US: House Speaker Pelosi wants to withhold impeachment articles from Senate

After successfully passing the impeachment vote in the House, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she will not be committing to immediately sending the articles of impeachment to the Upper House of the Congress where the impeachment trial is to take place. She claims that there are procedural roadblocks among other concerns preventing the Democrats from sending the articles.

The trial might be delayed

Democratic leaders have been trying to convince the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to adhere to their demands concerning the procedure of the trial. They also wish to bring in a firsthand witness like acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify in the Senate. During her statement, Pelosi said that the Democrats will decide on a time to send the articles to the Senate as a group.

If the Democrats send the articles on Thursday they would have blocked votes on other measures, included within those measures is a spending package which is necessary in order to prevent a government shutdown. House Majority Leader and House Minority Leader Chuch Schumer have openly argued over the format of the Senate trial.

The House needs to also name impeachment managers but Pelosi is reluctant to do that before the Democrats are able to see what the process of the trial will be in the Senate. She hopes that will be soon. According to sources, McConnell has told Republican Senators that he will announce the date for the trial by the end of this week.

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The US House voted 230 to 197 to impeach Trump for abuse of power. His impeachment now makes him the third US President to be removed through the highest constitutional remedy after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Trump faced impeachment charges after it was alleged that he had misused his power as President to pressurize Ukraine to investigate Democrat political rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. 

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