Trump news : President attacks Congress members as they prepare for impeachment vote, after mocking teen activist Greta Thunberg
House of Representatives prepares to vote to remove Trump from office next week
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump is set to face impeachment in the House of Representatives, becoming the fourth president in US history to face removal from office on charges of misconduct after the House Judiciary Committee'prepares to send articles of impeachment to the full Congress.
The full House is expected to vote on impeachment next week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she doesn't plan to whip votes to support impeachment, saying that House leadership won't pressure Democrats in vulnerable districts or moderate Democrats fearing political fallout from supporting efforts to remove the president from office.
She said: "We are not whipping this legislation, nor do we ever whip something like this. People have to come to their own conclusions. They've seen the facts as presented ... They'll make their own decision. I don't say anything to them."
Meanwhile, the president had an explosive day on Twitter, including an attack on teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg after she was named TIME magazine’s Person of the Year ahead of him as the committee prepared to resume its debate over articles of impeachment threatening to end his presidency.
“So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!” the president wrote on Twitter.
The president's campaign also shared a photo of the TIME cover with Mr Trump's face superimposed over the teenage climate activist.
Mr Trump also faced criticism 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 Mr Trump’s impeachment would cause a “Civil War-like fracture” in American society.
Follow along developments as they happened.
Republican Doug Collins says the “tragedy” of the impeachment is that Democrats can’t convince the public that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky felt pressured to announce investigations for Donald Trump.
Republican Greg Steube also suggests there is a “standard of criminality” for impeachment proceedings against a president. That is, of course, not the case in the United States. The US Constitution says a president can in fact be removed from office for “high crimes and misdemeanours”.
He also suggests that impeaching Donald Trump over an abuse of power is wrong since it has never happened before in US history. However, there have only been three other impeachments, so that argument appears somewhat thin.
As The Independent's Andrew Feinberg notes, Republican "Greg Steube is now arguing that no Ukrainian soldiers died because military aid was delayed. There is no proof to support anything he is suggesting".
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks about the impeachment articles against Donald Trump as being "very powerful" and "very strong" during her weekly press conference -
Democrat Val Demings has clapped back at Donald Trump after he attacked her during the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment proceedings against the president:
Justin Amash, a former Republican-turned-independent, points out that multiple Republicans have wrongly said impeachment charges must include criminal acts:
The House Judiciary Committee is now voting on whether to remove the first article of impeachment against Donald Trump. The Democrat-led committee will easily strike down this vote and move on with the proceeding.
Republican Matt Gaetz is back to slamming Democrats and claiming the Bidens were involved in wrongdoing and corruption with Ukraine. There is no evidence to indicate what he's saying is based in fact.
Matt Gaetz slams Hunter Biden over addiction issues and says "it's a little hard to believe" Burisma hired him to serve on the board of the Ukrainian energy firm as his father served in the White House.
"It is just hard to believe this was the guy ... who was worth $86,000 a month to Burisma holding."
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