Trump impeachment news - live: Senate votes against calling witnesses, setting up president's acquittal

More senators admit Trump was wrong but won't allow witnesses, fearing consequences of removing president from office

Marco Rubio and Rob Portman explain why they won't vote to support witnesses, though both men admit what the president did was wrong.

In his lengthy statement, Rubio explains: "Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office."

Portman says:

Back on the Senate floor, House manager Hakeem Jeffries just played Mick Mulvaney's "get over it" comment about there being political influence in US foreign policy decisions.

Jeffries: "Is that what the Constitution requires? 'Get over it?'"

Here's a look at some of the provisions in Trump's executive order on human trafficking:

- It "shall be the policy of the executive branch to prioritize its resources to vigorously prosecute offenders, to assist victims, and to provide prevention education to combat human trafficking and online sexual exploitation of children."

- The Domestic Policy Council will commit one person to work on human trafficking issues in coordination with the White House. The Secretary of State, Attorney General, Labor Secretary, and Homeland Security and Health secretaries will "improve methodologies of estimating the prevalence of human trafficking" and "establish estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking in the US."

- The AG and Homeland Security Secretary will submit to the president "legislative and executive actions that would overcome information-sharing challenges and improve law enforcement’s capabilities to detect in real-time" child pornography.

- The administration will "engage social media companies" and Big Tech along with state and local agencies to find missing children.

NBC News reports that Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell have agreed to a potential Wednesday vote to acquit the president.

Schiff urges senators to consider witnesses

Adam Schiff is on the Senate floor making one of his final hour pleas for witnesses and evidence in the trial, though it's likely a statement for posterity than a plea to unlikely Republicans who already said they don't intend to bring witnesses.

He said if the Senate tells the president he can act corruptly, and when he's caught he can further abuse his powers by concealing his wrong doing, the president "becomes above the law."

He says the outcome of the trial "will be cited in impeachment trials from this point until the end of history." Whether senators support witness introductions or vote to acquit, "the facts will come out in the end."

Schiff said: "The witnesses the president is concealing will tell their stories, and we will be asked why we didn't want to hear that information when we had the chance."

House managers: Public polling shows voters want witnesses. Do you?

House impeachment managers have pointed to this week's Quinnipiac University poll showing that a majority of Americans want to hear from witnesses in the impeachment trial.

Three-quarters of survey respondents want trial witnesses — including 95 per cent of Democrat respondents and nearly half of all surveyed Republicans. Seventy-five per cent of independent voters also want witnesses.

It's a solid strategy aimed at swing vote Republicans, who head into contested elections in the coming months, after they've announced their decision to vote against allowing witnesses, despite widespread public demand, according to the survey.

Donald Trump is officially extending his travel ban to six countries, as previously reported by The Independent.

The move halts immigration from Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan, while immigrants from Sudan and Tanzania will be exempt from a visa lottery.

It's an extension of the president's sweeping ban on several majority-Muslim countries; Islam is the predominant religion of Kyrgyzstan and Sudan. Nigeria contains equivalent Muslim and Christian populations, though the country has one of the largest Muslim populations.

The ban currently prohibits immigration from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen. Five of those seven countries have majority Muslim populations.

Asked to give a yes or no answer, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave several sentences following a question about whether he knew about the pressure on Ukraine to investigate the Bidens:

The White House is hosting an update on the coronavirus.

The CDC is reminding people in the US that their risk of infection is low.

Still just six cases in the US, as the CDC reported yesterday. One of them had contact with another person who was infected. 

191 people are under medical investigation.

Foreign nationals who recently visited China will be denied entry into the US.

US citizens re-entering the country from the province at the centre of the coronavirus outbreak will undergo a quarantine for up to two weeks