Donald Trump continues to froth over the impeachment inquiry on Twitter as Laura Cooper, deputy assistant US secretary of defence for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, becomes the latest senior official to appear before the House panel on Capitol Hill to testify about the conduct of diplomatic relations with Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Bill Taylor, acting US ambassador to Ukraine, told the inquiry he was informed military aid to the country was “dependent” on president Volodymyr Zelensky agreeing to publicly announce a corruption probe into Donald Trump’s 2020 rival Joe Biden, confirming the existence of the suspected quid pro quo at the heart of the Democratic-led investigation.
Mr Biden’s polling lead in the Democratic 2020 primary race is meanwhile at its widest margin since April. The former vice president has won the support of 34 per cent of voters registered with the party, according to a new CNN survey.
Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
On the heels of Mr Trump's announcement in the White House that he was suspending tariffs on Turkey, the president thanked Kurdish general Mazloum.
It's not clear what he is thanking him for, as Mr Mazloum is known for having some harsh words recently as the US has removed itself from Syria.
It's not clear what he is thanking him for, as Mr Mazloum is known for having some harsh words recently as the US has removed itself from Syria.
While declaring the end of US sanctions against Turkey and a permanent ceasefire, Donald Trump said during his White House press conference: "We're getting out ... Let someone else fight over this long, blood-stained sand," he said."
Earlier this month, Trump halted negotiations on a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey, as well as raising steel tariffs up to 50% and imposing sanctions on three senior Turkish officials and Turkey's defense and energy ministries.
"The job of our military is not to police the world," Trump said. "Other nations must step up and do their fair share. Today's breakthrough is a critical step in that direction."
More on the Republican politicians gatecrashing the impeachment hearings in a public show of support for Donald Trump - one that may be particularly needed in the wake of the devastating testimony yesterday from acting Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor.
The president has pleaded with his party to do more to protect him. Republicans have taken up the claim that the hearings are illegitimate because they are being held in private - even though GOP members are taking part in them and are allowed to question witnesses. Alex Woodward has more:
Having previously expressed reluctance to criticise the Trump administration he left behind last December, former secretary of defence "Mad Dog" Jim Mattis has followed his brutal stand up set at a white tie dinner in New York last week with a damning interview with Politico.
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two business associates of Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, have appeared in court in New York to plead not guilty to charges of attempting to use foreign money to buy political influence.
The pair, who were arrested at Dulles international airport with one-way tickets to Vienna, have been photographed with the president, his son, Donald Trump Jr, and Republican politicians including Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Clark Mindock has the latest:
California congresswoman Katie Hill says she is the victim of a smear campaign after allegations she had a relationship with her legislative director Graham Kelly as well as a sexual relationship with a female campaign staffer and her husband, whom she is divorcing, were published by right-wing website RedState, along with "intimate photos".
Don Jr has been in on the trolling.
Alex Woodward has more.
On he goes.
Here he is - and he's announcing that he's agreed with Erdogan to make the ceasefire with Turkey "permanent" and that sanctions against Ankara will be dropped in return.
Never mind this... Where is Trump?
He was supposed to begin his press conference 40 minutes ago.
The New York Times is reporting Ukrainian officials knew about the US military aid freeze in early August, well before it became public, undermining a key Republican argument in Trump's impeachment defence - that Zelensky could not have felt pressured to investigate the Bidens if he did not know about the hold-up.
This tweet was only fours ago.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned US envoy to SyriaJames Jeffrey is appearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, having spoken to the Senate yesterday, and has already dropped a few bomb shells, telling the panel that over 100 detained Isis fighters have escaped since the US troop withdrawal was announced and branding the US failure to protect the Kurds "a tragedy".
Trump is due to give a live address from the White House on Syria shortly after tweeting this earlier - we'll keep you posted.
Florida man Matt Gaetz and his Republican friends are at it again - "storming" the impeachment inquiry for their latest obnoxious publicity stunt.
Here's your next meme, ladies and gentlemen.
This was the seen as Laura Cooper arrived to take questions from the House impeachment team.
Trump himself is off to Pittsburgh while the Cooper deposition takes place.
Trump is due to speak at a police chiefs conference in Chicago next despite repeatedly deriding the city over its record on tackling crime.
In 2017, the president tweeted a threat to "send in the Feds... [if] Chicago doesn't fix the horrible 'carnage' going on" and asked at a Florida rally: "What the hell is going on in Chicago? There are those who say that Afghanistan is safer than Chicago, OK?... You know what's wrong with Chicago? Weak, ineffective politicians."
Even before that, he drew the ire of Windy City officials when he attached 20-foot tall letters spelling "TRUMP" on the side of his Trump International Hotel and Tower, taking great pleasure when then-mayor Rahm Emanuel concluded there was nothing he could do about the letters, no matter how "architecturally tasteless" they were.
With that background in mind, the city's police superintendent Eddie Johnson has said he will snub the president's speech.
"The values of the people of Chicago are more important to him than anything that could be discussed at that speech," Johnson's spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi, said of the decision.
Trump has a habit of getting on badly with Democratic local officials - think of Dayton mayor Nan Whaley or Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey - and the governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, is also pushing back against the president, telling him that her's is a "sanctuary state" and will continue to accept refugees and asylum seekers as a matter of principle, rejecting an executive order the administration issued on 26 September.
“No one chooses to be a refugee. Refugees are just like us. They have jobs and families: they are parents, brothers, sisters, best friends. They are teachers and doctors, farmers and fishers. The list goes on,” Brown said in a video response to Trump this week.
“It’s a sad day for a nation that once welcomed poor, tired and huddle masses,” she says, pointedly.
A prayer gathering for the Kurdish people of Syria due to be staged at the Trump International Hotel Washington in DC has been suddenly cancelled, according to The Washington Post.
The event, "A Night of Prayer for the Kurds", was being put on by Frontier Alliance International, an evangelical Christian organisation, who were told by hotel staff that "security concerns" meant it could not go ahead.
(Zach Gibson/Getty)
“They said they’ve gotten a lot of security concerns and they couldn’t accommodate enough security,” administrator Charles Struebing told The Post. “I think it’s more related to people protesting our event than it was anything we were doing.”
Washington's police force, however, says it has not "received any information regarding potential security threats or concerns with this event" suggeting the decision must have come from management, no doubt afraid of embarrassing the president.
Here's how Trump has coursened the language of political debate in America in recent months, from complaining about Biden "kissing Obama's ass" to comparing his imminent impeachment to "a lynching".
Trump has retweeted his former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker twice today...
... the same man who was arguing on Fox News last night that "abuse of power is not a crime".
It is of course. Impeachment was outlined in the US Constituion by the Founding Fathers specifically as a remedy to address abuses of the powers of office and violations of the public trust.
Joe Biden’s polling lead in the Democratic 2020 primary race is at its widest margin since April, the former vice president having won the support of 34 per cent of voters registered with the party, according to a new CNN survey conducted by SSRS.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are on 19 per cent and 16 per cent respectively, while Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris have six per cent each and Amy Klobuchar and Beto O'Rourke are both on three per cent.
Trump and Giuliani's dogged and repeated atttempts to smear Biden appear to be only cementing his support among the opposition.
