WASHINGTON — US lawmakers put their impeachment feud aside Thursday to unite in marking the passing of a highly respected House Democrat who had helped lead the investigation of President Donald Trump.

Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last week at age 68, was honored with a ceremony in the US Capitol's Statuary Hall, where the longtime legislator lay in state ahead of his burial Friday in his home city of Baltimore, Maryland.

Cummings is the first African-American lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol, a symbol of the broad respect and admiration he earned in Congress even as he took on a prominent investigative role in recent months that frustrated members of the Republican Party.

"Elijah was truly a master of the House," a mentor to young lawmakers and a champion for justice, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in paying tribute to her colleague during the memorial service attended by Cummings family members, hundreds of lawmakers and other dignitaries.

The flag-draped coffin lay in what is sometimes known as the Old Hall of the House, where Abraham Lincoln, responsible for abolishing slavery in the United States, served as a congressman before he became president. The hall now features a statue of civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

Cummings, the son of sharecroppers, was first elected to Congress in 1996 as a representative for his majority-black city, rising to become one of the most powerful House members and an influential Pelosi ally.

At the time of his death Cummings was chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, one of three panels probing Trump's pressure on Ukraine to dig up dirt on Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden in order to help Trump's political prospects.

Cummings and Trump clashed publicly, most notably in July when the president took to Twitter to bash Baltimore as a "rat and rodent infested mess" unfit for humans, and blamed it on Cummings. Many Democratic lawmakers described the provocative attacks as racist.

Cummings responded by inviting Trump to come with him to walk the streets of Baltimore. Trump never took up the offer, although he tweeted his condolences for the "highly respected political leader" upon his death.

The politics of the moment fell away as lawmakers came together to remember one of their own.

Congressman Mark Meadows, a conservative Republican, is on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum from Cummings, but the two men became dear friends over years of serving together.

"Perhaps this place, and this country, would be better served with a few more unexpected friendships," Meadows said. — AFP