: “The president could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants.”

Ms Pelosi said the accusation faced by Mr Trump were worse than those levelled at Richard Nixon over the Watergate scandal in the early 1970s. Mr Nixon resigned as president when it became clear he would face an impeachment inquiry.

“It’s really a sad thing. I mean, what the president did was so much worse than even what Richard Nixon did, that at some point Richard Nixon cared about the country enough to recognise that this could not continue.”

Mr Trump’s pledge to consider testifying came ahead of a week of crucial public evidence in the impeachment inquiry.

On Tuesday members of Congress will cross-examine four key witnesses: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams in the morning, and Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison in the afternoon.

Lt Col Vindman, a decorated veteran, listened in to the controversial 25 July phone call in which Mr Trump appeared to pressure his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to open investigations into his Democrat opponents in return for releasing military aid and arranging a visit to the White House.

One of the most important figures in the impeachment saga will give evidence on Wednesday morning: Gordon Sondland, a hotelier who was appointed US ambassador to the EU after donating $1 million to Mr Trump’s inauguration fund, initially told Congress there was no “quid pro quo” between the president and his Ukraine counterpart. He later amended his evidence saying his memory had been refreshed.

Members of Congress will want to hear from him about new evidence that came to light last week suggesting Mr Sondland phoned Mr Trump from a restaurant and that during the call the president could be overheard by other diplomats asking about the “investigations” into his political opponents.

On Thursday Fiona Hill, a British-born expert on Russia, will give evidence.