According to CNN, Pelosi delaying the sending of the articles of impeachment to the Senate is creating anxiety among those in her party and she is losing support from Democrats in the Senate who are anxious to get this impeachment trial underway.
Watch:
The most amazing part of this to me was John King’s reaction to Pelosi wanting McConnell to put in writing how he’s going to run the trial. King actually said that “McConnell has been pretty clear about the process”, noting that he is going to run it roughly as they did in the 1998 Clinton impeachment trial, and asks “why isn’t that good enough for the Speaker?”
The Washington Post reporter on the CNN panel agreed, saying it’s pretty puzzling because any document that McConnell produces at this point wouldn’t have much more detail than the organizing documents did in the Clinton impeachment.
More importantly, the same reporter also pointed out that Pelosi really doesn’t have any leverage because McConnell has the votes to run the trial how he sees fit. Meanwhile, even the more liberal Democratic Senators are telling Pelosi to stop with the delays and get the impeachment trial going.
One last point. CNN is casting this as some sort of a stalemate between Pelosi and McConnell, asking who is going to blink first. But in reality, that’s just not true at all. The Senate doesn’t have to do an impeachment trial and Senate Republicans will just go on with normal business until she does blink. I say keep the phony articles of impeachment. The longer she keeps them, the more likely it is (at least I hope) that the Senate will just vote them down without even considering a trial. That’s what should happen anyway.