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| House Speaker Nancy Pelosi |
“I could not be prouder or more inspired by the moral courage of the House Democrats. We never asked one of them how they were going to vote. We never whipped this vote” she said.
Pelosi continued: “I view this day, this vote, as something that we did to honor the vision of our founders to establish a republic, the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform to defend our democracy and the republic, and the aspirations of our children that they will always live in a democracy, and we have tried to do everything we can to make sure that that is their reality."
The next steps in the impeachment saga all depends on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi would not commit tonight on sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate, which will hold a trial and decide whether to convict President Trump and remove him from office.
“That would have been our intention, but we’ll see what happens over there," Pelosi signaled at her news conference tonight.
Why this matters: Some progressives have urged Democratic leaders to withhold the articles until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agrees to procedures for the Senate trial that Democrats have called for, as well as agreeing to bring in firsthand witnesses like acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify.
Pelosi said Democrats will make the decision “as a group” on when to send the articles to the Senate.
CNN’s Phil Mattingly noted there are procedural concerns behind not sending the articles tonight — Democrats can’t send them over tonight because the Senate would have to take it up tomorrow, and it would shut down action in the Senate. That would mess with appropriations.
“We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side, and we hope that will be soon,” Pelosi said of naming impeachment managers for the Senate trial. “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us, so hopefully it will be fair.”
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