After a standoff with Mitch McConnell over Donald Trump’s Senate trial, Nancy Pelosi told lawmakers Friday that she will send the articles of impeachment to the upper chamber next week. “I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate,” the House Speaker wrote in a letter to House colleagues, per the New York Times. “I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further.”
The announcement will likely mark the end of a stalemate between her and the Senate Majority Leader, who has said he will not be an “impartial juror” in the case and has resisted Democratic demands that witnesses and documents be presented in the trial. Pelosi had withheld the articles — one for abuse of power, one for obstruction — from the Senate as leverage for fairer trial conditions, but McConnell refused to relent and Republicans considered beginning the trial without the articles. Even some Democrats appeared to grow antsy in recent days, as the impasse dragged on. “It’s her decision,” Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said this week. “But I would hope she sends them over sooner rather than later.”
Though she bashed McConnell in her letter for his “disregard for the American people’s interest for a fair trial and dismissal of the facts,” she will turn impeachment over to the Senate without her demands being met. That’ll likely mean a quick acquittal for Trump, who has been protected by Republican lawmakers despite compelling evidence that he did, in fact, attempt to strongarm Ukraine for investigations into his domestic political rivals. “Americans have now seen what is at stake in a fair trial with witnesses & evidence, and new evidence has emerged,” Pelosi tweeted Friday, referring to new revelations about a hold on military aid to Ukraine that have come out since House Democrats impeached Trump last month. “Every Senator will have to vote: is their loyalty is to the President or the Constitution?”