Trump impeachment news: President gives 'chilling' defence as his legal team lay out furious response to Senate trial

On eve of trial, counsel and prosecution teams dispute grounds for removal as gun rights rally throttles Virginia

Donald Trump denies knowing Lev Parnas 13 times

The day before his impeachment trial is set to begin, Donald Trump's lawyers are urging the Senate reject the charges against him and are calling the hearings an "illegitimate partisan effort to take him down" by Democrats.

Meanwhile, the prosecution team from the House has filed a stern reply to the president's legal team, following their response to a summons request calling the impeachment articles "constitutionally invalid." House managers replied, calling the president's assertion that he can't be removed from the presidency "chilling" and "dead wrong".

House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, who is on that prosecution team, has warned that the CIA and National Security Agency could be holding on to further key evidence regarding the Ukraine scandal that led to the president's impeachment, ahead of the commencement of the Senate trial on Tuesday.

The results of a CNN poll, released the day before the trial begins, revealed that 51 per cent of Americans support the president's removal, and nearly 70 per cent want witness testimony.

Lawyers preparing to defend Mr Trump took to the talk show circuit on Sunday to argue that he cannot be removed from office on abuse of power grounds, a position dismissed as “absurdist” and “arrant nonsense” by Mr Schiff and fellow leading Democrat Jerrold Nadler, who together have helped build the case against him.

Meanwhile, as Mr Trump prepared to leave for Switzerland to participate in the World Economic Forum, the White House had no scheduled events to recognise Martin Luther King Jr's memorial and birthday, breaking once more from previous administration's tradition of service and volunteering to honour the civil rights leader.

The president instead voiced his support for thousands of gun rights advocates carrying weapons in Virginia in protest of upcoming gun control legislation, while White House advisor Kellyanne Conway argued that Dr King would not support impeachment, which she said has "dragged Americans through the process" of considering the president's removal from office.

On Twitter over the weekend, President Trump continued to attack 2020 candidate Michael Bloomberg, revealed a surprise appreciation for Hollywood Golden Age star Cary Grant and tweeted an astonishing claim from Fox News host Mark Levin that: “In the House, the president got less due process than the 9/11 terrorists.”

Follow coverage as it happened:

Key Points

• Trump lawyers branded 'absurd' for dismissal of impeachment case
• President hails China trade deal in Texas, makes 2020 pitch to farmers
• Trump renews Twitter attack on Mike Bloomberg, pushes 9/11 comparison
• Adam Schiff says NSA, CIA withholding Ukraine documents
• Damning Trump, Alan Dershowitz attacks on Ken Starr resurface

[20 January 2020 16:20 · Joe Sommerlad]

Democratic impeachment managers carry out Senate walk-through ahead of trial opening

Here's the scene on a quiet day on Capitol Hill, with reporters locked out of the Senate as Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, Zoe Lofgren, Hakeem Jeffries, Val Demings, Jason Crow and Sylvia Garcia take in the scenery before the opening statements are heard tomorrow (a process a whopping 24 hours has been alloted for across two days!)

Meanwhile, in Richmond...

 

[20 January 2020 16:40 · Joe Sommerlad]

Kellyanne Conway warns Dems: 'Be careful what you wish for'

Trump is jetting out to Switzerland this evening for the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Kellyanne Conway says he'll be relieved to get away from "all this nonsense" but stresses that the White House defence team are confident. She also warns Democrats "be careful what you wish for" on new witnesses.

[20 January 2020 16:55 · Joe Sommerlad]

Warren, Sanders put on show of friendship at MLK Day rally

The Democratic 2020 candidates are attending a King Day rally in South Carolina, where Warren and Sanders want you to know they've made up and are friends again following their recent he-said-she-said spat.

Tom Steyer's dancing though... Sweet Christmas.

[20 January 2020 17:00 · Alex Woodward]

The president's lawyers are urging the Senate to reject the impeachment charges against him by arguing that Democrats are behind an "illegitimate partisan effort to take him down".

[20 January 2020 17:12 · Alex Woodward]

After a string of tweets mocking his impeachment and supporting gun-toting open-carry activists at a Virginia rally, followed by his retweet of a late White House message honouring Martin Luther King Jr., the president shares this message:

[20 January 2020 17:31 · Alex Woodward]

According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump made 16,241 false or misleading claims since he took office.

That's 22 lies a day in 2019 alone, according to the Post's fact checker.

Nearly a quarter of those claims come from his Twitter posts.

[20 January 2020 17:40 · Alex Woodward]

More details from the legal memo from the president's defence team, which you can read in full here.

The filing calls the articles of impeachment "an affront to the Constitution and to our democratic institutions."

"The Articles themselves — and the rigged process that brought them here — are a brazenly political act by House Democrats that must be rejected. They debase the grave power of impeachment and disdain the solemn responsibility that power entails. Anyone having the most basic respect for the sovereign will of the American people would shudder at the enormity of casting a vote to impeach a duly elected president."

The Senate trial begins tomorrow.

[20 January 2020 17:50 · Alex Woodward]

The House has filed its response to Donald Trump's legal team, which responded to a summons request by calling the impeachment articles "constitutionally invalid."

In reply, the House managers — the prosecution team in the Senate trial — said: "President Trump maintains that the Senate cannot remove him even if the House proves every claim in the Articles of impeachment. That is a chilling assertion. It is also dead wrong."  

Read the nine-page reply here.

[20 January 2020 18:38 · Alex Woodward]

The mayor of Atlantic City wants to demolish the former Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, which he said is "an embarrassment, it's blight on our skyline, and that's the biggest eyesore in town."

The business closed in 2014. The now-vacant building is owned by Carl Icahn, who assumed control of the company in 2016.

Mayor Marty Small says demolishing the building is one of his 2020 priorities, according to the Associated Press.

[20 January 2020 18:45 · Alex Woodward]

The Trump campaign has tweeted out a photo of the president walking at the base of the Martin Luther King Jr memorial in Washington DC. But the photo was taken last year, when the president visited the site for a wreath-laying ceremony. He's currently on his way to Davos, Switzerland.