Things are rapidly going from bad to worse for the House Democrats and their problematic “impeachment”:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he and Sen. Charles Schumer haven’t been able over the terms of a Senate impeachment trial, after the two party’s traded angry accusations about how the chamber will proceed.
McConnell, who earlier Thursday threatened to cancel an impeachment trial for President Donald Trump, described the state of play on the Senate floor after meeting with Schumer, the minority leader.
‘We remain at an impasse on these logistics,’ Schumer told colleagues.
‘My colleague wants a special pre-trial guarantee of certain witnesses whom the House Democrats themselves did not bother to pursue as they assembled their case. Or he wants to proceed without giving any organizational resolution forever,’ McConnell said….
Pelosi has to transmit the articles of impeachment and appoint ‘managers’ to prosecute the president. She offered no timeline, saying she wanted to see the Senate’s plan for a ‘fair trial,’ effectively holding the articles over McConnell’s and Trump’s heads.
Her delay came after several House Democrats took up an idea advocated by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Tribe, who has said the public ‘has a right to observe a meaningful trial rather than simply learn that the result is a verdict of not guilty.’
He advocated the idea of delaying sending over the articles to the Senate as a leverage point to try to secure better terms.
Another Harvard Law professor, Noah Feldman, penned an op-ed agreeing that the transmittal of impeachment articles is a crucial act in the process, and that until this happens, Trump technically hasn’t been impeached.
An indefinite delay ‘would pose a serious problem,’ Feldman wrote.
‘Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial. Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution: The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial.’
He added: ‘If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.’
This just keeps getting better and better….