Pelosi clings to impeachment trial stalling strategy after it takes a major blow from McConnell

The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

Mitch McConnell says that he has the votes to move forward with establishing rules for “phase one” of an impeachment trial without having to cave to Democratic demands for the Senate to commit to calling witnesses ahead of time. Instead, the Senate majority leader explained, the plan would allow for both the prosecution and defense to make their arguments, for senators to submit written questions, and then for the question of calling witnesses to be addressed after that. Chuck Schumer has vowed to force votes on impeachment witnesses.

However, the start of a trial still hinges on the House actually sending over the articles of impeachment, and Nancy Pelosi says that she still wants more information before she can agree to that. In a public letter following McConnell’s announcement, Pelosi called on the Senate leader to publish the details of the proposed procedures so that “we can see the arena in which we will be participating, appoint managers and transmit the articles to the Senate.”

Pelosi also said that the kind of trial process that McConnell has put forward is “designed to deprive Senators and the American people of crucial documents and testimony.” But keep in mind that the House was in charge of the investigation into the question of Trump’s conduct and rushed to hold a pre-Christmas vote instead of taking the time to go to federal court and adjudicate the White House’s privilege claims over the witnesses in question; that blows a fairly sizable hole in the argument that the same information is now crucial enough to stall the process now that the investigation is over.

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