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Trump: Democrats’ impeachment push ‘unpatriotic’

US President Donald Trump has attacked Democrats’ impeachment investigation into his conduct as “very unpatriotic”.

Speaking at a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) summit in London, he said the congressional inquiry was a “bad thing for our country”.

“I’m not even thinking about it,” the Republican president insisted of the impeachment drama.

A US House of Representatives panel is to release a report on Tuesday laying out the case to remove Mr Trump from office.

Speaking beside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday, Mr Trump told reporters: “I think it’s very unpatriotic for the Democrats to put on a performance where they do that.

“I do. I think it’s a bad thing for our country. Impeachment wasn’t supposed to be used that way.”

He repeated his assertion that his July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which is at the centre of the impeachment inquiry, was “absolutely perfect”.

Democrats says Mr Trump pressured his counterpart during the phone conversation to announce a corruption investigation into White House candidate Joe Biden in the hope of discrediting him.

In the same meeting, ahead of next week’s UK general election, Mr Trump called himself a “fan of Brexit” and criticised French President Emmanuel Macron’s “nasty” comments on NATO.

The House Intelligence Committee is expected to vote along party lines on Tuesday evening to approve its report summing up the evidence against President Trump.

The report will be submitted to the House Judiciary Committee, which will begin its own proceedings on Wednesday, hours before Mr Trump is due to return to Washington.

The judiciary panel’s hearings will begin with four constitutional scholars, who will explain how impeachment works.

The White House has refused to participate in the hearings, citing a lack of “fairness”.

Ahead of the intelligence committee’s report, House Republicans released a separate 123-page report that condemned the “unelected bureaucrats” who testified, saying they “fundamentally disagreed with President Trump’s style, world view and decisions”.

The document accuses Democrats of “trying to undo the will of the American people” and argues that they have been trying to depose the president since his first day in office.

“None of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanours,” it argues, in reference to the constitutional clause that permits the removal of a president. -BBC

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