Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesBy BENJAMIN SIEGEL, ABC News
(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday told reporters that the House and Senate are “ready” to proceed with former President Trump’s second impeachment trial, but she said transmission of the articles is being held up by questions about how the trial would work.
“I’m not going to be telling you when it is going … they are now ready to receive, but there are other questions of how a trial to proceed. But we are ready,” she said. “It will be soon, as I said you will be the first to know.”
“It will be soon, I don’t think it will be long, but we must do it,” she said.
Pelosi dismissed Republicans’ concerns that impeachment could divide lawmakers so soon after the inauguration.
“It’s not really unifying to say, let’s just forget it, and move on,” Pelosi said.
“Just because he is gone, thank God, we don’t say to a president, ‘Do whatever you want in the last months of your administration … because people want to make nice nice,’ … I think that would be harmful for unity.”
On the question of witnesses, Pelosi deferred to the House managers, but differentiated between the evidence needed for Trump’s first trial, and this upcoming one.
“I do see a big difference between something that we all witnessed, versus what information you might need to substantiate an article of impeachment based in large part on a phone call the president made … but it’s up to them,” referring to the managers.
Pelosi also didn’t rule out the conduct of lawmakers coming under investigation in any probe of the Capitol Hill riot, accusing some members of giving “aid and comfort” to rioters.
On Biden’s inauguration she said, “What a difference a day makes,” she said. “It was so perfect, in my view.”
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