Iran Press/America: The US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate in a tussle over rules with Republicans.
Democrats are finally acknowledging that their efforts to extract concessions from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial are coming to an end.
Though Speaker Nancy Pelosi is still withholding the House’s impeachment articles from the Senate, Democrats’ hopes of swaying the GOP leader have dimmed after McConnell secured the votes in his caucus to move forward without an agreement on witnesses and documents.
Senator Dianne Feinstein called on Pelosi, her fellow California Democrat, and ex-neighbor, to "send it over".
Mitch McConnell said he can muster the majority of 51 votes needed among his fellow Republicans in the Senate to codify the proceedings without Democratic support.
Senate Democrats said prolonging the standoff would be pointless. "The longer it goes on the less urgent it becomes," US Senator Feinstein said on Wednesday 8 January.
The political trial of Trump cannot begin until the Democratic-controlled House sends its articles of impeachment, the charges against the president, to the Senate.
Donald Trump was impeached by the House in December on allegations of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The Republican president is accused of withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden.
Democratic leaders have argued that witnesses and new documents should be allowed in the Senate trial.
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