Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t rule out impeachment proceedings as a way to block the Senate from confirming President Donald Trump’s eventual Supreme Court nominee, saying Sunday that Democrats have “arrows in our quiver” to stall the process.
Following liberal SCOTUS justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on Friday from cancer, Trump and Senate Republicans have said they plan to move quickly to fill the seat just weeks before the election. Cries of hypocrisy over the GOP’s 2016 election-year stonewalling of Merrick Garland have prompted Democrats to push for a scorched-earth approach should they win the White House and Senate in November.
During an interview on ABC News’ This Week, Pelosi was pressed on what exactly the party could do to prevent Trump and Republicans from rushing to fill RBG’s spot on the bench, considering that the GOP currently holds the majority in the Senate.
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“You want people to get out and vote, and even that's no guarantee that the White House and Senate Republicans won't try to push through a Supreme Court nomination in a lame-duck session,” ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said. “So what can you do then?”
“Some have mentioned the possibility if they try to push through a nominee in a lame-duck session that you and the House can move to impeach President Trump or Attorney General Barr as a way of stalling and preventing the Senate from acting on this nomination,” he added.
“We have our options,” Pelosi noted. “We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country. This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election. Our main goal would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the people from the coronavirus.”
Following up, Stephanopulous wanted to be clear whether the speaker was currently “not taking any arrows out of your quiver and not ruling anything out.”
After saying the House has a “responsibility” to protect the Constitution, Pelosi reiterated that impeachment was an option on the table.
“We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people,” she declared. “That is when we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”
