The next phase of impeachment begins Wednesday in the US Congress as lawmakers weigh charges against Donald Trump, after the high-stakes inquiry into the president detailed “overwhelming” evidence of abuse of power and obstruction.

Four constitutional scholars will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in the first of a series of hearings to establish the gravity of Trump’s alleged crimes.

On Tuesday, congressional Democrats made a forceful case that Trump should be removed from office for abusing his powers by pressuring Ukraine for dirt on a Democratic election rival.

“The president placed his personal political interests above the national interests of the United States, sought to undermine the integrity of the US presidential election process and endangered US national security,” said the final report on the House Intelligence Committee’s probe, led by lawmaker Adam Schiff.

“President Trump and his senior officials may see nothing wrong with using the power of the office of the president to pressure a foreign country to help the president’s reelection campaign,” it said.

“However, the Founding Fathers prescribed a remedy for a chief executive who places his personal interests above those of the country: impeachment.”

– Articles of impeachment –

The report is expected to form the basis for the Judiciary Committee to draw up formal charges — articles of impeachment — that could include bribery, abuse of power, obstruction and contempt of Congress.

Democrats reportedly aim to have the articles presented for a vote to the entire House of Representatives before Christmas on December 25.

If they pass as expected, Trump would then stand trial for removal in the Republican-controlled Senate, where he is expected to be exonerated.

On Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham dismissed both the report and the impeachment process.

“At the end of a one-sided sham process, Chairman Schiff and the Democrats utterly failed to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump,” she said in a statement.

The report mapped out a months-long scheme by Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and senior diplomats and White House staffers to pressure Ukraine’s president into investigating Joe Biden, the current favorite to win the Democratic White House nomination in 2020.

Trump also pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a “conspiracy theory” that it was Ukraine — not Russia — that interfered in the 2016 US election, to benefit the Democrats.

In both cases, the report said, Trump conditioned nearly $400 million in US military aid and a high-profile summit with Zelensky on Kiev opening the investigations, which Democrats have said amounts to bribery.

The report also makes a strong case for charges of obstruction against Trump, for refusing to provide documents to investigators, preventing witnesses from appearing and threatening some of those who did appear.

– Legal scholars to testify –

To counter Republican attacks on the impeachment process, Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler has invited a mix of liberal and conservative constitutional scholars to testify Wednesday.

They include Noah Feldman of Harvard Law School, Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School, Jonathan Turley of The George Washington University Law School and Michael Gerhardt from The University of North Carolina School of Law.

Turley, a conservative, has called Trump’s behavior inappropriate but said Democrats need much more evidence to prove their case.

“Abuse of power is impeachable, but it is the most difficult of potential impeachment claims,” he wrote on his website.

“If Democrats continue with their plan to impeach Trump by the end of December, they would be presenting the thinnest record and fastest impeachment investigation in history.”

Gerhardt told Slate that the allegations against the president appear impeachable.

However, he said, whatever the Constitution says, politics and public opinion are involved, especially with an election coming up next year.

The authors of the Constitution “thought that the American people would care about facts, the American people would largely become educated, and they would care about the Constitution,” he said.

“And it’s not entirely clear that they do.”

Source: AFP

NATO leaders will tell U.S President Donald Trump on Wednesday they are spending billions more dollars on their militaries in the hope that he pares back his attacks on the Western alliance.

In formal talks following a Buckingham Palace reception on Tuesday to celebrate 70 years of NATO, European leaders led by Germany and France aim to tell Trump they will not be treated as junior partners as they confront global conflicts.

Despite Trump’s accusations on Tuesday that allies were “delinquent” in their failure to spend as much as the United States on their armed forces, Europe, Turkey and Canada will use the gathering at a luxury golf club north of London to argue they will spend $400 billion collectively on defence by 2024.

“If we invest money and risk our soldiers’ lives… we should be clear on NATO’s fundamentals,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter, adding that on Wednesday he would “defend the interests of France and Europe.”

That is likely to include a push to broaden NATO politically to consider a bigger role for the alliance in the Middle East and possibly Africa, although Berlin and Paris must first seek NATO support for a “wise persons” group to draw up reform plans.

In a final communique, NATO allies will recommit to their pledge to defend each other, while Britain is also expected to put six warships, two fighter squadrons and thousands of troops at NATO’s disposal to meet a U.S. demand for European armies to be more combat-ready.

NATO will also warn China for the first time that it is monitoring Beijing’s growing military might, agreeing to gradually prepare the alliance to defend against any possible future hostilities, in arenas ranging from the Arctic to computer networks.

But the debate is unlikely to be easy.

Tuesday’s gathering in London was marked by testy exchanges between Trump and Macron over the future of transatlantic ties, while the U.S. leader reiterated his criticism of Germany for not spending enough on defence, seemingly unaware of Berlin’s new defence plans to reach a NATO spending target by 2031.

“I’m a politician, and I’m used to being criticised for good rhetoric but bad substance. In the case of NATO it is the opposite. We have had bad rhetoric but extremely good substance,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told diplomats and experts at an event in London on Tuesday.

Macron also accused Turkey of working with Islamic State proxies in Syria, although Canada’s leader played down tensions.

“NATO has survived because we’ve always had frank conversations,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.

(REUTERS)

US Democratic lawmakers at the House Intelligence Committee have accused President Donald Trump of abusing his power in office in his conduct toward Ukraine.

In a much-awaited report released on Tuesday, Democrats said Trump solicited foreign interference to boost his re-election chances, undermined national security and ordered an “unprecedented” campaign to obstruct Congress.

Trump “placed his own personal and political interests above the national interests” of the US and not only “sought to undermine the integrity” presidential election process, but also endangered US national security.

In the 300-page report, the House Democrats also leveled allegations of sweeping abuse of power by Trump and said he used US military aid and the prospect of a White House visit to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to launch investigations into one of his political rivals in the 2020 election.

“The evidence is clear that President Trump used the power of his office to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, and a debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 election,” the House Democrats said. “These investigations were designed to benefit his 2020 presidential reelection campaign.”

The lawmakers argued that “damage … will be long-lasting and potentially irrevocable if the President’s ability to stonewall Congress goes unchecked.”

The US House Judiciary Committee has called Trump’s refusal to participate in an impeachment hearing “unfortunate” and said that it is a sign that Trump has something to hide.

US Congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee leading an impeachment inquiry into Trump, said in a news conference after the release of the report that evidence for impeaching Trump was overwhelming.

Schiff declined to say whether he believes Trump should be removed from office, but he issued a stark warning about the danger of keeping a president with no boundaries in office.

“This is the result of a president who believes he is beyond indictment, beyond impeachment, beyond any form of accountability and indeed above the law. And that is a very dangerous thing for this country to have a president who believes they are above the law,” Schiff said during the press conference.

The report serves as the backbone of the Democrats’ impeachment proceedings against Trump, who is accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine, to force Kiev to open a probe into his Democratic political rival Joe Biden. Trump has denied the allegation and rejected the impeachment as a witch-hunt.

Trump slams report as ‘sham’

The White House responded to the published report on Tuesday afternoon and denounced it as a “one-sided sham process” that found “evidence of nothing.”

“This report reflects nothing more than their frustrations. Chairman [Adam] Schiff’s report reads like the ramblings of a basement blogger straining to prove something when there is evidence of nothing,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said.

Behind closed doors late Tuesday, the Democratic-led panel voted 13 to 9 to officially adopt and issue the report to the House Judiciary Committee, which is tasked with drafting articles of impeachment against the president.

The report is expected to form the basis for the Judiciary Committee to draw up formal charges or articles of impeachment in the coming weeks.

Opinion polls show Americans are bitterly divided over the impeachment.

Source: Presstv

NATO leaders are gathering in the British capital, London, for the military alliance’s 70th anniversary amid tensions on multiple fronts.

Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is expected to call for “unity” at the meeting later today.

But Johnson’s call for solidarity will do little to conceal the deep tensions in the military alliance.

US President, Donald Trump, who arrived in London earlier, has heightened tensions ahead of the meeting by verbally attacking French President, Emmanuel Macron.

In early November, Macron described NATO as “brain dead” in an interview with the British magazine, The Economist.

Hitting back, Trump said: “You look at what happened with the Yellow Vests, they’ve had a rough year, you can’t go around making statements like that about NATO. It’s very disrespectful”.

Beyond the US-France spat, there are broader tensions within NATO, notably over Turkey’s drift towards Russia.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wants the Western military alliance to recognize the Kurdish-led groups Turkey is fighting in Syria as “terrorists” but NATO disagrees.

Erdogan said yesterday that Turkey will oppose a NATO defence plan for the Baltic states unless the military alliance recognises Turkey’s foes in Syria as “terrorists”.

There are also broader Turkey-NATO tensions, as demonstrated by Turkey’s row with Greece and Cyprus over offshore natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.  

The combination of these tensions and internal rows have led some experts, notably Douglas Lute and Nicholas Burns (both former US permanent representatives to NATO) to argue that the military alliance is in “crisis”.

Source: Presstv

The US House Judiciary Committee has called President Donald Trump’s refusal to participate in an impeachment hearing “unfortunate” and said that it is a sign that Trump has something to hide.

Chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler’s response came after the White House sent a letter to him informing that the Trump administration would not participate in the hearing in the Wednesday impeachment hearing.

 “Late last night, the President and his counsel turned down our invitation to participate in Wednesday’s hearing,” read Nadler’s letter.

“His response is unfortunate because allowing the President to participate has been a priority for the House from the outset. That is why the House included the opportunity to participate in H. Res 660,” Nadler said.

“The American people deserve transparency. If the President thinks the call was ‘perfect’ and there is nothing to hide then he would turn over the thousands of pages of documents requested by Congress, allow witnesses to testify instead of blocking testimony with baseless privilege claims, and provide any exculpatory information that refutes the overwhelming evidence of his abuse of power,” he noted.

Nadler also urged Trump not to block witnesses from testifying.

Nadler’s response came a day after White House counsel Pat Cipollone issued a five-page letter to the chairman, saying that Trump and his lawyers will not participate in the impeachment hearing this week due to a lack of “fundamental fairness.”

The judiciary committee is set to hold an impeachment hearing on Wednesday following weeks of hearings by the House Intelligence Committee that saw testimonies from 12 current and former administration officials.

The US president is accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine to force Kiev to investigate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.

House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September after a whistleblower alleged the Republican president pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

The impeachment probe shifted to a public phase on November 13 after weeks of closed-door interviews in the House.

An overwhelming 70 percent of US adults think Trump’s action towards Ukraine was wrong, and a slim majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe Trump’s actions were both wrong and he should be removed from office, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll released on November 19.

Three investigating panels, led by the House Intelligence Committee, are due to release a formal report this week when lawmakers return on Tuesday from a Thanksgiving recess. The report will outline evidence gathered by the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees.

Members of the intelligence panel will review the report in a classified setting on Monday evening, and the full committee will consider and vote on it on Tuesday before forwarding it to the Judiciary Committee, according to an Intelligence Committee official and a person familiar with the matter.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, calling the impeachment inquiry a “witch hunt.”

Source: Presstv

A senior Iranian official has suggested in an interview with AFP that authorities may be more open than in the past in approving candidates for a looming parliamentary election.

“We don’t consider ourselves immune from criticism. We may also accept that mistakes have been made in the past,” said Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaee.

“But for the next legislative elections we are trying to reduce our mistakes and respect the rights of candidates.”

Kadkhodaee was speaking to AFP on the eve of the opening on Sunday of the registration of candidates for the parliamentary election to be held on February 21.

The Guardian Council, which is under the control of ultra-conservatives, is responsible for organising and monitoring elections in Iran, including vetting candidates.

“If we insist on enforcing the law, we’ll be able to satisfy as many candidates as possible,” said Kadkhodaee.

In the past, the council has faced accusations in Iran, particularly by reformists, of barring candidates more on political than constitutional grounds.

In November, President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate conservative, called on the council to stick to the letter of the law in view of the forthcoming election.

At Iran’s last parliamentary election in February 2016, the Council authorised 6,229 candidates for the 290 seats at stake — just over 51 percent of those who sought to stand.

In the interview, Kadkhodaee said a higher number of successful candidates should also lead to a “higher participation rate”.

Source: AFP

Thousands of Israeli protesters have held demonstrations in Tel Aviv to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation over his corruption charges.

At least 6,000 people were at the gathering in the Habima Square of Tel Aviv, Israel’s Channel 12 estimated.

Netanyahu is “the most cowardly prime minister we’ve ever had,” a demonstrator told Yedioth Ahronoth (Ynet), adding that the premier “needs to resign and go plead his case in court.”

Israel is “sick of the corruption”, another protester said. “We need to send Bibi home,” she said.

A same rally had been held last Saturday in Tel Aviv, where hundreds of demonstrators urged Netanyahu to leave office.

Protesters chanted “Bibi go home,” and waved signs reading: “Netanyahu, let go already,” “Netanyahu, you should quit,” and “The corrupt should go home.” 

“What you see here is absurd. We have a man who is charged with three major crimes. And he still believes he wants to be [a] prime minister. I mean this is crazy,” a protester said.

Netanyahu’s political opponents and demonstrators have moved to capitalize on the indictment on charges relating to corruption, bribery and breach of trust against him, hoping to strip the weakened 70-year-old leader of power.

Netanyahu has vowed to stay in office while he fights the criminal charges, which include bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in one case, and additional fraud and breach of trust charges in another two cases.

Last Saturday, Benny Gantz, the leader of center-left Blue and White political alliance and Netanyahu’s main challenger in the two elections this year, called on the Israeli premier to step down, but still offered to form a coalition administration with his Likud political party if there are any chances.

“In light of the circumstances, I call to form a unity administration that is as broad as possible under my leadership,” Gantz said at a press conference in Tel Aviv.

He added, “I will be prime minister for the first two years while Netanyahu can work on his legal issues. If he is acquitted, he can come back and be prime minister.”

An opinion poll recently revealed that more than half of people in the occupied territories believe that Netanyahu must quit after being indicted on a series of corruption charges.

According to the survey conducted by Channel 13 and published last Friday evening, 56% said the charges leveled against Netanyahu were too much for him to continue as the Israeli leader, while 35% said he needed not step down and the remaining 9% of the respondents said they didn’t know.

Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are suspected of wrongfully accepting $264,000 worth of jewelry, cigars, champagne and other gifts from wealthy businessmen for political favors in one case.

The Israeli prime minister is also accused of interfering with regulatory bodies and lawmakers on behalf of the biggest selling newspaper in the occupied territories, Ynet, in exchange for positive news coverage and favorable stories about him.

Israeli lawmakers have less than a month to organize a coalition and select a lawmaker to lead a majority administration. There are strong indications that the legislators will not succeed.

Israel will have to hold elections for the third time this year in case Knesset members fail to garner 61 seats in the 120-seat legislature.

Source: Presstv

The impeachment inquiry by the US House of Representatives against President Donald Trump is tightening the noose around “Trump’s political neck,” according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst in Maryland.

The US House Judiciary Committee has invited Trump to its first impeachment hearing due next week. Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, wrote a letter to Trump on Tuesday and invited the Republican president and his counsel to participate at the hearing scheduled for December 4.

The hearing is the first in the third phase of the investigation into whether Trump abused his powers in pressing Ukrainian leaders to find dirt on his political opponents.

The US House Judiciary Committee has invited President Donald Trump to its first impeachment hearing due next week.

Hoenig, who ran for Congress in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, said, “President Trump has done and said some pretty dumb stuff, even for a president. Right now he’s in a position to counter Nadler in calling his bluff about him not being available to face his accusers. Question is whether Trump will testify or not, or allow his team to be part of the Judiciary’s role in his own prosecution. Whatever he does, it will work against him.”

“Everyone seems to compare the impeachment to a court case, but acknowledging that the rules of evidence are different and that it’s more of a political rather than a legal proceeding. What has happened already in the Intelligence Committee and now Judiciary is more akin to a Grand Jury, where defendants have no say in its process and the cards are always stacked against the defendant. It’s the actual trial, in this case the Senate, in which the defendant has a modicum of defense. When the state prosecutes nearly anyone, they have all the powers of the state and usually win. If the defendant is powerful and wealthy enough, the odds improve on their acquittal. Trump will have the powers of the presidency and some limited powers of the bully pulpit to make his case,” he said.

“If he allows his people to take part in overseeing the hearings in Judiciary, the committee is bound to have certain expectations that certain people must testify. Trump will lose if that happens. If Trump testifies himself, as a way of defending his actions, he’d be fully open to perjury charges, which is why his own lawyers never wanted him to testify in the Mueller investigation,” he stated. 

“If he refuses and continues to call it a witch hunt, or look the other way when his neo-nazi supporters and handlers call it a Jew coup, public opinion will see him in even a worse light,” he noted.

“The noose is tightening around Trump’s political neck. Although the needle of public opinion hasn’t moved much after weeks of riveting public hearings under Congressman Schiff, the tide can certainly change when the Trump team actually has an active role in its own demise,” the analyst concluded.

Source: Presstv

Former US President Barack Obama has reportedly said that he might speak up to prevent 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee.

The Tuesday report by Politico on was not confirmed by a close adviser to the Democratic president.

“He hasn’t said that directly to me,” the adviser was cited as saying. “The only reason I’m hesitating at all is because, yeah, if Bernie were running away with it, I think maybe we would all have to say something. But I don’t think that’s likely. It’s not happening.”

Obama said earlier this month that he would support whoever is nominated by the party, comments his spokesperson also referred to.

“Look, we have a field of very accomplished, very serious and passionate and smart people who have a history of public service, and whoever emerges from the primary process I will work my tail off to make sure that they are the next president,” said the former US leader.

A close adviser argued that Obama, who has remained silent amid the Democratic races so far, would not make any comments against a candidate.

“I can’t even imagine with this field how bad it would have to be for him to say something,” said the adviser.

The African American president appeared to criticize those too much on the left at a meeting of fundraisers earlier this month ahead of the 2020 election.

“Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision, we also have to be rooted in reality,” Obama said, according to the New York Times. “The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.”

Source: Presstv

The Main challenger of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of Blue & White party Benny Gantz has warned that the premier’s rejection to resign is threatening a civil war in Israel.

Gantz urged Likud party officials to step in to replace the indicted premier as soon as possible in order to resolve the political deadlock over the formation of a new cabinet.

Calls have been growing for a leadership vote in Israel’s ruling party since Thursday when Netanyahu was indicted on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a set of corruption cases.

Meanwhile, Likud Knesset member Nir Barkat has presented a plan to hold primaries for a new position of deputy head of the party who would replace Netanyahu if he is forced to take a leave of absence to deal with the indictment.

Also another lawmaker Gideon Sa’ar publicly challenged Netanyahu calling for him to open up the party to new leadership.

A watchdog group has asked Israel’s top court to order Netanyahu to step aside after his indictment, adding to pressure he is facing from within his ruling party.

Israelis will have to go the polls in the coming weeks for the third time in a year if no party can form a coalition cabinet. Netanyahu is under fire to resign following his indictment in a graft scandal.

In politics nothing remains the same, observers say Netanyahu’s legal charges have also boosted voices within his own Likud party calling to overthrow Netanyahu after over a decade at the party’s helm although most still side with the indicted leader.

Source: Presstv