Roughly a dozen GOP senators want to change the Senate’s rules and allow for lawmakers to dismiss articles of impeachment against President Trump before the House sends them over.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the resolution on Monday, arguing the Senate’s impeachment rules do not envision a scenario where the House would delay transmitting articles against a president, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has done.
“The Constitution gives the Senate sole power to adjudicate articles of impeachment, not the House. If Speaker Pelosi is afraid to try her case, the articles should be dismissed for failure to prosecute and Congress should get back to doing the people’s business,” Hawley said in a statement.
The resolution would give the House 25 days to send articles of impeachment over to the Senate. After that, a senator could offer a motion to dismiss “with prejudice for failure by the House of Representatives to prosecute such articles” with a simple majority vote, according to Hawley’s proposal.
The resolution comes as some Senate Republicans have mulled changing the chamber’s rules to allow them to dismiss the impeachment charges against Trump, even though the articles have not been sent over from the House.
Hawley’s resolution has support from GOP Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.), Mike Braun (Ind.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Joni Ernst (Iowa), David Perdue (Ga.) and James Inhofe (Okla.).
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GOP senators introduce resolution to change rules and dismiss Trump impeachment without articles https://t.co/jjjvsC60fo pic.twitter.com/0cx8sX2reT
— The Hill (@thehill) January 6, 2020
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