Trump impeachment: President must answer if he'll call witnesses and bring evidence to hearings
The congressional committee beginning Donald Trump's impeachment hearings next week has given the president a deadline to answer whether he intends to call witnesses and offer evidence.
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to begin its hearings on 4 December, when legal experts will discuss the Constitutional grounds for impeachment, considering whether the president's alleged abuses of power in his dealings with Ukraine in exchange for politically damaging information on his rivals constitutes "high crimes and misdemeanours".
The committee is set to receive a report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which is summarising evidence discovered in witness testimonies to Congress, detailing "a months-long effort in which President Trump again sought foreign interference in our elections for his personal and political benefit at the expense of our national interest" as well as an "unprecedented campaign of obstruction in an effort to prevent the committees from obtaining documentary evidence and testimony".
In a two-page letter to the White House, Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler told the president that the committee also is investigating whether Mr Trump "engaged in acts of obstruction of justice" as outlined in Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in 2106 elections.
Mr Nadler told the president that he has until 5pm on Friday, 6 December, to notify the committee whether he intends to participate.
The chair also gave the same deadline to Republican Congressman Doug Collins, the ranking minority member within the committee, as to whether he intends to submit subpoenas for the impeachment hearings.
Following two weeks of televised witness testimonies and cross examinations, which followed weeks of closed-door hearings, the House Judiciary Committee will begin the first impeachment hearings by discussing the Constitutional grounds for impeachment, which could lead to the removal from office of the president, on charges of "treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanours".
That hearing is set to begin at 10am on Wednesday, 4 December.
According to Mr Nadler, the hearing will "explore the framework put in place to respond to serious allegations of impeachable misconduct like those against" the president.
In a statement, he said: "At base, the president has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process.
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