House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the Senate dismissing the impeachment case against President Trump would amount to “a cover up.”
The Speaker noted on ABC’s “This Week” that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “very unusually” signed on Thursday to co-sponsor a resolution to dismiss the impeachment case before the House sends the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
{mosads}“This Week” host George Stephanopoulos pushed back against Pelosi, saying that McConnell has agreed to hold the opening statements from each side before taking action.
“I’m telling you that he signed on Thursday to a resolution to dismiss the case,” she said. “Dismissing is a cover up.”
“If they want to go that route again, the senators who are thinking now about voting for witnesses or not – they will have to be accountable for not having a fair trial,” she added.
The Speaker also indicated that there was a possibility the House could submit new articles of impeachment to the Senate or subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton, but said “let’s just see what the Senate does.”
“But we do think there’s enough evidence to remove the president from office,” she added.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that his panel is considering subpoenaing Bolton.
Shortly before Pelosi’s ABC interview, President Trump tweeted that Stephanopoulos should ask “why she allowed Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff to totally make up my conversation with the Ukrainian President & read his false words to Congress and the world, as though I said it?”
Schiff headed the initial impeachment inquiry hearings in the House and was accused of embellishing the president’s phone conversation with the Ukrainian president.
The impeachment inquiry into the president began in the House began after a whistleblower report said he asked the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. The House approved two articles of impeachment, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, for which Trump will face trial in the Senate.
But Pelosi has yet to send the articles to the upper chamber, saying she wants to see the rules of the upcoming Senate trial. She said she plans to consult her members on Tuesday, who will vote on when to pass the articles to the Senate.
–This report was updated at 11:10 a.m.