Donald Trump spent the morning frantically tweeting as the House Judiciary Committee moved forward on articles of impeachment, with more than 100 tweets and retweets during the proceedings.
It was a busy morning for his account, and the president’s Twitter activity ran the gamut: He tweeted early to express his displeasure with climate activist Greta Thunberg being named TIME’s person of the year. Then, as midday approached, he expressed high hopes for a trade deal with China.
And, of course, he complained about Democrats who criticise him for attempting to coerce Ukraine to announce an investigation into his personal political rival.
“Dems Veronica Escobar and Jackson Lee purposely misquoted my call. I said I want you to do us (our Country!) a favor, not me a favor,” Mr Trump wrote, referencing a relatively new defence he has for his comments during a 25 July phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine.
During that call, Mr Trump asked Mr Zelensky to do him a favour by launching an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The president and his allies have claimed previously that he was primarily interested in curtailing corruption in the former Soviet country. But, public testimony from US government officials indicates Mr Trump was solely interested in using US military aid and a White House meeting to compel Mr Zelensky to announce an investigation that would benefit the American leader personally.
“They know that but decided to LIE in order to make a fraudulent point! Very sad,” Mr Trump wrote, finishing the tweet.
Mostly, though, Mr Trump retweeted the accounts of his favourite defenders in Congress. Representatives Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, John Ratcliffe, and Andy Biggs all received that attention, for instance, with the president of the United States retweeting videos of them as they pushed back as the House committee considered the two articles of impeachment Democrats have introduced.
The measures are nearly certain to be approved once they pass through the committee, and are heard by the full House, which Democrats control by healthy margins.
Once impeached, the Republican controlled Senate will consider whether the president is guilty of the charges, and if he should be the first president in US history to be removed from his office.
Some 20 Republicans would need to jump ship and join Democrats for that to become reality, a very unlikely set of events.
