GOP senators demand Pelosi to send impeachment articles to Senate

Twenty-five Republican senators on Thursday submitted a Senate resolution demanding House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to immediately appoint impeachment managers and send the two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump passed by the House on December 18, 2019, to the Senate.

The resolution states that Pelosi has refused to transmit the articles to the Senate unless the upper chamber of the Congress agrees to allow her to dictate the rules of a trial.

It also states that the US constitution does not empower the House speaker to effectively veto a resolution that has been passed by a duly elected House majority by declining to send such a resolution to the Senate.

Pelosi’s refusal to transmit the articles, adds the resolution, is a “flagrant violation of the separation of powers expressly outlined in the bi-eameral impeachment process under the Constitution of the United States.”

Calling the inaction on Pelosi’s part a “gross infringement on the constitutional authority of the Senate to try impeachments,” the document calls the House speaker’s refusal “unprecedented for presidential impeachments.”

Full text of the resolution can be found on the official website of Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) (also).

Capito issued a statement, saying, “In the United States Senate, we cannot move forward until Speaker Pelosi sends the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate.”

She added, “House Democrats argued that impeachment was an emergency and they needed to act quickly, yet they have delayed this process for weeks. It makes no sense. By sitting on the articles, Speaker Pelosi is proving to the American people that this has been about political games from the beginning. Nothing is accomplished by delaying this process further, so I urge the Speaker to do her job and send the articles to the Senate so we can begin this process.”

Capito is one of the GOP senators who signed on to the resolution.

Another signatory, Senator David Perdue (R-GA) stated, “Speaker Pelosi is wasting the American people’s time.”

He added, “Clearly, the sham impeachment process in the U.S. House of Representatives was nothing more than a partisan show trial. By refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate, Speaker Pelosi is just playing more political games. President Trump deserves his day in court, and the Senate is fully prepared to conduct a fair trial and then get back to work for the American people.”

Making her opening statement on the need for an impartial impeachment trial, Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein’s (D-Calif.) explained Pelosi’s reason for delaying the transmitting of the articles, saying, “Today, we know that certain key witnesses haven’t provided any testimony and that critical documents have been withheld.”

She added, “Given the importance of this additional evidence, it’s understandable that Speaker Pelosi has delayed transmitting articles of impeachment until the contours of a Senate trial are known.”

It should be noted here that former National Security Advisor John Bolton announced earlier this week that he was prepared to testify when the Senate considered the impeachment articles. Bolton was “personally involved” in many of the conversations, meetings and events about Trump’s actions related to Ukraine, said Feinstein.

“The same is true for the other three White House officials requested by Senator Schumer, including Chief of Staff Mulvaney,” Feinstein added. “The Senate and American people would benefit from their firsthand knowledge of the decision to withhold aid from Ukraine.”

Image attribution - Lorie Shaull (Source) (CC BY-SA 2.0)