BALL IN SENATE COURT NOW
House does impeach duty, waits to see if Mitch & Co. will do theirs
The House has officially handed the impeachment reins to the Senate.
The lower chamber Wednesday formally transmitted the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate for trial, capping off an unprecedented, monthlong standoff over the structure of the somber proceeding.
In a 228-to-193 vote that fell almost entirely along partisan lines, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved a resolution to send the two articles to the Senate, which is expected to go through some procedural motions Thursday and Friday before starting Trump’s historic trial for real next week.
Speaking on the floor before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked 19th century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s most famous piece, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” but put a dark twist on it to drive home the point Trump must be removed from office over his attempts to pressure Ukraine into doing his political dirty work before the 2020 election.
“Listen my children and you will hear about an assault on the Constitution of the United States by the president of the United States,” Pelosi said, standing next to a poster of an American flag.
In addition to sending over the articles, the resolution rubber-stamped Pelosi’s appointment of seven House Democrats to serve as impeachment managers.
The managers — who include House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan, Brooklyn), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (DBrooklyn, Queens) — will present the case for Trump’s removal at his trial.
Later Wednesday, Pelosi, surrounded by her committee chiefs and managers, signed the resolution before the managers walked it over to the Senate in a formal procession — an arcane last step that officially lets the upper chamber take over.
Breaking from her otherwise consistently somber impeachment demeanor, Pelosi could be seen smiling as she put her John Hancock on the papers. “Today, we will make history,” she said.
Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, widely viewed as the most conservative Democrat in Congress, became the only member of his party to vote against sending the articles. He was also the only current Democrat to vote against impeaching Trump on Dec. 18.
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash, the sole independent member of the House, was the only non-Democrat to vote in favor of the resolution.
Trump was uncharacteristically quiet as his impeachment hit the Senate, only offering a single tweet decrying it all as a Democratic “Con Job,” even as some fresh details about his Ukraine scheme emerged.
The final House approval sets the stage for just the third Senate impeachment trial in the nation’s history, which comes against the backdrop of an election year and a deeply divided nation.
Wednesday’s authorization came 28 days after the House impeached Trump, charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his shady bid to shake down Ukraine’s president for investigations into Democratic rival Joe Biden and a debunked, Russia-promoted conspiracy theory about the 2016 election while using $391 million in U.S. military aid and a coveted White House meeting as leverage.
During her floor speech, Pelosi said Trump’s infamous July 25 request for investigations to President Volodymyr Zelensky — “I would like you to do us a favor, though” — amounted to mob speak.
“Do me a favor?” Pelosi said incredulously.
“Do you paint houses, too? What is this?” she added, cribbing a line from Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-nominated crime drama “The Irishman.”
Pelosi embarked on the impeachment delay to try to strong-arm Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell into agreeing to a trial plan that would include testimony from key witnesses and documents withheld from House investigators by the administration on Trump’s orders. But McConnell (R-Ky.) did not cave to the pressure and has not