Trump news : President attacks Congress members as they prepare for impeachment vote, after mocking teen activist Greta Thunberg

Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.

House Judiciary Committee debates articles of impeachment

The House Judiciary Committee will resume its debate over the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump on Thursday, after a bad-tempered Wednesday evening session at which Republicans were told to “wake up” and Democrats accused of “tearing down a world leader”.

Both sides used the otherwise procedural meeting last night to deliver sharp, poignant and, at times, personal arguments for and against impeachment. Both sides appealed to Americans' sense of history- Democrats describing a strong sense of duty to stop what one called the president's "constitutional crime spree" and Republicans decrying the "hot garbage" impeachment and what it means for the future of the country.

Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island asked Republicans standing by Trump to "wake up" and honour their oath of office. Republican Mike Johnson of Louisiana responded with his own request to "put your country over party." 

One Democrat, Val Demings of Florida, told the panel that, as a descendant of slaves and now a member of Congress, she has faith in America because it is "government of the people" and in this country "nobody is above the law." Freshman Democratic Lucy McBath of Georgia emotionally talked about losing her son to gun violence and said that while impeachment was not why she came to Washington, she wants to "fight for an America that my son Jordan would be proud of."

Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio said Democrats are impeaching because "they don't like us," and read out a long list of Trump's accomplishments. "It's not just because they don't like the president, they don't like us," Jordan added. "They don't like the 63 million people who voted for this president, all of us in flyover country, all of us common folk in Ohio, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Texas."

The committee is considering two articles of impeachment introduced by Democrats. They charge Trump with abuse of power for asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden while withholding aid as leverage, and obstruction of Congress for stonewalling the House's investigation.

On Thursday, the committee will likely vote to send the articles to the full House, which is expected to vote next week. That could come after hours of debate over Republican amendments, though the articles aren't likely to be changed. Democrats are unlikely to accept any amendments proposed by Republicans unified against Trump's impeachment.

Democrats are also unified. They have agreed to the language, which spans only nine pages and says that Trump acted "corruptly" and "betrayed the nation" when he asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and the 2016 presidential election. Hamstrung in the minority, Republicans wouldn't have the votes to make changes without support from at least some Democrats.

The Wednesday evening session of the 41-member panel lasted more than three hours, with opening statements from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler opened the hearing by making a final argument for impeachment and urging his Republican colleagues to reconsider. He said the committee should consider whether the evidence shows that Trump committed these acts, if they rise to the level of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors and what the consequences are if they fail to act. "When his time has passed, when his grip on our politics is gone, when our country returns, as surely it will, to calmer times and stronger leadership, history will look back on our actions here today," Nadler said. "How would you be remembered?"

Republicans are also messaging to the American people - and to Trump himself - as they argue that the articles show Democrats are out to get the president. Most Republicans contend, as Trump does, that he has done nothing wrong, and all of them are expected to vote against the articles.

The top Republican on the panel, Georgia's Doug Collins, argued that Democrats are impeaching the president because they think they can't beat him in the 2020 election. Democrats think the only thing they need is a "32-second commercial saying we impeached him," Collins said. "That's the wrong reason to impeach somebody, and the American people are seeing through this," he continued. "But at the end of the day, my heart breaks for a committee that has trashed this institution."

Republicans are expected to offer an array of amendments and make procedural motions on Thursday, even if they know none of them will pass. The Judiciary panel is made up of some of the most partisan members on both sides and Republicans will launch animated arguments in Trump's defence.

Earlier on Wednesday, Collins said the GOP would offer amendments but said they'd mainly be about allowing more time to debate. "Remember, you can't fix bad," Collins said. "These are bad, you're not going to fix it."

In the formal articles announced on Tuesday, the Democrats said Trump enlisted a foreign power in "corrupting" the US election process and endangered national security by asking Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including Biden, while withholding $391m (£302m) in congressionally-approved American military aid as leverage. That benefited Russia over the US as America's ally fought Kremlin-backed aggression, the Democrats said.

Trump then obstructed Congress by ordering current and former officials to defy House subpoenas for testimony and by blocking access to documents, the charges say. Trump tweeted that to impeach a president "who has done NOTHING wrong, is sheer Political Madness."

The House is expected to vote on the articles next week, in the days before Christmas. That would send them to the Senate for a 2020 trial. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell saidon  Tuesday that he would be "totally surprised" if there were the necessary 67 votes in the chamber to convict Trump, and signaled options for a swift trial. He said no decision had been made about whether to call witnesses.

AP

Trump hosts antisemitic pastor at White House Hanukah party

The president is meanwhile under fire (when isn’t he?) for hosting notoriously antisemitic Texan pastor Robert Jeffress at his White House Hanukkah party, a man who once claimed Jews would go to hell and that Trump’s impeachment would cause a “Civil War-like fracture” in American society.

Trump hailed Jeffress as a "Christian warrior" and appeared to admit his own ignorance of the Bible in the course of dishing out effusive praise: "I didn't know him, but I watched him, and I'd watch him on different shows. I said,' I like that guy. Man, he talks really great about me, and I like people that talk well about me.' He was saying, 'He may not be the greatest Christian I've ever seen, he may not know the Bible quite as well as the rest of us, in fact he may not know it very well at all, but that guy's a real leader.'"

Alex Woodward has this report.

Jewish groups question Trump's executive order designating their faith a nationality

Trump's comments about Jeffress followed the signing of an executive order that effectively defines Judaism as a race and nationality, as well as a religion, under federal law, triggering protections under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that stop educational institutions receiving federal funding if they discriminate against people based on their national origin.

The gesture caused no little disquiet, not least among Jewish advocacy groups wise to Trump's pandering despite a long history of antisemitic remarks, the most recent of which came on Saturday night when the president expressed confidence the Israeli American Council would vote for him to protect their wealth. 

"The order’s move to define Judaism as a ‘nationality’ promotes the classically bigoted idea that American Jews are not American," said Emily Mayer, political director of IfNotNow.

Clark Mindock has more.

'Trump tried to help out Jews - and stumbled into antisemitism again'

For Indy Voices, Andrew Feinberg says the Trump administration risks enshrining one of the oldest and most destructive antisemitic tropes into official US policy as it races to appear pro-Israel.

Watchdog tells Senate no evidence of anti-Trump 'deep state' conspiracy within FBI

Just hours after Trump railed against "scum" FBI agents at his latest rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz appeared before the Senate Judiciary Commitee on Wednesday to refute the president’s claims that an investigation into his campaign by the Obama-era FBI was politically motivated during a sometimes heated session on Capitol Hill.

Horowitz testified to the panel about the findings outlined in his 467-page report looking into the origins of the FBI investigation into Russian influence in the president’s campaign in 2016, which concluded there was no "documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to conduct these operations".

But that didn't stop chairman and Trump apologist Lindsey Graham refuting its outcomes (as has attorney general William Barr) and accusing the bureau of a "massive criminal conspiracy over time", declaring that "people at the highest levels of our government took the law into their own hands” as part of a conspiracy so bad “it’s as if J Edgar Hoover came back to life”.

To his credit, Graham did also use his platform to publicly debunk a favourite Republican conspiracy theory (espoused on TV by Senator Kennedy, above, among others), declaring that it was Russia, not Ukraine, that had meddled in 2016. 

Alex Woodward was watching this seasonal airing of the grievances and his this report.

'The watchdog's report was never going to change minds'

Our man Andrew Feinberg was in the room to watch the Horowitz show yesterday and returned with this dispatch.

Pompeo insists president told Russian envoy election hacking 'unacceptable'

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo has insisted that Trump and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov definitely did discuss election hacking at their White Hosue meeting earlier this week.

Trump tweeted this on Tuesday...

...and Pompeo said this:

But Lavrov caused confusion by subsequently telling reporters during a press conference at the Russian embassy in Washington that he and Trump "haven't even actually discussed elections".

"I will leave to the White House to give the details of what is said. I never talk about what the president says in those private settings, but I can tell you that Foreign Minister Lavrov’s statement is not accurately a reflection of my recollection of that meeting," Pompeo said yesterday.

"There is no mistake that President Trump made clear in the meeting that he had with Foreign Minister Lavrov and the rest of the Russian team that was there that President Trump personally, and America, finds their meddling in our elections unacceptable in the very same way that I had said it earlier to Foreign Minister Lavrov," he continued.

Prosecutors ask judge to send Giuliani ally Lev Parnas back to jail as 'extreme flight risk'

Federal prosecutors have asked a judge to jail an associate of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani while he awaits trial, saying he lied about his wealth when he negotiated his bail. Lawyers said in a motion filed in Manhattan federal court that Lev Parnas, who is charged with campaign finance crimes, poses an "extreme risk of flight."

Parnas, an American citizen who was born in Ukraine, was released on bail after his arrest in October and has been living under house arrest in Florida. Joseph Bondy, his attorney, said he would respond to the prosecutors in a court filing.

Parnas was charged alongside another Florida businessman, Belarus-born Igor Fruman, with illegally funneling money to a pro-Trump election committee and other politicians. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors accused Parnas and Fruman of using a shell company to donate $325,000 (£247,000) to a pro-Trump election committee and of raising money for former congressman Pete Sessions of Texas as part of an effort that was ultimately successful to have the president remove Marie Yovanovitch as ambassador to Ukraine.

(Seth Wenig/AP)

Prosecutors said in their filing on Wednesday that Parnas had concealed significant financial information while negotiating his bail package, including income from a law firm and a $1m (£760,000) payment he had received from an account in Russia in September. They said Parnas has "considerable ties abroad and access to seemingly limitless sources of foreign funding," having raised $1.5m (£1.1m) from "Ukrainian and Russian sources" in the last three years.

Parnas' connections include an unnamed Ukrainian "oligarch" living in Vienna and fighting extradition to the United States, according to prosecutors. That description matches Dmytro Firtash. Prosecutors also said that Parnas falsely told an officer supervising his bail in Florida that a judge had effectively ruled he should be allowed to leave his house. They said that Parnas' incentive to flee had become stronger since his arrest because he remains under investigation and is likely to be charged with additional crimes.

Prosecutors are also investigating payments made to Giuliani, who has not been charged with a crime and has denied any wrongdoing.

Reuters

Republicans 'plotting short impeachment trial to acquit president with no new witnesses'

The 41 members of the House Judiciary Committee will be reconvening for part two of its impeachment articles debate at 8.30am EST (1.30pm GMT), where amendments will be proposed and motions tabled before they are ultimately approved anyway and sent on to the full House of Representatives for a vote on whether or not to impeach the president, expected next week.

Senate Republicans are resigned to staging a trial in the new year at this point and leaning towards knocking it out the park quickly, Bloomberg reports this morning, moving to acquit the president quickly without delaying the inevitable by hearing from any new witnesses.

Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin commented: "I think people are starting to realise that could be a pretty messy and unproductive process", hence the need to get things over quickly."

That stance runs contrary to that of the White House, after press secretary Stephanie Grisham told on Fox News on Tuesday the president would like to have "a lot of witnesses" in play.

Like Johnson, Lindsey Graham isn't keen on that approach. "I am not in that camp. Whatever they use to pass the articles should be the trial record. That way we don’t need to reinvent the wheel."

Although a two-thirds majority would be needed to convict the president in the Senate, just 51 votes are required to decide on witnesses or to move directly to a vote on the charges, leaving the ball in Mitch McConnell's court.

(Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

"It could go down the path of calling witnesses and basically having another trial or it could decide - and again, 51 members could make that decision - that they've heard enough and believe they know what would happen and could move to vote on the two articles of impeachment," McConnell said on Tuesday. "Those are the options. No decisions have been made yet."

Two Republican senators told CNN they fully expect McConnell to acquit Trump, not merely dismiss the charges.