Senate, House leaders spar over next step in impeachment

WASHINGTON — House and Senate leaders traded verbal barbs and clashed Thursday over how to proceed with a trial in the upper legislative chamber on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the House impeachment was “rushed and rigged” and hinted at a quick trial in the Senate without witnesses that probably would lead to the acquittal of Trump on charges of abuse of office and obstruction of Congress.

McConnell’s admission that he is working with White House lawyers on how to conduct the trial in the Senate has raised concerns among Democrats that the House case for impeachment might get short shrift.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that she would not name impeachment managers or send the articles to the Senate until a fair procedure for a trial is determined.

“The next thing will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate,” Pelosi said.

She said at that point she would pick the number of managers to send forward with the articles of impeachment.

“So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us. So hopefully it will be fair. And when we see what that is, we’ll send our managers,” she told her weekly news conference.

The tit-for-tat occurred the day after the House voted mostly along party lines to approve the two articles of impeachment.

The impeachment charges stem from a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. During the call, Trump asked Zelenskiy to announce investigations into political rival Joe Biden and into a debunked claim that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the past presidential election.

The request for the investigations was made as the administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid for Ukraine to fight Russian separatists.

Pelosi’s unexpected procedural delay in taking the next step — apparently in search of leverage in locking in trial arrangements — got a sour response from McConnell and from Trump.

McConnell said Democrats were “too afraid” to send the charges to the Senate, where Trump would be expected to be acquitted by the Republican majority. Trump tweeted, “Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles.” He said that if the Democrats didn’t transmit the charges, “they would lose by default,” though there is no constitutional requirement to send them swiftly, or at all.

Pelosi said she had heard portions of McConnell’s floor speech Thursday and the criticism of the impeachment in the House. She also echoed her concern for the Senate GOP leader’s comments that he would work with White House lawyers on the trial procedures.

Framers of the Constitution included the impeachment clause over concerns about a rogue president, Pelosi said. She said she doubted that they foresaw dealing with a rogue Senate majority leader in the equation.

During his Senate floor speech, McConnell said the partisan impeachment by the House could unsettle “the foundations of our Republic.”

The GOP leader said the impeachment was the most partisan in history. “The vote did not reflect what had been proven, it only reflects how they feel about the president,” he said.

But House clerk records show impeachment efforts in 1974 and 1998 also were highly partisan, as was the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868.

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to approve articles of impeachment against Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, as it did against Trump. And an impeachment vote against Clinton in the House passed largely along party lines, with five Democrats and five Republicans flipping sides.

On Feb. 24, 1868, the House voted 126-47 to impeach Johnson, a Democrat. All of the votes to impeach were cast by Republicans, according to “History, Art & Archives,” a collaborative project between the Office of the Historian and the House Clerk’s Office of Art and Archives.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., defended the impeachment process and dismissed McConnell’s “partisan stem winder” as an attack on Democrats at the behest of the president.

Schumer noted that during the impeachment hearings and House floor debate, the GOP also attacked the process and “almost none defended President Trump because they couldn’t.”

The Senate’s leading Democrat also said it was Pelosi’s decision when to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

When the Senate does hold a trial, Schumer wants acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — who told reporters there was a “quid pro quo” in the Ukraine dealings only to later take back the statement — to testify.

Also on the Democratic list of potential witnesses is John Bolton, the former national security adviser, who was incensed with how president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani was conducting a shadow Ukrainian policy.

During his news conference, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said that Pelosi’s reluctance to turn over the articles to the Senate shows how little confidence she has in the case.

“She understands how weak it is,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy said the whole exercise of impeachment has been destructive to the nation.

“I just don’t find that any of this was healthy,” he told reporters.

Pelosi cannot send the articles to the Senate until the House passes a resolution that includes the managers that will present the case. While that could come during a pro-forma session over the holidays, it might not occur until members return from the holidays.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.