House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday notified fellow Democrats that she will schedule a vote to transmit two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate for Wednesday, according to the Washington Post.
During the caucus meeting, Pelosi reportedly also told members that she is holding off on announcing who will be appointed as impeachment managers in the upper chamber’s trial.
The House has waited three weeks to send the articles of the impeachment to the Senate and name impeachment managers.
Pelosi said the House has always intended to send the articles to the Senate, but the three-week delay has come with its own benefits including the release of unredacted emails and other information related to the case.
“What we did want, though and we think we accomplished in the past few weeks is that we wanted the public to see the need for witnesses, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of what happened, documentation which the president has prevented from coming to the Congress as we review this,” she said.
President Trump was impeached by the Democratic-led House last month on charges of abuse of power over pushing Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and obstruction of Congress in the probe.
With the impeachment trial starting in a matter of days, senators are still debating the rules of the proceedings. GOP senators are conferring privately about whether to allow a motion to dismiss the charges against the president or to call additional witnesses for testimony.
President Trump suggested over the weekend he might prefer simply dismissing the charges rather than giving legitimacy to charges from the House, which he considers a “hoax.”
“Why should I have the stigma of Impeachment attached to my name when I did NOTHING wrong? Read the Transcripts! A totally partisan Hoax, never happened before. House Republicans voted 195-0, with three Dems voting with the Republicans. Very unfair to tens of millions of voters!” the president tweeted
Meanwhile, Pelosi has not ruled out whether the House could bring additional articles against the president if there’s evidence to support the move.
“You said he’s violating the Constitution again and again. Do you think it’s possible that the House might have to file new articles of impeachment?” ABC News host George Stephanopoulos asked the speaker on Sunday.
“Well, let’s just see what the Senate does,” she replied.
The AP and UPI contributed to this report.