Their timeline, however, runs parallel to a Nov. 21 deadline to pass fiscal 2020 spending bills. That’s when a short-term spending measure expires, and lawmakers must either agree on long-term measures or pass another temporary bill to keep the federal government operating.

Trump may not be up for negotiating, having warned Democrats long ago that if they move to impeach him, he’ll assume “a war-like posture.”

But both parties and the president are eager to avoid a spending showdown or partial government closure that would be politically perilous for both Republicans and Democrats.

“Democrats hope that all sides recognize the imperative of stable government funding and don’t weaponize the appropriations process to address unrelated grievances,” a top Democratic aide told the Washington Examiner.

The impeachment push threatens to derail spending talks already hampered by partisan disagreements over border wall funding and could lead to another partial government shutdown that paralyzed Washington for 35 days earlier this year.

Democrats accuse the Trump administration of misusing Defense Department funding to pay for constructing a wall along the southwest border.

Trump declared a national emergency in February to authorize his unilateral shift of $3.6 billion from military construction projects and $2.5 billion from Pentagon drug interdiction programs to the wall-building effort.

Democrats are now balking at attempts by the GOP to backfill the DOD budget in the 2020 spending allocation.

“The president’s border wall is a misuse of Department of Defense dollars, plain and simple,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith said after touring the border on Oct. 10.

Democrats also oppose a move by Senate Republicans to lift $5 billion from the fiscal 2020 Health and Human Services budget and allocate it to the Department of Homeland Security for additional wall construction.

“We just saw the president ransack $6.1 billion from the military for his wall and another $5 billion is a bridge too far,” Sen. Jon Tester, who sits on the appropriations panel, said.

The wall dispute threatens to hold up several spending measures comprising more than half of the federal budget, including DHS, HHS, and the $695 billion Pentagon appropriations bill.

The two parties are conducting staff-level talks on a plan to start passing at least some of the dozen appropriations measures that fund the federal government, Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said last month.

The Democrat-led House has already approved 10 of the 12 appropriations measures, but the bills do not conform to a bipartisan spending caps deal reached with Trump in July. The House must now negotiate the spending bills with the GOP-led Senate.

The bipartisan talks about reaching a compromise on spending will accelerate as House Democrats ramp up their impeachment investigation. Democrats are in a standoff with the White House over documents subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee.

Much of the impeachment saga thus far has been conducted in secret Capitol basement discussions, but it threatens to spill into the spending talks as well.

Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, who will lead the fiscal 2020 negotiations for the House Democrats, sent a letter to the White House demanding documents related to the delayed security funding for Ukraine, which is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

Democrats want to know more about the role the Office of Management and Budget played in withholding $400 million in security aid to Ukraine, which Congress appropriated.

“We have deepening concerns,” Lowey wrote to acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and acting OMB Director Russell Vought, “that recent apportionment actions taken by OMB to withhold military aid and foreign assistance funding administered by the Department of Defense, Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development constitute unlawful impoundments.”

Trump has long been expected to play a significant role in negotiating a final spending bill, in part because of the dispute over wall funding, which is a top legislative priority for him.

The president’s willingness to strike a deal with Democrats could be in peril now that they are moving to impeach him.

“Then they all wonder why they don’t get gun legislation done, then they wonder why they don’t get drug prices lowered,” Trump said shortly after Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry. “Because all they do is talk nonsense. No more infrastructure bills, no more anything.”

Democrats told the Washington Examiner bipartisan progress is underway, with or without the president.

“The next steps are to negotiate allocations for the 12 subcommittees so that members can hammer out individual bills,” a top Democratic aide told the Washington Examiner. “Those negotiations are currently underway between the House and Senate.”