House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she is getting ready to send the Senate the impeachment articles that she’s been withholding for three weeks.
“I’m not holding on to them indefinitely,” Pelosi told reporters. “I’ll send them over when I’m ready. It will probably be soon.”
Pelosi, a California Democrat, said she is waiting for Senate GOP leaders to reveal the details of their plans for conducting a Senate trial weighing the two House impeachment articles that accuse President Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“We want to see what they are willing to do and the manner in which they’ll do it,” Pelosi said.
She told reporters it’s just a matter of seeing those details, and then she’ll send over the articles.
“All we want to know is what are the rules,” Pelosi said. “It doesn’t mean we have to agree to the rules, we just want to know what they are.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said he’d pass a resolution with backing of his GOP majority that would set trial rules mirroring those used during the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. Those rules postpone a vote on summoning witnesses until after both prosecutors and defense lawyers present their arguments.
Democrats wanted an agreement ahead of time to summon Trump administration officials to testify but are now pledging to call up votes on those witnesses throughout the trial.
Several Senate Democrats told the Washington Examiner they are ready to start a Senate trial and want Pelosi to send over the articles, although they agree with her effort to compel witness testimony.
“The speaker of the House has managed to do the impossible,” McConnell said Thursday. “She’s created this growing bipartisan unity here in the Senate in opposition to her own reckless behavior.”
