Live updates: Trump lashes out at impeachment inquiry in fiery news conference – The Washington Post

The former vice president, meanwhile, told reporters at a forum on guns that the president’s actions were “beyond anything I frankly thought he would do.” And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a television interview that she believes Trump is “scared” of the inquiry.

●Impeachment inquiry erupts into battle between executive, legislative branches

●Key federal agencies increasingly compelled to benefit Trump

●Impeachment inquiry puts new focus on Giuliani’s work for prominent figures in Ukraine

Read the whistleblower complaint | The rough transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky | Related coverage and analysis of the Trump impeachment inquiry

6:15 p.m.: Trump on Schiff: ‘They should look at him for treason’

Trump on Wednesday renewed his attacks on Schiff by arguing that the California Democrat should be tried for treason — which is defined as aiding an enemy with which the United States is at war.

“It should be criminal,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, referring to Schiff’s characterization of his phone call with Zelensky at a hearing last week. “It should be treasonous. … He should resign from office in disgrace, and frankly, they should look at him for treason.”

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Trump’s assertion that Schiff committed treason. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether Trump has directed his administration to pursue legal action against Schiff.

The U.S. Constitution defines treason as the act of someone who, “owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere.”

While the common usage of the term can be very broad, the legal definition of treason is limited to Americans who act on behalf of a country with which the United States is at war. There are fewer than three dozen treason convictions in U.S. history, including during World War II and the Whiskey Rebellion.

— Devlin Barrett

6 p.m.: Trump involved Pence in efforts to press Ukraine’s leader, though aides say vice president was unaware of pursuit for dirt on Bidens

Trump repeatedly involved Pence in efforts to exert pressure on the leader of Ukraine at a time when the president was using other channels to solicit information that he hoped would be damaging to a Democratic rival, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump instructed Pence not to attend the inauguration of Zelensky in May — an event White House officials had pushed to put on the vice president’s calendar — at a time when Ukraine’s new leader was seeking recognition and support from Washington, the officials said.

Months later, the president used Pence to tell Zelensky that U.S. aid was still being withheld while demanding more aggressive action on corruption, officials said. At that time — after Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelenksy — the Ukrainians probably understood action on corruption to include the investigation of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Read more here.

— Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe and Ashley Parker

4:45 p.m.: Biden: ‘It’s way beyond anything I frankly thought he would do.’

Biden told reporters that he was surprised that Trump asked a foreign leader for help getting information that could damage his presidential campaign, saying, “It’s way beyond anything I frankly thought he would do.”

Biden, who spoke to reporters at a forum on gun violence in Las Vegas, was told that the president that afternoon had referred to Biden and his son Hunter as “stone cold crooked.” Asked whether he has spoken to his son about any of the controversy, Biden said they’d “communicated a couple times.”

“Look, the issue is — this president of the United States engaged in something apparently that is close to, well, engaged in activity which, at minimum, gives a lot of running room for the Russians and Ukraine, and I think we should just focus on — he’s the issue,” Biden said. “Nobody has ever asserted that I did anything wrong except he and what’s that fellow’s name? Rudy? … Giuliani?”

— Chelsea Janes

4:15 p.m.: Buttigieg and Castro dodge questions about whether they’d allow their vice president’s child to serve on a foreign board

Pete Buttigieg and Julián Castro, both 2020 candidates, were asked whether they’d allow the son or daughter of their vice president to serve on a foreign board as former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter did in Ukraine.

Both candidates dismissed the question as doing Trump’s bidding.

“So one thing that is really important right now is to deny this president to change the subject, and the subject is that the president confessed on national television to an abuse of power. Let’s deal with that and not get caught in the shiny objects he’s going to throw out,” Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., said.

Castro, who was housing and urban development secretary in the Obama administration, said the question allows Trump to “use the same playbook against Joe Biden as he used against Hillary Clinton.”

“He’s trying to besmirch the reputation of an honorable public servant who has given a lot of honest years of public service so that he can try and win a narrow electoral college victory,” Castro said.

Buttigieg and Castro each spoke to reporters after speaking at a forum on gun violence. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) were asked about impeachment and their role as jurors if the Senate holds trial, but not the specific question related to Hunter Biden.

— Chelsea Janes

3:30 p.m.: White House will preserve records of Trump’s communications, Justice Department says

Justice Department attorneys promised a federal judge Wednesday that the White House will not destroy records of the president’s calls and meetings with foreign leaders while the court weighs a lawsuit brought by historians and watchdog groups.

In a two-page filing, Justice Department lawyer Kathryn L. Wyer told a federal judge in Washington that the Trump administration and executive office of the president “voluntarily agree … to preserve the material at issue pending” litigation.

The filing came after U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday set a 3 p.m. deadline for the government after the suing groups requested a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed in May to compel the administration to comply with the federal Presidential Records Act.

Three organizations — government watchdog groups Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, and National Security Archive, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations — alleged that the White House was failing to create and save records as required of Trump’s meetings and communications with foreign leaders.

The lawsuit preceded the current storm surrounding a Democratic House impeachment inquiry into the White House. However, the plaintiffs on Tuesday asked Jackson for an emergency order, saying the whistleblower’s complaint and the White House’s subsequent’s admissions exposed record keeping practices “specifically designed to conceal the president’s abuse of his power,” CREW said in a statement.

The Justice Department has moved to dismiss the lawsuit, saying appeals courts have precluded courts from weighing in on presidents’ compliance with the archiving law, “not to mention the President’s broad authority to negotiate with foreign leaders.”

— Spencer Hsu

3:15 p.m.: Trump doesn’t answer when asked what he wanted from Ukraine on Bidens

During Wednesday’s joint news conference, Trump refused to answer what exactly he wanted from the Ukrainian president regarding Joe and Hunter Biden.

Instead, Trump ignored the question and focused his answer on why he held back military aid to Ukraine, citing, as he has in the past, corruption in Ukraine and the unsubstantiated claim that the United States is the “only one who gives the big money to Ukraine.”

When Reuters’s Jeff Mason tried again and again to ask the Biden-specific question, Trump became angry and demanded that Mason “not be rude” and instead ask a question of the Finnish president. When Mason pressed him, Trump responded that “Biden and his son are stone cold crooked,” then leveled his oft-made attack against the “fake news” media.

3 p.m.: With no evidence, Trump accuses Schiff of having helped write whistleblower complaint

At a fiery joint news conference late Wednesday afternoon with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, Trump continued to lash out at Schiff, accusing him, with no evidence, of having helped write the whistleblower’s complaint.

Trump made the comment in response to a question about a New York Times report stating that Schiff had learned the outlines of the whistleblower’s concerns days before the individual filed a formal complaint.

“Well, I think it’s a scandal that he knew before,” Trump said of Schiff. “I’d go a step further. I think he probably helped write it, okay? That’s what the word is. … He knew long before, and he helped write it, too. It’s a scam. It’s a scam.”

Schiff said in a statement ahead of the news conference that “at no point did the Committee review or receive the complaint in advance,” and that his panel did not receive the complaint until the night before acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified last Thursday.

The whistleblower first contacted the Intelligence Committee “for guidance on how to report possible wrongdoing within the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Community,” Schiff said.

“This is a regular occurrence, given the Committee’s unique oversight role and responsibilities,” he said, adding that “consistent with the Committee’s long-standing procedures, Committee staff appropriately advised the whistleblower to contact an Inspector General and to seek legal counsel.”

2:10 p.m.: Pelosi said Trump ‘scared’ of impeachment inquiry

Pelosi said during a television interview Wednesday that she believes Trump is “scared” of the impeachment inquiry being led by House Democrats.

“I think the president knows the argument that can be made against him, and he’s scared,” Pelosi said in an interview with ABC News, excerpts of which were released Wednesday afternoon. “And so he’s trying to divert attention from that to where [he’s] standing in the way of legislation.”

ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi whether Trump had fear in his voice when the two spoke last week before her announcement of a formal impeachment inquiry in response to the whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s call with Zelensky.

“I saw the surprise in his voice that he didn’t understand that I thought what he did was wrong,” Pelosi said. “That he was undermining our national security, that he was undermining our Constitution by his actions, and he was undermining the integrity of our elections. He just didn’t see it.”

1:30 p.m.: California’s governor offers a rejoinder to Trump

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) took to Twitter to respond to Trump’s comments about him during a 13-minute stretch of Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Niinistö in which they fielded questions from reporters.

In the midst of insults directed at Pelosi and Schiff, Trump also derided Newsom as “a do-nothing” as he complained about a California law that would keep him off the primary ballot in the state next year if he doesn’t publicly release his taxes.

“Hello @realDonaldTrump…heard you just gave me a shout out in the Oval Office,” Newsom tweeted. “Actually watched your press conference — mainly just feel bad for the poor President of Finland who had to endure that. Today, we are all Sauli Niinistö.”

12:50 p.m.: Trump says identity of the whistleblower’s sources should be public

Trump, during an event in the Oval Office, called for the identity of those who provided information to the whistleblower to be publicly disclosed.

“This country has to find out who that person was, because that person’s a spy, in my opinion,” Trump told reporters while visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinistö looked on.

The whistleblower said his complaint was based on conversations with more than a half dozen U.S. officials.

In his remarks Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that there is value in protecting the identity of whistleblowers in some cases.

“I think a whistleblower should be protected if the whistleblower’s legitimate,” he said.

Trump also expanded on grievances aired earlier Wednesday on Twitter and took repeated shots at Schiff and Pelosi.

The president called Schiff “a low life” and a “shifty dishonest guy” and again called for him to resign.

Among other things, Trump took issue with Schiff having criticized Pompeo, saying “that guy couldn’t carry his blank strap.” Trump said he was trying to sanitize a common phrase about carrying a jock strap.

Trump suggested Pelosi should focus on her San Francisco-area congressional district, where he said there are people living in tents and “people dying in squalor.”

12:15 p.m.: State Department employees feel caught in the middle, diplomat says

Many State Department employees feel that they are caught in the middle of a political battle between the agency and House committees, said a U.S. diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity to comment frankly about the adverse impact on morale.

Career Foreign Service officers are expected to follow the direction of State Department leadership and respond to congressional requests. It may not be possible to do both now.

“People are not politicized, and they’re very anxious not to be,” the diplomat said, referring to a number of clashes, including the impeachment inquiry, the pressure on Ukraine that led to the removal of the U.S. ambassador to Kiev and a reopened investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. “They want to do their jobs, serve their country and not be pulled into this.”

The inspector general offering ‘urgent’ Ukraine briefing called out politicization of Trump’s State Department this summer

The diplomat has not spoken to anyone who feels bullied and intimidated, as Pompeo characterized the reaction to congressional outreach.

But the diplomat said employees expect Pompeo to defend them more vociferously than he has so far. The gold standard, still recalled with admiration in Foggy Bottom, the diplomat said, was set by George Shultz when he was secretary of state. In 1985, he threatened to resign over a Reagan administration proposal to require lie detector tests for all employees with access to highly classified information.

“The idea is that the secretary of state should stand up for them,” the diplomat said. Of Pompeo, he added: “There have been some generic comments, but nothing specific. The expectation is he should say more, and do more.”

— Carol Morello

11:50 a.m.: Trump insults Pelosi and Schiff, uses profanity to describe inquiry

Trump continued to hurl insults at Pelosi and Schiff as they conducted their news conference, and he later referred to the impeachment inquiry as “BULLSHIT.”

Writing on Twitter, Trump dismissed comments by Pelosi that House Democrats continue to want to work with the White House on trade and lowering prescription drug prices.

“She is incapable of working on either,” Trump said of Pelosi. “It is just camouflage for trying to win an election through impeachment. The Do Nothing Democrats are stuck in mud!”

Trump also sought to make the case that Schiff compares unfavorably to Pompeo.

“Adam B. Schiff should only be so lucky to have the brains, honor and strength of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,” Trump tweeted. “For a lowlife like Schiff, who completely fabricated my words and read them to Congress as though they were said by me, to demean a First in Class at West Point, is SAD!”

At a hearing last week, Schiff presented an embellished version of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. He later said it was meant as a parody and said that should have been apparent to Trump.

Shortly after the new conference wrapped up, Trump returned to Twitter.

“The Do Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our Country, not wasting everyone’s time and energy on BULLSHIT, which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223-306,” he wrote, referring to the electoral college results in the election. “Get a better candidate this time, you’ll need it!”

Trump’s tweet did not accurately convey the final electoral college results. Because of “faithless electors” who ended up voting for other people, Clinton’s final electoral college tally was 227, reduced from 232, and Trump’s went from 306 to 304.

11:30 a.m.: Schiff says, ‘We’re not fooling around here’

Schiff warned the White House on Wednesday that stonewalling could lead to an additional article of impeachment on obstruction of justice.

“We’re not fooling around here,” Schiff said as he appeared with Pelosi at a news conference on Capitol Hill shortly after House Democrats announced that they would subpoena the White House for documents. The subpoena will go out this week or next, Schiff said.

Democrats, he added, “are deeply concerned about Secretary Pompeo’s effort now to potentially interfere with witnesses whose testimony is needed before our committee.”

Pelosi said Democrats “place ourselves in a time of urgency” and observed that the country’s founders never thought they would have a president “kick those guardrails” of checks and balances provided by the Constitution.

She noted that “we have to give the president the chance to exonerate himself,” but so far, he’s described his actions as “perfect.”

11:20 a.m.: Trump accuses Democrats of trying to hurt the country

Trump asserted Wednesday that the stock market was going down because of the impeachment inquiry and accused House Democrats of trying to deliberately hurt the county.

Dow plunges as Trump tries to pin ‘impeachment nonsense’ for Wall Street rout

He latest tweet came as Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) held a news conference on Capitol Hill.

“All of this impeachment nonsense, which is going nowhere, is driving the Stock Market, and your 401K’s, down,” Trump tweeted. “But that is exactly what the Democrats want to do. They are willing to hurt the Country, with only the 2020 Election in mind!”

10:35 a.m.: Trump attacks Democrats ahead of Pelosi news conference

Trump went on Twitter to attack House Democrats shortly before Pelosi was scheduled to hold a news conference on Capitol Hill with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.).

In a pair of tweets, Trump renewed his call for Schiff to resign and attacked Democrats more broadly as “Do Nothing Democrats.”

At a hearing last week, Schiff presented an embellished version of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. He later said it was meant as a parody and said that should have been apparent to Trump.

“Congressman Adam Schiff should resign for the Crime of, after reading a transcript of my conversation with the President of Ukraine (it was perfect), fraudulently fabricating a statement of the President of the United States and reading it to Congress, as though mine! He is sick!” Trump tweeted.

He also shared a quote from Jeanne Zaino, a political science professor at Iona College in New York state, who had appeared as a guest on Fox News.

“Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats haven’t met the standards of impeachment. They have to be very careful here,” read the quote.

10:30 a.m.: House Democrats to subpoena White House for documents in its impeachment inquiry focused on Ukraine

In a memo issued Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said that the White House’s “flagrant disregard of multiple voluntary requests for documents — combined with stark and urgent warnings from the Inspector General about the gravity of these allegations — have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena.”

The subpoena will be issued Friday, according to Cummings’s memo.

The memo said the subpoena will seek documents that the committee first requested on Sept. 9.

9:30 a.m.: Eric Trump cites Republican fundraising as he taunts Democrats

The president’s son Eric Trump went on Twitter on Wednesday morning to taunt Democrats for their impeachment inquiry.

In a tweet, he attached an Associated Press news story about Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee having raised a record $125 million in the third quarter of the year.

“This is what happens when you manufacture nonsense… the American people see right through it. Keep it up @SpeakerPelosi,” Eric Trump wrote.

9:15 a.m.: State Department’s inspector general headed to Capitol Hill for afternoon meeting

Steve Linick, the State Department’s inspector general, plans to meet with staffers of key House and Senate committees Wednesday at 3 p.m. at his request.

The committees were notified Tuesday that Linick wants “to discuss and provide staff with copies of documents related to the State Department and Ukraine,” according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post.

The offer by Linick’s office, which operates mostly independently from the State Department and is responsible for investigating abuse and mismanagement, comes amid a standoff between Pompeo and House Democrats, who are demanding documents and testimony on Ukraine-related matters for their impeachment inquiry.

Linick’s office “obtained the documents from the acting legal adviser of the Department of State,” the letter said. The inspector general doesn’t have to seek Pompeo’s approval to approach Congress with information, especially if it is not classified.

It is unclear exactly what Linick will provide the committees, which include the panels in charge of foreign relations, intelligence, appropriations and oversight in the House and Senate. But the demand for any credible information related to Ukraine and the State Department is at a fever pitch as Democrats seek to build the case for Trump’s ouster based on his dealings with Ukraine’s leadership.

— Karoun Demirjian and John Hudson

9 a.m.: Trump focuses on other issues in first tweets of the day

Unlike previous days, impeachment did not dominate Trump’s early activity on Twitter on Wednesday.

He instead turned to other topics, including his promised border wall and a federal judge’s order to block a California law that would require Trump to release his tax returns for access to the state’s primary election ballot.

“I won the right to be a presidential candidate in California, in a major Court decision handed down yesterday,” Trump wrote. “It was filed against me by the Radical Left Governor of that State to tremendous Media hoopla. The VICTORY, however, was barely covered by the Fake News. No surprise!”

California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the state would appeal the ruling.

In early tweets, Trump also urged Louisiana voters to pick a Republican candidate in the state’s gubernatorial primary on Oct. 12. Candidates from both parties compete in the state’s “jungle primary.”

8:15 a.m.: Former staff members say it’s unusual for a secretary of state to listen in on a call with leader of small nation

Former staff members who worked on foreign leader calls said it is very unusual for a secretary of state to listen in on calls with leaders from a country as small as Ukraine.

Partly it is because the secretary of state’s schedule is very busy and rarely aligns with the president’s schedule of routine calls to heads of state, so they arrange only to be on major foreign leader conversations.

When Rex Tillerson was secretary of state, for example, he would coordinate plans to listen in on Trump’s calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The former staffers on the National Security Council said Pompeo’s presence on this call suggests the subject or the purpose of the call had high importance to the president, and thus to him. The former staffers spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more candidly.

— Carol D. Leonnig

7:15 a.m.: Pompeo confirms he was on Trump’s July call with Zelensky

Pompeo acknowledged publicly for the first time Wednesday that he was on the July call between Trump and the leader of Ukraine.

Asked about the episode during a news conference in Rome, Pompeo said, “I was on the phone call.”

In response to a multipart question, he did not say whether he was comfortable with Trump’s pressing of Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son, Hunter.

Pompeo said the call focused on issues such as the threat that Russia poses to Ukraine and the need for Ukraine to root out corruption.

He said the United States would consider to pursue those issues “even while all this noise is going on.”

During a Sept. 22 appearance on ABC News’s “This Week,” Pompeo was asked what he knew about Trump’s conversation with Zelensky following an initial Wall Street Journal report that the call was part of a whistleblower complaint.

Pompeo responded by saying he hadn’t seen the whistleblower report. He later said he had seen a statement from the Ukrainian foreign minister that there was no pressure applied on Zelensky. Pompeo made no mention of being on the call.

During his news conference Wednesday, Pompeo also repeated his claims from a letter on Tuesday that House Democratic staffers have been seeking to intimidate State Department officials in their efforts to learn more about Trump’s call with Zelensky.

“We won’t tolerate folks on Capitol Hill bullying, intimidating State Department employees. That’s unacceptable, and it’s not something that I’m going to permit to happen.” Pompeo said.

6:30 a.m.: Country to hear directly from Trump, Pelosi on Wednesday

The country will hear directly from the two leading figures in the impeachment drama — Trump and Pelosi — at separately scheduled news conferences on Wednesday.

Pelosi plans to hold a news conference on Capitol Hill at 10:45 a.m. She will be accompanied by Schiff, who has become the public face for Democrats in the impeachment inquiry.

Trump, meanwhile, has a 2 p.m. joint news conference scheduled with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, who is visiting the White House on Wednesday. Trump is certain to get questions from U.S. journalists about the impeachment drive.

6:15 a.m.: Critics blast Trump for calling his impeachment inquiry a ‘COUP’

Trump claimed he was a victim of a coup d’etat on Tuesday night, continuing his dramatic rhetoric that has drawn fierce pushback from legal scholars and Democrats since the House impeachment inquiry began last week.

“As I learn more and more each day,” he wrote on Twitter, “I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of the United States of America!”

Critics disputed the president’s tweet by pointing to basic definitions of a coup d’etat, a violent illegal overthrow of the government by an opposing group, and impeachment, a legal process laid out in the Constitution. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), a presidential hopeful, even suggested Trump should not be allowed to make such a remark on Twitter, sharing his “COUP” tweet with CEO Jack Dorsey.

Read more here.

— Meagan Flynn

6 a.m.: Giuliani suggests suing Democrats over Ukraine probe

On Tuesday night, Rudolph W. Giuliani proposed an unusual legal strategy in response to the ongoing investigation into President Trump’s dealings in Ukraine: suing Democratic members of Congress.

Speaking on the Fox News show “The Ingraham Angle,” Trump’s personal attorney said that he “had a couple of talks” with attorneys amid the accelerating impeachment probe and a House subpoena for his own personal records concerning Ukraine. Their recommendation, Giuliani said, was “that we should bring a lawsuit on behalf of the president and several people in the administration, maybe even myself as a lawyer, against the members of Congress individually for violating constitutional rights, violating civil rights.”

Host Laura Ingraham noted that Giuliani’s suggestion was “novel,” and that congressional immunity prevents House members from being sued for anything they say on the floor. But outside those parameters, Giuliani argued, they could be held liable for forming a “conspiracy” to deprive the president of his constitutional rights.

Read more here.

— Antonia Noori Farzan