Trump news: President asked about Ukraine 'investigations', impeachment hearings told as Democrats reject effort to force whistleblower testimony
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Your support makes all the difference.The House impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump is beginning its first public hearings with Bill Taylor, acting US ambassador to Ukraine, and State Department official George Kent. Both witnesses delivered joint-testimony to Congress as the president derides the process as a “partisan sham”.
Mr Trump has meanwhile reportedly been threatening to fire his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney over his recent blunders. He also previously considered axing Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the US intelligence community, over his handling of the whistle-blower complaint about his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, as senior Republicans insist they will not be watching the hearings and Mr Trump hosts his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House on Wednesday, progressive Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for the resignation of senior Trump aide Stephen Miller over racist emails he sent to the right-wing news site Breitbart, in which he advocated white nationalist ideologies.
Following a meeting between the two leaders, Mr Trump repeated to reporters at a press conference that the day's public impeachment hearings are a "witch hunt" and a "joke".
"I haven't watched, I haven't watched for one minute because I've been with the president which is much more important as far as I'm concerned," Mr Trump said.
But the leaders were at odds following their controversial summit, to which five Senators were invited, discussing Turkey's cease-fire against Kurdish forces in Syria, as well as a two-day $100b trade deal and Turkey's acquisition of Russian anti-aircraft weapons.
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As the impeachment hearings are underway, Democrats have announced two new depositions in the docket for their inquiry: David Holmes and Mark Sandy, according to NBC News.
House counsel Daniel Goldman with a thinly-veiled swipe at Donald Trump's repetitive demands to "READ THE TRANSCRIPT!" -
“I want to spend a little time reading the transcript, as we’ve been encouraged to do," the prosecutor says.
As senior diplomats Bill Taylor and George Kent gave their testimony before House investigators weighing the president’s impeachment on Wednesday, the husband of one of Donald Trump’s most prominent advisers made a rare appearance on television to tear into the commander-in-chief.
Conservative Washington attorney George Conway, married to White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway, has won himself a large following on social media as one of President Trump’s most outspoken critics in recent months, regularly taking his wife’s employer to task on Twitter or in the pages of The Atlantic and risking his own happy home life for the cause.
With Capitol Hill in a state of heightened excitement as Taylor and Kent arrived to take part in the first public hearings of the impeachment inquiry, Conway appeared on MSNBC with Nicolle Wallace and Brian Williams to discuss a solemn day for American democracy.
He did not hold back.
Here's The Independent's Joe Sommerlad with more:
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has ordered a five-minute recess ahead of the Republicans turns to question William Taylor and George Kent.
Meanwhile, the White House is calling the first public impeachment hearing "boring" -
Here's more from The Independent's Andrew Feinberg, who is in the room where the hearings are being held:
"I just asked Will Hurd for his impressions so far, his reply: “You’ll see them when I ask them.”
Here's The Independent's Clark Mindock with more on Donald Trump's phone call with Ambassador Gordon Sondland the day after his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:
Donald Trump tells reporters in the White House that he has not been watching the first public impeachment hearings:
The recess is now over and California Republican Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House intelligence Committee, is delivering a statement.
Devin Nunes is citing William Taylor as saying the Ukrainians were unaware of the hold on security assistance.
However, House counsel Daniel Goldman delivered evidence indicating Ukrainian officials were in fact aware of the apparent hold as the Trump administration demanded political investigations.
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