Nancy Pelosi to get House to vote sending articles of impeachment to the Senate tomorrow
The Democrats will send articles of impeachment to the Senate after a vote tomorrow, which could see Donald Trump’s trial start as early as this week.
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The Democratic-led US House of Representatives will vote tomorrow to send formal impeachment charges against Donald Trump to the Senate, setting the start of the president’s trial for as early as this week.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a party meeting that she would also name the Democrats’ team of “managers” who will lead the prosecution of Mr Trump at the trial, Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar said.
The House impeached Mr Trump last month on charges of abusing power by pressuring Ukraine to announce an investigation into his Democratic rival Joe Biden and of obstructing Congress.
But Mrs Pelosi has delayed sending the charges to the Senate in an unsuccessful effort to get that chamber’s Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to agree to include new witness testimony that could be damaging to the Republican president.
The Senate is expected to acquit Mr Trump, as no Republicans have voiced support for ousting him, a step that would require a two-thirds majority.
Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has dismissed his impeachment as a partisan bid to undo his 2016 election win as he tries to win re-election in November.
A vote tomorrow would allow the Senate to start the trial the next day but politicians would likely not hear opening arguments until next week at the earliest.
“We’ll have I think about a 10-minute debate and we’ll vote on it and then send everything over. And the Senate trial, I assume, will start next week,” Mr Cuellar said.
Democrats want current and former White House officials such as former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, but Sen. McConnell has yet to say definitively how the Republican-controlled Senate will conduct the trial.
House Democrats have said Mrs Pelosi could name up to 10 politicians as managers to argue the case against Mr Trump, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who spearheaded the impeachment probe, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler.