In an interesting last-minute twist in the impeachment of President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to say when she would send the two articles of impeachment to the Senate, suggesting she wanted to wait until she knew what the rules for the trial of President Trump would entail.
"We cannot name managers until we figure out what the process is on the Senate side," Pelosi said. "So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us."
When asked what a "fair" trial would look like, Pelosi pointed to recent comments made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.), who told reporters he was "not an impartial juror" and that he planned to work with the White House during the impeachment trial.
Pelosi likened McConnell's comments to a foreperson working with the defense attorney in a criminal case.
During a speech Thursday morning, McConnell blamed Democrats in the House for conducting the "first purely partisan presidential impeachment since the wake of the Civil War."
"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.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), responded to McConnell on the floor, pointing out that "at the start of the trial in the Senate, all senators will swear an oath to render impartial justice."
"We are now asked to fulfill our constitutional role as a court of impeachment," Schumer said, adding that the nation had turned "its eyes to the Senate."
"Leader McConnell claimed that the impeachment of President Trump is illegitimate because the House voted along party lines," Schumer said. "Forgive me, but House Democrats cannot be held responsible for the cravenness of the House Republican caucus and their blind fealty to the President."
Schumer also pointed to the stack of bills passed by the House that have languished on McConnell's desk.
"Leader McConnell knows very, very well that the House Democratic Majority has passed hundreds, literally hundreds, of bills that gathered dust here in the estimated, condemned to a legislative graveyard by none other than leader McConnell himself who proudly called himself the grim reaper," Schumer said.
The Senate has not yet announced what its procedures would be for the trial of President Trump.
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