House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she will “soon″ transmit the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, but warned that Senate Republicans are rushing to acquittal without a fair trial. Pelosi brushed back GOP claims that Democrats are afraid to send the impeachment case to the Senate. And she said she has no concerns about the anxiety some House and Senate Democrats are showing over the standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the terms of delayed trial. It’s now more than three weeks since the House impeached Trump on charges of abuse and obstruction. ″I’m not holding them indefinitely,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. “I’ll send them over when I’m ready. That will probably be soon.” Pelosi said she’s waiting for what she wanted from the start — “to see the arena” and “terms of the engagement” that McConnell will use — before sending her House managers to present the articles of impeachment in the Senate. “We are proud of our defense of the Constitution of the United States,” Pelosi said. “We are concerned the senators will not be able to live up to the oath they take.” The standoff over Trump’s impeachment trial deepened this week as McConnell said there will be “no haggling” with Democrats as Pelosi demands for more details and witnesses. McConnell said on Thursday if Pelosi and House Democrats are “too embarrassed″ to transmit the articles of impeachment, the Senate will simply move on next week to other business. “They do not get to trap our entire country into an unending groundhog day of impeachment without resolution,” McConnell said as he opened the Senate. McConnell’s Senate majority has the leverage Republicans need to launch Trump’s trial toward swift acquittal of the charges, but Pelosi’s reluctance to transmit the articles of impeachment leaves the proceedings at a standstill. What started as a seemingly minor delay over process and procedures is now a high-stakes showdown between two skilled leaders facing off over the rare impeachment trial, only the third in the nation’s history. As Pelosi headed toward a morning meeting Thursday, Pelosi told reporters, “I know exactly when” she plans to send the impeachment articles over, but, “I won’t be telling you right now.″ Asked if she had any concerns about losing support from Democrats for her strategy, she said: “No.” One top lawmaker, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told CNN on Thursday “it’s time” to send over the charges. But shortly afterward, he tweeted that he misspoke: “If the Speaker believes that holding on to the articles for a longer time will help force a fair trial in the Senate, then I wholeheartedly support that decision.” McConnell, who met with Trump late Wednesday at the White House, suggested last month it would be “fine with me” if the House never sent the articles. More recently, he has drawn on the Constitution’s intent for the Senate to have the ultimate say on matters of impeachment. He scoffed that Pelosi has ‘’managed to do the impossible” by uniting Democrats and Republicans who want the trial to begin. “There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure,” McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday before meeting with Trump at the White House. “We will not cede our authority to […]
The post Pelosi Says She Will ‘Soon’ Transmit Impeachment To Senate appeared first on The Yeshiva World.