House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday the House will take steps next week to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, ending Democrats’ blockade of President Donald Trump’s Senate trial.
Pelosi has been in a standoff with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that has consumed Capitol Hill and scrambled the political dynamics more than three weeks after the House impeached Trump.
She said she has asked House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
“I will be consulting with you at our Tuesday House Democratic Caucus meeting on how we proceed further,” Pelosi wrote. She did not announce a date for the House vote.
The move eases, for now, the protracted showdown over the rare impeachment trial, only the third in the nation’s history.
The president faces charges of abuse and obstruction over his actions toward Ukraine.
McConnell wants to launch a speedy trial without new witnesses. Democrats want to be allowed to call favorable witnesses for fresh testimony.
Trump mocked Pelosi with his tweets Friday and derided her and other Democrats late Thursday in Toledo, his first rally of 2020.
McConnell told GOP senators at a lunchtime meeting this week to expect the trial next week, according to two people familiar with his remarks.
He had signed on to a resolution from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., to change Senate rules to allow for the dismissal of articles of impeachment if the House doesn’t transmit them in 25 days. That now appears unlikely.
Republicans have the leverage, with a slim 53-47 Senate majority, as McConnell rebuffs the Democratic demands for more testimony and documents. It takes just 51 senators to set the rules.
McConnell has said from the start he is looking to model Trump’s trial on the last time the Senate convened as the court of impeachment, for President Bill Clinton in 1999. McConnell has said there will be “no haggling” with House Democrats over Senate procedures.
“There will be no unfair, new rule-book written solely for President Trump,” McConnell said Thursday.
The delay on impeachment has also upended the political calendar, with the weekslong trial now expected to bump into presidential nominating contests, which begin in early February. Several Democratic senators are running for the party’s nomination.
It’s still unclear who Pelosi will appoint as impeachment managers to prosecute the case in the Senate.
The Associated Press contributed to this article