Tag Archives: Pelosi

House to vote on sending Trump impeachment charges; trial now imminent

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Wednesday to send formal impeachment charges against President Donald Trump to the Senate, lawmakers said on Tuesday, setting the start of Trump’s trial for as early as this week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a party meeting that she would also name the Democrats’ team of “managers” who will lead the prosecution of Trump at the trial, Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar said.

The House impeached Trump last month on charges of abusing power by pressuring Ukraine to announce an investigation into his Democratic rival Joe Biden and of obstructing Congress.

But Pelosi has delayed sending the charges to the Senate in an unsuccessful effort to get that chamber’s Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to agree to include new witness testimony that could be damaging to the Republican president.

The Senate is expected to acquit Trump, as no Republicans have voiced support for ousting him, a step that would require a two-thirds majority.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has dismissed his impeachment as a partisan bid to undo his 2016 election win as he tries to win re-election in November.

A Wednesday vote would allow the Senate to start the trial on Thursday afternoon, although the first few days will be consumed with housekeeping duties such as swearing in members and formally reading the two impeachment charges. Lawmakers likely would not hear opening arguments until next week at the earliest.

“We’ll have I think about a 10-minute debate and we’ll vote on it and then send everything over. And the Senate trial, I assume, will start next week,” Cuellar said.

The 1999 impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton lasted five weeks. If the Senate conducts its trial along those lines, as Republican McConnell has suggested, that would mean lawmakers would still be considering charges against the president while the first nominating contests of the 2020 presidential election were underway in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Democrats want current and former White House officials such as former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, but McConnell has yet to say definitively how the Republican-controlled Senate will conduct the trial.

He has not committed to allowing any witnesses or new documents in the proceedings and instead could steer the process toward a quick acquittal. He has left open the possibility of deciding on witness testimony later in the trial.

House Democrats have said Pelosi could name up to 10 lawmakers as managers to argue the case against Trump, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, who spearheaded the impeachment probe, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Richard Cowan; writing by Alistair Bell; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

No sign of end to standoff over Trump impeachment trial

By Susan Cornwell and David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday there would be no haggling with the Democratic-led House of Representatives over the rules for U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

With lawmakers’ shifting their attention to the U.S.-Iran tensions, McConnell said he would not be pressured by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has effectively delayed Trump’s trial by refusing to send the Senate the two articles of impeachment approved by the House last month.

“There will be no haggling with the House over Senate procedure. We will not cede our authority to try this impeachment,” McConnell said on the Senate floor a day after he announced he had enough Republican votes to start the trial without agreeing to Democrats’ demands for the introduction of new witness testimony and documentary evidence.

McConnell, who has pledged to coordinate the trial with the White House, accused Pelosi of wanting to keep Trump “in limbo” indefinitely.

Some Senate Democrats are now saying that Pelosi should release the impeachment articles so that the trial can get underway. But there appeared to be no clamor from Pelosi’s fellow Democrats in the House for a change in her strategy.

“We need to know what the plan is,” Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks.

House Democrats’ meeting Wednesday morning focused on hostilities with Iran, not impeachment, lawmakers said.

Iranian forces fired missiles at military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq on Wednesday in retaliation for the U.S. killing of an Iranian military commander last week. Trump administration officials are expected to brief lawmakers later on Wednesday.

The House last month charged Trump with abusing his power for personal gain in connection with his effort to pressure Ukraine to announce a corruption investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in November’s presidential election.

It also charged the Republican president with obstructing Congress by directing administration officials and agencies not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House brings impeachment charges and the Senate holds the subsequent trial to decide whether to remove a president from office. A two-thirds majority of the Senate is needed to do so.

Trump, who says he did nothing wrong and has dismissed his impeachment as a partisan bid to undo his 2016 election win, is likely to be acquitted in the trial, as no Republicans have voiced support for ousting him from office.

McConnell has said that Senate rules prevent it from starting the trial until the House sends it the articles of impeachment.

Pelosi said late on Tuesday that McConnell should reveal the Senate’s plans for the coming trial in a written resolution before she agrees to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Paul Simao)

Mexico steps up pressure on U.S. Congress to approve trade deal

By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s government on Monday ramped up pressure on Democratic lawmakers to approve a new North American trade deal, urging U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push it through Congress and rejecting demands for greater oversight of its labor market.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would this week send another letter to Pelosi, a Democrat, pressing for the ratification of the three-nation deal agreed last year known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“I’m sure that Mrs Pelosi and the lawmakers of the Democratic Party are going to help us,” Lopez Obrador told a regular news conference, saying he believed the U.S. Congress would approve the deal before the end of 2019.

Mexico also wrote to Pelosi last month.

Lopez Obrador said his understanding was that both U.S. President Donald Trump, who had pushed for the deal, and Republican lawmakers agreed the USMCA should be ratified soon.

Still, standing alongside Lopez Obrador, Jesus Seade, deputy foreign minister for North America and the Mexican official in charge of USMCA negotiations, said he was “pessimistic” the accord would be approved by U.S. lawmakers before 2020.

“Far from reaching a deal, in the last two weeks, statements from certain labor sectors have re-emerged, floating ideas that would be totally unacceptable to Mexico,” Seade said.

Mexico, which ratified the USMCA earlier this year, is eager for the agreement to be approved because the country’s exports and foreign direct investment are heavily dependent on having unfettered access to the U.S. marketplace.

U.S. lawmakers, notably Democrats, have held up the process over concerns that lower-cost Mexico will continue to be able to attract investment at the expense of U.S. workers.

Lopez Obrador’s left-leaning government has pledged to improve workers’ pay, and earlier this year pushed through a labor bill that will strengthen the rights of trade unions.

The president, Seade and Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard all underlined that Mexico had fulfilled its commitments under the USMCA framework as they urged Congress to pass the deal.

However, Democrats have sought assurances from Mexico that measures to strengthen workers’ rights will be enforced, causing friction with the Lopez Obrador administration.

Among the sticking points have been U.S. attempts to establish dispute panels for labor, Seade said. Mexico’s position is that panels should be allowed across the board, not for specific areas, he noted.

Enforcement remained a bone of contention, Seade said, noting that there were those on the U.S. side seeking to impose “more intrusive” mechanisms to bind Mexico.

“We told them we won’t accept that,” he said.

The USMCA was agreed after a lengthy negotiation to replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)

Senate plans votes to end shutdown, but solution still far off

A visitor walks by the U.S. Capitol on day 32 of a partial government shutdown as it becomes the longest in U.S. history in Washington, U.S., January 22, 2019. REUTERS/Jim Young

By Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican-led U.S. Senate planned votes on Thursday for competing proposals to end the partial government shutdown – both of which were likely to fail – as lawmakers and the White House sniped at each other over how to break their monthlong impasse.

Just hours before the Senate was scheduled to vote, there were signs that lawmakers might consider new ideas for ending the 34-day shutdown, which was triggered by Trump’s demand for money to fund his long-promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The shutdown has left hundreds of thousands of government workers furloughed or working without pay.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, told reporters that she was willing to meet face-to-face with Republican President Donald Trump to discuss the issue.

Her comment came one day after she announced that Trump’s State of the Union speech in the House chamber, scheduled for Tuesday, would not occur until the shutdown ended, despite the president’s plans to come. Trump, who considered giving the speech at another venue, conceded late on Wednesday and said he would deliver the speech in the House in the “near future.”

Trump wants $5.7 billion for the border barrier, opposed by Democrats, as part of any legislation to fund about a quarter of the federal government.

The longest such shutdown in U.S. history has left 800,000 federal workers, as well as private contractors, without pay and struggling to make ends meet, with the effects on government services and the economy reverberating nationwide.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Thursday urged furloughed federal workers to seek loans to pay their bills while adding in a CNBC interview that he couldn’t understand why they were having trouble getting by.

Pelosi denounced the comments.

“Is this the, ‘Let them eat cake’ kind of attitude or ‘Call your father for money?’ or ‘This is character building for you?'” Pelosi asked at a news conference.

She said she did not understand why Ross would make the comment “as hundreds of thousands of men and women are about to miss a second paycheck tomorrow.”

Trump had a response for Pelosi as well.

“Nancy just said she ‘just doesn’t understand why?’ Very simply, without a Wall it all doesn’t work. Our Country has a chance to greatly reduce Crime, Human Trafficking, Gangs and Drugs. Should have been done for decades. We will not Cave!” he said in a tweet.

VOTES PROCEED

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell planned a vote on Thursday afternoon on a Democratic proposal to fund the government for three weeks that does not include wall funding.

Its prospects looked dim in the Republican-majority Senate, although at least one conservative senator reportedly plans to back it. The Democratic-controlled House has passed similar bills but Trump has rejected legislation that does not include the wall funding.

McConnell has previously said he would not consider legislation that Trump did not support. The fact that he is willing to allow a vote suggests he may be trying to persuade lawmakers of both parties to compromise.

Republican Senator Cory Gardner intends to vote for the bill, the Denver Post said, citing the lawmaker’s spokesman. Gardner’s representatives could not be reached for immediately for comment.

McConnell also planned to hold a vote on a separate bill that includes wall funding and a temporary extension of protections for “Dreamers,” hundreds of thousands of people brought to the United States illegally as children, to reflect an offer Trump made on Saturday.

Democrats have dismissed Trump’s offer, saying they would not negotiate on border security before reopening the government and would not trade a temporary extension of the immigrants’ protections in return for a permanent border wall they have called ineffective, costly and immoral.

McConnell’s calculation may be that if both bills fail, Republicans and Democrats would be convinced to seek a deal.

One possibility emerged on Wednesday when House Democratic leaders floated the idea of giving Trump most or all of the money he seeks for security along the Mexican border but that could not be used to build a wall.

Representative James Clyburn, the No. 3 House Democrat, said Democrats could fulfill Trump’s request for $5.7 billion for border security with technological tools such as drones, X-rays and sensors, as well as more border patrol agents.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week found more than half of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown even as he has sought to shift blame to Democrats after saying last month he would be “proud” to close the government for border security.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Susan Cornwell; additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Bill Trott)