After an historic vote in the House of Representatives to impeach Donald Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a press conference. Flanked by the heads of the relevant committees, she spoke soberly about the history made, the necessity of making it, and movingly invoked their "North Star," the late Congressman Elijah Cummings.
When she turned it over to reporters for questions, immediately they asked about rumors that the House may hold the impeachment articles back from the Senate as long as Mitch McConnell continues to openly pledge fealty to Trump, and slavishly promises to act in bad faith to make sure the outcome is favorable to Dear Leader.
SPEAKER PELOSI: You mean a more fair trial than they're contemplating, because we have a very fair process in the House of Representatives. Let me just put it another way. We have legislation approved by the Rules Committee that will enable us to decide how we will send over the articles of impeachment. We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side, and I will hope that will be soon, as we did with our Resolution 660 to describe what the process would be. So far we haven't seen anything that looks fair to us, so hopefully it will be fair. And when we see what that is --
REPORTER: So you would wait to send the articles until you understand what the Senate is going to do?
SPEAKER PELOSI: We'll make a decision as a group as we always have as we go along.
REPORTER 2: So, you think you'll withhold the articles to impeach until you get what you consider to be a fair trial...
SPEAKER PELOSI: Well, again, we'll decide what that dynamic is but we hope that the resolution of that process will be soon in the Senate. Did you have one, Cheryl? Do you have a question?
REPORTER 3: I do have a question. What do you consider a fair trial?
SPEAKER PELOSI: Let me tell you what I don't consider, what I DON'T consider a fair trial. This is what I don't consider a fair trial. That Leader McConnell has stated that he's not an impartial juror, that he's going to take, quote, his cues from the White House and he's working in total coordination with the White House counsel's office.
Good luck, Speaker Pelosi. There don't appear to be any signs Republicans are the slightest bit inclined to play fair.
