House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, tears her copy of President Donald Trump's s State of the Union address after he delivered it to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday. Trump appeared to snub Pelosi, after giving his 80-minute speech, a month after the House Democrats voted for his impeachment.
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US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she intends to transmit articles of impeachment against Donald Trump to the Senate next week, moving to end a taut standoff with Republicans over terms of the president's trial.
The top Democrat's announcement virtually assures that a historic trial of Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress begins this month, as anticipated.
But she declined to provide a specific timeline for the next steps and did not announce which House Democrats she will ask to spearhead the case in the Senate, saying lawmakers should be ready to vote to appoint the managers some time next week.
"I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate," Pelosi said in a letter to her Democratic caucus.
"I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further," she added.
Pelosi has withheld the articles since Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 18 over allegations that he improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate his potential 2020 election rival Joe Biden, and that he obstructed the subsequent congressional probe.
The top Democrat in Congress had hoped Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, of Trump's Republican Party, would provide assurances of what she described as a "fair" trial in which Democrats can subpoena witnesses and documents.
But McConnell who, like Pelosi, is seen as a wily political strategist, refused to budge, announcing this week he had sufficient Republican votes to conduct a trial without acceding to Democratic demands.
"There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure," he said on Wednesday.
For weeks Pelosi had worn a poker face, leaving Democrats and Republicans alike guessing what and when her next move would be.
On Thursday she revealed only a sliver, saying she could "soon" send the articles to McConnell.
Democrats argue that her delay allowed dramatic new information to emerge before the trial, including Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton announcing on Monday that he was prepared to testify before the Senate if subpoenaed.
But as Democrats mulled what benefits, if any, there were to further postponing the trial, Pelosi came under increasing pressure to act.
McConnell has said he wants to set initial trial parameters first, then address possible witnesses once the procedure has begun. Pelosi wanted such assurances up front.
"Clearly, Leader McConnell does not want to present witnesses and documents to senators and the American people so they can make an independent judgment about the president's actions," Pelosi said in her letter.
'Impartial justice'
Democrats want to hear from four current or former administration officials, including Bolton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who have direct knowledge of Trump's Ukraine dealings.
Getting McConnell to allow witnesses later in the trial would require support from at least four Republicans.
"In an impeachment trial, every senator takes an oath to 'do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,'" Pelosi said. "Every Senator now faces a choice: to be loyal to the president or the Constitution."
Some Republicans saw Pelosi's announcement as a sign she had backed down in the staring contest with McConnell.
"There is no way to spin it," added conservative congressman Mark Meadows. "Speaker Pelosi and her Democrat Caucus spent weeks playing games with what is effectively their attempt at overturning an American election."
The Senate is expected to start its trial this month before the political temperature quickly rises as the nation turns to the 2020 presidential race.
The first vote of the Democratic nomination process, in Iowa, is just weeks away, on February 3.
Five of the candidates -- Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Michael Bennet, are US senators and their constitutional duty requires them to be seated in the chamber serving as jurors during the impeachment trial.
That will curtail their campaigning in the run-up to Iowa, handing an advantage to former vice president Joe Biden, who is the Democratic frontrunner, and others in the race.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California speaks during a vote on the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump at Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. The US House of Representatives voted 229 to 198, to impeach US President Trump for obstruction after his refusal to cooperate in a Democratic led impeachment investigation.
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WASHINGTON - An enraged US President Donald Trump said he was being subjected to an "attempted coup" and a witch trial as Democrats set a historic impeachment vote for Wednesday.
In an extraordinarily angry six-page letter, Trump on Tuesday told Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the Democratic-led House of Representatives, that "history will judge you harshly."
Referring to a famous miscarriage of justice and religious extremism in the 17th-century United States, resulting in 20 executions, Trump said he'd been given less rights than "those accused in the Salem Witch Trials."
The letter came just minutes before Pelosi announced that the House would vote Wednesday to make Trump only the third US leader ever impeached and placed on trial in the Senate.
"Tomorrow the House of Representatives will exercise one of the most solemn powers granted to us by the Constitution as we vote to approve two articles of impeachment against the president of the United States," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to Democratic colleagues on Tuesday.
"During this very prayerful moment in our nation's history, we must honor our oath to support and defend our constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic," she added.
FRUSTRATION AND FURY
Trump is accused of attempting to force Ukraine into what would have been a damaging announcement of an unfounded probe into a main 2020 reelection rival, Joe Biden.
He is also accused of obstructing Congress by refusing to cooperate with the impeachment investigation, barring staff from testifying and holding back documentary evidence.
The two articles of impeachment are certain to pass in the House, where Democrats hold a firm majority.
That will send the case to the Senate, where a trial of Trump is expected to open in January, and his acquittal is equally expected, given the Republicans' control there.
Even with that likely outcome, Trump virtually exploded in an extraordinary outpouring of frustration and fury in the letter to Pelosi defending his record and attacking Democrats.
The letter, on White House paper and ending with his characteristic oversized signature in thick black pen, accused the veteran Democratic politician of "breaking your allegiance to the Constitution" and "declaring open war on American Democracy."
It repeated his claim that the entire case against him is a "hoax" and a "colossal injustice."
It said Democrats were being driven in impeachment "by your most deranged and radical representatives of the far left."
DEMOCRATS DO THE NUMBERS
In a comment in Congress likely to further enrage Trump, Pelosi dismissed the missive as "really sick."
With the exception of just two, her party's 235 members in Congress appeared poised to stand united in voting through the formal impeachment charges Wednesday.
While some members from relatively conservative districts face the possibility of being voted out of office next year for their stance, they stood together under Pelosi's political wrangling.
"My military service taught me to put our country -- not politics -- first, and my time as a federal prosecutor taught me about the importance of the rule of law and of justice," declared Mikie Sherrill, a first-term representative from a Trump-leaning district in New Jersey.
"I will be voting in favor of the articles of impeachment."
"I know some people will be angry at my decision, but I was elected to do what is right, not politically safe," said Anthony Brindisi, another first-term Democrat, from a conservative New York constituency.
TENSIONS IN CONGRESS
Tensions boiled over in Congress meanwhile over impeachment.
At a hearing in the House Rules Committee, which sets out the procedures for votes, senior Republican Doug Collins accused Democrats of trying to rush through the impeachment.
"There will be a day of reckoning," Collins warned. "Whatever you may gain will be short-lived."
And the top two senators butted heads over what form the trial will take.
Democrats are insisting on calling White House officials as witnesses, but Republicans appear to want to put the entire scandal to rest.
Senior Democrat Chuck Schumer wants Trump's chief of staff, former national security advisor and two others to testify.
But Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who can largely set the rules, rejected this and dismissed any idea that the trial wasn't a purely political exercise.
"I think we're going to get almost an entirely partisan impeachment," he said.
"This is a political process. There is nothing judicial about it. I'm not impartial about this at all."
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WASHINGTON - US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said she has directed a House committee to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over his effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, a historic step that sets up a fight over whether to oust him from office.
"The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and (a) crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival," Pelosi said in a televised statement.
The impeachment fight undertaken by House Democrats is unfolding even as the Republican president is running for re-election in 2020.
"Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders and our hearts full of love for America, today I am asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment," she added, referring to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler.
Pelosi made the remarks a day after the Judiciary Committee held a hearing in which three constitutional law experts called by Democratic lawmakers said Trump had engaged in conduct that represents impeachable offenses under the Constitution. A fourth expert called by Republican lawmakers called the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry rushed and flawed.
Articles of impeachment represent formal charges against Trump and would originate in the Judiciary Committee before going to the full House. If the Democratic-led House passes articles of impeachment as expected, that would lead to a trial in the Senate on whether to convict Trump of those charges and remove him from office. Republicans control the Senate and have shown little support for Trump's removal.
White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said on Twitter that Pelosi and other Democrats "should be ashamed," adding that Trump "has done nothing but lead our country - resulting in a booming economy, more jobs & a stronger military, to name just a few of his major accomplishments. We look forward to a fair trial in the Senate."
The three law professors chosen by the Democrats made clear during Wednesday's hearing that they believed Trump's actions constituted impeachable offenses including abuse of power, bribery, obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice.
The House Intelligence Committee this week submitted findings from its inquiry into Trump's push for Kiev to launch an investigation related to former US Vice President Joe Biden, a top contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Trump also asked Ukraine to look into the discredited theory promoted by the president and his allies that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 US election.
Democrats have accused Trump of abusing his power by withholding $391 million in security aid to Ukraine - a US ally facing Russian aggression - to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to announce the investigations.
"Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit. The president has engaged in abuse of power, undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections," Pelosi said.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called the impeachment investigation a hoax.
The House may vote by year's end on the formal impeachment charges, but Democrats, who control the chamber, say no decision has been made at this point on the specific charges. Those could include abuse of power, bribery, obstruction of Congress and obstruction of justice.
Judiciary panel Democrats on Wednesday said they may look beyond Trump's relations with Ukraine to include Trump's earlier alleged efforts to impede former US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into his 2016 campaign's relations with Russia, but they stopped short of saying that could trigger a separate charge.
IMPEACHMENT HISTORY
No president has ever been removed from office through impeachment, though Republican Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 after the House began the impeachment process in the Watergate corruption scandal. Two other presidents were impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate.
The last impeachment effort in the United States came in 1998 when a Republican-led House passed articles of impeachment against Democratic President Bill Clinton - charges arising from a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern. The Senate then acquitted Clinton in 1999, leaving him in office.
The other president who was impeached was Andrew Johnson, impeached by the House in 1868 - three years after the end of the US Civil War - but left in office by the Senate.
Trump's fellow Republicans in both chambers have stood by him, and have accused Democrats of seeking to overturn the 2016 election.
Republican Representative Andy Biggs, who sits on the House Judiciary panel, told Fox News earlier on Thursday: "What we are seeing is a rush - rush - to impeachment."
"I think you're going to see several articles of impeachment so there's a menu there. ... That's the type of political shenanigans that are going to go on here to undermine the election of 2016," Biggs said.
Republicans in the Senate have given no signs they would break with the president now.
Ahead of Pelosi's statement, Trump urged House Democrats to move quickly if they were going to impeach him so that the Senate could take up the issue.
"If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business," Trump tweeted.
Polling has shown Americans are also largely divided along party lines over impeachment.
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WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharpened the focus of Democrats’ impeachment case against President Donald Trump on Thursday, accusing the president of committing bribery when he withheld vital military assistance from Ukraine at the same time he was seeking its commitment to publicly investigate his political rivals.
The speaker’s explicit allegation of bribery, a misdeed identified in the Constitution as an impeachable offense, was significant. Even as Pelosi said no final decision had been made on whether to impeach Trump, it suggested Democrats are increasingly working to put a name to the president’s alleged wrongdoing and moving toward a more specific set of charges that could be codified in articles of impeachment in the coming weeks.
“The devastating testimony corroborated evidence of bribery uncovered in the inquiry, and that the president abused his power and violated his oath by threatening to withhold military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for an investigation into his political rival — a clear attempt by the president to give himself an advantage in the 2020 election,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference in the Capitol.
Democrats have begun using the term “bribery” more freely in recent days to describe what a string of diplomats and career Trump administration officials have said was a highly unusual and inappropriate effort by Trump and a small group around him to extract a public promise from Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and a discredited theory about Democrats conspiring with Ukraine to interfere in the 2016 election.
The House Intelligence Committee convened the House’s first public impeachment hearing in two decades Wednesday with testimony from William B. Taylor Jr., the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George P. Kent, a senior State Department official responsible for policy toward the country.
They told the committee Trump and his allies inside and outside of the government placed the president’s political objectives at the center of U.S. policy toward Ukraine, using both $391 million in security assistance Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s war with Russia as well as a White House meeting that was coveted by the country’s new leader as leverage.
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WASHINGTON — It’s been more than a year since any sort of war room has been run out of the basement of Stephen K. Bannon’s Capitol Hill town house. And it’s been even longer since Bannon, who was pushed out as White House chief strategist in August 2017, ran a war room for President Donald Trump.
But every weekday for the next two months — or "until the day after the acquittal of Donald J. Trump," in Bannon’s words — a rogue, freelance messaging operation to fight impeachment is being broadcast there. The people involved in the radio show, all former Trump aides and supporters, say their intentions are clear: They want to nudge the White House, its allies and the president himself into taking a more focused and aggressive posture to undermine the inquiry currently underway in the House of Representatives.
On Wednesday, during the third episode of the show, which is called “War Room,” the hosts sat at a dining room table covered in a spaghetti salad of microphone wires, and dispensed an hour’s worth of unsolicited advice.
Stop calling the inquiry a “witch hunt” and a “deep state” conspiracy, they said by way of advice to the president and his advisers, because it’s deluding too many Trump supporters into a sense of complacency.
Stop insisting that polls showing majority public support for the impeachment inquiry are “fake news” — because they aren’t.
Stop dismissing everyone who testifies about the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine as a radical unelected bureaucrat.
And stop letting Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, go on Laura Ingraham’s and Sean Hannity’s prime time Fox News programs to defend the president.
“We can’t do the Rudy thing anymore,” said Bannon, who in his days as a Trump adviser — and proud provocateur — pushed the nationalist ideology that the president adopted. “Too many Ukrainian names, too many moving pieces.”
This remark drew nods from his co-hosts: Jason Miller, the former communications director of the Trump campaign in 2016, and Raheem Kassam, a former editor at Breitbart. Giuliani’s defense of the president — often a nonlinear timeline of events; a lengthy cast of characters involving the events in question in Ukraine; and a blanket insistence of “no quid pro quo” — is too confusing, they agreed.
“Here’s our fundamental problem: We don’t have an elevator pitch to easily describe this to the right,” Miller said. He likened the explanations from the White House and its surrogates to the way someone solves the game “Clue,” with its menagerie of possible culprits, weapons and crime scenes.
The show, which is airing on a half dozen stations in Virginia and Florida and streams on the website WarRoom.org, is a remarkably blunt attempt by former Trump aides to criticize and influence the work of current Trump administration officials. Even the show’s name is something of an affront to the White House — and to Trump himself. He has told aides that he does not want to create a war room, as crisis response operations are often nicknamed, because he is concerned that people would see it as an acknowledgment that he views the impeachment inquiry as legitimate.
Though many in the White House may be tempted to dismiss the show as a bootleg operation run by people cut off from Trump’s inner circle, Miller said in an interview that the president ultimately cares about one thing when it comes to managing a crisis of this magnitude: “Are there people defending me or not?”
Miller added that with the exception of a handful of Trump loyalists, “There is a serious lack of Trump allies jumping out there and defending the president.” Too few Republicans, he said, are questioning the process of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which he said was being run in a clandestine fashion from “Schiff’s secret Capitol basement bunker.” It was a reference to the secure hearing room in the Capitol where Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. and the House Intelligence Committee chairman, is presiding over witness interviews.
The idea for the new program came to Bannon after he appeared last week on the radio show of John Fredericks, a conservative whose daily broadcast airs across Virginia. He was floored by the backlash he got when he stated what he said he assumed was accepted as fact among Republicans and Democrats alike: Trump is likely to be impeached.
"We’re like, 'What the hell are you talking about?'" Fredericks said in an interview.
Many in Trump’s base, fed a heavy diet of talking White House talking points that House Democrats are attempting a “coup” without any evidence of wrongdoing, have come to believe that impeachment is a farce.
Fredericks faulted the White House. "That’s what the White House communications department pushed out for a month," he said. "It’s fake news, deep state, witch hunt. It’s never going to amount to anything at all."
While the hosts offered little praise for the White House messaging effort, their praise of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was effusive.
In a broadcast earlier this week, Bannon warned Trump’s supporters not to be blinded by their animosity toward the speaker. “I don’t care if you hate Nancy Pelosi,” he said. “This is a master, and she is teaching a master class.”
“Tough as boot leather,” he added.
Miller said Wednesday that Pelosi employs “the best communications directors on the planet,” who have been able to dominate news cycles by releasing key details from the closed-door testimony. That’s what Democrats did on Tuesday after William B. Taylor Jr., the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, described how Trump held up $391 million in assistance for the purpose of forcing Ukraine to help Trump discredit his potential 2020 political rivals.
Pelosi, added Kassam, has figured out how to use the Congressional investigative process to the Democrats’ advantage. And Trump’s supporters cannot belittle that.
“There’s a very serious failure to take this whole process seriously from the Republican side,” he said.
As Trump railed about the saboteurs inside his administration on Wednesday, tweeting that the “Never Trumpers” like Taylor were out to get him, Bannon offered some feedback on the air. “Every one of those people was either hired by Donald Trump or hired by someone Donald Trump hired,” he said.
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WASHINGTON — Top congressional Democrats walked out of a fractious White House meeting on Syria policy Wednesday when US President Donald Trump attacked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "third-rate politician."
One of the Democrats attending the meeting, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said Trump launched into a "nasty diatribe" against them, while Pelosi said the president experienced a "meltdown."
The toxic exchange was the latest sign of the dramatically deteriorating relations between Trump and Pelosi since she launched an impeachment investigation against him last month.
"He was insulting, particularly to the Speaker.... He called her a third-rate politician," said Schumer after they abruptly left the White House meeting on Trump's controversial troop pullout from northern Syria.
Other lawmakers from both parties remained inside, he noted.
Pelosi said Trump appeared "very shaken up" by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the House earlier Wednesday condemning his troop pullback, which critics say effectively gave Turkey a green light to invade northern Syria and attack Kurdish militia.
"What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown. Sad to say," Pelosi added.
House veteran Steny Hoyer, the number 2 Democrat, said he and others were "offended deeply" by Trump's treatment of Pelosi.
Trump has repeatedly disparaged Pelosi on Twitter in the weeks since the probe began.
Hoyer sounded alarmed at the intensity of the White House confrontation.
"I've been in many, many, many meetings like this," he said. "Never have I seen a president treat so disrespectfully a co-equal branch of the government of the United States."
Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham rejected the Democratic version of events, saying the president had been "measured and decisive," and that Pelosi walking out was "baffling but not surprising."
"Dem 'leadership' chose to storm out & whine to camera," Grisham tweeted. "Everyone else stayed to work on behalf of our country."
Addressing reporters after the talks, top House Republican Kevin McCarthy likewise accused Pelosi of "storming out" and exhibiting behavior "unbecoming of a speaker."
The meeting was the first face-to-face encounter between Trump and Pelosi since her explosive September 24 statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry.
Pelosi said the investigation did not come up during the meeting.
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WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump's bitter fight against an impeachment inquiry has not slowed down the Democrats' push to investigate whether he sought personal political gain by urging Ukraine to probe Democratic opponent Joe Biden.
But in a new tactic, the White House plans to argue that U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi must have the full House vote to formally approve an impeachment inquiry, a source familiar with the effort said.
Without a vote, White House lawyers believe Trump can ignore lawmakers' requests, the source said, meaning the federal courts would presumably have to render a decision and potentially slow the march toward impeachment.
A White House letter arguing Pelosi must hold a House vote could be sent to Capitol Hill as early as Friday, the source said. It comes as the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee plans to issue more subpoenas in the coming days as it pushes ahead with the investigation.
Trump's gambit is emerging at the end of a storm-tossed week for him as the president lashed out at Democrats, reporters and anyone else standing in his way to air complaints that he was being unfairly accused and had done nothing wrong.
Democrats want to prove Trump sought personal political gain by appealing to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July 25 phone call to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, who earned money from a Ukrainian gas company.
Joe Biden, the former vice president, leads in most opinion polls among the 19 Democrats seeking their party's nomination to take on Trump in the November 2020 election.
Trump sees the impeachment probe as a harassing follow-up to the Russia investigation that failed to knock him out of office over accusations that he colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign.
In a new wrinkle, Trump said on Thursday that "China should start an investigation into the Bidens" over Hunter Biden's business ties to China, again inviting foreign interference in a U.S. presidential election.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. China experts said Beijing was unlikely to act on Trump's invitation.
Administration officials did not know Trump was going to raise the issue of China but said he had talked about it previously and they were not surprised by it, two sources familiar with the situation said.
Trump's appeal to China was particularly striking given that Washington and Beijing are locked in a bitter trade war that has damaged global economic growth. They are due to hold another round of talks in the United States next week.
FRIDAY HEARING
A whistleblower's report about Trump's conversation with Zelenskiy lies at the heart of the Democratic complaint.
Michael Atkinson, who is the inspector general of the intelligence community, had reviewed the complaint and determined it raised issues of "urgent concern."
Members of the House Intelligence Committee will return to Washington from their home districts on Friday for a closed hearing with testimony from Atkinson.
The hearing is expected to focus on his investigation of the whistleblower complaint against Trump.
U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the committee’s Democratic chairman, confirmed that Atkinson would appear on Friday, but the committee has been extremely tight-lipped about his testimony, refusing to disclose even the time of his appearance behind closed doors.
Atkinson will be the second high-profile figure in the Ukraine controversy to appear in a secure House interview room in two days, following a lengthy interview on Thursday with Kurt Volker, who resigned a week ago as Trump’s special representative for Ukraine negotiations.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California steps away from a podium after reading a statement announcing a formal impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday. Pelosi announced the launch of the House of Representatives’ impeachment probe against US President Trump for allegedly seeking Ukraine’s help on a smear campaign against former US Vice President Joe Biden.
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WASHINGTON - US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Tuesday the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, saying he had violated the constitution in seeking help from Ukraine to hurt Democratic opponent Joe Biden.
"The actions of the Trump presidency revealed (the) dishonorable fact of the president's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections," she said.
"Therefore, today I'm announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry."
Pelosi spoke after meeting fellow members of the Democratic House caucus, where impeachment calls are surging despite concerns by leadership that the move could hurt their chances in the 2020 election.
The announcement was sparked by a scandal over Trump's reported attempt to pressure the incoming president of Ukraine to open a corruption investigation into his main challenger for the White House, Joe Biden, and Biden's son Hunter.
Triggering the confrontation was an as yet secret whistleblower complaint centered on Trump's phone call July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The White House has refused to release to Congress the secret complaint from an intelligence community whistleblower that reportedly depicts Trump seeking help from Ukraine to fight Biden, currently the Democratic Party's frontrunner for the presidential nomination.
Trump has admitted he spoke to Zelensky about Biden in the call, and said Tuesday he had halted aid to the country temporarily, before it was unfrozen last week.
But he rejected charges that the two were tied, saying the aid freeze was to prod European countries to increase their support for the Ukraine government.
Pelosi had been stiffly resisting impeachment, hoping to keep the focus on capturing the Senate and White House in 2020.
But after seven moderate Democrats declared themselves in support of a full-blown impeachment probe late Monday, analysts counted at least 170 of the party's 235 House members in support.
"I was there... in the '90s when we wrote the whistleblower laws and continued to write them to ensure the security of our intelligence and the safety of our whistleblowers," Pelosi said.
"I know what their purpose was. And we proceeded with balance and caution as we wrote the laws.
"I can say with authority, the Trump administration's actions undermine both -- our national security and our intelligence -- and our protections of the whistleblowers, more than both."
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Pressure escalated Monday for US Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, who faces accusations that he sought to extort Ukraine into revealing dirt on his political rival Joe Biden.
A defiant Trump said he is taking the impeachment threat "not at all seriously" and sought to make the controversy about Biden, accusing the former vice president, without evidence, of engaging in corruption in Ukraine.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of "a grave new chapter of lawlessness" as Democrats ramped up demands that the administration release a secret whistleblower complaint that sparked the latest crisis.
The complaint reportedly centers on Trump's July phone call with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, and a possible attempt to coerce Zelensky into digging up damning information about Biden's son's business dealings in Ukraine.
Trump himself acknowledged Sunday that the conversation addressed alleged corruption involving Biden and son Hunter.
"The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption... and largely the fact that we don't want our people, like vice president Biden and his son, creating... the corruption already in the Ukraine," Trump said.
On Monday, he followed up with a bald attack on the Democratic frontrunner in the 2020 race for the White House.
"What Biden did is a disgrace. What his son did is a disgrace. The son took money from Ukraine and from China," Trump said, without providing details.
To date there has been no evidence that implicates the Bidens in illegal conduct in Ukraine.
'Impeachable offense'
Several Democrats now argue that Trump's call for Ukraine to investigate Biden -- and what they suspect was a threat to condition $250 million in aid to Ukraine on an investigation of Biden -- is impeachable conduct. That view may be pushing House leaders towards a tipping point for launching removal proceedings.
"I mean, extorting a foreign leader for the purposes of getting that leader to do your political work to try to find dirt on your opponent is extortion," House Democrat Jim Himes told CNN Monday.
"Of course it's an impeachable offense," he added.
"I can't tell you that the House will move into impeachment mode right away, but this really ups the ante."
With pressure building, a handful of Republicans in the US Senate -- which would hold a trial of Trump should the House impeach him -- have signalled they want the president to be more transparent about the call and the whistleblower's complaint.
"I would just urge the president -- you know, he's talking openly about the conversation -- to release as much as possible," Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, told the Hugh Hewitt radio show.
On Sunday, Senator Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 and no fan of Trump, sounded a severe warning that evidence of Trump asking Ukraine's president to investigate Biden "would be troubling in the extreme."
But most congressional Republicans have either defended the president or remained silent.
All eyes will be on Washington Thursday, when the administration official who blocked release to Congress of the whistleblower document, acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, is scheduled to testify publicly on the issue before a House panel.
Launching impeachment proceedings could be a politically risky move ahead of a presidential election, especially given the high hurdle of convicting the president in the Republican-led Senate.
Of the 235 House Democrats, 137 of them, plus Republican-turned-independent Justin Amash, support launching an impeachment inquiry, according to a CNN count.
Democrat leaders have hesitated to pull the impeachment trigger. But Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said his own reservations about impeachment were fading over Trump's Ukraine call.
"I have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment (but) the president is pushing us down this road," he said Sunday.
"This seems different in kind, and we may very well have crossed the Rubicon here."
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WASHINGTON - Former special counsel Robert Mueller's reticent testimony to Congress likely confirmed what many Democrats had feared: if they want to end Donald Trump's presidency, their best bet is through next year's election, not impeachment.
Mueller's highly anticipated appearance Wednesday at back-to-back House hearings delivered neither the viral moments nor the bombshell soundbites that the anti-Trump crowd hoped would persuade skeptics or overwhelmingly reshape public opinion.
The contents of Mueller's remarks were damning, several Democrats said, noting the former FBI director's statements that the 2-year investigation of Russian election interference was "not a witch hunt," and indeed found substantial evidence of obstruction of justice.
But after Mueller's flat one-word answers, seeming confusion about questions and refusal to produce new information, hopes that the performance would launch lawmakers on a path to impeachment had dimmed.
The 2020 election "is unquestionably the only way he gets removed from office, so we can never lose sight of that," House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who presided over one of Mueller's hearings, said Thursday.
Even Democrat Al Green, who forced an unsuccessful House vote on articles of impeachment last week following Trump's racially charged attacks on four liberal congresswomen, acknowledged Mueller's appearance fell short of expectations.
"There was no 'aha' moment because we've had the report and watched or discussed the President's impeachable actions ad nauseum," Green said on Twitter.
Ninety-five of the House's 235 Democrats voted for Green's measure. While pro-impeachment legislators were hoping dozens would shift to their position, just two more lawmakers publicly announced they now backed impeachment proceedings.
House Democrat Lisa Blunt Rochester said she supports impeachment after listening to Mueller declare that Trump stonewalled his investigation, failed to tell the truth in written answers to questions, and likely could have been charged with a crime without the Justice Department's policy against indicting a sitting president.
"Director Mueller has done his job. Now it's time for Congress to do ours," she said.
House Democrat Karen Bass, an impeachment skeptic, said the hearing "didn't change me," and that she wanted to proceed with ongoing House investigations.
"I also think that all of our leaders need to be on the same page," she said.
AGAINST IMPEACHMENT
They aren't. According to Politico, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, rebuffed an impeachment push by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, telling a closed-door meeting after Mueller's testimony that it was premature.
For months, Pelosi has tamped down impeachment calls, aware of how dangerous such a vote would be for centrist Democrats in Republican-leaning districts.
She has argued that the case should be ironclad before lawmakers launch such a divisive process, especially given the likelihood it would die in the Republican-led Senate.
Several 2020 presidential hopefuls support impeachment, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand.
But Pelosi has highlighted the need for the White House candidates to focus on the economy and health care -- kitchen table issues that propelled Democrats to their House majority last year -- in order to help win back working-class voters who tilted for Trump in 2016.
She is also concerned about public opinion polling showing that most Americans are against impeachment, and has said unsuccessful proceedings would allow Trump to claim exoneration, boosting his re-election bid.
But she made clear that she was not shutting the door, saying, "If we have a case for impeachment, that's the place we will have to go."
ELECTION SECURITY
Meanwhile, Pelosi is backing House investigations of Trump and his administration, and is monitoring several court cases which could provide potentially damning new evidence and testimony from the White House.
While Mueller failed to provide Democrats with their closing argument for impeachment, he did issue a clarion call for election security, warning that Russia was preparing more interference for 2020.
Even with current administration officials like FBI director Christopher Wray recently warning lawmakers of active threats, Republicans have blocked Democratic proposals to safeguard US elections.
The Democratic-led House passed legislation requiring voting systems to use paper ballots and improve technical protections, but it has stalled in the Senate.
Senate Democrats introduced an initiative requiring political campaigns to report to federal authorities any election interference attempts by foreign entities.
But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the measure Thursday, calling it "a highly partisan bill" from lawmakers "hyping up a conspiracy theory about President Trump and Russia."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON -- Nancy Pelosi is the most powerful woman in American politics, and President Donald Trump's most potent Democratic nemesis. The pair have sparred repeatedly, but the gloves really came off Wednesday.
Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, started the day with an emergency meeting of House Democrats, as the possibility of impeaching Trump swirled over Capitol Hill.
After the meeting, she said the Republican leader was "engaged in a cover-up" -- a likely reference to his alleged obstruction of justice with respect to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
Even though Mueller said he could not conclude that Trump actively attempted to thwart the probe, or conceal evidence of possible cooperation with Russia during his campaign, Democrats are unconvinced and are leading multiple investigations into his conduct.
Trump first hit back on Twitter, decrying a "Witch Hunt" against him and his administration, but his anger apparently got the better of him.
Then, he apparently shut down planned talks with Pelosi and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer on an infrastructure initiative.
'I DON'T DO COVER-UPS'
And all of a sudden, journalists were hastily assembled in the White House Rose Garden for an unscheduled appearance by the 72-year-old president.
Trump did not hold back.
"Instead of walking in happily to a meeting, I walk in to look at people that just said that I was doing a cover-up. I don't do cover-ups," Trump boomed.
"Here is the bottom line -- There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. (...) This whole thing was a takedown attempt at the president of the United States," he said.
Trump then said he told Pelosi and Schumer: "So get these phony investigations over with."
'I PRAY FOR THE PRESIDENT'
Shortly thereafter, the Democratic leaders convened their own press conference.
Pelosi -- whose slow, exaggerated clap for Trump at his last State of the Union went viral -- said the president "took a pass" on collaborating with her party.
"And it just makes me wonder why he did that. In any event, I pray for the president of the United States and I pray for the United States of America," she said.
Schumer chimed in on Trump's appearance: "To watch what happened in the White House would make your jaw drop."
'SO SAD'
Trump, not exactly known for letting others have the last word, clapped back on Twitter.
"So sad that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will never be able to see or understand the great promise of our Country," he wrote.
"They can continue the Witch Hunt which has already cost $40M and been a tremendous waste of time and energy for everyone in America, or get back to work," he added.
And with a final flourish, he addressed Pelosi: "Nancy, thank you so much for your prayers, I know you truly mean it!"
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump's spokeswoman Sarah Sanders defended the president Sunday against accusations that he was inciting violence toward a Muslim congresswoman after he tweeted a video of her spliced with footage of the 9/11 attacks.
The White House's decision to double down on Ilhan Omar came as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the country's most powerful Democrat, said she had spoken to authorities about her colleague's safety and urged Trump to delete the clip.
Omar has been at the center of an escalating row after a clip emerged of her characterizing the deadliest attack on US soil as "some people did something."
On Friday, Trump tweeted a video that juxtaposed the snippet, which Omar's fellow Democrats say was taken out of context, with images of the hijacked planes used in the attacks crashing into the Twin Towers that once dominated New York's skyline. Menacing music accompanies Omar's words.
The clip, which had been viewed more than 9.4 million times as of Sunday afternoon, ends with the words: "SEPTEMBER 11 2001 WE REMEMBER."
Prominent Democrats including Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris and Omar's fellow first-time Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were quick to rush to Omar's defense, accusing the president and other Republicans of deliberately de-contextualizing her remarks and endangering her life.
Sanders, however, defended Trump, telling ABC television's "This Week" that "the president is wishing no ill will and certainly not violence towards anyone."
But, she added: "It's absolutely abhorrent the comments she continues to make and has made and (Democrats) look the other way.
"I find her comments to be absolutely disgraceful and unbefitting of a member of Congress and I think that it's a good thing that the president is calling her out for those comments, and the big question is why aren't Democrats doing it as well."
Pelosi took time out from an official trip to issue a strong statement urging Trump to take the clip down.
"Following the president's tweet, I spoke with the sergeant-at-arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff," she said.
"The president's words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger. President Trump must take down his disrespectful and dangerous video."
OMAR HITS BACK
Omar has mounted her own trenchant fight back, tweeting Saturday: "No one person - no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious – can threaten my unwavering love for America.
"I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans," she said.
The controversy arose after Omar delivered a 20-minute address to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) shortly after the New Zealand mosque attacks in March.
"For far too long, we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen and, frankly, I'm tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it," she said.
"CAIR was founded after 9/11," she added, "because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties."
The civil rights group was in fact founded in 1994 but grew significantly after 2001.
The speech did not initially receive significant attention until the snippet in question was highlighted weeks later by controversial Australian personality Mohammad Tawhidi who refers to himself as the "Imam of Peace."
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source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Top congressional Democrats said Sunday it was "urgent" that the full report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election be publicly released, stressing it does not exonerate President Donald Trump.
"The fact that Special Counsel (Robert) Mueller's report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without any further delay," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.
They also said Attorney General Bill Barr, nominated just months ago by Trump, is "not a neutral observer" in the process and that his summary of the report, delivered to Congress earlier, is not an objective determination about Mueller's findings.
The two Democrats also said that Trump's declaration that the report is a complete exoneration of the president because it clears him of colluding with Russia "directly contradicts the words of Mr Mueller and is not to be taken with any degree of credibility."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, America's most powerful Democrat, said in remarks published Monday that she does not support impeaching Donald Trump, arguing the Republican president is "just not worth it."
"I'm not for impeachment," Pelosi told The Washington Post in a wide-ranging interview, the strongest signal yet that the Democratic leadership is deeply hesitant about taking such an explosive step to remove a sitting president.
"Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country," she said.
"And he's just not worth it."
Trump and his associates face multiple investigations, including one headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that is looking into Russian influence on the 2016 US election and potential collusion between Trump's team and Moscow.
And in explosive congressional testimony late last month, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen branded the president a conman and cheat and sought to implicate his ex-boss in multiple crimes.
Even as she waves off calls to impeach Trump, Pelosi -- who in January began her second stint as speaker after Democrats won back the House in midterm elections -- stressed that she does not believe he is fit to lead the nation.
"I don't think he is" fit to be president, she said in the interview. "I mean, ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit."
The investigations and related testimony like Cohen's may or may not produce evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors on the president's part.
Some rank-and-file House Democrats, like freshmen liberal Rashida Tlaib, are keen to being impeachment proceedings. Their ranks are sure to grow if more serious evidence of presidential wrongdoing emerges.
Others remain concerned that for now, an effort to oust Trump before the election might backfire, energizing an angry Republican base and antagonizing voters Democrats would need in the next election.
Some in the party would prefer a political battle against Trump at the ballot box, rather than an impeachment effort waged in Congress.
And with the Senate in Republican control, Trump's ouster would be far from assured.
Pelosi pointed to the excruciating process of president Bill Clinton's impeachment by the House in 1998, and his subsequent acquittal by the Senate.
"That was horrible for the country," she said.
Congressman Jerry Nadler, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said earlier this month that while it was "very clear" that Trump has obstructed justice, "impeachment is a long way down the road."
Nadler's committee launched a sprawling new investigation last week that is sure to take months, demanding documents from 81 persons or entities connected to Trump.
But he told ABC News that ahead of any impeachment proceedings, lawmakers would need to convince the American public that members were "not just trying to... reverse the results of the last election."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
President Donald Trump (center) is applauded by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (right) as he arrives to deliver the State of the Union address as Vice President Mike Pence looks on at the Capitol in Washington, DC on February 5, 2019.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Two competing measures to end the partial US government shutdown fell short in the Senate on Thursday, as lawmakers explored an option to end a month-long impasse with the White House and fund government operations for 3 weeks while talks continue.
A bill backed by Republican President Donald Trump to end the shutdown by funding the wall he wants to build on the US-Mexico border and a separate bill supported by Democrats to reopen shuttered agencies without such funding did not get the votes required to advance in the 100-member chamber.
Immediately following the failed effort, Democratic and Republican senators spoke on the Senate floor and urged quick passage of a 3-week, stopgap funding bill to end the partial government shutdown for now. Some Democrats pledged to support more border security funding than was included in the Democrats’ bill that was blocked in the Senate on Thursday.
But the White House issued a warning. A 3-week funding bill would "only work if there is a large down payment on the wall," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said a measure to temporarily reopen shuttered federal agencies would be unveiled later on Thursday to end the 34-day shutdown, which was triggered by Trump's demand for money to fund a wall.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he had spoken to Trump about a three-week funding bill.
"All of us believe if we have 3 weeks with the government open that we could find a way forward to produce a bill that he would sign, that would be good for everybody in the country," Graham said on the Senate floor. “To my Democratic friends, money for a barrier is required to get this deal done."
Trump has touted Republican unity during the longest shutdown in US history.
But in a sign of cracks in that resolve, or a desire for compromise, 6 Republican senators voted with Democrats on their measure to temporarily reopen government agencies without money for Trump’s wall. They included freshman Senator Mitt Romney, his party’s 2012 presidential nominee.
"Democrats have said they're not willing to negotiate unless the government's open. Well they tried their effort. I voted for it. It didn't happen. Now they've got to negotiate," Romney said.
'LET THEM EAT CAKE?'
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, told reporters earlier she was willing to meet with Trump to discuss the shutdown.
Her comments came a day after she essentially withdrew an invitation for Trump to give his State of the Union in the House chamber next Tuesday, saying that would not happen until the shutdown ended. Trump, who had planned to come despite the shutdown and considered giving the speech at another venue, conceded late on Wednesday and said he would deliver the speech in the House in the "near future."
Trump has said he wants $5.7 billion for a border barrier, opposed by Democrats, as part of any legislation to fund about a quarter of the federal government for the year. That demand, and Democrats' refusal to meet it, has sparked a shutdown of agencies that had not already received federal funding, leaving 800,000 federal workers, as well as private contractors, without pay and struggling to make ends meet, the effects on government services and the economy reverberating nationwide.
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday urged furloughed federal workers to seek loans to pay their bills while adding in a CNBC interview that he could not understand why they were having trouble getting by.
Pelosi denounced the comments.
"Is this the 'Let them eat cake' kind of attitude or 'Call your father for money?' or 'This is character building for you?'" Pelosi asked at a news conference.
She said she did not understand why Ross would make the comment "as hundreds of thousands of men and women are about to miss a second paycheck tomorrow."
Trump responded to Pelosi, without mentioning Ross.
"Nancy just said she 'just doesn’t understand why?' Very simply, without a Wall it all doesn’t work. Our Country has a chance to greatly reduce Crime, Human Trafficking, Gangs and Drugs. Should have been done for decades. We will not Cave!" he said in a tweet.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found more than half of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown even as he has sought to shift blame to Democrats after saying last month he would be "proud" to close the government for border security.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
