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Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she was waiting for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to cut a deal first on the rules that would govern the Senate trial.
The question still looms about what happens if McConnell and Schumer, who have yet to speak about the Senate trial but could do so soon, don’t reach a deal on the trial parameters.
Pelosi was careful Thursday not to say at her news conference that Democrats must get a “fair” trial before transmitting the articles. That’s a different tone than Wednesday night when Pelosi suggested that they needed to have a fair trial before deciding whether to submit the articles to the Senate.
Some Democrats have suggested that Pelosi should hold the articles as leverage to win concessions from the Senate before the trial begins. But McConnell dismissed that notion Thursday.
“It’s beyond me how the speaker and Democratic leader in the Senate think withholding the articles of impeachment and not sending them over gives them leverage,” McConnell told reporters. “Frankly, I’m not anxious to have the trial. If she thinks her case is so weak she doesn’t want to send it over, throw me into that briar patch.”
Trump weighed in on Twitter, saying that Pelosi “feels her phony impeachment HOAX is so pathetic she is afraid to present it to the Senate, which can set a date and put this whole SCAM into default if they refuse to show up!”
Pelosi said Thursday that she wanted to see how the Senate planned to set up the trial before sending articles because the makeup of the trial could dictate the managers she appoints.
“The next thing for us will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate, then we’ll know the number of managers that we may have to go forward and who we will choose. That’s what I said last night, that’s what I’m saying now,” Pelosi said.
Schumer told reporters leaving a meeting in Pelosi’s office that the two Democratic leaders were “on the same page.”
“Speaker Pelosi and I want one thing, we want a fair trial,” Schumer said earlier Thursday. “A fair trial, in my way of thinking, involves witnesses and documents. You don’t have trials without them.”
But when CNN asked Pelosi if there needed to be what Democrats consider a “fair” trial, she didn’t explicitly say.
“Well, we’d like to see a fair process, but we’ll see what they have, and we’ll be ready for whatever it is,” Pelosi said.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, also told CNN that “I would doubt” the House holds onto the articles forever, saying they would be submitted in “due course.”
The House and Senate are expected to leave town on Thursday through the end of the year, so the articles may not be transmitted until January. But that timing is not an issue for the Senate, because once the articles are sent to the Senate, it’s supposed to pivot to starting the trial — and neither party wants to begin until after the holidays in the new year.
The process for sending the articles could look like this: Schumer and McConnell cut a deal on the rules. Then, the House passes a resolution naming the impeachment managers who will prosecute the case in the Senate. And then after the House resolution is adopted, the articles would be transmitted to the Senate.
Pelosi cited the 100-0 Senate vote that established the rules for the Clinton impeachment trial in the Senate and said she hoped a similar agreement would be struck this time.
“We would hope they would come to some conclusion like that. But in any event, we’re ready. When we see what they have, we will know who and how many we will send over. That’s all I’m going to say about that now,” Pelosi said.
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