Trump impeachment news: President launches fresh attack on longstanding allies as new poll projects him losing to 2020 contenders
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has lashed out at Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and French president Emmanuel Macron and their “delinquent countries” on Twitter, still reeling a week on from his sharp exit from a Nato summit in London at which the duo and others were filmed laughing behind his back at Buckingham Palace.
The president was also busy attacking his domestic political enemies in his latest 2020 campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, last night, branding House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff “a crooked bastard” and the FBI “scum” just hours after House Democrats moved to charge him with two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The Judiciary Committee is due to meet today to debate the articles ahead of a vote to send the matter on to the full House of Representatives as a devastating new Quinnipiac poll projects Mr Trump losing comfortably to all of the leading Democratic presidential nominees in 2020.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump officiall signed an executive order on Wednesday to designate Judaism as a nationality in the US — allowing the Trump administration better leverage over universities across the country.
The House is expecting a vote on impeachment sometime next week.
Preliminary word is that the Senate will take up the impeachment next month, with a short trial that will likely exonerate the president in the end.
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Trump accused of 'flouting his oath of office' by hosting Russian envoy Sergey Lavrov
The president's decision to grant Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov an Oval Office meeting is yet another example of his abdication of his responsibilities, several Democratic politicians have told The Independent.
Lavrov arrived at the White House at about 2.15pm on Tuesday afternoon, entering the West Wing after telling reporters he was there to "say good afternoon to the president". The pair met behind closed doors and Lavrov left after about an hour.
The meeting is his second Oval Office audience with Trump. The first took place in 2017, only a few months after Trump assumed office under the cloud of a federal investigation into whether members of his 2016 presidential campaign coordinated their actions with the effort mounted by Russia's intelligence services to boost his candidacy.
Here's Andrew Feinberg's report.
Lisa Page sues FBI and State Department for leaks that led to Trump attacks
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page is suing her former employer and the Justice Department, claiming the government violated the US Privacy Act by leaking her messages to the press.
The lawsuit follows just a day after the release of a Justice Department inspector general report, which found that investigation into Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was not started out of political animus towards the then-candidate - as he has claimed, using Page's text messages to former FBI agent Peter Strzok trashing him as evidence of the conspiracy.
Here's Clark Mindock's report.
Greta Thunberg beats Trump to be named Time Person of the Year
The young Swedish climate campaigner has just beaten Trump, Rudy Giuliani, the CIA whistleblower and Nancy Pelosi - among others - to be named the news magazine's defining person of 2019.
We can no doubt expect a dignified and measured response from a president absolutely, definitely above bullying a 16-year-old.
Trump blocks UN from scrutinising North Korea human rights record for second year in a row
The Trump administration is holding back a UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea’s human rights abuses after Pyongyang warned it would be a “serious provocation”.
Kate Ng has the details.
'I'm no Trump fan - but the hyperbolic way Democrats talk about impeachment is getting pretty tiresome'
For Indy Voices, Jay Caruso has had enough of the impeachment crowd's grandstanding despite being opposed to the president's corruption and mendacity.
Republicans believe white people experience same level of racism as black people, report finds
Researchers have punctured right-wing claims that a wave of "racism against white people" has coincided with efforts to prevent discrimination against black Americans, concluding that a belief in "reverse racism" is largely dependent on one's political position.
The study published in Nature Human Behaviour found that black respondents and Democrats "perceived that black people face much more discrimination than white people" while "white respondents and Republicans perceived a smaller discrimination gap between black and white people, relative to reported discrimination experiences".
Alex Woodward has more.
Bill Clinton: 'Congress is doing what they believe is right'
We've had at least 24 retweets (and counting) so far from Trump this morning but nothing original.
He appears to be preferring to let other people speak for him at the moment, bumping up tweets from the likes of Mike Pence, Ronna McDaniel, Dan Scavino, Geraldo Rivera and his son Eric.
We can though hear from another president on impeachment:
Trump hits out at 'delinquent' France and Canada
Ah here he is - renewing his attack on Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron after they laughed at him at Buckingham Palace last week, prompting him to cut short his appearance at the Nato summit in a huff.
Seems like they really hurt his feelings.
Lisa Page parodies Trump on Twitter, calls him out for lying
The former FBI lawyer, who announced she is suing the bureau yesterday, is already proving great value on social media.
'One of the most radical and partisan attorney generals in American history'
CNN's John Avlon has been examining the ten-month tenure of William Barr as attorney general and the verdict is not exactly glowing.
Barr angrily disputed the conclusions of Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz's report into allegations of political bias in the Obama-era FBI, which found no evidence of wrongdoing.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony from Horowitz today on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse allegations discussed in his report - our man Andrew Feinberg is there and will be providing updates from the Hart Building.
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