Trump tweets another fake quote defending himself from impeachment as House votes to approve charges

Donald Trump has posted a false quote on Twitter attempting to defend himself from impeachment as the US House of Representatives was debating two articles against him ahead of a historic vote on Wednesday morning.

The president appeared to exaggerate a quote he heard while watching Fox News from Doug Collins, the ranking Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee and a support of Mr Trump, who went on the show to undermine the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry.

“They just wanted to get at the President”, Mr Trump quoted Mr Collins as saying on Fox News, tagging both the Republican congressman and the conservative TV outlet. “They couldn’t find any crimes so they did a vague abuse of power and abuse of Congress, which every administration from the beginning has done.”

Here’s the actual quote Mr Collins said on live television: “They just simply wanted to get at the president. So they said, at the end of the day, we can’t form any crimes, we’re going to do this vague abuse of power, and while we’re at it, let’s just throw in an obstruction of Congress, because we didn’t get our way.”

It was not immediately clear whether the president was purposefully misquoting his Republican ally. However, the false quote seemingly included commentary from Fox News host Steve Doocy, who falsely claimed during the interview with Mr Collins that “pretty much every administration of our lifetime” refused to “offer up witnesses and documents” during congressional investigations.

At no point during the interview did the Republican ranking member describe the obstruction of Congress charges against Mr Trump as something “every administration from the beginning has done”.

The president’s false quote was first noted by Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake.

Of course, Mr Trump’s latest false quote was far from the first time the president posted misleading or outright false quotes from television.

Last month, he falsely claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “it is dangerous to let the voters decide Trump’s fate” in a tweet he posted that went on to call the Democratic leader “crazy”.

He again appeared to be combining a quote from Ms Pelosi with commentary aired on Fox News by anchor Mike Emanuel.

The Fox News host was the one who had actually said that quote while summarising a letter from Ms Pelosi to House Democrats, in which the House Speaker wrote: “The weak response to these hearings has been, ‘Let the election decide.’ That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the president is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.”

Mr Emanuel never claimed to be directly quoting Ms Pelosi when he said: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi circulated a memo to Democrats tonight telling them it would be dangerous to let voters decide President Trump’s fate when it comes to the Ukraine investigation.”

The false quote was then noted by numerous prominent media figures, including CNN anchor Brian Stelter.

Mr Trump has been ramping up his tweets attacking House Democrats amid the historic impeachment proceedings against him over his dealings with Ukraine. The president is accused of demanding political investigations from his Ukrainian counterpart into his 2020 political rival, Joe Biden, to aid in his re-election.

His tweet came as Congress debated the rules for voting on the two impeachment articles against him. The vote was expected to pass later Wednesday afternoon.

The president broke his own record recently in posting the most tweets during a single day since assuming the Oval Office. He has also clearly been watching Fox News nearly every day during the impeachment proceedings while regularly posting quotes and tweets based off of segments aired on the network, usually in real-time.