Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered some bad news to Speaker Pelosi from the floor of the upper-chamber:
…”There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure. We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment. The House Democrats’ turn is over. The Senate has made its decision.”…
…Now, go make me a sandwich.
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[Transcript] – MITCH MCCONNELL – ‘Late last year, Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats sped through a slapdash impeachment of President Trump in 12 weeks. Because, they insisted, the need to undo the 2016 election was urgent. Urgent, they said.
‘Since then, the same people have spent three weeks dragging their heels and refusing to proceed to a Senate trial.
‘Supposedly, the explanation for this shameless game-playing is that Speaker Pelosi wanted “leverage” to reach into the Senate and dictate our trial proceedings to us. I’ve made clear from the beginning that no such “leverage” exists. It’s nonexistent. And yesterday we made it clear it will never exist.
‘A majority of the Senate has decided that the first phase of an impeachment trial should track closely with the unanimous bipartisan precedent that all 100 senators supported for the first phase of the Clinton trial back in 1999.
‘There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure. We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment. The House Democrats’ turn is over. The Senate has made its decision.
‘The 1999 precedent does not guarantee witnesses or foreclose witnesses. Let me say that again: it neither guarantees witnesses nor forecloses witnesses. It leaves those determinations until later in the trial where they belong.
‘I fully expect the parties will raise questions about witnesses at the appropriate time. I would remind my friends on the other side: I strongly suspect that not all the potential witnesses would be people the Democrats are eager to hear from.
‘So the Senate will address all these questions at the appropriate time. That is for the Senate, and the Senate only, to decide. Period.” (read more)
