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.
The vote was rejected by Democrats. Republican Andy Biggs has introduced another amendment, which is now being read aloud.
Multiple Republican amendments have been struck down today, including one from Matt Gaetz, which sought to change Joe Biden's name in the impeachment articles to "Hunter Biden and Burisma".
Interesting to note that this is seemingly the most Donald Trump has ever tweeted in a single day since becoming president -
Some analysis from The Independent's Andrew Feinberg as he watches the hearings from inside the room where the impeachment articles are being marked up:
"Rep Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, is now mischaracterizing how the courts became involved in Richard Nixon’s impeachment troubles — the “Nixon Tapes” case was brought not by Congress, but by the Special Prosecutor investigating Watergate.
Mr Chabot laments that impeachment is more common than it used to me, and is implying that modern impeachments are merely partisan exercises, but both modern impeachments of Republican president (Nixon and Trump) arose from those presidents attempts to cheat during their reelection campaigns."
Democrats are reminding Americans watching the impeachment proceedings that the House is also busy passing legislation. It's particularly important for Democrats in battleground states to show that they're working on agendas outside of impeachment in order to maintain their majority in the US House of Representatives during the 2020 elections:
Some analysis from The Independent's Andrew Feinberg as he watches the markup hearings within the room where the impeachment proceedings are being held:
"Rep. Matt Gaetz just described US support for Ukraine — which has had wide bipartisan support since the breakup of the Soviet Union 1991 — as a “cause celebre of the left.”
In fact, the US promised to support Ukrainian independence in 1994, when Ukraine agreed to give up the formerly-Soviet nuclear weapons that it gained control upon independence in exchange for security and financial assistance."
Doug Collins is apoplectic. He continues to rage against Democrats and reports that members of the Ukrainian military died following a freeze on military aid to the country, allegedly held up by the Trump administration.
Then he appeared to storm out of the hearing.
Florida Democrat Val Demings says the Republicans' current amendment to the impeachment article on abuse of power is a "last-minute, after-the-fact, desperate attempt to cover up the president".
New Orleans Congressman Cedric Richmond is going down a list of people from the Trump campaign who have been indicted or pleaded guilty to campaign violations following the Mueller investigation.
Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson told NPR earlier: "The president continues to and has always been frustrated by what happened in 2016. This is very clear, and this is something every American knows — the president continues to and has always been frustrated by what happened in 2016. He talks about it all the time. He tweets about it constantly. He has for years."
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