WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – After three weeks of waiting, it appears the House of Representatives is set to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday, “I’ll send them over when I’m ready.” It now appears Speaker Pelosi may be ready as early as next week.
She announced plans on Friday to select House managers and then send the articles over. Her decision comes after significant pushback on her delay.
“Well it seems really odd that now about a third or a fourth of the time that they took for impeachment, they’ve now used in sitting on impeachment,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said Wednesday. “It just doesn’t make sense to me.”
The North Carolina Senator criticized the House Speaker for delaying the process that she called urgent, and said his Democratic colleagues were eager to begin.
Alabama Congresswoman Terri Sewell is defending the Speaker’s strategy.
“Has nothing to do with the validity and urgency of those articles of impeachment but rather an assurance to the American people that we will have, and in fact have, a trial on the Senate side and not just an unfair vote,” Sewell (D-AL) said.
At the White House, administration officials said they’ve been waiting patiently for Pelosi to make her move but aren’t afraid for a Senate trial to begin.
“We are well prepared to start tomorrow,” Pam Bondi, a special adviser to the president, said.
Bondi said they want to get the impeachment trial behind them and get back to the work of the administration.
“He took out one of the biggest terrorists in the world while he’s under impeachment. It’s unbelievable,” Bondi added.
After the articles are formally sent to the Senate, a trial could begin by the end of next week.
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