Already there are hints of Republican defections in the Senate, and as the damning evidence builds there will be more. Madam Speaker, you are a consummate nose-counter, and when you have the 20 Republican votes needed for conviction, then send the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate and let the trial begin, probably in early summer.
Republican Senators, however, have magnificent histories of intransigence, willful ignorance, and duplicity. Many still deny any wrongdoing by the President, and they might continue, even as the damning evidence builds. What if 20 Republican Senators simply will not place the nation's well being over their party's?
Speaker Pelosi, transmit the Resolution anyway. Mr. McConnell is obligated only to acknowledge it, and to inform you the Senate is ready to receive the Articles and your managers. But nothing else is explicitly requiredof him, and neither is anything else prohibited. So he will indeed game the system in any number of ways. He will simply add the resolution to the other 400 dead House bills and hold no trial at all; or open the trial and call for an immediate vote to dismiss; or conduct the trial and let his majority of obeisant Republican senators vote acquittal.
Any of these mockeries will ignite a political firestorm of public opposition, because the American electorate will fully comprehend by then the spectrum of Trump's appalling transgressions. Donald Trump will be crushed on election day in a tsunami of outrage.
So Speaker Pelosi if you cannot make it happen, then step aside and let it happen.
For now, stand firm. Don't rush to trial. Let the whole truth of the Trump presidency emerge. He cannot survive it. If irresponsible Republican senators refuse to remove him from office the American people will.
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