Trump news: President reacts as impeachment speculation intensifies and his own lawyer admits he cannot rule out that aid to Ukraine was used as bribe

Good morning and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of events in Washington and beyond.

Leading Democrats have raised the prospect of a new push to impeach Donald Trump over attempts by the White House to damage Joe Biden’s presidential campaign through a Ukrainian corruption inquiry.

Our correspondent Tim Wyatt has more.

Donald Trump admitted on Sunday that he raised former vice president Joe Biden in a conversation with Ukraine's leader about corruption, as US secretary of state Mike Pompeo was forced to insist that the president did not apply pressure on Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rival's son.

Dave Maclean has all the details.

Trump is heading off to New York for the 74th United Nations General Assembly meeting where he's scheduled to give a keynote speech on protecting religious freedom. 

Will the Ukraine call allegations make impeachment more likely?

The problem is that Democrats remain divided over the issue of removing the president.

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives where the process of impeachment would begin, is worried that a failure to remove Mr Trump - with the Senate likely to block any such move - could mean moderate Democrats will suffer at the ballot box in 2020.

Meanwhile Jerry Nadler, the Democrat head of the House Judiciary Committee, has opened what he has called an impeachment investigation, with the first public hearing last week.

He believes the president’s “trashing all the norms which guarantee democratic government [and] aggrandising power to the presidency” means he should be removed.

More from Chris Stevenson.

Trump is set to give a speech to world leaders at the United Nations about why they should do more to protect people targetted because of their religious beliefs.

This is coming from a man who pushed through a so-called ‘Muslim ban’ to bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

He defended this controversial call to stop foreign Muslims entering the country, saying "tens of thousands of people" were entering with "cell phones with Isis flags on them...I don't think so."

Hate crimes against Muslims were also said to have spiked after he took office.

A report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in the US rose 91 per cent in the first half of 2017 compared with the same period the year before.

"The presidential election campaign and the Trump administration have tapped into a seam of bigotry and hate that has resulted in the targeting of American Muslims and other minority groups," CAIR’s Zainab Arain said.  

Not one to shy away from controversy, Democrat congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has hit out at her own party for failing to take action on impeachment.

“The GOP’s silence & refusal to act shouldn’t be a surprise. Ours is.”

Former chief White House ethics lawyer 2005-07 Richard Painter has a theory about why House speaker Nancy Pelosi is being so hesitant when it comes to going after Trump.

Remember when Trump offered to mediate in the Kashmir crisis?

Funnily enough, the issue of Kashmir was not raised in his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Texas.

He did, however, gush over the Modi’s leadership, saying “the world is witnessing a strong, sovereign republic of India.”

“You [India] have never had a better friend as president as President Donald Trump.”

Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff has hinted he supports impeaching Trump if the Ukraine call allegations are true.

“If the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit that is providing dirt on his opponent... then that may be the only remedy."

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