Trump demands trial as McConnell, Pelosi engage in partisan sniping over impeachment

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants an immediate trial in the Senate, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not hand off impeachment to the Senate until she learned how Republicans would manage the proceeding.

"So after the Democrats gave me no Due Process in the House, no lawyers, no witnesses, no nothing, they now want to tell the Senate how to run their trial," Trump said on Twitter.

Trump hadpreviously suggested that he might be willing to offer written testimony duringthe House impeachment inquiry following an invitation from Pelosi on Nov. 18 to speak. However, he laterrefused to co-operate with the inquiry and ordered current and former administration officials not to testify or provide documents demanded by House committees.

Trump's demands followed Pelosi saying Thursday that people have a "spring in their step" after the House impeached the president, but she insisted the Senate must provide more details about the expected trial in that chamber before she agrees to send the House charges over.

Pelosi's unexpected procedural delay looking for leverage in trial arrangements was getting a sour response from Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and from Trump himself.

The top Senate Republican on Thursday denounced the "unfair" House impeachment of Trump and reassured the president and his supporters that "moments like this are why the United States Senate exists."

Until the articles are submitted, the Senate cannot hold the trial.The impeachment trial has been expected to begin in January.

McConnell said in remarks on the Senate floor that the impeachment vote in the House"risks deeply damaging the institutions of American government."

"This particular House of Representatives has let itspartisan rage at this particular president create a toxic newprecedent that will echo well into the future," McConnell said.

The Kentucky Republican accused Pelosi of being afraid to send "their shoddy work product to the Senate."

The House impeached Trump on two charges abusing his power and obstructing Congress stemming from his pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rival as he withheld U.S. aid

McConnell said the two articles failed to meet the constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanours and that the House simply impeached a political foe for an abuse of power offence that isn't considered a crime.

McConnell described Trump's impeachment as rushed, contrasting it to 14 months of Watergate hearings that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974.

"It's like the Speaker called up[Judiciary] Chairman [Jerrold]Nadler and ordered one impeachment, rush delivery please." he said.

House Democrats have argued in recent weeks that Trump's impeachment was needed "urgently," arguing his actions were a threat to Democracy and the fairness of the 2020 election. The Nixon hearings occurred at a different point in the American political calendar, just after he was re-elected to a second term.

A trial in the Republican-controlled Senate would almost certainly result in Trump being acquitted of the charges.

Watch as Trump dismisses impeachment during rally:

Trump brushes off impeachment at Michigan rally

5 years ago

Duration 0:32

'By the way, it doesn't really feel like we're being impeached,' Trump said after the House voted to impeach him.

'Rogue leader in the Senate'

Pelosi pushed back on McConnell's claims.

"I heard some of what Mitch McConnell said today, and it reminded that me that our Founders, when they wrote the Constitution, they suspected there could be a rogue president," she said. "I don't think they suspected that we'd have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time."

Pelosihas said House Democrats could not name impeachment managers House prosecutors who make the case for Trump's conviction and removal from office until they know more about how the Senate will conduct a trial.

McConnell was meeting later in the day with Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to begin negotiations on how to conduct a trial. McConnell holds a tactical edge if he can keep his 53-member Senate majority united.

McConnell said he andSchumerfailed to reach an agreement on Senate minority leader'sdemand that witnesses testify at Trump's trial.

"We remain at an impasse on these logistics," McConnell said on the floor of the Senate.

The Senate majority leaderrejected a proposal earlier this week from Schumer to call several witnesses. McConnell also said that he is coordinating with the White House and declared that "I am not an impartial juror."

Speaking on the Senate floor shortly after McConnell, Schumer accusedthe Republican leader ofplotting the "most rushed, least thorough and most unfair" impeachment trial in history by declining to agree to call witnesses including former Trump national security adviser John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, White House chief of staff.

"Is the president's case so weak that none of the president's men can defend him under oath?" said Schumer.

Putin pans impeachment

A day after his impeachment, Trump continued to lash out at Pelosi.

"Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. He claimed the timing of the trial was up to the Senate, and that if Democrats didn't transmit the articles of impeachment "they would lose by Default!"

But there is no Constitutional requirement on Pelosi to send them swiftly, or at all.

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Trump was impeached for "far-fetched" reasons.

"It's simply a continuation of internal political struggle," Putin said at his end-of-year news conference in Moscow. "The party that lost the [2016] election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results by other means."

Trump is the third U.S. president to be impeached, a day shy of exactly 21 years after Bill Clinton was impeached. Clinton and Andrew Johnson in the 19th century were ultimately acquitted by the Senate, while Nixon resigned in 1974 after a House committee approved articles of impeachment.