Trump impeachment news: Watergate prosecutor says evidence to remove president at 'tipping point', as John Bolton posts cryptic attack on White House
Trump says he 'wants a trial' in relation to impeachment proceedings against him
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump gave a wild, 53-minute long interview with Fox and Friends on Friday morning, attacking the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry and spreading debunked conspiracy theories.
A group of Senate Republicans met Thursday with White House officials to discuss how a potential trial on articles of impeachment of Mr Trump could happen. “Frankly, I want a trial,” the president said during the interview.
The president also used it as an opportunity to complain that ex-Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch never hung his portrait in the US embassy in Kiev.
Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman has meanwhile told Newsweek that Gordon Sondland‘s explosive appearance on Wednesday represented a “tipping point” that will bring about the demise of the Trump presidency.
The comments came as the first daughter, Ivanka Trump, was ridiculed online for attempting to defend her father with a quote from 19th century diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville. The quote she shared said: “A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.”
As The Week noted, Tocqueville never said this, a judge named John Innes Clark did. Worse still for Ms. Trump, the quote was part of a larger passage explicitly defending the practice of impeaching the president for wrongdoing; Clark called impeachment, with its risk of partisan misuse, “justly though preferable” to leaving the president immune from consequence between elections.
Meanwhile, former National Security Adviser John Bolton made a dramatic return to Twitter following his unexplained hiatus since his resignation in September. Mr Bolton said the White House had blocked access to his account, suggesting the administration is fearful of what he might say. On Friday afternoon he tweeted: “To those who speculated I went into hiding, I’m sorry to disappoint!”
Mr Trump was asked whether he was involved in blocking Mr Bolton’s Twitter account. He replied: “No, of course not, I had a good relationship with John.”
Catch-up on events as they happened
'She wouldn't hang my picture in the embassy'
Dave Maclean has more on Trump's extraordinary revelation during his call with Fox and Friends earlier that his reason for taking exception to Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch - and having her recalled - was that she refused to put up a portrait of him in the US embassy in Kiev.
"This was not an angel," the president said, as though that meant anything whatsoever.
Live C-Span phone-in halted after man shouts 'impeach the f*****!'
"Monty from Florida" called into C-Span yesterday during one of the network's daring/foolhardy public call-in interludes to fill a break in the impeachment inquiry and said this, prompting frantic producers to pull the plug on the segment: "Howdy, I just want to apologise, first and foremost, for all the morons on the calls earlier, especially from Alabama... Secondly, I just want to say impeach the f*****! Have a great day!"
Colin Drury has more.
'I grew up in rural, small-town America - and I can tell you the real reason why people love Donald Trump'
For Indy Voices, Larry Womack offers an insight into the riddle of the billionnaire New York property tycoon's popularity with decidedly less affluent rural voters.
Donald Trump hurled incendiary insults at his political rivals, supported a slew of conspiracy theories and rejected verifiable facts during an interview on Fox News.
Speaking with the cable network’s morning show hosts, the president sought to undermine the public impeachment hearings against him by slamming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff as a “sick puppy” and a "nut job".
“He’s sick, there's something wrong with him,” Mr Trump said.
He then attacked several other Democratic leaders - calling US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “Crazy Nancy Pelosi” and said former Vice President Joe Biden was mentally “off”, adding: “I don’t know if Joe can make it mentally” through the 2020 campaign trail.
Mr Trump’s wide-ranging interview included several false claims — the president continued to assert Europe wasn’t providing any aid to Ukraine when in fact it does — and suggested thousands would have been killed in the Hong Kong protests if it were not for a trade deal he said he was “very close” to making with China.
Meet Jeffrey Clemmons, a 19-year-old from Texas who is fed up with Donald Trump.
The teen says he now supports Andrew Yang because the tech entrepreneur is running a historic campaign that puts “humanity first” and focuses on the issues of the 21st century.
Check out the latest in my 2020 profile series, Polarized.
Here's The Independent's Andrew Feinberg with a recap of this week's public impeachment hearings, in case you missed anything:
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton claims the White House "refused to return access" to his personal Twitter account after he left his post:
Donald Trump continues to celebrate Republican unity in the face of the public impeachment hearings and news cycle pouring over witness statements about his dealings with Ukraine -
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton has made a dramatic return to Twitter following his unexplained hiatus since his resignation in September, saying the White House blocked access to his personal account and suggested they are fearful of what he might say.
His name has repeatedly surfaced in the impeachment hearings as a witness to key events, and on Friday afternoon he tweeted: "To those who speculated I went into hiding, I’m sorry to disappoint!"
The first of three tweets appeared on Friday morning, amid a wide-ranging interview Donald Trump gave on Fox & Friends.
Mr Bolton wrote: "The first of Glad to be back on Twitter after more than two months. For the backstory, stay tuned........"
Mr Trump was asked whether he was involved in blocking Mr Bolton’s Twitter account. He replied: "No, of course not, I had a good relationship with John.”
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