Pelosi: Impeachment trial to start soon

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she planned to transmit the House’s impeachment charge against former President Donald Trump to the Senate “soon” but again refused to pinpoint a date, leaving uncertain the timing of a trial that promises to consume Washington.

On their first full day of control in the capital, Democrats were trying to acclimate to their newfound power in the White House and on Capitol Hill, including figuring out how to approach the fraught trial, during the opening days of a new administration, of a former president accused of “incitement of insurrection.” Pelosi offered praise for President Joe Biden, insisting the trial would not detract from his call for unity and implying the case could be speedy.

“I don’t think it’s very unifying to say, ‘Let’s just forget it and move on,’” the speaker told reporters in the Capitol. “Just because he is now gone — thank God — you don’t say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration, you are going to get a get-out-of-jail-free card because people think we should make nice nice,’ and forget that people died here on Jan. 6, that he attempted to undermine our election, to undermine our democracy, to dishonor our Constitution.”

As Pelosi spoke, Senate leaders were struggling to finalize a set of rules to govern the trial. They were tied up in broader talks over a power-sharing agreement to govern a chamber split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. Because the vice president can cast tiebreaking votes, Democrats have operational control.