Elizabeth Warren has suggested Donald Trump ordered the drone assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani to distract the American public from his own impeachment, taking the country “to the edge of war” for his own political purposes.

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“We know Donald Trump is very upset about this upcoming impeachment trial,” the Massachusetts senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination told NBC’s Meet the Press. “But look what he’s doing now. He is taking us to the edge of war.”

Observers were quick to say Warren was accusing Trump of “wag the dog” tactics, meaning an attempt to distract public attention by launching a military strike.

A 1997 film satire starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman used the phrase as its title and similar charges were levelled against Bill Clinton in 1998, when he ordered strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan while embroiled in the scandal which led to his own impeachment.

Trump ordered the strike against Suleimani, which happened in Baghdad on Friday. It followed a rocket strike in Iraq that killed an American contractor and wounded US troops, US airstrikes in response and a siege of the US embassy in Baghdad by Iranian-backed militias.

Timeline The buildup to Qassem Suleimani's death Show Hide A rocket attack on an Iraqi military base near Kirkuk kills an American contractor and injures US and Iraqi soldiers. The US blames Shia militia group, Kata’ib Hizbullah (KH) The US conducts retaliatory airstrikes against five KH bases in Iraq and Syria, saying there had been 11 attacks against Iraqi bases hosting coalition forces in Iraq over the past two months Protesters storm the US embassy in Baghdad, trapping diplomats inside while chanting “Death to America” and slogans in support of pro-Iranian militias. At one point they breached the main gate and smashed their way into several reception rooms. The rampage was carried out with the apparent connivance of local Iraqi security forces who allowed protesters inside the highly protected Green Zone In a drone strike ordered by US president Donald Trump, the US kills Iranian general Qassem Suleimani while he was being transported from Baghdad airport

On Sunday Iran called Trump a “terrorist in a suit” and told US media outlets retaliation would hit US military targets.

Warren told CNN’s State of the Union it was “reasonable” to ask if the strike was meant to be a distraction, “particularly when the administration, immediately after having taken this decision, offers a bunch of contradictory explanations for what’s going on.

“There was a reason that he chose this moment, not a month ago, not a month from now, not a less aggressive, less dangerous response.”

Echoing the terms of the articles of impeachment, Warren accused him of using foreign policy or “whatever he can to advance the interests of Donald Trump”.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer told ABC’s This Week the evidence for an “imminent” Iranian attack provided by the administration after the Suleimani strike was “very unsatisfying”.

“We don’t know the reasons that it had to be done now,” he said. “They don’t seem very clear. The documents they sent us last night” – notification of the strike as required by the War Powers Act of 1973 – “is very unsatisfying as to that, even though I can’t talk about it because the whole thing is classified.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nancy Pelosi holds a press conference after the House passed articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

In Washington, House speaker Nancy Pelosi is withholding articles of impeachment from the Senate, in the hope of forcing concessions over the rules of Trump’s trial. Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell has said Trump will not be convicted and removed and said he is co-ordinating closely with the White House.

Moderate Republicans who Democrats hope will pressure McConnell to call witnesses potentially damaging to the president show little sign of shifting but Pelosi has placed Trump in constitutional limbo, the third president to be impeached but not yet the third to be acquitted.

The articles of impeachment concern abuse of power, in the withholding of military aid from Ukraine amid pressure for investigations of Trump’s political foes, and obstruction of Congress.

Warren told NBC: “The administration can’t keep its story straight and in the case of Ukraine, it was all about protecting Donald Trump’s skin. We know that Donald Trump was very upset about this upcoming impeachment trial, but look what he’s doing now. He is taking us to the edge of war.

“We’ve been at war for 20 years in the Middle East and now, he’s talking about expanding that war. This has been something that has cost thousands of American lives. It has cost us enormously in many ways both at home and around the world and at the same time, look what it’s done to the Middle East – millions of people who’ve been killed, who’ve been injured, who’ve been displaced.

“The job of the president is to keep us safer. The job of the president is not to move us to the edge of war.”

Senior Democrats backed Pelosi, whose tactics could push Trump’s trial into February, when the presidential primary will be in full swing.

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The speaker, Schumer said, “has said that she will send the articles of impeachment when she believes she can – she will maximize sending them to get the fairest trial possible. If she had sent them right away, McConnell could have well just voted for dismissal the day before or after Christmas.

“Now, in the last two weeks, where we haven’t had the articles, lots of new evidence that bolsters our case for witnesses – for witnesses and documents – has come out. So the bottom line is very simple. We need the truth, not a coverup, not a sham, not to have some nationally televised mock trial where there’s no evidence.”

Asked how long Democrats might be willing to hold the line, House intelligence chair Adam Schiff told CNN: “I don’t think it’s going to be indefinite, no … The desire is to get a commitment from the Senate that they’re going to have a fair trial, fair to the president, yes, but fair to the American people.”

Schiff said holding back the articles had the effect of “flushing out senators”.

“Withholding the articles has thus far flushed out where Mitch McConnell is coming from,” he said. “It’s required senators to go on record..”

The South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally, poured cold water on Democratic hopes. Speaking on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Graham called Pelosi’s move as a “political stunt” and threatened to “change the rules of the Senate so that we can start the trial without her if necessary”.

“If we don’t get the articles this week,” he said, “then we need to take matters into our own hands”.