Trump news: President sends furious letter to Pelosi about impeachment as former campaign aide sentenced to jail

Raskin says the articles reflect not just Trump's abuse of power but also a "constitutional crime in progress" with Rudy Giuliani recently admitting his own participation in a smear campaign to oust Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

Raiskin: "We cannot allow this misconduct to pass. It would be a sellout to our constitution, our foreign policy, our national security and our democracy."

Trump campaign manager Rick Gates is sentenced

While Doug Collins once again rails against impeachment, Rick Gates — the president's former deputy campaign manager and a former business partner of Paul Manafort — was sentenced to three years probation and 45 days in jail.

Gates and Manafort were the first Trump officials to be charged following Robert Mueller's investigation revealing their tax evasion and skirting of federal lobbying laws by concealing millions of dollars they received in Ukraine.

Prosecutors honored attorneys for Gates who argued that he should avoid significant jail time because he cooperated with the government. He met with federal authorities at least 50 times over 500 hours.

He pleaded guilty in 2018.

Manafort, meanwhile, recently kicked off a seven year sentence.

House Rules Committee Chair Jim McGovern is reading a long list of documents requested by Congress that the White House has ignored or rejected.

McGovern: "I think this is what you call obstruction, plain and simple."

Tom Cole is bringing up a post on Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler's website, from 2016, that says: "We cannot wait four years to vote Mr. Trump out of office, as members of the GOP Senate and House Majorities have already stated that they will facilitate the Trump agenda, even if they weren’t supporters of his during the campaign."

Of course what follows isn't "we must impeach him" but a list of strategies that Democrats and Mr Nadler's supporters could take on after Trump is elected.

Cole and Collins are interpreting the "we cannot wait" as a literal call for impeachment.

Mr Nadler is not present at today's hearing because of a family matter.

The post follows:

"So we must do everything we can to stop Trump and his extreme agenda now.  We do this by:

1. Holding him accountable for the tenor and tactics of his campaign, as well as his past and ongoing deplorable personal, professional and political conduct;
2. Waging fierce battles against every regressive action he takes—from personnel appointments to his legislative program—in order to thwart or at least slow them down;
3. Exposing his Republican enablers in Congress, and voting them out of office in 2018, with the goal of taking back either the House or the Senate for Democratic control."

Doug Collins is now saying impeachment followed the Mueller report after it didn't give Democrats "everything they wanted."

That investigation led to 34 indictments, including six people from the Trump campaign. Rick Gates was sentenced this morning.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration won't back a bipartisan resolution passed in the Senate that recognised the Armenian genocide.

The move comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to recognise the killing of Native Americans in retaliation.

The House Rules Committee is in recess.

Here's the opening statement from House Chair Jim McGovern when the committee convened:

The Senate overwhelmingly passed a $738 billion defence spending bill, the most expensive military spending package headed to the president's desk.

The bill includes Donald Trump's Space Force, which the president joked into existence, as well as a 3 per cent pay raise for troops.

It also rolls several other measures into the bill, including 12 weeks of paid parental leave for civilian federal employees and several sanctions and retaliatory moves against Turkey, Russia and China.

It passed by a vote of 86-8.

Among those not voting at all were Democratic Presidential candidates Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Mr Sanders said: "Call me a radical, but maybe before funding a new space force, we should make sure no American goes bankrupt because of a medical bill or dies because they can’t afford to go to a doctor on time."

Trump writes bizarre six-page letter to Pelosi demanding Congress 'immediately cease' impeachment 'fantasy'

Donald Trump is appealing to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directly, writing a letter "in protest" against the "impeachment crusade."

He accuses Ms Pelosi of violating her oath of office, "breaking" her allegiance to the US Constitution, and "declaring open war on American Democracy" within the first page of a six-page letter, which he wrote, he says, "for the purpose of history" and to put his "thoughts on a permanent and indelible record".

The letter posits that Democrats are pursuing an "illegal, partisan attempted coup" after losing the 2016 election (despite there being mid-term elections in 2018) and to distract from Mr Trump's apparent success. 

Following an Oval Office meeting with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and a letter putting several false claims on White House letterhead, Donald Trump says he's united with Senate Republicans ahead of a likely impeachment trial, which he repeatedly called a "hoax" and a "sham."

Meanwhile, the House Rules Committee continues to debate the framework for tomorrow's vote.