After several talks, New Delhi and Washington have put together six potential dates for US President Donald Trump’s long-awaited visit to India.
According to the Indian Express, the dates being discussed are February 18-26, March 16-20, April 6-17, May 26-29, July 5-17 and August 10-September 7. According to the paper’s sources, the Indian government is “extremely keen” to have President Trump visit before the presidential elections take place.
Unlike India’s previous invite for Trump — to attend Republic Day celebrations last year — the government is doing things a tad differently, and has given him the liberty of choosing the dates.
Last year incidentally, the White House could not confirm the dates as it clashed with Trump’s annual state of the union address.
However, while officials are considering the February dates seriously, some remain doubtful because of the political turmoil created by the impeachment process.
To give a bit of context, the President was recently impeached for abuse of power. The House voted four months after a whistle blower blew open the scandal of Trump pressuring Ukraine’s president to investigate his potential White House challenger in 2020, the veteran Democrat Joe Biden.
The historic impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump will begin next week, on Tuesday, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate’s Republican majority, has announced.
Earlier on Tuesday (January 14), Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended the standoff between the Senate and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives saying that it would vote next Tuesday to send the impeachment documents to the upper house so it can hold the trial on charges that Trump obstructed Congress and abused presidential powers.
This will be only the third time in the nation’s history that a US president is being tried after impeachment. His predecessors, Bill Clinton in 1998 and Andrew Johnson in 1868 were acquitted.