U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday lambasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), often described as fearless and even never-daunted, as “too afraid” to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate that were approved mostly along party lines with three Democrats defecting.
On the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell accused Pelosi of suggesting “that House Democrats may be too afraid … to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate.”
Referring to the development as “comical,” McConnell said Democrats who stressed the urgency of the process now seem “content to sit on their hands.”
McConnell, one of the top Republican leaders who has been holding the party together against the impeachment-fueled onslaught against Trump and his allies, taunted Pelosi’s threat to withhold the articles of impeachment until the GOP agrees to a fair impeachment trial.
“This particular House of Representatives has let its partisan rage at this particular president create a toxic new precedent that will echo well into the future,” McConnell said from the Senate floor Thursday.
“Looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet,” McConnell mused in remarks on the Senate floor after the House voted to impeach Trump along party lines.
Three Democrats defected, voting against at least one of the articles, while the Republicans remained together in their opposition.
House Democrats impeached Trump on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump joined the impeached president’s club as its third member.
Historically, the House sends the articles of impeachment approved in the House to the upper chamber — the Senate – for a trial.
Pelosi, however, appears to be doing what she knows best, playing legislative games. She has threatened that the Democrats would only send over the impeachment articles until she gets what she wants — the promise of a “fair” Senate process.
“We’ll make a decision… as we go along,” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday, adding that “we’ll see what the process will be on the Senate side,” Fox News reports.
“We have acted,” Pelosi continued, repeatedly refusing to commit to sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. “Now, they’ll understand what their responsibilities are, and we’ll see what that is.”
Many Republicans have balked at Pelosi’s request because they believe Democrats denied them a fair trial while Pelosi sat by and watched the show.
McConnell’s speech on the Senate floor came after House Democrats voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on Wednesday night.
On Thursday, Senate majority leader McConnell deemed the House impeachment vote — which passed without the support of a single Republican — as “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.”
Impeaching Trump became an obsession for many Democrats soon after he took office.
Speaker Pelosi has vowed not to send the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Republican-controlled Senate until they agree to make the Senate trial fair. House Republicans repeatedly made similar requests, but the Democrat majority ignored them.
So now, Democrats are complaining that Republicans are denying them the legislative commodities that just a few weeks ago they gleefully refused GOP lawmakers.
Pelosi’s threat not to release the articles of impeachment until she gets what she wants is a surprise move that plunges Congress’s timeline of Trump’s trial in the Senate into even more uncertainty.
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