Impeachment hearing exposes 'absolute coverup by White House', as former top aide dodges questions
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Your support makes all the difference.Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee have launched the first impeachment hearings into allegations that Donald Trump obstructed justice and abused power, with the president's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski appearing before the committee as the first witness to testify on questions that were raised by the Mueller report released earlier this year.
The witness had been gagged by the White House, however, and two more aides – Rick Dearborn and Rob Porter – were reportedly told to ignore subpoenas and not attend the session with the Democratic-led panel on the grounds that they are protected by “absolute immunity”.
"The White House has no authority legal or otherwise to give these orders," House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler said of those gags.
But, Mr Lewandowski nevertheless refused to answer questions from Democrats, citing a gag letter from the White House, where he never worked.
The president’s latest campaign rally on Monday evening saw him attempt to appeal to the Hispanic voters of New Mexico he alienated in 2016, a day bookended by his calls for resignations at The New York Times over the latest sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh and a new poll forecasting Mr Trump’s defeat in key 2020 swing states.
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Democrats have now played a clip of Donald Trump asking Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's emails during the 2016 election.
Russia did end up hacking those emails, which ended up on Wikileaks. Mr Trump then tweeted his praise of Wikileaks in October of 2016.
Donald Trump has landed in California, and spoke with reporters on the plane out there, including a 50 minute conversation that was off the record.
Mr Trump is there for a fundraiser, and said he plans on talking to secretary of Housing and Urban Development about homelessness in the state.
He also confirmed the five finalists for national security adviser, replacing John Bolton.
During his flight to California, Mr Trump complained about the credence given to Elizabeth Warren's 20,000 person crowd in New York on Monday evening.
“Anybody that can’t get people standing in the middle of Manhattan in the most densely populated area of the country – anybody could do that. I think more Democrats should do it. I get these crowds in areas that nobody’s ever seen crowds before. Pretty amazing. Certainly, if I went to Manhattan, if I went there – number one, she didn’t have 20,000 people and number two, I think anybody would get a good crowd there. I think you have a good crowd there if you don’t even go there, just say you’re going and how many people are in the park.”
Here's Mr Trump's response to the New York Times reporting on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has been accused again of sexual misconduct.
“They’ve hurt that man and his family so badly. He has been just really devastated by the hurt that’s been caused to him, his beautiful daughters, his fantastic wife – they have hurt him so badly. … He has been hurt so badly and it’s so unfair. He’s a good man. That wasn’t supposed to be in the cards.”
Here's Mr Trump on the death of veteran journalist Cokie Roberts, from a transcript of his remarks on his flight to California:
“I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional and I respect professionals. I respect you guys a lot, you people a lot. She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional.”
Mr Trump says that he believes he will get a deal with China on trade, "maybe before the election", or perhaps even soon afterwards.
From his remarks on Air Force One:
“I think there’ll be a deal maybe soon, maybe before the election, or one day after the election. And if it’s after the election, it’ll be a deal like you’ve never seen, it’ll be the greatest deal ever and China knows that. They think I’m going to win. China thinks I’m going to win so easily and they’re concerned because I told them, if it’s after the election it’s going to be far worse than what it is right now. I told them that. Would they like to see somebody else win? Absolutely.”
“It’ll be the greatest deal ever made and China knows that.”
“If it’s after the election, it’ll be the toughest deal anybody’s ever had to make from the standpoint of China, and they know that. China knows that. China would love to have Sleepy Joe and Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren.”
Here are the specific remarks from Mr Trump on his plan to talk with secretary Carson about the homelessness issue:
“Yes. I am", he said when asked if he plans on having that discussion.
“We can’t let Los Angeles, San Francisco and numerous other cities destroy themselves by allowing what’s happening. And I’m speaking to tenants – in some cases foreign people, foreign tenants – but they have where they’re tenants in buildings throughout various cities in California, and other places… where they want to leave the country. They can’t believe what’s happening.”
“Where our policeman that are on the beat are getting sick. They’re actually sick. They’re going to the hospital. We can’t let that happen.”
He mentioned the creation of an “individual task force.”
“We’re looking at it very seriously. I’ve spoken to [HUD] Sec. Carson in terms of the housing element. But we have people living in our… best highways our best streets, our best entrances to buildings and pay tremendous taxes, where people in those buildings pay tremendous taxes, where they went to those locations because of the prestige.
“In many cases they came from other countries and they moved to Los Angeles or they moved to San Francisco because of the prestige of the city, and all of a sudden they have tents. Hundreds and hundreds of tents and people living at the entrance to their office building. And they want to leave.
“And the people of San Francisco are fed up, and the people of Los Angeles are fed up. And we’re looking at it, and we’ll be doing something about it.”
Mr Trump also said that he could still speak with Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, but that he would "prefer not meeting with him."
On deploying America's strategic oil reserves: “I don’t think I need to, but I’m willing to do it. We’re the undisputed champion of energy. We are now way ahead of number two and three, which is Saudi Arabia and Russia. Let people do what they have to do. And they’ve done it. But I can really step it up a lot more if we have to.
“So I don’t believe I need to, but if we want to use strategic oil reserves, I would open them up.”
Speaking of Donald Trump potentially making money off of being president, a new report from Quartz indicates that retiring US Border Patrol deputy chief Scott Luck is marking the end of his career with a private party at Mr Trump's lavish golf resort in Virginia.
Quartz notes that there is nothing illegal about that arrangement, but it does play into the narrative that government officials are showing preferential treatment for Mr Trump's resorts while he serves in the nation's highest office.
Fliers for the event have reportedly been seen in offices in the department's Washington, DC, headquarters.
A New York judge has been forced to resign after allegedly posting a "Make America Great Again" message, alongside a noose.
The judge, Kyle R Canning, was a part-time official in Altona, New York, and was accused of posting the statement on his Facebook page, alongside a picture of a noose.
"IF WE WATN TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN WE WILL HAVE TO MAKE EVIL PEOPLE FEAR PUNISHMENT AGAIN," he reportedly wrote.
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