Trump impeachment inquiry subpoenas Pompeo

Impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump have gathered steam with his Secretary of State being ordered to turn over documents relating to the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was subpoenaed to produce the documents within a week.

Trump is under scrutiny for allegedly pressuring Ukraine's president to investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Trump has denied putting pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call in July. Biden was leading polls to win the Democratic nomination for the White House race in 2020 at the time.

Trump has alleged that Biden pressed for the sacking of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in 2016 to protect a business that employed his son, Hunter Biden.

Biden did call for the sacking of Shokin, even threatening to withhold $1bn in aid to Ukraine, but had done so together with a number of other Western officials who saw Shokin as hindering anti-corruption investigations.

Impeachment is a rarely-used two-stage political process by which a US president can be removed from office for wrongdoing.

But even if President Trump were to be impeached by the House of Representatives, he is unlikely to be forced out of the White House because his Republican party controls the Senate.