Trump impeachment news: President will not take part in hearings as Congress poised to launch articles next week
White House calls impeachment an 'abuse of power' from Democrats as Supreme Court grants president an temporary hold on release of financial documents
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump won't participate in his upcoming impeachment hearings in Congress, his counsel says, forfeiting his ability to present evidence and call witnesses as House Democrats prepare articles of impeachment against the president.
Mr Trump faced a 5pm EST deadline (10pm GMT) deadline to indicate whether his team intends to mount a defence at further House Judiciary Committee proceedings.
His counsel Pat Cipollone called the impeachment hearings "baseless" and accused Democrats of an "abuse of power" — echoing sentiments from White House spokespeople over the last few weeks.
“Civilisation as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly our planet,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi told a CNN town hall event in Washington on Thursday after making her historic announcement calling on Congress to commence the process.
The president was quick to lash out on Twitter, again inviting ridicule by calling for the CIA whistle-blower whose initial complaint prompted the inquiry to reveal themselves, as his lawyers continue to battle to stop the release of his tax returns to Congress.
Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has granted a freeze on the release of the president's banking information, delaying a decision in that case until 13 December, when the court is set to discuss three cases involving subpoena requests for the president's financial documents and tax returns.
Follow our live coverage as it happened.
And here's The New York Times' Paul Krugman on the president's call with King Salman:
White House press secretary is getting some blowback for his comments on Fox: "As we head into Christmas, people are going to want results. ... All they're getting is hatred, vitriol and a sham impeachment hearing that doesn't do anything to put food on the tables of the American people."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently formalised rules that will boot thousands of people from receiving food stamps.
The president is speaking with members of the Small Business Table, discussing steel, the latest jobs report, tariffs, and a few other things:
We're roughly 45 minutes to a deadline set by the House Judiciary Committee as to whether the president intends to mount a defence at his upcoming impeachment hearings.
A White House spokesman said he intends to respond by that 5pm EST deadline, but officials haven't said what Mr Trump's response looks like.
Not surprisingly, the president won't appear in his impeachment proceedings in Congress. He'll wait until they reach the Senate.
Trump's counsel Pat Cipollone called the impeachment hearings "baseless" and accused Democrats of an "abuse of power" — echoing sentiments from White House spokespeople over the last few weeks.
But here the president has refused to participate or mount any defence, other than the one he'll undoubtedly get from Republican members of Congress, as the House moves forward with articles of impeachment.
Here's the letter from Cipollone:
The Independent's Andrew Feinberg on the 'roads to Putin' left untravelled by impeachment proceedings thus far:
The effect of House Democrats’ decision to focus their impeachment efforts on his actions with respect to Ukraine — and the Trump administration’s effort to stymie congressional attempts to mount an examination of any links between the president and his Russian counterpart — is to leave many potential “roads to Putin” untravelled.
Just in: The Supreme Court has put a temporary hold on House subpoenas requesting the president's financial records from Capital One and Deutsche Bank.
As with previous holds on subpoenas for Trump's tax records, the order at the nation's highest court will give it time to consider what's next.
The court has three finance-related Trump cases on its desk.
There's a grand jury subpoena seeking tax returns from Trump's accounting firm, a House subpoena that's also seeking records from the firm, and there are House subpoenas seeking Trump's bank records, as well as records from members of his family and his businesses.
We're closing live coverage for today. Thanks for tuning in.
Check with The Independent for more updates.
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