Our live coverage of the impeachment inquiry has ended for the day. Read up on the latest news below.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who is leading the impeachment inquiry along with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, would not say today explicitly whether he supports including information from the Mueller report in articles of impeachment, but seemed to indicate he does not.
Schiff later added: “I think we should focus on those issues that provide the greatest threat to the country.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer called for key witnesses to testify and documents to be released in the impeachment inquiry when approached at an unrelated press conference in New York today.
Schumer also mentioned that Senate Majority Leader Mitch?McConnell?has not been in touch with him.
More on the lack of testimonies:?House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has repeatedly called on acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and?others to comply with congressional subpoenas?and testify before Congress in the?impeachment inquiry.
Schiff said in a statement that Mulvaney “not only has refused to testify, but actively worked to block others from complying with subpoenas, and refused to provide Congress with documents relating to Trump’s suspension of Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine.”
The House Judiciary Committee yesterday released a report ahead of Monday’s impeachment hearing laying out historical arguments for impeachment.?
The report does not accuse President Trump of committing impeachable offenses, but it lays the groundwork for Mondays’ hearing, where evidence against Trump will be presented by the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, as well as the possible introduction of articles of impeachment next week.?
The report is an update to the Judiciary Committee reports that were issued in 1974 and 1998 during the impeachment proceedings of Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
“The earlier reports remain useful points of reference, but no longer reflect the best available learning on questions relating to presidential impeachment,” Nadler wrote in a forward introducing the report. “Further, they do not address several issues of constitutional law with particular relevance to the ongoing impeachment inquiry respecting President Donald J. Trump.”
With sources telling CNN a vote in the Judiciary Committee to impeach President Trump?expected as soon as this week,?House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler today told CNN’s “State of the Union” he sees the Ukraine evidence as part of “a pattern” of conduct by President Trump.
Nadler would not commit to including the evidence of obstruction of justice included in the Mueller report as part of the articles of impeachment.
Trump has denied he obstructed justice.
He said decisions on exactly what will be included in the articles of impeachment will be made after Monday’s Judiciary Committee hearing in which evidence from the Intelligence Committee will be presented.
But when pressed on why one would not assume the Mueller evidence being included given his statements regarding a pattern of behavior by Trump, Nadler responded “I wouldn’t draw any conclusions. It is part of the pattern.”?
The chairman said he did not have doubts about the strength of?the evidence that Democrats have that prove impeachable offenses were committed and when asked if it was confident it showed the President directing some of the activities he said “yes, yes…we have a very rock solid case.”?Nadler said if it?was presented to a jury “it would be a guilty verdict in three minutes flat.”
Two former Republican lawmakers urged their current successors to consider the evidence produced during the?inquiry?into President Trump’s Ukraine dealings in determining whether to support impeachment.
William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and secretary of defense who?backed impeachment?during the Watergate inquiry, and Slade Gorton, a former Washington state Republican senator and attorney general who also backed President Richard Nixon’s impeachment, made the comments on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” Friday evening.
Their counsel comes on the same day that Rep.?Justin Amash, a Michigan independent who left the Republican Party this summer, announced that he would?support impeachment articles?against Trump — the first lawmaker to do so who is not a Democrat.
“You’re saying that all those people who came before the committee are lying under oath,” Cohen said, urging lawmakers “to go back and look at the entire spectrum from the Mueller report. There’s a pattern here of (Trump) saying, ‘I’m not beholden to anyone.’ “
Gorton said he felt “sorry for the people who are tying themselves so heavily to the President at this point,” adding that “they should be waiting to hear all of the facts.”
“I think it’s very easy for them to determine that the President did this, did what he’s accused of,” he said, adding that “it’s one thing to say, we don’t think that arises to the importance to take a man out of the presidential office. It’s quite another to denounce it in advance when you don’t know what there’s going to be presented to you.”
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to work on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.
Here what’s happened recently:
