On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) argued that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) holding off sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate was a “win-win,” for Democrats.
Schumer said, “A lot of Nancy’s colleagues went to her and thought it was a good idea. And she thought it through, and she said if I’m not going to know the outlines of the trial, how do I know which managers to choose.”
He continued, “Second, she said I don’t want to send it over to just have a sham trial, and that’s what McConnell is headed for now is sham trial at least if he has his own way. And so I think it’s a good idea to not draw a line in the sand and she hasn’t done that but to say let’s wait, let’s see how things evolve in the Senate. I think that’s working well because when people say why is she waiting because we want witnesses and we want documents. You know, it just drives the message home.”
He added, “I think we’ll follow it as goes. Nancy and I will talk constantly over the Christmas Holiday, and we’ll see how it goes. But I think not jumping in and giving them the impeachment articles right away as they are not ready to do the fair trial we want but a sham. And let’s say we don’t win the Republicans over, I’m very hopeful, optimistic, expect we will win some of them over. But if we don’t, we will show that this trial and the no vote on impeaching Trump, on throwing him out of office is really not based on any fact, not based on any evidence, is a sham. So it’s sort of a win-win. I’d rather get the evidence and see what happens. And even if they say things that are not in our favor, we would have done the Constitution a favor by making sure that all the facts get out through this trial and God forbid any future one.”
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