It has been a long time since the Democrats in the House passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump on December 18, 2019.
But now, Nancy Pelosi is finally ready to send the impeachment articles to the Senate
The Speaker of the House announced she will send the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week after holding them for more than 3 weeks. She denies that she was feeling pressure from her own party, but Democrats in the House and Senate have started urging her to send them.
Senate Democrats break ranks
Pelosi held the articles for so long that even some of her Democratic colleagues were questioning her methods. Senator Diane Feinstein told Pelosi this week to send the articles or drop it (Feinstein did walk that back later.) “The longer it goes on the less urgent it becomes. So if it’s serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn’t, don’t send it over,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Joe Manchin and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, both Democrats, said the Senate needs to move ahead with the trial, whether they get their witnesses or not.
Even a House Democrat, Adam Smith, chair of the Armed Services Committee urged Pelosi to send the articles.
WATCH:
Remember when Impeachment was urgent?
Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Jerrold Nadler, and the rest of the Democrats that could get face time with the press spent over 3 months insisting that impeaching President Trump was a matter of national security. They rushed through show hearings in the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee in which a lot of “witnesses” testified about their disagreements with President Trump’s decisions. Then they spent more time on television telling us how corrupt and criminal this president is, and how urgent it is to get him out of office before he corrupted the 2020 election.
Only Democrats voted to impeach Trump
On a party-line vote, the Democrats voted to impeach the president and then…nothing. The articles were not delivered to the Senate, Pelosi didn’t want to talk about impeachment, and for the last 3 weeks, everyone has been wondering if the impeachment is going to happen. It has been so long you might have to refresh your memory on what the articles even were. Something about abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, I think.
Pelosi justified the withholding, saying she was keeping the articles until Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority leader would explain how the trial would work. She also wanted to call more witnesses and subpoena more documents. Translation: Pelosi was making demands and was waiting until McConnell caved into them. But, the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments, so Pelosi can’t control the process once the articles are delivered.
What urgency?
When Pelosi refused to send the articles to the Senate, ordinary Americans knew they had been scammed. There was no urgency to remove the president on the part of Pelosi or the Democrats anymore. We had all been manipulated by the Democrats and the mainstream media.
The Senate has the sole power to try all impeachments
Meanwhile, McConnell and the Senate are moving forward using the precedents set by the Clinton impeachment, in which there was a briefing, opening arguments, questions from Senators and a vote to dismiss. McConnell has the votes needed to move forward without having to grant concessions to the Democrats, and most likely to vote to dismiss.
McConnell has said that the impeachment is a sham and should be dispensed with as quickly as possible. Growing the impeachment trial with witnesses and more testimony will certainly tie up the Senate for too long, and as McConnell said, ”they have other things to do.”
We can only hope that this will all be over soon.