Donald Trump jokes about impeachment at Thanksgiving turkey pardon as House panel invites him to hearing in next phase of investigation
- US president given until December 1 to confirm whether he will attend session and to indicate who would be his counsel
- Investigation report to be released soon after lawmakers return from Thanksgiving break
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday used the high power of his office to pardon “Butter”, a 21kg (47 pound) turkey, during a US tradition at the White House where he also cracked jokes about Democrats’ investigation into whether he should be impeached.
Standing at a podium in the Rose Garden, Trump said Butter and his alternate “Bread” had been raised to remain calm under “any condition”.
“Which will be very important because they’ve already received subpoenas to appear in Adam Schiff’s basement on Thursday,” he joked, referring to the House of Representatives intelligence committee chairman who has led the inquiry into whether Trump should be impeached for pressing Ukraine to investigate a political rival of his.
“It seems the Democrats are accusing me of being too soft on turkey. But Bread and Butter, I should note, that, unlike previous witnesses, you and I have actually met.”
The event took place as the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee invited Trump to its first impeachment hearing, scheduled for December 4, starting the next phase in a process that could lead to formal charges against the president.
The hearing, scheduled for 10am US Eastern Time, will have legal experts as witnesses. They have not yet been identified.
A House Democratic aide declined to comment on whether the Judiciary Committee expected to receive a formal report on the Intelligence Committee-led investigation into the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine before the hearing.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the committee, said in a statement that he had written to Trump to remind him that the committee’s rules allow the president to attend the hearing, and for his counsel to question the witnesses.
“At base, 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. I hope that he chooses to participate in the inquiry, directly or through counsel, as other presidents have done before him.”
Nadler said in his letter that the hearing was intended as an opportunity to discuss the historical and constitutional basis of impeachment, as well as the meaning of terms like “high crimes and misdemeanours”.
The inquiry centres on a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden as well as a discredited conspiracy theory promoted by Trump that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
Nadler gave Trump until 6pm on Sunday, December 1, to advise the committee on whether he would attend the hearing, and to indicate by then who would be his counsel.
Trump will ‘strongly consider’ testifying in impeachment probe
The looming threat of impeachment – with the Democrats expected to release a crucial report after Thanksgiving – did not stop the White House from revelling in the meantime in the somewhat goofy turkey pardoning tradition.
It posted videos of the turkeys checking into a special suite at the Willard Hotel, where political leaders have stayed in the past, and baseball card-like statistics on both Bread and Butter.
The National Turkey Federation introduced the birds in a press conference on Tuesday. In true Washington fashion, polling decided which turkey would receive the official pardon, with Americans sharing their preference for Butter on Twitter.
According to the White House, Butter enjoys listening to bagpipes and has a gobble style that is “rowdy”. Bread prefers Bluegrass music and wants to master aerial yoga.
While other presidents occasionally gave turkeys commutations starting with Abraham Lincoln, another Republican president, George H.W. Bush, was the first to make sparing one an official act, according to the non-profit Constitution Center.
