After having the threat hanging over him for what has felt like almost the whole of his presidency, Donald Trump now finally faces a formal impeachment investigation.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, announced that she was beginning the inquiry in response to allegations that the president was trying to recruit a foreign head of state to fabricate dirt on Joe Biden, the frontrunner to face Mr Trump in next year’s election.
In a statement she said: “The actions of the Trump presidency have revealed the dishonourable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”
It was a dramatic change of tack by Ms Pelosi, who has opposed efforts by her party colleagues to impeach the president.
But the controversy over Mr Trump’s mysterious July phone call to Volodymyr Zelensky, the efforts to keep a whistleblower’s complaint from Congress, and the suspicion that the president was trying to subvert American democracy - perhaps for a second time - served to change her mind.
The president himself punched back in characteristic fashion, unleashing a broadside of tweets that were by turn angry, insulting and boastful.
He reverted to some of his favourite catchphrases - “witch hunt”, “presidential harassment”; implied that efforts to hold him to account were tantamount to an attack on America - “so bad for our country”; and tweeted a re-election campaign video that featured him claiming that impeachment would help his poll numbers.
The impeachment process itself is likely to pass the lower chamber of Congress, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, where it needs a simple majority. But the Republican-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required for a conviction, looks virtually unattainable.
The Democrats will therefore hope that their dramatic gamble, 14 months before the presidential elections, pays off.
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Although Donald Trump has repeatedly shrugged off talk of impeachment, there is a sense that this could be the week that Democrats finally turn towards backing an inquiry into the president.
Last night, NBC News reported that House speaker Nancy Pelosi is close to dropping her opposition to an impeachment inquiry, removing one of the major obstacles to an investigation.
The report came shortly after seven freshman Democrats with national security experience put their names to an op-ed in the Washington Post that said the Ukraine allegations against Mr Trump were “a threat to all we have sworn to protect”.
In other news, Mr Trump has been accused of mocking climate activist Greta Thunberg by describing her as a “very happy young girl” after she gave an emotional speech condemning world leaders’ failure to tackle climate change.
And an op-ed by the publisher of The New York Times yesterday claimed that the Trump administration failed to help one of their journalists when they faced arrest in Egypt two years ago.
And an op-ed by the publisher of The New York Times yesterday claimed that the Trump administration failed to help one of their journalists when they faced arrest in Egypt two years ago.
The alleged failure forced the newspaper to ask Ireland to help with rescuing the reporter.
As for his "electric chair" comment about Joe Biden, it came as the former vice president called on Mr Trump to release the transcript of his controversial conversation with Ukraine.
The controversy stems from his request to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Mr Biden and his son.
Mr Biden is currently the front-runner in the race to select the Democratic 2020 presidential candidate.
Another major Trump story today is his bizarre claim that he would get a Nobel prize for “a lot of things, if they gave it fairly”.
Mr Trump’s main issue appears to be with Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, which he received during his first term in 2009.
Mr Trump is not alone in mocking Greta Thunberg, as Fox News also got in trouble yesterday when a conservative pundit referred to her as a “mentally ill Swedish child” on one of its programmes.
Michael Knowles, who hosts a podcast for Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire website, dismissed the latest wave of climate activism as “hysteria”.
Greta, who is a 16-year-old, was diagnosed with Asperger’s – a form of autism – in 2015.
Our reporter Vincent Wood has more on that story below:
Regarding the allegations against Mr Trump and his conversation with Ukraine, this is what those seven Democratic members of Congress wrote in the Washington Post last night:
“The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use US taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it.
"He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain.
"These allegations are stunning, both in the national security threat they pose and the potential corruption they represent.”
The freshman representatives, who are notable due to their background in national security, concluded their article with the following statement:
“These new allegations are a threat to all we have sworn to protect.
“We must preserve the checks and balances envisioned by the Founders and restore the trust of the American people in our government. And that is what we intend to do."
Fox & Friends is up and running this morning and their top story is not the revelation that Mr Trump allegedly withheld military aid from Ukraine days before he called the country’s president.
Instead, they are downplaying the whisteblower’s complaints that Mr Trump behaved improperly.
As Fox & Friends is one of the president’s favourite programmes, it will be interesting to see if he comments on the show's account later today.
On the topic of impeachment, Al Weaver from The Hill has reported that one House Democrat told him you can “Take it to the bank” that Ms Pelosi will support a move against the president this week.
The unnamed Democrat added that a number of “frontline members” will be publicly supporting impeachment this afternoon.
In 2020 news, Bernie Sanders is apparently planning to unveil a wealth tax that is “even more aggressive” than Elizabeth Warren’s “ultra-millionaire tax”, according to Axios.
Ms Warren’s plan would tax the wealth of households with a net worth of $50m or more – roughly the wealthiest 75,000 households, according to her campaign website.
Those households would pay an annual 2 per cent tax on every dollar of net worth above $50m and 3 per cent on every dollar of net worth above $1bn.
The apparent move by Mr Sanders comes as the senator has fallen behind Ms Warren in the 2020 Democratic field.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he expects a “meaningful, substantive” meeting with Mr Trump this week and has reiterated his country’s need for US support, Reuters reports.
However, in comments released by his office today, Mr Zelenskiy did not refer to the allegations that Mr Trump pressured him to investigate Joe Biden in exchange for US military aid.
The Ukrainian president will be meeting with Mr Trump during a trip to the United States for the UN General Assembly this week.
Mr Trump is supposed to be meeting Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, in New York today but that might change as the UK Supreme Court has just dropped a damaging ruling for Mr Johnson's government.
The court ruled this morning that Mr Johnson’s suspension of parliament was unlawful, meaning MPs will be called back to work tomorrow.
It is currently unclear at this time if Mr Johnson’s schedule is expected to change.
You can read more about that story below:
On Mr Trump’s relationship with Ukraine, our reporter Chris Baynes has the full story on the allegations that the president withheld $400m in military aid days before his controversial call with the country's leader.
Another Democratic member of Congress has come forward to call for an impeachment inquiry.
Haley Stevens, a congresswoman for Michigan, has said Mr Trump’s alleged actions represent “an impeachable offence” if they are confirmed.
This is strange. Russia’s foreign ministry has said 10 members of its delegation to the UN General Assembly have been denied US visas, AP reports.
Maria Zakharova, a foreign ministry spokesperson, told Russian news agencies that Moscow is “outraged” that its members were denied visas ahead of the event in New York.
She said the visa applications were returned with an explanation that they had been submitted too early but were returned too late to be resubmitted.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, has accused the United States of breaking its international obligations by preventing the Russian officials from traveling to the event.
Here’s why Haley Stevens backing impeachment is an important development for Democrats.
As Politico’s Melanie Zanona has noted, Ms Stevens is a member of the “frontliner” group – a list of 44 Democratic incumbents who are thought to be vulnerable in the 2020 election.
That’s important because if vulnerable Democrats are getting behind impeachment that suggests the potential political consequences of an inquiry no longer outweigh the ethical argument for an investigation.
Bernie Sanders has announced his “extreme wealth tax”, which he says will fund his Medicare for All healthcare plan and other initiatives by taxing fortunes worth more than $32m.
Here’s how the tax would work in brief:
In a statement alongside the announcement, Mr Sanders said: “Enough is enough. We are going to take on the billionaire class, substantially reduce wealth inequality in America and stop our democracy from turning into a corrupt oligarchy."
When asked by the New York Times’ Thomas Kaplan if he thought billionaires should exist in the United States, Mr Sanders simply replied: “I don’t think that billionaires should exist.”
We’ll have to wait and see if the plan is enough to wrestle some momentum off Elizabeth Warren on the left-wing of the Democratic primary.
Three Democrats have just backed impeachment, including another member of Congress from the important “frontline” group of vulnerable 2020 representatives.
Antonio Delgado has joined Haley Stevens from the frontline group, while representative Tom Souzzi has also backed an impeachment inquiry.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Connecticut’s Chris Murphy has come forward for an inquiry – arguing that “the seriousness of the moment requires all of us to speak out in order to preserve our nation’s commitment to the rule of law”.
This tweet from British journalist Robert Peston suggests Mr Trump’s meeting with Boris Johnson is still set to go ahead as he is expected to fly back to the UK overnight tonight.
That means we could be getting the president’s take on the UK court’s controversial ruling later today.
Elizabeth Warren, who has repeatedly called for impeachment since April, has just tweeted that an investigation into Mr Trump “must start today."
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