Ahead of impeachment trial, Trump suggests Senate should dismiss the case

Washington: President Donald Trump says the Senate should simply dismiss the impeachment case against him, an extraordinary suggestion as the House prepares to transmit the charges to the chamber for the historic trial.

The president is giving mixed messages ahead of the House’s landmark vote that will launch the Senate proceedings in a matter of days, only the third presidential impeachment trial in American history. Trump faces charges that he abused power by pushing Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden and then obstructed Congress.

First Trump was suggesting his own ideas for trial witnesses, then he said almost the exact opposite Sunday by tweeting that the trial shouldn’t happen at all.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signed on to an outlier proposal circulating last week among conservative senators, but he does not have enough support in the Republican-held chamber to actually do it. It would require a rare rules change similar to the approach McConnell used for Supreme Court confirmations.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned Sunday that senators will pay a price if they block new witness testimony with a trial that Americans perceive as a cover-up for Trump’s actions.

“It’s about a fair trial. The senators who are thinking now about voting for witnesses or not, they will have to be accountable. Now the ball is in their court to either do that or pay a price,” Pelosi told ABC’s “This Week”.

Voters are divided over impeachment largely among the nation’s deeply partisan lines and the trial is becoming a high-stakes undertaking at the start of a presidential election year.

A House vote to transmit the articles to the Senate will bring to a close a standoff between Pelosi and McConnell over the rules for the trial. The House voted to impeach Trump last month.

Yet ending one showdown merely starts another across the Capitol as the parties try to set the terms of the debate over high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Democratic-run House has not yet set the timing for this week’s vote to transmit the impeachment articles to the Senate. Pelosi will meet behind closed doors with House Democrats to decide next steps on Tuesday morning ahead of the party’s presidential primary debate that evening, the last before the Iowa caucuses February 3.

Once the Republican-led Senate receives the charges, the trial is expected to begin swiftly.