Trump news: House schedules first impeachment hearing as final transcripts released and Melania booed at school event
A US district judge has ordered Donald Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with a subpoena issued by House Democrats – originally in response to the Mueller report – that could see him testify to the impeachment inquiry.
In her ruling, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson asserted that "presidents are not kings" and ruled that Mr McGahn — whom the president pressured to deny that he wanted to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, according to the report — must appear before Congress.
Louisiana senator John Kennedy, a key ally of President Trump, has admitted he was wrong to push a debunked conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, who hacked a Democratic National Committee server in 2016.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, told reporters on Tuesday that "we not only have a right, we have a duty" to investigate those leads.
Meanwhile, First Lady Melania Trump was met with a chorus of boos from a crowd of young people at an opioid awareness event in Baltimore, which the president has previously called a "disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess".
She later said, in a statement, that "we live in a democracy and everyone is entitled to their opinion."
She later joined Mr Trump outside the White House for the president's annual turkey "pardoning" ahead of Thanksgiving. Bread and Butter were both spared, but not before Mr Trump swiped at Congressional Democrats, Adam Schiff and members of the press.
Congress continued to push back at the administration, first in a House Budget Committee report that found the White House's Office of Management and Budget engaged in a "pattern of abuse" by withholding aid to Ukraine, and then in a lawsuit aimed at top administration officials over documents that Democrats believe will answer why the administration wanted to include citizenship status in the 2020 Census.
In other news, Mr Trump has reportedly appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner, already tasked with bringing peace to the Middle East, to oversee the construction of his US-Mexico border wall, as the row over his decision to absolve Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher of war crimes rumbles on.
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