Trump rails against delay in moving impeachment to Senate

President Donald Trump railed behind closed doors on Dec. 19 about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to delay sending articles of impeachment to the Republican Senate, putting an expected trial in limbo.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump GOP ally, emerged from a White House meeting with the president with a message.

"He is demanding his day in court," Graham said in an interview on Fox News Channel on Dec. 19 evening. "I just left President Trump. He's mad as hell that they would do this to him and now deny him his day in court." The White House did not immediately respond to questions about his account.

Trump has seen a Senate trial as his means for vindication, viewing acquittal as a partial antidote to impeachment's stain on his legacy. But that effort has been threatened by Pelosi's decision to delay sending the articles approved by the House on Dec. 18 to the Senate until, she says, Republican leaders offer more details about how they will handle an expected trial.

"So far we haven't seen anything that looks fair to us,'' she said on Dec. 18 night, dropping a surprise procedural bombshell just after the House cast its historic votes making Trump only the third president in the nation's history to be impeached. House Democrats had argued for weeks that Trump's impeachment was needed "urgently" to protect the nation.

Democrats do not have enough votes in the Republican-controlled Senate to convict Trump and remove him from office, but have been pushing for a trial to include witnesses who declined to appear during House committee hearings, including acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton.

Trump, meanwhile, has been hoping the trial will serve as an...