Impeachment hearings live updates: Trump calls Democrats ‘unpatriotic’ for pursuing case against him while he’s overseas – The Washington Post, The Washington Post

Trump leveled fresh attacks against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif. ) on Tuesday as he fielded questions from reporters during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the guidelines of the NATO gathering in London.

“I think Adam Schiff is a deranged human being, “Trump said. “I think he’s a very sick man.”

As he has before, Trump raised objections to Schiff’s opening statement during an Intelligence Committee hearing at which Schiff embellished the rough transcript of the July call in which Trump pressed Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.

At the time, Schiff said he was relaying the essence of what Trump had said. He later said it was meant as a parody and that that should have been evident to Trump.

“This guy is sick. He made up the conversation, ”Trump said Tuesday. “If he didn’t do that in the halls of Congress, he’d be thrown in a jail.”

In response to a question, Trump said he was helping senior administration officials from testifying during the House impeachment inquiry because he sees the process as unfair. He said he would like to see them testify in a Senate trial if he is impeached.

Trump claimed that Democrats are setting a dangerously low bar for impeaching a president and cautioned about what could happen in

“Somebody picked an orange out of a refrigerator, and you don’t like it, so let’s go and impeach him,” Trump said.

Trump also asserted that the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry has been good for Republican Party unity.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had the spirit right now that we have in the Republican Party, and the impeachment hoax is what’s done it, ”Trump said.

Trump said Republicans are sticking together“ like glue ”in part because they see the push for impeachment as an attack on the GOP.

“Beyond me, it’s a way of trying to hurt the Republican Party,” he said, adding that, in his view, “the Democrats have gone crazy. ”

Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Chairman Jerrold Nadler (DN.Y.) a day before the panel’s first impeachment hearing, reiterating their party’s widespread accusation that the investigation into Trump is a distraction from their

The Republican lawmakers list areas such as immigration, gun violence, domestic terrorism, opioid addiction and election security as issues Democrats have ignored. Democrats have actually passed bills, including ones on voting rights, gun safety and immigrant protections – but along strictly partisan lines.

The GOP members wrote that Democrats “have utterly failed in their duty to the American people. ”

“ This has happened because Democrats, beholden to a radical base, are determined to impeach the president, no matter the cost and by any means necessary. This irresponsible, reckless behavior threatens to undermine the very credibility of this House, ”they wrote.

The White House and the Republican Senate have lobbed similar criticisms of House Democrats’ priorities, though there was little evidence before the impeachment inquiry that there was an appetite on either side to work together on the big issues cited by the Republicans.

David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs, contradicted two common Trump talking points, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was not a “hoax,” and that he has seen no evidence to suggest that Ukraine was guilty of interference in that election.

Sen. Robert Menendez (NJ), the top Democrat on the panel, asked Hale whether he had any reason to disagree with testimony former White House national security expert Fiona Hill gave the House that the conspiracy theory about Ukraine’s interference “is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian Security Services themselves. ”

Hale, the third-ranking State Department official, said he did not.

Menendez went on to point out that Trump has continued to press the Ukraine story line even though it was disputed by career diplomats and intelligence officials.

“Is our national security made stronger or weaker when members of the administration or members of Congress insist on repeating debunked Russian lies? ”Menendez asked.

“ That does not serve our interest, ”Hale said.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a staunch Trump ally, chided Democrats for planning to hold a Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday with four law professors testifying about the framework for impeachment.

“That seems a little backward to me, ”said Jordan, who asserted that Democrats were already about” 90 percent ”of the way toward impeaching Trump.

Three of the professors scheduled to testify were invited by Democrats , while one was invited by a Republican.

During an appearance on Fox News, Jordan also said he guesses that the law professors being called by Democrats already favored impeachment before the July phone call with Zelensky that sparked the inquiry.

White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone is expected to attend a lunch with a group of Republican senators on Wednesday to offer updates on impeachment strategy.

Cipollone has been meeting with a handful of GOP senators in recent weeks to start mapping out what a Senate trial would entail if Trump is impeached by the House.

“As part of an ongoing effort to keep Senate Republicans informed about White House thinking, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone will attend this Wednesday’s steering lunch, ”said Conn Carroll, communications director to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who runs the Wednesday lunches, which are attended mostly by conservative members.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY), chairman of the House Democratic caucus and an ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Offered a pointed retort Tuesday to Trump’s claim that Democrats are being “unpatriotic” by pursuing his impeachment while overseas.

“Unpatriotic?” Jeffries said in atweet. “You are not a King. You are not the Chosen One. You are not the Supreme Leader. You are an EXISTENTIAL THREAT to our democracy who will be held accountable for your brazen #AbuseOfPower. Count. On. It. ”

Republicans renewed attacks Tuesday on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D -Calif.) For not taking up trade legislation sought by Trump, arguing that Democrats are too focused on impeachment to pass a measure that would boost the US economy.

The legislation overhauling the U.S. trade relationship with Canada and Mexico is “sitting on Nancy Pelosi’s desk collecting dust,” said Pam Bondi, the former Florida state attorney general who was hired to work on impeachment-related messaging and other issues for Trump.

“They won’t do anything positive because they are dead set on taking out our great president, and we’re not going to let it happen,” Bondi said during an appearance on Fox News. “And yes, we are more unified than ever, our party.”

Pelosi said last week that she was awaiting final decisions from Trump’s U.S. trade representative after months of negotiations.

“We are within range of a substantially improved agreement for America’s workers,” Pelosi said. “Now, we need to see our progress in writing from the trade representative for final review.”

As 2018 came to a close, the special counsel investigation was bearing down on Trump.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III had secured the cooperation of Trump’s one-time fixer, Michael Cohen, and appeared to be preparing to indict a longtime adviser, Roger Stone. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was in jail after pleading guilty to multiple felonies, and Mueller’s prosecutors were pressing him to explain why he had given 2016 polling data to an associate with alleged ties to Russian intelligence.

It was in this uncertain moment that Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani said he had the idea to focus on Ukraine. That November, he received a tip from a former colleague that it was the Ukrainians who had conspired to help Democrats in 2016, Giuliani said in recent interviews.

Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the special counsel probe eventually snowballed into the current impeachment crisis gripping the capital – highlighting how the pressure Trump and his allies put on Ukraine originated as an effort to sow doubts about the Russia investigation.

The House Intelligence Committee is poised to vote Tuesday night on its report on Trump’s conduct regarding Ukraine, clearing the way for the Judiciary Committee to work on articles of impeachment based on the document.

The Intelligence Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 pm Members started reviewing the report on Monday night, opening a 24 – hour window before the expected vote along party lines to approve the document. The report will be made public later Tuesday.

The Judiciary Committee has scheduled its first hearing in the impeachment inquiry on Wednesday morning. Four law professors – three chosen by Democrats and one by Republicans – are slated to testify on the “constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.”

The three chosen by Democrats: Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman , Stanford University professor Pamela S. Karlan and University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt. The one invited by Republicans: George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley.

During a television interview Monday night, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) Said his panel will continue to **** Trump after transmitting its report to Judiciary.

“That’s not the end of our investigation,” Schiff said on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” “So even while Judiciary does its work , we will continue investigating. We’re continuing to issue subpoenas. We’re continuing to learn new information. That work goes on, but we also feel a sense of urgency. ”

LONDON – Trump on Tuesday called Democrats “very unpatriotic” for pursuing his impeachment while he is overseas meeting with other NATO leaders and dismissed the possibility of a congressional censure as an alternative to removal from office.

His latest comments on the impeachment inquiry came during a one-on-one meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, when Trump fielded questions from reporters for nearly an ****

Asked if impeachment proceedings cast a cloud over his negotiations at the NATO summit, Trump lashed out at Democrats.

“I think it’s very unpatriotic for the Democrats to put on a performance where they do that,” he said. “I do. I think it’s a bad thing for our country. Impeachment wasn’t supposed to be used that way. … Does it cast a cloud? Well, if it does, then the Democrats have done a very great disservice to the country, which they have. They’ve wasted a lot of time. ”

Trump also dismissed an idea that has been floated in Congress of censuring him for his conduct toward Ukraine rather than impeaching him. )

“I heard about it,” Trump said. “Now they want to go to censure because they have no case for impeachment. So they want to go to censure. I don’t want them to go to censure. … I don’t mind being censured if you do something wrong. I did nothing wrong. ”

He continued to insist that his July conversation with Zelensky, in which he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens, was“ a great conversation. ”

“It was flawless,” Trump said.

Trump claimed, without citing evidence, that many Democratic lawmakers have become “very upset” about the politics of impeachment perhaps

He also predicted that a hotly anticipated Justice Department inspector general’s report about the investigation into Russian election interference would be “devastating.”

) The report by inspector general Michael Horowitz, due to be released next week, has become a subject of discord inside the Justice Department, with Barr telling associates he disagrees with its finding that the FBI had sufficient basis in July 2016 to open its investigation into members of the Trump campaign .

Asked whether he agrees with Barr , Trump told reporters here Tuesday morning, “I just don’t know. I haven’t seen. I have purposefully stayed out of it. ”

But Trump showered praise on Barr and his integrity. The president added that he has heard from “outside” sources that the report is “very powerful” and contains “a lot of devastating things.”