WASHINGTON • The US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee has invited President Donald Trump to its first impeachment hearing, scheduled for Dec 4, starting a new phase of the inquiry that could lead to formal charges against the American leader within weeks.

Mr Trump is not required to attend the hearing. But Tuesday’s move allows the President and his legal team access to congressional impeachment procedures that he and other Republicans have denounced as unfair, partly because the White House has not been able to call or cross-examine witnesses.

The House Intelligence Committee, which has led the impeachment investigation into Mr Trump’s dealings with Ukraine through weeks of closed-door testimony and televised hearings, is expected to release a formal evidence report shortly after lawmakers return to Congress on Dec 3 from their Thanksgiving recess.

The judiciary panel will use the report to consider formal charges that it could recommend for a full House vote by mid-December. It gave Mr Trump until 6pm on Sunday to advise the committee on whether he would attend the hearing, and to indicate by then who would be his counsel.

Representative Jerrold Nadler, the judiciary committee’s Democratic chairman, told Mr Trump in a letter on Tuesday that he was reminding the President that the committee’s rules allow him to attend the hearing and for his legal team to question witnesses.

The hearing will have legal experts, who have not yet been identified, as witnesses.

“The President has a choice to make: he can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about the process,” Mr Nadler said in a statement. “I hope he chooses to participate.”

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday found 47 per cent of respondents believed Mr Trump should be impeached and 40 per cent were opposed.

REUTERS

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