Republican Senator Lindsey Graham threw down the gauntlet to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Graham warned Pelosi that if she doesn’t deliver the articles of impeachment this week, the Senate will change the rules so the articles will be “deemed” to have been delivered so the trial can begin soon.

Graham said it’s outrageous for Pelosi to hijack the articles of impeachment in order to “extort” the Senate to get her way. It’s almost a certainty that the GOP-led Senate will acquit President Trump, so the Democrats’ sham impeachment will have been a waste of time and taxpayer money.

“We’re not going to let Nancy Pelosi use the rules of the Senate to her advantage. This is dangerous to the presidency as an institution,” Graham told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “They impeached the president, but the Speaker of the House is holding the articles back, trying to extort from the Senate Majority Leader a trial to her liking. They’re trying to hold these articles over the head of the president.”

Graham added: “The reason Democrats are not sending [the articles to the Senate] is because they are so weak and it’s a pathetic case, and they’re looking to add something.”

(Source: Sunday Morning Futures

Lindsey Graham continued: “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.”

When asked how quickly he would act on his threat, Graham responded, “Days, not weeks.”

Graham explained: “If we don’t get the articles this week, then we need to take matters in our own hands and change the rules — deem them to be delivered to the Senate so we can start the trial. We’ll invite the House over to participate if they would like. If they don’t come, we’ll dismiss the case and get on with governing the country.”

When asked how he expects the Senate impeachment trial to go, Graham said it would follow the same procedure that the 1999 trial of Bill Clinton did.

Graham explained: “We’ll use the Clinton model, where you take the record established in the House, let the House managers appointed by Pelosi make the argument. We then let the President make his argument about why the two articles are flawed, and then we’ll decide whether we want witnesses. But this should be done in a couple of weeks.”

Graham said he hopes to have the Senate impeachment trial wrapped up before the end of January. However, this is probably not likely since the Democratic Party wants to draw out the impeachment stunt in order to taint President Trump in the lead-up to the November 2020 election.

President Trump reacted on Twitter this morning, saying: “The great Scam continues. To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad!”

“The reason they are not sending the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate is that they are so weak and so pathetic.” @LindseyGrahamSC @MariaBartiromo The great Scam continues. To be spending time on this political Hoax at this moment in our history, when I am so busy, is sad! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2020

By this point, everyone knows that the impeachment is a partisan political process, as evidenced by the two vague articles of impeachment the House Democrats brought against President Trump.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) admitted in 1999 that impeachments are partisan, and that most senators decide how they’ll vote BEFORE the trial begins.

Moreover, Schumer confessed that during Bill Clinton’s impeachment, he had made up his mind to acquit several months before the trial began. The Clinton trial started on January 7, 1999 and ended on February 12, 1999.

Schumer said in 1999: “We [senators] have a pre-opinion [before the trial starts]. This is not a criminal trial, but this is something that the Founding Fathers decided to put in a body that was susceptible to the whims of politics.”

In other words, the impeachment is nothing more than an elaborate, taxpayer-funded political theater to damage President Trump.

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