Trump impeachment news: Democrats release damning report accusing president of obstruction, as he has tense exchanges with world leaders at Nato summit
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump sparred with Emmanuel Macron during a televised bilateral meeting at the two-day Nato summit in London, as House investigators released an explosive report on the impeachment inquiry back home in Washington.
It was a whirlwind news cycle during the president’s visit to the UK: as Mr Trump met with world leaders overseas, House investigators released their report finding “a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election”.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said the House had "overwhelming evidence of the president’s misconduct" and suggested the president's actions posed "a threat to the integrity of the upcoming election" as Mr Triump meanwhile denounced the timing of the next phase of the process, arguing it has been scheduled to embarrass him.
Mr Trump, who arrived in London on late Monday for two days of meetings, called the trip “one of the most important journeys that we make as president” before departing Washington and noted Democrats had long known about the meeting.
The president lashed out at Democrats again soon after arriving in the UK. He said on Twitter that he had read the Republican report designed to counter Democrats’ impeachment case on his flight. The report called Mr Trump’s hesitation to provide military aid to Ukraine “entirely prudent.”
“Prior to landing I read the Republicans Report on the Impeachment Hoax. Great job! Radical Left has NO CASE. Read the Transcripts", Mr Trump wrote on Twitter. “Shouldn’t even be allowed. Can we go to Supreme Court to stop?”
It was not immediately clear under what legal grounds the president was calling for the high court’s involvement.
Mr Trump’s trip comes amid ongoing quarrels over defence spending by NATO allies and widespread anxiety over the president’s commitment to the alliance.
The president said his trip would be focused on “fighting for the American people".
But in the more than two months that the impeachment inquiry has been underway, he has constantly drifted back to what he frames as the Democrats’ unfair effort to overturn the results of his 2016 election.
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday on the constitutional grounds for impeachment before Mr Trump wraps up at the NATO meeting.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
Donald Trump has denied knowing Prince Andrew despite having met the embattled royal on several well-documented occasions, including the president’s official state visit to the UK earlier this year.
When asked about the Duke of York, who has stepped down from his royal duties after being accused of sexual assault, Mr Trump responded: “I don’t know Prince Andrew, but it’s a tough story, it’s a very tough story.”
The president was referring to allegations made in an new interview with a woman who said she was sex trafficked by the late billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and forced to have sex with the duke when she was 17 - below the age of consent.
“There was a bath, and it started there and then it led into the bedroom”, Virginia Giuffre said about the alleged incident in an interview with the BBC programme Panorama. “It didn’t last very long, the whole entire procedure. It was disgusting.”
She added: “He wasn’t mean or anything but he got up and he said thanks and then he walked out and I sat there in bed, just horrified and ashamed and felt dirty.”
Breaking news: Kamala Harris has told her campaign staff she was dropping out of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries amid a wave of negative press surrounding the California senator’s bid for the White House.
"'I’m not a billionaire. I can’t fund my own campaign", she wrote in an email to supporters. "And as the campaign has gone on, it’s become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete."
More on Kamala Harris' surprise decision to drop out of the 2020 primaries:
Breaking news: The House Intelligence Committee has released its report about the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump. The committee said its investigation "uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election."
Story to come...
The Independent's Clark Mindock has more on the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry report:
The White House has responded to the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment inquiry report:
“At the end of a one-sided sham process, Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump", White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. "This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations. Chairman Schiff’s report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing.”
Donald Trump has lost an appeal to prevent Capital One and Deutsche Bank from sending his financial records to Congress, marking another legal blow to the president after several lawsuits and court rulings have sought records of his finances.
A 106-page ruling from a three-judge panel at the US District Court of Appeals says the banks must hand over several years of the president's records as part of a subpoena order from House Democrats.
The latest ruling follows the president's appeal of a May decision from US District Judge Edgardo Ramos, who ruled that the banks must comply with a congressional request for financial records from the president and his company, as well as similar records from the Trump family.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff is speaking at a press conference about the impeachment inquiry report on Donald Trump's dealings with Ukraine. We'll provide real-time updates and video as it comes in.
The chairman has posted a live streaming video of the press conference. He is currently laying out a timeline of examples in which the president demanded investigations into the Bidens -
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff says Donald Trump's claims about Ukrainian election interference and Crowdstrike is a "conspiracy theory" and "Russian narrative".
"That is a conspiracy theory put out, promulgated by Vladimir Putin to deflect attention away from Russia's interference in our own election and to try to drive a wedge between the US and" Ukraine, he added.
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