US President Donald Trump on Thursday railed behind closed doors about US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision to delay sending articles of impeachment to the Republican-controlled Senate, putting an expected trial in limbo.
US Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, emerged from a White House meeting with the president with a message.
“He is demanding his day in court,” Graham said in an interview on Fox News Channel on Thursday evening. “I just left President Trump. He’s mad as hell that they would do this to him and now deny him his day in court.”
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about his account.
Trump has seen a Senate trial as his means for vindication, viewing acquittal as a partial antidote to impeachment’s stain on his legacy.
However, that effort has been threatened by Pelosi’s decision on Wednesday to delay sending the articles approved by the House to the Senate until Republican leaders offer more details about how they would handle an expected trial.
“So far, we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” she said on Wednesday night, dropping a surprise procedural bombshell just after the House cast its historic vote, making Trump only the third president in the nation’s history to be impeached.
House Democrats had argued for weeks that Trump’s impeachment was needed “urgently” to protect the nation.
Democrats do not have enough votes in the Senate to convict Trump and remove him from office, but have been pushing for a trial to include witnesses who declined to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former US national security adviser John Bolton.
Trump has been hoping the trial will serve as an opportunity for vindication, and continues to talk about parading his own witness list, including former US vice president and Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden, even though there is little appetite for that among Senate leaders.
“The reason the Democrats don’t want to submit the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they don’t want corrupt politician [US Representative] Adam Shifty Schiff to testify under oath, nor do they want the Whistleblower, the missing second Whistleblower, the informer, the Bidens, to testify!” Trump tweeted late on Thursday.
One White House official mused that Pelosi’s decision to indefinitely delay the trial would be an even more effective talking point for the president than his expected acquittal because, they argued, it would highlight how Pelosi has manipulated the process to deny Trump the opportunity to defend himself and clear his name.
Such messaging has been effective in driving outrage among the president’s core supporters, which Trump’s campaign hopes would help propel him to reelection next year.
However, Graham made clear the president has not been swayed by that argument, calling the delay a “constitutional outrage” and insisting everyone should have their day in court.
Trump had told reporters in the Oval Office earlier on Thursday that Democrats were “playing games,” claiming they did not want to submit the charges “because they’re ashamed of ‘em” and adding, falsely, that “they’re not allowed to do that. I hear it’s unconstitutional and a lot of other things.”
There is no constitutional requirement for the Democrats to transmit the articles swiftly, or at all.
Meanwhile, Trump insisted that he has not been bothered by the whole impeachment episode, despite evidence to the contrary.
Asked how he felt about going down in history as only the third president to be impeached, Trump said: “To me it doesn’t feel like impeachment.”
Pelosi’s unexpected procedural delay also got a sour response from US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been negotiating with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on the contours of a trial.
He charged that Democrats are “too afraid” to send the charges to the Senate.
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