Chris Wallace: Don't bet on McConnell bending to 'Pelosi's gambit'
Chris Wallace, Fox News Sunday anchor, discusses Pelosi's impeachment ploy and reveals the one thing she has on her side
"Fox News Sunday" anchor Chris Wallace believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be trying to frustrate President Trump by withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate, as the two chambers have reached an impasse on how to proceed.
Wallace pointed to a Fox News interview Thursday with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., where he described Trump as "mad as hell" about the impeachment and the possibility of being "denied his day in court."
"The reason they're denying him his day in court is because they know their case sucks," Graham emphatically stated.
Wallace said he interprets Graham's comments to mean that Trump is frustrated and is eager for the Senate trial to begin.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: DEMOCRATS' CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT 'SUCKS'
"This is really getting under President Trump's skin. He wants a trial. He wants the acquittal. Basically to the degree possible to erase the stain of impeachment. And to the extent that Nancy Pelosi holds that up, he doesn't get what he wants. So I think what she may be counting on is that somehow the president will start pressuring [Sen.] Mitch McConnell," Wallace said.
McConnell, R-Ky., incredulously returned to the Senate floor late Thursday to declare that the Senate and House Democrats were at an "impasse" over whether the House would transmit its articles of impeachment against President Trump to the GOP-controlled Senate for a constitutionally mandated trial.
McConnell, speaking after a meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the top Democrat had insisted on "departing from the unanimous bipartisan precedent that 100 senators approved before the beginning of President [Bill] Clinton's trial" concerning logistics.
MCCARTHY MOCKS PELOSI FOR SHOOTING DOWN IMPEACHMENT QUESTIONS FROM REPORTERS
Wallace, however, said he doubts that McConnell will be swayed on the matter or give in to Democrats' demands for witnesses to be called.
"To a certain degree, the president wants that anyway because he would like to see a defense of him rather than simply an attack on the Democrats, and that somehow that will get Mitch McConnell to change his mind. I wouldn't bet [on it]. People have lost a lot thinking Mitch McConnell was gonna bend to anybody's will, but that seems to be Nancy Pelosi's gambit at this point," he concluded.
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The back-and-forth rhetoric between Pelosi and McConnell comes as Noah Feldman, the Harvard Law School professor who testified for Democrats at the impeachment inquiry earlier this month, wrote an explosive op-ed asserting that if Democrats do not forward the impeachment articles to the Senate as dictated by the Constitution, then Trump was never even impeached at all.
"If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all," Feldman wrote.
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.