Democrat Biden calls for Trump's impeachment
WASHINGTON, United States — Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden called Wednesday for President Donald Trump's impeachment, saying he'd "betrayed" the United States, but Trump dug in, predicting that the Supreme Court would have to resolve the fight.
"To preserve our constitution, our democracy, our basic integrity,
"He's shooting holes in the constitution, and we cannot let him get away with it," added Biden.
Trump, however, showed no sign of buckling under pressure from the Democratic party probe into his alleged bid to damage Biden by strong-arming Ukraine to investigate the former vice president.
Having threatened a constitutional crisis by refusing to cooperate with the congressional investigation, Trump predicted that the row would end up "being a big Supreme Court case."
He told reporters in the White House that his Republican party was being "treated
Democrats accuse Trump of stonewalling and obstruction.
"No one is above the law, not even President Trump," the Democratic majority leader in the House, Steny Hoyer, said Wednesday.
Impeachment becomes campaign message
On Twitter, which Trump is using to bombard the public with conspiracy theories about a "deep state" aiming to eject him, the president argued that
"The Whistleblower's facts have been so incorrect about my 'no pressure' conversation with the Ukrainian President, and now the conflict of interest and involvement with a Democrat Candidate, that he or she should
In another tweet, Trump dismissed the impeachment process as a Democratic bid to influence the election, saying "their total focus is 2020, nothing more."
But Trump, who broke with precedent by campaigning for reelection almost from the moment he took office in 2017, is himself pouncing on the impeachment as the new cornerstone of his 2020 effort.
He and the Republican Party have pushed hard to raise funds off the back of their accusation of unfair treatment from the Democratic lower house in Congress.
And on Thursday and Friday, Trump will take that message to his core supporters when he holds campaign rallies in Minneapolis and in Louisiana.
Even if the House impeaches Trump, it remains unlikely that the Republican-led Senate would convict him in the subsequent trial.
However, Trump's already turbulent presidency would
Ukrainian phone call
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally launched the impeachment inquiry last month after revelations Trump pressured Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call.
In the call, Trump asked Zelensky to look into what the US leader said were corrupt business deals involving Biden.
Democrats say that Trump tried to coerce Zelensky by holding back US military aid to Ukraine. Trump says there was no quid pro quo and that his only desire is to combat corruption.
He subsequently said publicly he would also like China to investigate Biden, something critics say bolsters the allegation that Trump is seeking foreign help to discredit opponents.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration blocked a potentially major witness, ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, from testifying before Congress. Democrats then slapped Sondland with a subpoena to appear on October 16.
"
Later the same day, the White House announced in a lengthy legal statement that it rejected any cooperation with the Democrats at all.
Lawmakers want to hear on Friday from another key witness: former US ambassador to Kiev Marie Yovanovitch, who
US media has reported that Trump removed her from her post because she opposed his efforts to get Ukraine to investigate Biden.
Donald Trump, now former US president, has been impeached a second time.
Donald Trump's former chief of staff says he is no longer willing to cooperate with the probe into January's assault on the US Capitol, prompting investigators to threaten him with criminal prosecution.
Mark Meadows, who failed to appear before the congressional panel last month, is seen as a key witness to Trump's role in efforts to overturn the election by undemocratic means.
Having initially snubbed a subpoena to testify before the House of Representatives committee, Meadows later reached an agreement on sharing information with lawmakers — before reversing course again.
"Now actions by the select committee have made such an appearance untenable," Meadows' attorney, George Terwilliger, says in a new letter to the committee circulated among US media. — AFP
The US Senate is expected to deliver a verdict in Donald Trump's impeachment trial this weekend after his lawyers argued that the former president bears no responsibility for an attack by supporters on Congress after he failed to win reelection.
Defense lawyers wrapped up their presentation in just three hours, accusing Democrats of persecuting Trump.
This followed two days of evidence from Democratic impeachment managers, centered around harrowing video footage of the mob assault against the Capitol on January 6. — AFP
The US Senate votes to proceed with the impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump, rejecting defense arguments that it was unconstitutional.
Defense lawyers had argued that Trump should not face a trial in the Senate for inciting insurrection because he was no longer president.
But the Senate voted 56-44 to proceed with the trial, with six Republicans joining Democratic lawmakers. — AFP
The Senate impeachment trial of former US president Donald Trump will "tear this country apart," one of his defense lawyers says Tuesday.
"This trial will tear this country apart," David Schoen says on the opening day of Trump's trial for inciting the January 6 storming of the US Capitol by his supporters.
Schoen says the trial will leave the United States "far more divided and our standing around the world will be badly broken." — AFP
Former US president Donald Trump announced Sunday that he had hired two new lawyers to head his defense team for his historic second impeachment trial.
Trump's announcement came the day after US media reported that several of his impeachment lawyers had left his team, a little more than a week shy of his trial before the US Senate.
Trump said in a statement that "highly respected trial lawyers" David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor, Jr would lead his legal efforts.
Castor has focused on criminal law throughout his career, while Schoen specializes in "civil rights litigation in Alabama and federal criminal defense work, including white collar and other complex cases, in New York."
Trump, who left office January 20, faces trial on a charge that he incited the mob that stormed the US Capitol building in an effort to block his election loss to President Joe Biden. — AFP
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