WASHINGTON -- The day after the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump, Democrats grappled Thursday with when to send the charges to the Republican-led Senate.
With some leading Democrats pushing to delay transmittal of the articles and others advocating that they be withheld altogether, it appeared increasingly likely that the limbo could persist until the new year. The House is poised to leave town today for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, possibly without conducting the votes that would be required to start the process in the Senate.
"We are ready," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said Wednesday night that she was reluctant to send the charges or name the lawmakers who would prosecute the case against Trump until she was certain of a fair process for a Senate trial. "When we see what they have, we will know who and how many we will send over."
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. and the majority leader, has said he has no intention of acting as an impartial juror in a Senate trial of Trump but would instead do everything in his power to quickly acquit the president.
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In a speech Thursday, McConnell denounced Pelosi and Democrats for impeaching Trump.
"The vote did not reflect what had been proven; it only reflects how they feel about the president," McConnell said from the Senate floor. "The Senate must put this right. We must rise to this occasion. There is only one outcome that is suited to the paucity of evidence, the failed inquiry, the slapdash case."
He also argued that the delay reflected a weak case against Trump.
"The prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial," McConnell said. "They said impeachment was so urgent that it could not even wait for due process, but now they're content to sit on their hands. This is comical."
Trump, echoing McConnell's remarks, took to Twitter to attack what he called a "pathetic" case.
"Pelosi feels her phony impeachment HOAX is so pathetic she is afraid to present it to the Senate, which can set a date and put this whole SCAM into default if they refuse to show up!" Trump wrote. "The Do Nothings are so bad for our Country!"
Nerves were raw on both sides of the aisle the morning after the House voted to impeach Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to a July phone call with Ukraine's president in which Trump asked him to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and the Democratic leader, called McConnell's speech a "30-minute partisan screed." Later, he met with Pelosi privately to plan strategy.
In the House, Pelosi shot back at McConnell: "I don't think anybody expected that we would have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time."
And even as the next step in the process remained murky, she said Democrats had been receiving accolades from people across the country who were buoyed by the House action to impeach Trump.
"Seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior," Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill. "No one is above the law, and the president has been held accountable."
The two Senate leaders met later Thursday to discuss the parameters of a trial, and came to no agreement.
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"Sen. Schumer made clear to Sen. McConnell that the witnesses and documents are necessary to ensure a fair trial in the Senate," said Schumer spokesman Justin Goodman. He said, "Schumer asked Sen. McConnell to consider Sen. Schumer's proposal over the holidays."
Some leading Democrats have cast doubt on whether a Senate trial will happen at all.
On Thursday morning, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. and the No. 3 House Democrat, said he was willing to wait "as long as it takes" to transmit the two impeachment articles approved Wednesday night.
"Until we can get some assurances from the majority leader that he is going to allow for a fair and impartial trial to take place, we would be crazy to walk in there knowing he has set up a kangaroo court," Clyburn said Thursday morning on CNN.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Thursday that the White House is continuing to work with McConnell "to figure out the best way to move forward" with an anticipated Senate impeachment trial.
"We're ready for anything," Gidley said during an appearance on Fox News. "How that actually looks in the Senate, you know, we'll wait and see. We're working, obviously, with Mitch McConnell to figure out the best way to move forward. But let's be clear, after that sham for months [in the House] ... do we really want to move forward with more of this in the Senate. I'd say not."
Gidley said the talk of withholding the articles marked the effective end of impeachment.
"I think this has come to an end, by this latest ploy, by this latest gimmick by Nancy Pelosi. The people see right through this sham," he said.
PLANS FOR TRIAL
In her own news conference in the House on Thursday, Pelosi played down the delay over pressing charges in the Senate but declined repeatedly to offer a timeline for when the House might file its case. Pelosi has indicated that she will work with House chairmen and Schumer to determine when the articles should be submitted and what meets her standard for fairness.
Schumer has already set forth his own detailed plan for a trial. In a letter sent Sunday night to McConnell, Schumer proposed a trial beginning Jan. 7 that would give each side a fixed amount of time to present its case, and called for four top White House officials who have not testified -- including Mick Mulvaney, Trump's acting chief of staff; and John Bolton, the president's former national security adviser -- to appear as witnesses.
McConnell quickly rejected the plan.
"Is the president's case so weak that none of the president's men can defend him under oath?" Schumer asked in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday morning.
Schumer said Democrats want a "fair and speedy trial" and he had proposed a "very reasonable structure."
"I have yet to hear one good argument why less evidence is better than more evidence, particularly in such a serious moment," he added.
On Thursday, McConnell denounced the "most unfair" House impeachment, and reassured Trump and his supporters that "moments like this are why the United States Senate exists."
As for what the Senate would do, he said, "It could not be clearer which outcome would serve the stabilizing, institution-preserving, fever-breaking role for which the United States Senate was created and which outcome would betray it."
He described Trump's impeachment as "the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history."
Fighting back using McConnell's own words, Schumer said the Republican leader was plotting the "most rushed, least thorough and most unfair" impeachment trial in history by declining to agree to call additional witnesses.
"McConnell claimed the impeachment was motivated by partisan rage," said Schumer. "This from the man who said proudly, 'I am not impartial.'"
"What hypocrisy," Schumer said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the possibility that the House could hold back the articles a "constitutional extortion mechanism that is dangerous for the country."
Graham, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he spoke Thursday morning with Trump, who asked him, "What's happening?"
"He's puzzled," Graham said. "I tried the best I could to explain it. I'm puzzled, too."
DEMOCRAT SWITCHES PARTIES
Separately, Trump announced Thursday that Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Democrat who broke with his party to vote against Trump's impeachment, is officially switching parties and becoming a Republican.
"Jeff will be joining the Republican Party," Trump announced during an Oval Office event with Van Drew, who broke the news to his staff over the weekend, prompting widespread resignations. "It's a big deal."
Van Drew on Wednesday broke with his party and voted against impeaching Trump -- a move that bolstered GOP attempts to depict Democrats as divided on the matter. Republicans voted unanimously against it.
"I believe that this is just a better fit for me," Van Drew said of his decision, telling Trump that the final straw had been a meeting with a local Democratic Party county chairman who threatened to "destroy" him if he voted with Republicans on impeachment.
"This is who I am, it's who I always was, but there was more tolerance of moderate Democrats, of Blue Dog Democrats, of conservative Democrats," said Van Drew, "and I think that's going away."
Trump offered his support and announced that he is endorsing Van Drew for reelection, calling him "a tremendous asset for the party."
Van Drew later told reporters on the Hill that, "in any primary, when you have a president supporting you, it is helpful, for sure."
Pelosi said Thursday that she had not discussed the move with Van Drew. Asked by reporters whether she had advice for him, she responded: "Nothing. Zero."
Information for this article was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos of The New York Times; by Felicia Sonmez, John Wagner and Elise Viebeck of The Washington Post; and by Mary Clare Jalonick, Laurie Kellman, Zeke Miller, Alan Fram, Lisa Mascaro and Jill Colvin of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/20/2019