Donald Trump has raged about the “totally illegal & absurd” impeachment inquiry on Twitter and justified his decision to pull US troops out of Syria, leaving America’s allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces under siege from Turkey, by telling reporters at the White House the Kurdish people are “no angels”.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeated on Tuesday that the House of Representatives would not cave in to Republican demands for a vote to approve the Democratic-led inquiry, which vice president Mike Pence and Mr Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are now refusing to co-operate with, declaring: ”This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious. We’re on a path that is taking us, a path to the truth.”
As the president’s Democratic challengers for the presidency in 2020 squared off on the debate stage in Ohio, White House lawyers opened their own internal review of the handling of the president’s call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky of 25 July, examining the response of aides and raising concerns they are seeking out a potential scapegoat.
A bizarre letter sent from Mr Trump to the Turkish president was laced with an equal mix of weird threats and friendly language. The White House confirmed that the nearly unbelievable dispatch was real.
The president also apparently had a "meltdown" during a meeting about the Syrian crisis with Democratic leaders, during which he told Nancy Pelosi that he "hates ISIS more than you do."
Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
Hello and welcome to The Independent's rolling coverage of the Donald Trump administration.
Donald Trump hosted Stanley Cup winners the St Louis Blues in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday and used the occasion to attack House speaker Nancy Pelosi, asking the ice hockey champions sarcastically: “We just hit the greatest economy we’ve ever had. Let’s impeach the president. Isn’t that a good idea?”
Vincent Wood sets the scene.
Speaker Pelosi repeated that the House of Representatives would not cave in to Republican demands for a full vote on the House floor to approve the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry, declaring on Capitol Hill yesterday: ”There's no requirement that we have a vote, and so at this time we will not be having a vote.
This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious. We’re on a path that is taking us, a path to the truth,” she added.
The likes of Texas congressman Michael McCaul, ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had griped: "The minority has been shut out of the process. It is being done in a classified briefing room behind closed doors when it should be in front of the American people so that all can see in a very transparent way the testimony of these witnesses."
But Pelosi was unmoved: "I'm not concerned about anything... They can't defend the president so they're going to process."
House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff added: "The evidence of obstruction of Congress continues to mount... We are nonetheless continuing to get good and important information from witnesses."
He also moved to reassure the likes of McCaul that although witnesses like State Department officials Marie Yovanovitch, Fiona Hill and George Kent have all been interviewed behind closed doors so far, "we will get to open hearings".
"We go until the questions are exhausted," he said.
Here's Andrew Buncombe's report on their latest press conference.
In the latest developments, vice president Mike Pence and Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said on Tuesday they will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry, prompting a leading Democrat to say that would strengthen the case against the president.
The Pentagon also said it would not comply with lawmakers' request for documents related to Trump's effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, further illustrating Trump's determination to stonewall the Democratic-led impeachment effort, which threatens to consume his presidency.
Other US government officials have not been so reluctant to cooperate.
The aforementioned Kent, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said in closed-door testimony that he had been alarmed by efforts by Giuliani and others to pressure Ukraine and by the "fake news smear" used to railroad ex-ambassador Yovanovitch, who was ousted from her job in May, according to one lawmaker who heard his testimony.
"He was pretty detailed in talking about some of the shady characters Giuliani was dependent on for misinformation," Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly told reporters afterwards.
Kent, who has spent much of his career fighting corruption in Ukraine and elsewhere, is the second career diplomat - following Yovanovitch herself - to testify as part of the probe after being subpoenaed. The White House and State Department had ordered them not to appear.
Kent also said that acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, picked the officials who would handle Ukraine policy after the sitting ambassador had been abruptly recalled.
"Here is a senior State Department official responsible for six countries, one of which is Ukraine, who found himself outside of a parallel process that he felt was undermining 28 years of US policy in promoting the rule of law in Ukraine. And that was wrong. He used that word, 'wrong'," Connolly said of Kent.
Two of those officials, US ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker, a special representative for Ukraine, worked with Giuliani to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch investigations that could benefit Trump, according to communications provided to the committee. Volker resigned his post in late September. Sondland is due to testify later in the week in response to a congressional subpoena. Kent said yesterday he was told to "lay low" and allow Sondland, Volker and energy secretary Rick Perry to handle Ukraine, the men known by the nickname "The Three Amigos", according to Connolly.
Lawmakers had already heard from Fiona Hill, Trump's former Russia adviser, who said on Monday she and her then-boss, former national security adviser John Bolton, were also alarmed by Giuliani's interference. Hill said Bolton characterised Giuliani as "a hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up".
Giuliani had faced a Tuesday deadline to produce the requested documents. His lawyer, Jon Sale, said the documents were protected by legal principles that shield attorney-client communications and presidential communications. "This appears to be an unconstitutional, baseless, and illegitimate 'impeachment inquiry,'" Sale wrote, echoing language the White House used last week.
Pence's lawyer, Matthew E Morgan, has also cited the White House's response, saying the House had not voted to authorise the inquiry.
Here's more on the refuseniks.
Now to the latest televisied Democratic 2020 debate, which took place in Westerville, Ohio, last night.
The 12 candidates crowded onto the podium to talk healthcare, taxing the rich, reproductive rights and er, Ellen DeGeneres, with many attempting to stake a claim for themselves by attacking new favourite Elizabeth Warren, who stood up to the slings and arrows pretty well.
Joe Biden defended his record on Ukraine, there was a warm moment when the returning Bernie Sanders thanked everyone for their support after his recent heart attack and Pete Buttigieg squared up to Beto O'Rourke.
All of the candidates agreed on thing: that Trump is "the most corrupt president in modern history".
"Every candidate here is more decent and coherent and patriotic than that criminal in the White House," said Tom Steyer.
Here's Andrew Buncombe with his assessment of the evening.
Warren dominated the night in terms of speaking time...
(Statista)
...while the Trump campaign's ludicrous plane banner attempting to hijack the event with the declaration "Socialism Destroys Ohio Jobs" was every bit as underwhelming as you would have expected.
Here's our assessment of the night's winners and losers.
One of the key themes of the evening was, of course, the consequences of US troop withdrawal in Syria, where veterans Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard had some strong words for Trump.
Here's Negar Mortazavi's report.
Speaking of Syria, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has struck a defiant note in response to belated American sanctions, saying he will "never declare a ceasefire" in his assault on the Syrian Democrat Forces, US allies in the fight against Isis but a group considered a terrorist organisation in Istanbul.
Trump is scheduled to meet with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, the chairman and ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs Committees, as well as the Senate and House Armed Services Committees later today at the White House to discuss the growing crisis in the Middle East.
Here's more from Chris Riotta.
On the ground, video footage has emerged of Russian soldiers occupying a hurriedly abandoned US camp near Manbij.
America's forces appear to have departed the area so hastily possessions were left behind, including tents, books and fridges stocked with Coca-Cola.
Jon Sharman has more.
The New York Times reports this morning that White House lawyers opened their own internal review of the handling of the Trump's call with President Zelensky - the subject of the CIA whistleblower complaint that ignited the imeachment inquiry - examining the response of aides and raising concerns that their fact-finding mission is really about hunting up a potential scapegoat.
The review centres around why White House counsel John Eisenberg placed the Ukraine call transcript in a highly secure computer system, according to The NYT.
It's not currently clear who started the review but acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is said to have encouraged it and his aides are understood to be co-operating with the White House Counsel’s Office.
Mulvaney had, until this week, successfully distanced himself from the the Zelensky call - which he ultimately set up but was not on - but Fiona Hill said on Monday she and John Bolton believed he and Gordon Sondland had been trying to bypass them on Ukraine.
Trump has told the parents of Harry Dunn, the British teen killed in a road accident after his motorcycle collided with a car driven by the wife of an American diplomat in Northamptonshire, that the woman in question - Anne Sacoolas - will not return to the UK.
The deceased's parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, said there had been "a little bit of progress" after their meeting with the president in DC but that: "We didn't get the answers that we wanted."
Incredibly, Trump offered the bereaved the opportunity to meet with Sacoolas, who was waiting in the next room. Unsurprisingly, they turned it down because they felt it was “not appropriate” without a therapist and mediators present.
Here's Chris Baynes's report.
Trump's first tweet of the day is to hit at the Democratic 2020 contenders after their criticism of him in Ohio last night.
His second sees him going after Pelosi and Schiff yet again, saying they should be "impeached for fraud" based on nothing.
Things look like they're about to get worse for Rudy Giuliani as The Washington Post reports he repeatedly pushed Trump to extradite a Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, living in exile in Pennsylvania back in 2017, a top priority of President Erdogan who believes Gulen plotted the attempted coup against him in 2016.
Trump was reportedly keen to go ahead with this shadow foreign policy initiative but senior aides were appalled and blocked the move.
"We’re not going to arrest him to do a solid for Erdogan,” said one former official.
Giuliani is, of course, not registered as a foreign lobbyist as he would be required to be to push such a cause on behalf of Turkey. The Post also reported last week he had done the same to then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson, pressing him to stop the prosecution of Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab in the US on corruption charges.
Former Texas congressman Pete Sessions has meanwhile been subpoenaed by the congressional inquiry over his dealings with Giuliani, following the arrest of businessmen Igor Furman and Lev Parnas last week.
As Trump raves about his GOP approval rating and warns of a Second Great Depression should he lose in 2020...
...Erdogan is now saying he will deal only with the president himself, therein snubbing Pence who is jetting in to talk ceasefires.
Trump again vetoed legislation attempting to overturn the national emergency declaration he made in February over immigration at the US southern border, a move insigated as a means of raiding military construction projects for funds to pay for his long-promised US-Mexico wall without needing to seek approval from Congress.
Trump killed a similar measure in March soon after he exercised his emergency powers. He said in his veto message on Tuesday that the situation remains a crisis and "our Armed Forces are still needed to help confront it."
Congress is unlikely to have the votes to override the veto. In all, 127 military construction projects totaling $3.6bn (£2.8bn) will lose funding as a result of the move. Democrats contended that Trump trampled over Congress's power of the purse and chose the wall - a signature campaign promise - over the needs of the military.
Trump says the legislation would have impaired the government's capacity to curb human trafficking and smuggling.
This really is loopy stuff from Mr T.
He ought to take a step back and think about how deranged this sort of messaging makes him sound.
Up next at the impeachment inquiry today, since we're on the subject, is Michael McKinley, a former top aide to secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who resigned last week and brought an end to his 37-year career in the diplomatic corps.
Bernie Sanders - back to health and in good form on the debate stage last night - has received a major campaign boost by winning the endorsement of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who join fellow "Squad" member Ilhan Omar in backing the veteran socialist in 2020.
The trio bring with them the prospect of even greater support from young progressives inspired by their example.
Vincent Wood has more.
One of Trump's tweets yesterday baffled the world.
I know, what else is new - right?
This one especially so because it saw him appearing to call for his own impeachment. After raving about his economic achievenments in block caps, he concluded with the words: "Impeach the Pres."
More of that winning sarcasm we saw in the Rose Garden?
Jon Sharman gets to the bottom of it.
For Indy Voices, Eric Lewis relishes the prospect of John Bolton taking his revenge on Trump after being forced out as national security adviser.
Beto O'Rourke was generally thought to have underperformed again in Ohio last night but his passion on gun control since the El Paso shooting in August remains commendable.
