White House says it will not co-operate with impeachment inquiry after blocking ambassador from testifying to Congress
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump’s ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, has been blocked from testifying before Congress about his role in the Ukraine scandal, the president calling the impeachment inquiry a “kangaroo court” as he frustrates its bid to examine the damning text messages Mr Sondland exchanged with another envoy, Kurt Volker.
The president meanwhile remains under fire from senior Republicans over his announcement that the US will withdraw troops from northern Syria - leaving its allies against Isis in the Syrian Democratic Forces exposed to Turkish aggression – a move that was also branded “bats*** crazy” by ex-US national security adviser Susan Rice and that reportedly left his own senior military officials completely blindsided.
“Everyone was absolutely flabbergasted by this. I tell you that as a fact,” admiral James Stavridis told MSNBC. “Nobody saw it coming, and that is a real problem when you’re trying to conduct not only foreign policy... but also military operations.”
The president also feuded with the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota today about security fees for a rally he'll hold in the city on Thursday.
Finally, the White House sent a letter to House leadership saying they would not cooperate with their impeachment inquiry. Ms Pelosi's office confirmed that she received it.
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"Nothing to see here folks, move it along."
The president was just doing his job, says Republican congressman Jim Jordan.
Senator Mitt Romney reportedly believes he could be the key to taking down Donald Trump by corralling other Republicans into supporting the president's impeachment in the US Senate, rather than launching a 2020 primary bid.
The Republican’s advisers reportedly told Vanity Fair he “believes he has more potential power as a senator who will decide Trump’s fate in an impeachment trial” instead of competing against the incumbent president in a contentious election that began with more than two dozen Democratic hopefuls.
“He could have tremendous influence in the impeachment process as the lone voice of conscience in the Republican caucus,” one of Mr Romney’s advisers told the publication.
Still, Republican strategists told The Independent that Mr Romney would not be able to turn the tides of impeachment against Mr Trump alone.
Story to come...
Donald Trump is once again hitting out at the House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff -
House Democrats are weighing extraordinary steps to secure testimony from a whistleblower whose complaint prompted an impeachment inquiry, masking his identity to prevent Donald Trump’s congressional allies from exposing the individual, according to three officials familiar with the deliberations.
The steps under consideration include having the whistleblower testify from a remote location and obscuring the individual’s appearance and voice, these officials said.
The efforts reflect the deepening distrust between Democrats running the impeachment inquiry of Mr Trump and their GOP colleagues they see as fully invested in defending a president who has attacked the whistleblower’s credibility and demanded absolute loyalty from Republicans.
A new Senate Intelligence Committee report says Russia used social media throughout the 2016 US presidential election as part of the Kremlin's efforts to spread disinformation and undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in support of Donald Trump.
In a twist of events, Lindsey Graham — a top ally on Capitol Hill to the president — extended an invitation to Mr Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to speak before the Senate Judiciary Committee about his allegations of corruption surrounding Ukraine.
Shortly after news broke on Tuesday of Mr Sondland’s absence, the senator tweeted that he had “heard on numerous occasions disturbing allegations by [Giuliani] about corruption in Ukraine."
“Given the House of Representatives’ behavior, it is time for the Senate to inquire about corruption and other improprieties involving Ukraine,” he added.
Donald Trump’s campaign is threatening to sue after claiming a Democrat mayor was behind a major arena allegedly blocking a rally at the eleventh hour.
The US president’s campaign claims it was told to pay the “ridiculous sum” of $530,000 for security and other costs if it wants the event at the Target Centre, in Minneapolis, to go ahead on Thursday.
In a letter to AEG Worldwide (now ASM Global), which runs the arena, the campaign blamed the sudden payment on pressure from the city’s mayor Jacob Frey.
It threatened to take legal action if it does not receive confirmation that the rally will go ahead without the payment by 11am local time (5pm BST) on Tuesday.
Here's my latest on the White House blocking the US ambassador to the European Union from speaking to Congressional committees investigating the president, with reaction from Capitol Hill:
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A new Senate Intelligence Committee report says Russia used social media throughout the 2016 US presidential election as part of the Kremlin's efforts to spread disinformation and undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in support of Donald Trump.
The Senate committee's key finding in its report, published on Tuesday, says that Russia’s Internet Research Agency “sought to influence the 2016 US presidential election by harming Hillary Clinton's chances of success and supporting Donald Trump at the direction of the Kremlin."
“Masquerading as Americans, these operatives used targeted advertisements, intentionally falsified news articles, self-generated contents, and scoaif media platform tools to interact with and attempt to deceive tens of millions of social media users in the United States,” the report says.
It continues: “This campaign sought to polarise Americans on the basis of societal, ideological, and racial differences, provoked real world events, and was part of a foreign government's covert support of Russia's favored candidate in the US presidential election.”
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