Trump to join NATO leaders during impeachment hearing
London: President Donald Trump will huddle with NATO leaders as House Democrats resume their impeachment inquiry probing whether he abused his presidential authority by urging a foreign leader to open an investigation of his political rival.
Trump is set to meet Wednesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on the sidelines of the NATO leaders' meeting.
More significantly, Trump will face one of the most critical split-screen moments of his presidency near the end of the NATO conference, when he addresses the news media soon after Rep.
Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., gavels to order the House Judiciary Committee's first hearing in the impeachment inquiry.
The hearing will be on the constitutional grounds for presidential impeachment.
The impeachment is going nowhere, Trump insisted Tuesday as he sat down with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
It is a waste of time. They're wasting their time. And it's a disgrace. It's a disgrace to our country. Trump said he remains unconcerned about the unfolding inquiry in Washington with
Democrats facing a mountainous climb to remove him from office.
While Democrats hold the majority in the House, Republicans control the Senate and not one Republican lawmaker in the upper chamber has signaled support for kicking Trump out of office.
An impeachment conviction in the Senate requires 67 votes out of 100.
Democrats argue that Trump acted improperly when he pressed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son's dealings in the eastern European nation.
The vice president's son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
The U.S. president bantered with reporters for more than two hours Tuesday, sitting casually in a salon of Winfield House, the manicured estate of the US ambassador to the United Kingdom, where
he also met with fellow NATO leaders.
He slammed the ongoing Democratic-led impeachment inquiry back in the United States as a hoax and professed to be unconcerned about declines in the stock market spurred by his remark that a trade deal with China might not materialize until after the 2020 election.
Trump later paid a call on Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, and attended a NATO welcome reception at Buckingham Palace, before proceeding to an event at the prime minister's residence, No. 10 Downing St. Trump punctuated the day of diplomacy with a fundraiser for his reelection effort that his campaign said brought in 3 million.
