Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox
Get our free Inside Washington email
Donald Trump has said he “doesn’t remember” a compromising call he allegedly had with Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the EU, which top diplomat Bill Taylor raised at the House impeachment inquiry on Wednesday, saying a member of his staff had overheard Mr Trump asking Mr Sondland about “the investigations”.
House investigators heard from Mr Taylor and State Department official George Kent yesterday, with both men describing the administration’s “irregular” dealings with Ukraine as the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his allies pushed for an anti-corruption probe into domestic political rival Joe Biden.
Republican counsel Steve Castor was ridiculed for his part in proceedings.
While the president entertained Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House and said he was not following the drama unfold, a federal appeals court in DC cleared the path for Congress to pursue Mr Trump’s tax records, setting up a potential Supreme Court battle.
Trump impeachment: Who's who in the Ukraine scandal
Show all 26
On Thursday, the president petitioned the Supreme Court to shield his tax returns from federal prosecutors.
The news arrived as he boarded Air Force One for yet another rally in Louisiana to boost support for a Republican running against the state's Democratic governor.
The upcoming legal battle will likely test the limits of Mr Trump's presidential powers.
Lost amid the excitement on Capitol Hill yesterday, the US got itself a new acting Homeland Security secretary: Chad Wolf.
After passing his Senate confirmation hearing on a vote of 54-41, Wolf becomes the fifth person to lead the third biggest department of the federal government under Trump, succeeding Kevin McAleenan, who in turn was covering after Kirstjen Nielsen was ousted.
(Alex Brandon/AP)
Wolf was third choice after immigration hardliners Mark Morgan and Ken Cuccinelli - acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection and acting US Citizenship and Immigration Services chief respectively - neither of whom proved to be eligible.
Cuccinelli, who thinks Emma Lazarus's poem for the Statue of Liberty ought to be rewritten, has been made acting deputy Homeland Security head under Wolf.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is not enthused.
Deval Patrick confirms entry to Democratic 2020 field
Former Massacusetts governor Deval Patrick has officially announced his late-entry 2020 presidential campaign, thrusting him into an already crowded field of Democratic candidates less than three months before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
Republican senator says GOP don't have votes to dismiss articles of impeachment
Texas senator John Cornyn says his Republican peers in the Senate do not have the necessary votes to throw out articles of impeachment should they ultimately be voted through by the House.
Cornyn, an adviser to the Senate Republican leadership, believes it will be difficult for his side to ensure the 51 votes it would need, holding just 53 seats in the upper chamber, leaving little margin for disagreement.
(Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
“There’s some people talking about trying to stop the bill, dismiss charges basically as soon as they get over here. I think that’s not going to happen. That would require 51 votes,” Cornyn told reporters on Wednesday.
“I think it would be hard to find 51 votes to cut the case off before the evidence is presented,” he added.
Convicting Trump in any impeachment trial would require 67 votes in the Senate or a two-thirds majority of those present, a move that would require the votes of as many as 20 Republican senators turning against the president.
Lindsey Graham demands release of whistleblower's identity
Key Trump's ally Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was on Sean Hannity's show on Fox last night to say he will not accept any such impeachment trial in the Senate without having the identity of the mystery CIA whistleblower whose complaint sparked the inquiry revealed beforehand.
He says Trump deserves the right to meet his accuser - an obvious distraction tactic given the crystal clear facts of the quid pro quo Zelensky call, which will not change no matter who first reported them.
Graham was also busy yesterday blocking a resolution in the Senate that had been passed 404-11 in the House condemning the Armenian genocide, having first met with Trump and Erdogan
Graham said lawmakers should not "sugarcoat history or try to rewrite it" on the notorious mass killing of an estimated 1.5m ethnic Armenians that took place during the First World War at the hands of Ottoman Turks after they were exiled from eastern Anatolia.
"I just met with President Erdogan and President Trump about the problems we face in Syria by the military incursion by Turkey. I do hope that Turkey and Armenia can come together and deal with this problem," he told the Senate floor.
Republican congressman tweets hidden Epstein conspiracy theory
Arizona Republican Paul Gosar has been promoting the conspiracy theory that billionnaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein did not die by his own hand in jail in July but was in fact murdered, the first letter of his last 23 tweets spelling out "Epstein didn't kill himself".
Donald Trump has nothing listed on his schedule until 2:00pm local time when he participates in a working visit with the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the Oval Office.
He’s leaving Washington at 4:30 to Louisiana for a Keep America Great rally scheduled at 7:00pm.
The president will then return to the White House by 12:30am, according to his schedule.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, the acting commissioner of US Customs and Border Protection, Mark Morgan, will hold a press briefing at 10:30am.
Stay tuned throughout the day for live updates as the come in.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies