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Newly Impeached Trump to Deliver State of Union on Feb. 4

AFP

   WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump has accepted the invitation
   from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to deliver his state of the union
   speech on Feb. 4, the White House said Friday.

   The invite for the annual presidential speech to Congress comes at a
   charged political moment, with Trump freshly impeached for abuse of
   power and obstruction of Congress, and facing a trial in a US Senate
   that is almost certain to acquit him.

   It sets up a potentially explosive encounter between Trump and Pelosi,
   his chief Democratic nemesis in Congress and the woman who launched the
   formal impeachment inquiry. Pelosi is now at odds with the Senate's
   Republican leadership about the parameters of the impeachment trial.

   "In the spirit of respecting our Constitution, I invite you to deliver
   your State of the Union address before a Joint Session of Congress on
   Tuesday, February 4, 2020," Pelosi wrote to the president in a letter.

   Trump "has accepted the Speaker's invitation," White House spokesman
   Hogan Gidley said.

   Pelosi's three-paragraph letter also highlighted the system of
   separation of powers that was created by the framers of the US
   Constitution: "three co-equal branches acting as checks on each other."

   The reference is notable, given that Democrats accuse Trump of seeking
   to block Congress' powers to oversee the executive branch by refusing
   to cooperate with the impeachment probe.

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