Trump walks out on Democrats as impeachment talk heats up
WASHINGTON, United States — Donald Trump erupted in fury Wednesday at unrelenting probes into his links to Russia, as the top Democrat in Congress accused the president of a "cover-up" that could be an impeachable offense.
A livid Trump abruptly shut down a White House meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, announcing he could not deal with them on policy until "phony investigations" are brought to a close.
The clash marked a dramatic escalation in Trump's war of words with congressional opponents seeking to bring him to account for what they say is presidential wrongdoing.
Trump's ire was seemingly triggered by House Speaker Pelosi, his nemesis in Congress, who declared following an emergency meeting with lawmakers earlier Wednesday: "We believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up."
"I don't do cover-ups," Trump shot back at a hastily arranged Rose Garden press event moments after the aborted White House talks.
"So get these phony investigations over with," Trump said -- warning a failure to do so would spell gridlock on issues like fixing the country's infrastructure, on which the two sides had hoped for a breakthrough Wednesday.
"You can't investigate and legislate simultaneously," he added. "It just doesn't work that way."
A two-year investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russia's interference in the 2016 US election concluded there was no hard evidence Trump's campaign colluded with Moscow.
But the prosecutor said he could not rule clearly on whether Trump obstructed justice, leaving it to the Trump-appointed attorney general, Bill Barr, to declare there was no obstruction.
'Impeachable offense'
The Democrats' decision to pursue the grey areas of the investigation -- and their open discussion of whether to pursue the politically perilous process of impeachment -- has enraged Trump.
"PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!" he tweeted Wednesday, as he stepped up his attacks on the probes.
PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 22, 2019
Any pretense of cooperation on policy evaporated as Trump and Pelosi locked horns, with the impeachment issue inching toward center stage in Washington.
Trump was visibly angry when he arrived at the meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, according to people familiar with what transpired.
The president did not shake hands or sit down, and accused Pelosi of saying something "terrible."
But while it was Trump who threatened gridlock, Republican leaders sought to pin the blame on Democrats.
"Their obsession with impeaching this president is paralyzing any progress we could be making," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Twitter.
Speaking after she left the White House, Pelosi doubled down, charging that Trump could have committed an impeachable offense by publicly refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas connected to Mueller's probe.
She likened it to the "cover-up" that brought down former president Richard Nixon in the Watergate crisis.
"The fact is, in plain sight, in the public domain, this president is obstructing justice and he's engaged in a cover-up," she told a Washington conference. "And that could be an impeachable offense."
Pelosi's series of remarks Wednesday appeared to reflect the growing anger by Democrats at White House stonewalling, even as she has worked hard to tamp down talk of impeachment.
A day earlier, Democrats were left seething when Trump's former lawyer Don McGahn, a key figure in the Mueller report, refused to testify about obstruction allegations against the president.
Goading Congress?
Democrats also argue that Barr is subverting congressional oversight powers in order to protect the president.
But on Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee's chairman said the Justice Department had agreed to begin honoring a subpoena for material related to Mueller's probe.
Despite her accusation of a cover-up, Pelosi has been mindful of the politically-charged nature of an impeachment move ahead of a 2020 presidential election, especially one that is likely to fail in the Republican-led Senate.
She has argued in favor of keeping the focus on educating the public through the court process and congressional probes, rather than leaping to impeachment.
The issue has divided Democrats for months. Even as some in Congress -- and several Democratic presidential contenders -- are eager to assert its historical oversight powers as a check against the executive, there are concerns the tactic could backfire, energizing Trump's base ahead of the election.
"He's really trying to goad Congress into impeaching him," congressman Peter Welch, a member of Democratic leadership, told CNN.
Pelosi and Schumer meanwhile offered their own scathing descriptions of Wednesday's heated scene.
Schumer called the meeting's dramatic cancellation "a pre-planned excuse" and said "what happened in the White House makes your jaw drop."
Likewise suggesting Trump manufactured the row to avoid committing to an enormously expensive infrastructure bill, Pelosi said: "I pray for the president of the United States."
The Justice Department says it has given House Republicans new classified information related to the Russia investigation after lawmakers had threatened to hold officials in contempt of Congress or even impeach them.
A spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan says Saturday that the department has partially complied with subpoenas from the House Intelligence and Judiciary committees after officials turned over more than a thousand new documents this week.
House Republicans had given the Justice Department and FBI a Friday deadline for all documents, most of which are related to the origins of the FBI's Russia investigation and the handling of its probe into Democrat Hillary Clinton's emails. — AP
Documents released by the US Department of Justice indicate that a top advisor to then-candidate Donald Trump said as early as the summer of 2016 that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind a hack of Democratic party emails.
Trump and his surrogates have suggested that Kiev hacked Democratic National Committee servers and planted evidence to frame Russia, as a way of undermining the legitimacy of the US leader's election.
Trump has pressured Ukraine's president to investigate that debunked conspiracy theory as well as his election rival Joe Biden -- a move at the crux of an impeachment investigation against him in the House of Representatives. — AFP
Democrats accuses President Donald Trump on Friday of using the US Justice Department as a political tool after it opened a criminal probe into its own handling of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
News of the inquiry, which implied wrongdoing by justice officials in the previous administration of Barack Obama, leaked late Thursday as the White House struggled to push back against a Democratic-led impeachment investigation targeting the Republican president.
The inquiry could further muddy the political waters in Washington, raising questions about the now-ended Russia investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that saw 34 individuals indicted and eight convictions, including top members of Trump's 2016 election team. — AFP
The Justice Department has opened a criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation that examined whether Donald Trump colluded with Moscow during the 2016 presidential election, US media report.
Justice Department officials have switched an administrative review of the investigation, overseen by Attorney General William Barr, to a criminal inquiry, The New York Times said, citing two sources close to the matter.
The move gives lead prosecutor John Durham, the US attorney for Connecticut, the power convene a grand jury, file criminal charges and issue subpoenas for witness testimony and documents. — AFP
Australia's prime minister plays down the significance of a call from Donald Trump as "brief and uneventful", despite mounting controversy over a politically fraught offer to help the US president.
Scott Morrison says Trump had simply asked him to establish "a point of contact" within Australia's government for an investigation that the US president hopes will discredit findings that Russia helped his 2016 election campaign.
Morrison says he was "happy" to fulfil Trump's request on the basis that the country's ambassador to the United States, Joe Hockey, had already offered Australia's assistance in the investigation back in May. — AFP
The Washington Post reports that US President Donald Trump told Russia's foreign minister and ambassador that he was unconcerned about their country's interference in the 2016 elections.
Trump made the previously unreported comments during the same May 2017 Oval Office meeting in which he famously revealed highly classified information on the Islamic State group.
During the conversation he reportedly told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he was not bothered by their country's meddling because the United States did the same in other countries, according to three former officials who requested anonymity. — AFP
- Latest
- Trending
