How the House destroyed its own case for the Trump impeachment
By Jonathan Turley, opinion contributor — 01/11/20 10:00 AM EST
“Situation quiet. The captain has been put away for the night.†Those words from the movie “The Caine Mutiny†came to mind on Friday when House leaders announced that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not move until next week in submitting the impeachment of President Trump to a Senate trial. While various Democrats have publicly grumbled about the delay, going into its fourth week, without any sign of success in forcing the Senate to call witnesses, Pelosi continued a strategy that could jeopardize not just any trial but the rules governing impeachment. Indeed, she may force the Senate into a couple of unprecedented but well deserved rulings.
From the outset, the ploy of Pelosi withholding the House impeachment articles was as implausible as it was hypocritical. There was no reason why Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would make concessions to get an impeachment that he loathed. More importantly, just a couple days earlier, House leaders insisted that some of us were wrong to encourage them to wait on an impeachment vote to create a more complete record. Pelosi previously insisted that House committees could not pursue direct witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton because there was no time to delay in getting this impeachment to the Senate. She then waited a month and counting to send the articles on to the Senate.
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https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/477818-how-the-house-destroyed-its-own-case-for-the-trump-impeachment
