WASHINGTON – Democratic House leaders are eyeing the vote on impeachment articles against President Donald Trump as early as next week, Assistant House Speaker Katherine Clark said on Friday.
“We know that we have limited time, but that every day that Donald Trump is President of the United States, it is a day of grave danger. Therefore, we can use procedural tools to get impeachment articles to the floor for a House vote quickly,” Clark, D -Mass., Said on CNN’s “New Day”.
Asked how soon the House Judiciary Committee could bring the articles to the floor, Clark said, “That will be … already in the middle of next week.”
After the interview, Clark clarified that Democrats are still working on setting the schedule.
On Thursday night, Clark told Chris Hayes of MSNBC that Democrats are “determined” to hold Trump accountable and said they plan to move ahead with impeachment if Vice President Mike Pence refuses to invoke the 25th Amendment.
NBC News learned that Democratic leaders met on Thursday night to discuss how to remove the president from office, according to a member of Congress who was in the room. They discussed how to streamline the process and could call the Chamber back to the session as early as Monday to begin the process.
The issue has not yet been decided, and there were voices at the leadership meeting advocating different approaches to the issue of impeachment. But with Vice President Mike Pence seeming to signal that he will not invoke the 25th Amendment, the discussion became more urgent on Thursday.
The leaders will discuss the matter during a midday conference call with House Democrats.
It is unclear whether any Republicans in the House would be willing to support impeachment at this time, but members are so angry at what happened on Capitol Hill that political assumptions and norms are no longer as they were before. “People are upset,” said a Republican source.
A vote in the impeachment plenary in the middle of next week would give the Senate just a week to hold a trial before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20.
Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb., Signaled on Friday that he is open to potentially condemning Trump and removing him from office if the House charges Trump.
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“The House, if they meet and have a lawsuit, I will definitely consider any articles that they can submit, because, as I told you, I believe the President disregarded his term of office,” he said on “CBS This Morning.” “What he did was wicked.”
Clark said the House “can act quickly whenever we want” and suggested that they could bypass certain Congressional procedures, as Republicans have done in the past with their legislation, and speed up impeachment articles to the floor.
The House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler, DN.Y., made it clear in a statement on Thursday night that he supports the immediate impeachment of the president and his removal from office.
