Lindsey Graham Makes Nancy Pelosi An Offer She Definitely Totally Absolutely Can Refuse

Hey you guys, remember impeachment? An update!

HEY YOU GUYS, REMEMBER HOW WE IMPEACHED DONALD TRUMP BUT THEN NANCY PELOSI DECIDED TO WITHHOLD THE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT FROM THE SENATE BECAUSE MITCH MCCONNELL WAS SAYING OUT LOUD THAT HE PLANS TO EXONERATE TRUMP WITHOUT A FAIR TRIAL, AND THEN TRUMP BOMBED THAT IRANIAN GENERAL IN THE FACE TO TRY TO DISTRACT EVERYBODY, AND NOW THE NEWS ISN'T TALKING THAT MUCH ABOUT IMPEACHMENT?

About that!

Impeachment is still happening, and as soon as something newsy happens with it, the war-boner-happy media will be like "oh yeah" and they'll remember to cover impeachment again.

But not if Lindsey Graham has anything to do with it, because he has A ULTIMATUM for Nancy Pelosi!

Sen. Lindsey Graham , R-S.C., insisted Sunday that if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not deliver articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate by the end of the week, the Senate should "take matters in our own hands."

Yeah! If Nervous Nancy is too much of a Nervous Nancy to give the impeachment articles to the Senate, they'll make some impeachment articles themselves!

Or not that!

"What I would do, if she continues to refuse to send the articles as required by the Constitution, I would work with Senator McConnell to change the rules of the Senate so we could start the trial without her, if necessary," Graham proposed on "Sunday Morning Futures." 

OK maybe that!

"[W]e're not going to let Nancy Pelosi use the rules of the Senate to her advantage."

How dare Pelosi be super smart and play politics better than Mitch McConnell, is that even legal ?

"They impeached the president, but the speaker of the House is holding the articles back, trying to extort from the majority leader of the Senate a trial to her liking. They're trying to hold these articles over the head of the president."

PFFFFFT, Nancy Pelosi wants the Senate to conduct a real and fair trial, like how is that even the Senate's job? PFFFFT LINDSEY "I DO DECLARE" GRAHAM SAYS PFFFFT.

And if Nancy Pelosi doesn't like that and doesn't send impeachment managers over from the House to do the sham impeachment trial Lindsey Graham dreams about, inside his loin sack?

"If they don't come, dismiss the case and get on with governing the country."

There it is. Case dismissed, on account of the House didn't give the Senate the case yet.

We noted this morning that we are fully expecting at some point for an impeachment trial to be declared illegal by Republican senators because of how Trump The Stable Genius is very busy doing war to Iran. We haven't seen that argument much yet -- except from Donald Trump's whinyfuckingass tweets about HE'S "VERY BUSY"! -- but it's coming.

But this idea of a whole Senate rules change, so they can go from zero to CASE DISMISSED faster than Lindsey Graham can slam a shot of Jameson with Dana Bash, is clearly on the GOP's mind. Here is Senator Josh Hawley (R- Gilead ) saying the same thing on "Fox & Friends":

It’s time to challenge Nancy Pelosi’s assault on the Constitution. Today I’m introducing a change to the Senate rul… https: //t.co/SQPhV951qv

— Josh Hawley (@Josh Hawley) 1578315182.0 

"Nancy Pelosi is attempting to obstruct a Senate trial. That's all there is to it," Hawley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said during an appearance on Fox News's "Fox & Friends." "It's time for us to take action to say if you're not going to prosecute your case, we're throwing it out."

Don't start no trial won't be no trial! That's what Josh Hawley says.

Time for a reality check on what it would take to change the rules of impeachment so that the Senate could just toss the articles they do not currently have in the trash. Rachael Bade reports in the Washington Post that "It would take 60 votes to pass a resolution on impeachment outside a trial and 67 votes to change the impeachment rules." Doing some back of the napkin math here, if you take the 53 Republicans in the Senate and add all the Democratic senators who would agree to such radical changes for the sole purpose of kneecapping Nancy Pelosi, the numerical solution you get is FUCK OFF.

To be clear, we are talking about the Senate's formal   rules for impeachment, which have been in place in their current form since 1986. That's different from the specific, yet-to-be-agreed-upon rules for this impeachment trial, which you've seen Democratic senators like Brian Schatz of Hawaii tweeting about. For that set of rules, as Talking Points Memo notes, literally "any procedural request" from the House impeachment managers and/or Democrats could be approved with 51 votes once a trial begins. Therefore, as Schatz has been pointing out, only four GOP senators need to agree with Democrats that whatever happens in the Senate, it should be a fair trial, with allllllll the fact witnesses like John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney:

Four votes for a fair trial. Gonna need your help on this one people. Thanks.

— Brian Schatz (@Brian Schatz) 1578274515.0 

So ... four Republicans agree that there should be a real and fair trial.

Or ... TWENTY Democrats agree that we should kneecap Nancy Pelosi to make Lindsey Graham's loins jiggly.

WHICH WILL IT BE, WHICH WILL IT BEEEEEEEEE?

Ahem, definitely not the second thing. The only question is whether four Republicans will agree on the need for a fair trial. That's what Schatz means when he says "gonna need your help on this one." Likewise, once a trial begins, 51 Republicans could decide to adjourn sine die , which is a fancy Latin way of "indefinitely."

If your senator/s is/are a "GOP," you know what to do, unless you don't, in which case we mean call them and yell at them a whole bunch of times.

[ Fox News ]

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