Trump news: Impeachment trial formally launched in Senate, as watchdog says president broke law by withholding Ukraine aid
Donald Trump is under renewed pressure as his impeachment reaches the Senate today after Lev Parnas, the business associate of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, gave an explosive interview to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday night over the Ukraine scandal, dragging Mr Trump, vice president Mike Pence, attorney general William Barr and top Republican Devin Nunes further into the mud.
In worse news for the embattled Mr Trump, the US Government Accountability Office ruled on Thursday that the administration’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine was illegal, adding further weight to Democratic calls for new witnesses to be summoned to the Senate, not least officials from the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The president is also facing fresh humiliation as a new book, A Very Stable Genius, accuses him of being “dangerously uninformed”, detailing his struggle to read the US Constitution and failure to understand such fundamental points of history as the significance of Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbour during the Second World War.
During an appearance after signing a school prayer order, Mr Trump claimed that he did not know Mr Parnas, but acknowledged that he had taken a picture with the man previously.
He also said that the phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was "perfect", and that he did nothing wrong.
The Senate is expected to fully begin its impeachment trial next week, and officially swore in Supreme Court Justice John Roberts to oversee those proceedings.
The Senate has also taken an oath to become jurors in that trial.
Please allow a moment for our live blog to load
