Trump impeachment: House votes to send articles to the Senate – live | US news

During the impeachment vote, senior Trump administration officials held a briefing call with reporters about impeachment. The officials said they expect the trial to move quickly, possibly concluding before the State of the Union address scheduled for 4 February.

They did not give information about who would represent the White House in the trial.

The House has voted to formally appoint a team of seven impeachment managers, which will set in motion the official transfer of articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate.

The House is now voting on the resolution to back the House impeachment managers named this morning. If approved, the resolution would set in motion the Senate impeachment trial.

If you are wondering what happens after that, Guardian national affairs reporter, Tom McCarthy, wrote a great guide:

Representatives are on the House floor debating the impeachment package, which includes the list of managers announced earlier today and a decision to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

The debate was strained and partisan, reflecting the weeks of acrimonious hearings that preceded a vote on the articles of impeachment in December.

Congressman Jerry Nadler, the chair of the Judiciary committee who will serve as a manager, said Trump “betrayed our country when he used the powers of his office” and urged the Senate to take seriously the new evidence referred by the House. The managers were prepared to exercise their “broad authority” to submit new additional evidence to the Senate as part of the trial, he vowed.

“Our founders feared this day,” declared House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California. He became more and more emotional throughout his comments, praising the president and writing-off the impeachment inquiry as being about personality.

There is a live stream at the top of the live blog. It should be a relatively short debate before the vote, which is expected in about 20 minutes.

More from the East Room of the White House, where the signing of a trade deal with China has involved Donald Trump spending about 20 minutes not talking much about trade or China. Instead, he shared stories about the people in the room … and some who weren’t.

Donald Trump is speaking at the White House before signing a trade deal with China.

Impeachment is on his mind. Trump tells senators in the room they can leave for the impeachment vote, which is about to take place.

Trump then heaps praise on guests in the room, including billionaire Sheldon Adelson, conservative commentator Lou Dobbs and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Details on the trade deal:

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s policy which would allow local governments to determine whether or not they would admit refugees.

The policy was announced the same day in September that the president unveiled a record low cap on refugees of 18,000 people.

The local government policy had backfired on the president, with 42 out of 50 state governors, including conservative ones, saying they would continue to admit refugees. Seven state governors hadn’t announced their plans and the remaining governor, Greg Abbott of Texas, was the only one to say outright that the state would not accept refugees.

In response to a lawsuit filed against the policy change, judge Peter J Messitte of Maryland wrote in an order it was likely “unlawful.”

“Giving states and local governments the power to consent to the resettlement of refugees — which is to say veto power to determine whether refugees will be received in their midst — flies in the face of clear Congressional intent,” Messitte wrote.

Donald Trump “abused”, “harassed” and “pestered” his homeland security secretary over immigration policy, demanding that the US border be closed, according to A Very Stable Genius, written by the Washington Post journalists Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig.

The book, obtained by the Guardian, details the president’s obsessive tunnel vision on illegal immigration and how it impacted one of the leaders of the department charged with restricting immigration.

“In some instances, the volatile president was verbally and emotionally abusive toward Nielsen,” the authors write. “‘Kirstjen, you’re just not tough enough,’ Trump would tell her. Trump complained Nielsen did not “look the part” of homeland security secretary.

“He made fun of her and believed that at about five feet four inches she was not physically intimidating. ‘She’s so short,’ Trump would tell others about Nielsen. She and Kelly would try to make light of it. Kelly would rib her and say, ‘But you’ve got those little fists of fury!’”

The president has weighed-in on Pelosi’s press conference:

And the White House:

The only thing Speaker Pelosi has achieved with this sham, illegitimate impeachment process, is to prove she is focused on politics instead of the American people. The Speaker lied when she claimed this was urgent and vital to national security because when the articles passed, she held them for an entire month in an egregious effort to garner political support. She failed and the naming of these managers does not change a single thing. President Trump has done nothing wrong. He looks forward to having the due process rights in the Senate that Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats denied to him, and expects to be fully exonerated. In the meantime, after President Trump signs the historic China Trade Deal greatly benefiting the people of this country, he will continue working and winning for all Americans, while the Democrats will continue only working against the President.

While announcing the impeachment managers, Pelosi defends the month gap between the House voting for impeachment and today’s transmission of the articles of impeachment to the Senate. “Time has been our friend in all of this,” Pelosi says.

Schiff is the lead manager, Pelosi says, while going down the list to highlight the accomplishments of each manager. This will be the third impeachment hearing for Lofgren, who was a Congressional aide during Nixon’s impeachment, notes Pelosi.

“The emphasis is on litigators, the emphasis is on comfort level in the courtroom,” Pelosi says.

Nancy Pelosi is addressing the press with seven Democrats, her impeachment managers, standing by her side.

The team is:

• Adam Schiff, of California
• Zoe Lofgren, of California
• Jerry Nadler, of New York
• Hakeem Jeffries, of New York
• Slyvia Garcia, of Texas
• Val Demings, of Florida
• Jason Crow, of Colorado

The US and China will sign the first phase of a trade deal today. While Treasury secretary Stephen Mnuchin declared this morning its “an enormous win,” there has been a more temperate response from analysts.

Live updates and analysis on the agreement are available on our business live blog:

Politico is reporting that after a monthslong delay, the Trump administration will release $8bn in disaster aid to Puerto Rico for the damage it suffered after two hurricanes in 2017. Congress allocated $20bn to aid the recovery there, but the island has received just $1.5bn of that money.

The Trump administration has been under increased pressure to release the money after a string of earthquakes struck the island in the past several weeks. Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called on the administration to “cease and desist that illegal activity.”

In September 2018, Trump was attacked for saying his government’s response to Hurricane Maria was an “unsung success.”

The night before the House was set to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, House Democrats released a fresh trove of documents which shed new light on charges that Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Democrats as he withheld military aid to the country.

Pages of text messages, notes and other records added pressure on Republicans to include witness testimony and other evidence in the Senate impeachment trial. It also renewed Democrats calls for the White House to share documents it has withheld from Congress.

The documents from Lev Parnas, a close associate of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, show the two men’s close relationship as Giuliani worked to get the Ukrainian government to announce investigation’s targeting Trump’s political rivals.

The rough itinerary for the impeachment proceedings today:

• 10am ET: House speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the impeachment managers, the individuals tasked with making a case against the president to the Senate, which functions as a jury in the trial.
• 12.30 pm to 1.30 pm ET: following a 10 minute debate, the House will vote on the impeachment managers.
• 5pm ET: a ceremony filled with pomp and circumstance held by Pelosi and the managers will see the articles of impeachment hand-delivered to the Senate.

Hello and good morning

Today, the House will vote on sharing the two articles of impeachment with the Senate, which would allow the trial of Donald Trump to begin this week.

At 10am, Nancy Pelosi will announce the managers of the trial and a couple hours later, there will be a short debate before a vote in the House. At 5pm, a ceremony to formally send the articles of impeachment to the Senate will take place.

The early phase of the trial would involve swearing-in senators as jurors and other procedures before more substantive action begins early next week.

It also means half the Democratic field for president will be locked into the trial, strictly limiting their campaigning. Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar will be tied to the case because they are senators.

The three were in Des Moines, Iowa last night for the final Democratic debate before the Iowa caucuses. More on that here: