Democrats ignored a veto threat and rammed legislation through the House on Tuesday that would stymie President Donald Trump’s bid for billions of extra dollars for his border wall, escalating a clash over whether he was abusing his powers to advance his paramount campaign pledge.

The House’s 245-182 vote to block Trump’s national emergency declaration fell well below the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override his promised veto.

Top Republicans worked to keep defections as low as possible - 13 backed the Democrats’ resolution - underscoring their desire to avoid a tally suggesting that Trump’s hold on politicians was weakening.

The vote also throws the political hot potato to the Republican-run Senate, where there were already enough GOP defections to edge it to the cusp of passage.

Vice President Mike Pence used a lunch with Republican senators at the Capitol to try keeping them aboard, citing a dangerous crisis at the border, but there were no signs he’d succeeded.

“I personally couldn’t handicap the outcome at this point,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who’s planning a vote within the next three weeks.

He even said Republicans remained uncertain about the legality of Trump’s move, telling reporters, “We’re in the process of weighing that.”

Senate passage would force Trump’s first veto, which the House vote demonstrated that Congress would surely fail to overturn.

But the showdown was forcing Republicans to cast uncomfortable votes pitting their support for a president wildly popular with GOP voters against fears that his expansive use of emergency powers would invite future Democratic presidents to do likewise for their own pet policies.

House Republicans who joined all voting Democrats to support the Democratic resolution included moderates and libertarian-leaning conservatives.

The White House wrote to politicians formally threatening to veto the legislation. The letter said blocking the emergency declaration would “undermine the administration’s ability to respond effectively to the ongoing crisis at the Southern Border.”

Republicans said Democrats were driven by politics and a desire to oppose Trump at every turn, and said Trump had clear authority to declare an emergency to protect the country.

They also defended the president’s claims of a security crisis along the boundary with Mexico, which he has said is ravaged by drug smugglers, human traffickers and immigrants trying to sneak into the US illegally.

EVIDENCE COULD SUGGEST CRIMINAL CONDUCT BY TRUMP
President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is expected to give a behind-the-scenes account of what he will claim is Trump’s lying, racism and cheating, and possibly even criminal conduct, when he testifies publicly before a House committee on Wednesday.

Cohen is expected to provide what he will claim is evidence, in the form of documents, of Trump’s conduct, according to a source who requested anonymity to discuss the confidential testimony.

The US President’s former personal “fixer” arrived on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to begin three days of congressional appearances, starting with a closed-door interview with the Senate intelligence committee.

The public won’t have a chance to hear from him until Wednesday, when he testifies before the House Oversight and Reform Committee. He will go behind closed doors again when he talks to the House intelligence committee on Thursday.

Senators are alternately suspicious of Cohen, who is set to serve time in prison for lying to the committee in 2017, and eager to hear what Mr Trump’s former loyal fixer has to say after he turned on his longtime boss, who once called Cohen a “rat”.

According to the anonymous source, Cohen is prepared to give a behind-the-scenes account of what he will claim is Mr Trump’s lying, racism and cheating as a businessman through specific instances and anecdotes.

The person said Cohen will provide information about Mr Trump’s financial statements that he will claim shows Mr Trump deflated assets to pay lower taxes on golf courses; will provide details of the Daniels payment and claim that Mr Trump organised a cover-up by pretending Cohen would be repaid; and claim that Mr Trump talked to him about and asked him questions about the Trump Moscow project throughout 2016.

The person said Cohen is expected to discuss what he knows about a meeting between Trump campaign associates and a Russian lawyer in Trump Tower before the 2016 election, a matter that is of particular interest to Mr Mueller and congressional investigators.

Another expected topic: Trump’s inaugural committee, which is also under investigation by federal prosecutors.

DAY 1: WHAT HAPPENED DURING TODAY’S HEARING
Senators on the intelligence panel attended Tuesday’s meeting, a departure from the committee’s usual practice, where witness interviews are conducted by staff only.

Sen. Mark Warner, the intelligence panel's top Democrat, suggested Cohen had provided important information.

“Two years ago when this investigation started I said it may be the most important thing I am involved in my public life in the Senate, and nothing I’ve heard today dissuades me from that view,” Warner said after returning to the interview from a Senate vote.

The Senate intelligence committee chairman, Richard Burr, said that senators would have staff ask questions but would be in the room to observe.

He said no topics would be off limits and Cohen, a close confidant of Trump for many years, “should expect to get any question from anywhere about anything.”

Burr said committee members know a lot more than they did when they first interviewed Cohen, who later pleaded guilty to lying to the committees about abandoning a proposal for a Trump Tower in Moscow in January 2016.

Cohen has since acknowledged he continued pursuing the project for months after that. Burr suggested his committee would take steps to ensure Cohen was telling the truth.

“I’m sure there will be some questions we know the answers to, so we’ll test him to see whether in fact he’ll be truthful this time,” Burr said.

Cohen’s testimony is among the most anticipated since the House and Senate started investigating the Trump campaign’s Russia ties two years ago.

In addition to lying to Congress, Cohen pleaded guilty last year to campaign finance violations for his involvement in payments to two women who allege they had affairs with Trump.

WHAT COHEN IS EXPECTED TO DISCUSS
Federal prosecutors in New York have said Trump directed Cohen to arrange the payments to buy the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the run-up to the 2016 campaign.

Trump denies the allegations and says that Cohen lied to get a lighter sentence. Cohen, who is set to begin a three-year prison sentence in May, was officially disbarred Tuesday. By pleading guilty, a New York court ruled, Cohen automatically lost his eligibility to practice law.

Cohen is only expected to discuss matters related to Russia in the closed-door interviews with the intelligence committees, as House Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings has said he doesn’t want to interfere with Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and links to Trump’s campaign.

Cohen won’t testify publicly until tomorrow, when he goes in front of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

Members of that panel are expected to ask questions about the campaign finance violations, Trump’s business practices and compliance with tax laws and “the accuracy of the president’s public statements,” according to a memo laying out the scope of that hearing.

The hearing’s scope does not include Russia.

Cohen’s week of interviews comes as House Democrats open multiple investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia and conflict-of-interest issues within the administration.

House Republicans in the last Congress investigated whether Trump’s campaign Co-ordinated with Russia, but ended that probe over Democratic objections, saying there was no evidence it did so.

The Senate’s Russia investigation is ongoing.

Cohen had been scheduled to speak to the three committees earlier this month, but rescheduled all of those appearances for different reasons.

He said he needed to recover from surgery and also was concerned about what he considered to be threats to his family from Trump and the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

The House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff, postponed Cohen’s appearance before that committee, saying it was “in the interests of the investigation,” with no additional details.