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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"I think we should call this what it is, an absolute coverup by the White House," Mr Nadler says.
Republican Doug Collins, the ranking member, is accusing Democrats of repackaging the whole hearing.
"It has become let's read the Mueller report for audiobook, that's what this has become. We had Mr Mueller here, we had a long day of it, judging by all accounts it didn't go very well," Mr Collins said.
Rep Collins is trying to make this about immigration somehow, suggesting that the Judiciary Committee cannot focus on more than one thing at once.
Mr Collins claims that Mr Lewandowski offered to show up without a subpoena, but that they subopenaed him anyway.
He says that Democrats don't actually want to interview the witnesses — otherwise they would do so privately, which is much less contentious — and instead want public hearings.
Mr Lewandowski claims he has been answering questions "for well over 20 hours" and that he is now in front of the House Judiciary Committee "to answer those questions again."
He says that it is "very unfair" that Democrats decided to make today's hearing an impeachment hearing.
Mr Lewandowski said it was "an honour and a privilege" to help Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.
Mr Lewandowski says he was told to "spend [Mr Turmp's] money as if it were my own" during the campaign.
Mr Lewandowski takes aim at Hillary Clinton, saying that he received hundreds of thousands of emails during the campaign, but didn't delete any.
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