Trump impeachment news: Democrats taunt president with his own words as historic Senate trial begins
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has again labelled his Senate impeachment trial a “witch hunt” and a “hoax” from the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, before addressing the business summit with a blustering, hyperbolic speech laying out his supposed economic and environmental achievements.
Proceedings in the upper chamber of Congress will began in earnest on Tuesday after the president was charged with abuse of power and obstruction by the House of Representatives last month. The prosecution team from the House faced the president's legal counsel, making their first appearance in the impeachment proceedings, and debated trial rules proposed by Mitch McConnell, whose gauntlet called for a brief trial without testimony or evidence and would likely end up in the president's acquittal.
House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, leading the prosecution team, argued against the Senate Majority Leader's attempts to table efforts to subpoena White House documents.
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley called Democrats "an utter joke" after attempts to draw out White House counsel Pat Cipollone as a fact witness.
A new poll from CNN has meanwhile found that 51 per cent of Americans now support Mr Trump’s removal from office and 69 per cent want to hear testimony from new witnesses like ex-national security adviser John Bolton, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, top aide Rob Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
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Pat Cipollone is introducing himself on the Senate floor. It's the first appearance of the president's defence in the impeachment proceedings.
Adam Schiff, representing the prosecution team, follows.
Adam Schiff just showed to the Senate a clip of Donald Trump telling reporters that he wants to see witness testimony from Mike Pompeo, Mick Mulvaney and other senior White House officials.
Mitch McConnell's proposed trial rules don't guarantee any witnesses.
Donald Trump is still in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. Meanwhile, his political enemy Adam Schiff is leading the prosecution team against him during his impeachment trial.
The president appears to be paying attention.
Jay Sekulow, the president's attorney, is now addressing the Senate.
This Jay Sekulow, who is likely a material witness to the charges that the president is on trial for:
White House counsel Pat Cipollone has been repeating Republican talking points opposing impeachment and that the Democrats aren't prepared for trial despite their claim of an "overwhelming" amount of evidence.
He says Democrats are here to "steal two elections" and "want to remove President Trump from the ballot."
He says: "That's exactly what they're here to do.They're asking the Senate to attack one of the most sacred rights we have as an American, the right to choose our president."
Chuck Schumer is now submitting an amendment to McConnell's proposed trial rules that would require the Senate subpoena White House documents that the administration had blocked from the investigation.
The subpoena calls for all documents, communications and other records referring or relating to all meetings and calls between Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
It also calls for all investigations, inquiries and other memos mentioning Ukraine, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden or his associates, Burisma, the DNC, Crowdstrike, and all memos relating to military assistance for Ukraine.
White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley has issued a statement in response to the Democrat impeachment managers who said Pat Cipollone is a fact witness in the president's trial.
Gidley said: "The Democrats are an utter joke — they have no case, and this latest political stunt proves it. The idea that the Counsel to the President has to turn over protected documents and confidential information is ludicrous, and to imply he can't represent the President of the United States in an impeachment proceeding is completely absurd."
He then said Adam Schiff should be disqualified from the impeachment team.
Some more reactions to the president's legal team making their first official defence in his impeachment proceedings:
First, the former US Office of Government Ethics chief:
and the former CIA director:
A few tweaks to the proposed rules for the trial, following Mitch McConnell's extreme gauntlet: House evidence will automatically be entered into the Senate record, and the cases from each side can be heard over three days instead of two.
The latter isn't much, considering precedence would allow for unlimited time, but it's part of his brutal bargaining tool to speed a trial through, per White House request.
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