House and Senate lawmakers back from the holiday recess will resume a partisan battle over what to do next with the two articles of impeachment accusing President Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Impeachment was left in limbo when lawmakers left town before Christmas. The Republican-run Senate had planned to begin a trial almost immediately but must now wait until House Democrats decide when, or if, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sends over the articles.
“We can’t do anything until the speaker sends the papers over, so everybody enjoy the holidays,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Fox News.
The stalled impeachment battle threatens to delay critical legislation.
McConnell announced last month the Senate won’t vote on a major trade deal between the United States, Canada, and Mexico until after the Senate trial. “Governing is a question of priorities,” McConnell said on the Senate floor before the Christmas break. “Speaker Pelosi failed to make this trade deal a priority for an entire year.”
House Democrats aim to stop McConnell from conducting a speedy trial and acquittal of the president.
The House passed the two articles impeaching Trump one day before adjourning for the year. No Republicans supported the articles. Moments after Pelosi gaveled the votes closed, she announced that rather than sending the articles to the Senate, Democrats in the House would hold onto them until the GOP-led Senate agrees to call key witnesses in a Senate trial.
House Democrats impeached Trump over allegations he withheld security aid from Ukraine to coerce government officials to investigate Democrats and former Vice President Joe Biden, a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination.
They want the Senate to call acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, national security adviser John Bolton, and two other officials to testify in the trial. Democrats are also seeking documents associated with Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he asked Zelensky to investigate Biden.
Democrats said their case for calling Trump administration witnesses is supported by a Dec. 23 report by the Center for Public Integrity, which claimed a senior budget official called on the Department of Defense to withhold the security aid two hours after the July 25 call between Trump and Zelensky.
“Relevant documentary evidence currently in the possession of the Administration will augment the existing evidentiary record and will allow Senators to reach judgments informed by all of the available facts,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. “To oppose the admission of this evidence would be to turn a willfully blind eye to the facts, and would clearly be at odds with the obligation of Senators to ‘do impartial justice’ according to the oath we will all take in the impeachment trial.”
McConnell and Schumer, in a late December meeting, failed to reach an agreement on setting the terms for a Senate trial.
McConnell wants to follow the model used for President Bill Clinton’s 1999 trial on articles impeaching him for perjury and obstruction of justice. In Clinton’s trial, the two parties did not decide on whether to call witnesses until the House impeachment managers and Clinton’s lawyers presented their arguments.
Schumer wants an agreement on witnesses ahead of time because the list includes documents and testimony blocked by Trump that the House was not able to obtain during months of impeachment hearings and depositions.
McConnell’s approach, Schumer said, “would be to foreclose the possibility of obtaining such evidence because it will be too late.”
Neither party appears willing to budge.
Polls show the nation evenly divided along party lines when it comes to impeaching Trump. Democrats support the effort, Republicans oppose it, while independents lean slightly against it.
Rep. Tim Ryan, a centrist Democrat from Ohio, told CNN House Democratic leaders hoped the delay would help shift stagnant public opinion and put new pressure on McConnell to agree to their witness list.
“I think the strategic high ground maneuver that’s happening here by Speaker Pelosi is that over the holidays, at holiday dinners, Christmas dinners, New Year’s parties, this conversation is going to come up, and it’s going to be why isn’t Mitch McConnell allowing people to testify?” Ryan said. “Why have they already made a decision? Why won’t they, the Republicans in the Senate, allow documents? This is a kangaroo court.”
