We’ve maintained that Pelosi’s waiting to turn over the Articles of Impeachment has been a 2020 tactical decision, and this Pelosi quote in Time Magazine supports our theory:

“Somebody said to me today that he may not even take up what we send. [But] then [President Trump] will never be vindicated,” Pelosi told top caucus members, according to the aide in the room. “He will be impeached forever. Forever. No matter what the Senate does.”

All of the Villagers are reporting that she has no leverage, McConnell has won, just get it over with (“I’m on a deadline”), conventional wisdom, blah-blah-blah. The thing I’ve learned from watching Pelosi over the years is that anyone who goes up against her regrets it. Even her own caucus:

• House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Smith quickly reversed himself Thursday after saying Speaker Nancy Pelosi should send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate.
• Smith had said that “I think it is time to send the impeachment to the Senate and let Mitch McConnell be responsible for the fairness of the trial.”
• But he later tweeted: “I misspoke this morning, I do believe we should do everything we can to force the Senate to have a fair trial.”

Pelosi’s secret sauce, I think, is that she sees the passage of time as a weapon. Everyone gets buggy when she waits. We got buggy when she wouldn’t start the impeachment hearings, too, but she bides her time. Now also note that while she has been waiting, more emails became public showing more complicity from Prznint Stupid to illegally without aid from Ukraine, Rudy Giuliani continues to flap his gums and confess more, and now John Bolton is willing to testify. None of this things were known when the hearings concluded.

Politico’s morning email thingie shows us how it’s working:

Yet even as the trial feels imminent, Republicans are cranking up the heat on Pelosi for withholding the articles and have been quietly exploring ways to force her hand — though there is little the GOP can do other than apply public pressure. Both Rep. Bradley Byrne and Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced resolutions condemning Pelosi, while Rep. Morgan Griffith raised a series of parliamentary inquiries on the floor over the issue. And Rep. Chip Roy even trolled the speaker by posting a video of how easy it is to walk from the House to the Senate. The dispatch from your Huddle host: https://politi.co/39VLrH1.

Related reads: “Ten Republicans sign onto Josh Hawley’s proposal to dismiss Trump’s impeachment,” by Bryan Lowry for the Kansas City Star: http://bit.ly/2tP9Duc; and “‘Soon,’ Pelosi promises, as some Democrats grow restless over delay in Trump’s impeachment trial,” from WaPo’s Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade: https://wapo.st/36BRaj7.

The proposal to dismiss is patently un-Constitutional, and it certainly is going to backfire. It’s more obvious by the day that amply be-chinned #MoscowMitch is fixing the trial and defiling the Constitution, and his low-IQ catchfarts are not impartial jurors. That’s going to backfire too, in some way.

I have no idea how this is going to end, but again, I know that going up against Nancy Pelosi is a fool’s errand.

Republished with permission from Mock Paper Scissors