Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is dismissing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s threat to sit on two articles of impeachment against President Trump, making clear the move would not pressure him to acquiesce to Democratic demands for how the Senate trial should be conducted.
On Wednesday evening, as the House was in the middle of impeaching Trump, McConnell told a small group of reporters that he was “in no hurry” to hold a Senate trial, undercutting Pelosi’s strategy of withholding the articles of impeachment as a means to pressure the Senate majority leader to conduct a trial on terms more favorable to congressional Democrats.
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McConnell added that he was “optimistic” his GOP colleagues might be unified in opposing Trump’s removal from office upon conclusion of a Senate trial to adjudicate the two articles of impeachment, presuming a Senate trial is held beginning early next month as had been assumed.
In remarks Thursday morning on the Senate floor, McConnell said House Democrats are “too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate” and said Pelosi’s strategy was a concession that their case against Trump is weak and undermines the case for impeachment. “This is really comical,” the Kentucky Republican said.
Senate Republicans, led by McConnell, have settled on a trial strategy that forgoes witness testimony and would move straight to a vote to convict or acquit Trump after hearing arguments from House Democrats and Trump’s legal team.
This has irked Democrats in the House and Senate, with some House Democrats responding by urging Pelosi to withhold transmitting impeachment articles to the Senate in bid to leverage McConnell to agree to their terms for how the trial is conducted. The speaker appears to have obliged, at least for now, saying in a surprise announcement Wednesday evening after the impeachment articles against Trump were approved that she would not immediately send them to the Senate.
“We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side,” Pelosi said during a news conference Wednesday after the House impeached Trump. “So far, we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us. We are hoping it will be fairer, and when we see that, we’ll appoint managers.”
Meanwhile, some Senate Republicans say they are beginning to believe that all 53 members of their conference might stick with Trump when a vote to convict or acquit is finally held, despite lingering concerns that the president acted improperly in dealings with Ukraine.
“That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest,” Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said.
