Impeachment Reached, Con't

"Pelosi knows when to walk away from the table" is the fairest thing I can say, because Senate Dems have made sure she has no choice but to fold on sending over impeachment articles and today she signaled she would do just that.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues Friday that she will ask House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler to "be prepared to" to name impeachment managers and send the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Senate next week.

Why it matters: Her decision would potentially end a weeks-long standoff between Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the structure of the Senate trial — specifically whether new documents or witnesses would be allowed.

McConnell yesterday signed onto a resolution by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) seeking to change the rules of the Senate to dismiss articles of impeachment if they are not transmitted within 25 days of their approval — which would be Jan. 12. 

The Senate would require a two-thirds majority in order to change the rules, unless McConnell were to invoke the "nuclear option" and decide the issue by a simple majority vote.

The big picture, via Axios' Jonathan Swan and Margaret Talev: Democrats will have to convince at least four Republican senators to join forces with them in order to demand more disclosures as part of President Trump's trial. 

They're likely to lean on Republican senators like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee to press McConnell to agree to some witnesses and document releases the White House is so far refusing.

So we're back to "maybe GOP senators will do the right thing after all!" and it's Lucy yanking Charlie Brown's football all over again for the hundredth time during the Trump regime.  When precisely none of those four senators agree to call witnesses and the trial is wrapped up in a matter of days, people will still act surprised, too.

Of course, people are still acting surprised at this news as Josh Marshall notes:

A telling passage buried deep down in a Wall Street Journal article about why President Trump authorized the Soleimani killing …

Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.

Over time I suspect we’ll learn a lot more about this.

I suspect we will, but whether or not this really was a quid pro quo to get his acquittal or this is Trump making stuff up again in order to bring mutually assured destruction to the Senate GOP, we'll only know the truth long after Trump has been acquitted by the Senate.

More surprise by the media and by Democrats will follow, I'm sure.