Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s commemorative impeachment pens Thursday as “handing out souvenirs” at a serious and sober occasion.
“House Democrats said over and over that they recognized the gravity and the seriousness of this action [impeachment]. And of course they had only come to it reluctantly. Well, nothing says seriousness and sobriety like handing out souvenirs as though this were a happy bill signing, instead of the gravest process in our Constitution,” Republican Kentucky Sen. McConnell said on the Senate floor.
Critics from several quarters questioned the wisdom of distributing souvenir impeachment signing pens Wednesday. The pens were part of the signing ceremony for the articles of impeachment.
“This final display neatly distilled the House’s entire partisan process into one perfect visual. It was a transparently partisan performance from beginning to end. That’s why they sped through a slap-dash inquiry in 12 weeks when previous presidential impeachments came after months if not years of investigations and hearings.” (RELATED: ‘Fist Bumps And High Fives’: Kellyanne Conway Blasts Pelosi For ‘Embarrassing’ Impeachment Souvenir Pens)
Pelosi sat on the articles for a month before finally delivering the documents to the Senate. McConnell called Pelosi’s strategy a “one-woman blockade” that “produced absolutely nothing.” (RELATED: ‘Unusual And Jarring’: CNN Panel Questions Pelosi’s Souvenir Impeachment Pens)
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (R) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony honoring former National Football League (NFL) player and advocate for patients with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Steve Gleason, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Jan. 15, 2020. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Pelosi told ABC News’s “This Week” on Sunday that she had achieved a victory of sorts by withholding the documents and claimed that she never intended to keep the Senate waiting forever.
“I’ve always said I would send them over. There shouldn’t be any mystery to that,” she said. “What we did want though, and what we think we accomplished in the past few weeks is that we wanted the public to see the need for witnesses, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of what happened, documentation which the president has prevented from coming out to the Congress as we reviewed this.”