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US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has railed behind closed doors about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to delay sending articles of impeachment to the Republican Senate, putting an expected trial in limbo.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump Republican ally, emerged from a White House meeting with the president with a message.
“He is demanding his day in court,” Graham said in an interview on Fox News yesterday evening.
I just left President Trump. He’s mad as hell that they would do this to him and now deny him his day in court.
Trump has seen a Senate trial as his means for vindication, viewing acquittal as a partial antidote to the impeachment’s stain on his legacy.
But that effort has been threatened by Pelosi’s decision to delay sending the articles approved by the House on Wednesday to the Senate until, she says, Republican leaders offer more details about how they will handle an expected trial.
“So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” she said on Wednesday night, dropping a surprise procedural bombshell just after the House cast its historic votes making Trump only the third president in the nation’s history to be impeached.
House Democrats had argued for weeks Trump’s impeachment was needed “urgently” to protect the nation.
Democrats do not have enough votes in the Republican-controlled Senate to convict Trump and remove him from office.
But they have been pushing for a trial to include witnesses who declined to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.
Trump, meanwhile, has been hoping the trial will serve as an opportunity for vindication, and continues to talk about parading his own witness list, including former Vice President and 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden, even though there is little appetite for that among Senate leaders.
“The reason the Democrats don’t want to submit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they don’t want corrupt politician Adam Shifty Schiff to testify under oath, nor do they want the Whistleblower, the missing second Whistleblower, the informer, the Bidens, to testify!” Trump tweeted late yesterday.
One White House official mused that Pelosi’s decision to indefinitely delay the trial would be an even more effective talking point for the president than his expected acquittal because, they argued, it would highlight how Pelosi has manipulated the process to deny Trump the opportunity to defend himself and clear his name.
Such messaging has been effective in driving outrage among the president’s core supporters, which Trump’s campaign hopes will help propel him to reelection next year.
But Graham made clear the president had not been swayed by that argument, calling the delay a “constitutional outrage” and insisting everyone should have their day in court.
Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office earlier yesterday that Democrats were “playing games,” claiming they didn’t want to submit the charges “because they’re ashamed of ’em” and adding, falsely, that “they’re not allowed to do that. I hear it’s unconstitutional and a lot of other things”.
There is no constitutional requirement for the Democrats to transmit the articles swiftly, or at all.
Meanwhile, Trump insisted that he has not been bothered by the whole impeachment episode.
Asked how he felt about going down in history as only the third president to be impeached, Trump quipped, “To me it doesn’t feel like impeachment”.
Pelosi’s unexpected procedural delay also got a sour response from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been negotiating with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the contours of a trial.
He charged that Democrats were “too afraid” to send the charges to the Senate.
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Lived there for many years. Left after 3 muggings……1 at knifepoint. Most knife crime there is focused in a certain community but people and police are reluctant to point this out as they fear being called racist
Stab capital London. No end in sight
@GloryManUnited2019: it was never as bad here as it is there in fairness!
@Dave Dublin: Be fair Dave, Not all English people are like that.
That’s what you call a scatter gun approach.
That would be justified if the victim had 39 stab wounds
@Paul: one is guilty the others are preventing the police from finding out the truth. They be charged with, with holding evidence, interfering with an investigation etc.
@Paul: what a stupid comment…..
@Jim Buckley Barrett: One or more may the alleged attacker/s. No guilty until tried and convicted
@Paul: be
@Pat O Brien: I hope the victim recovers but I think arresting 39 people at a party who may know nothing is a bit excessive
@Paul: or who may know everything
@Paul: all were in proximity to the alleged attackers and all refused to cooperate, which makes all potential accessories after the fact.
@Paul: ah Paul come on don’t be so naive
39 people arrested for attemped murder. Sounds like the plot of an Agatha christie novel.
How big was the knife?
Was he Julius Caesar?
Arrested 39 people my arse.
@Bluey: your point? Try and use full meaningful sentences.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Did it upset you Jim?
@Bluey: are you implying that they didn’t in fact arrest 39 people and despite initially refusing to cooperate that they all then simultaneously had a change of heart and voluntarily accompanied the police to various stations to give statements?
@Jim Buckley Barrett: I think his point could be he believes the police to be economical with the truth. That’s what the “39 my arse” would indicate to me anyway could be wrong like
have your say