BTRTN: Pelosi Reveals Her Trump Card. Now Will She Play It?
Born To Run The Numbers examines the implications of Nancy Pelosi's announcement that she is withholding the Articles of Impeachment pending the announcement of the Senate rules:
http://www.borntorunthenumbers.com/2019/12/btrtn-pelosi-reveals-her-trump-card-now.html
"Until last week, it seemed the Dems were bungling impeachment...Then Nancy Pelosi showed her trump card, announcing that she simply was not going to forward the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate until Mitch McConnell clarifies the rules. That one elegant move on her part could solve many of the issues that seemed problematic about the Democrats' approach to impeachment.
"...when (Pelosi) finally turned in favor of impeachment... she insisted on the narrowest possible articles of impeachment, and seemed to want to race through the process, hoping that the Senate would finish the inevitable acquittal as quickly as possible. Democrats would have been better served to follow a slower and more deliberate path, one in which a full array of articles of impeachment might have been explored and considered. As long as there continued to be new revelations and the possibility of new witnesses, there seemed to be no reason to arbitrarily call the process to an end.
"Pelosi knows that Trump cannot wait for the trial to be complete so that he can go on Fox News and hundreds of rallies and scream to the rafters that he has been “exonerated” and “vindicated,” and that he was right all along that the “Deep State” was pursuing a “coup” to undo the 2016 election. How ironic. Nancy Pelosi is holding the Trump card. If she never forwards the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, there is no trial. No acquittal. No exoneration. No celebration... Pelosi gains many of the advantages of a 'slow impeachment,' without having to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on Congressional subpoenas. If she holds her ground, we either get a trial with witnesses, or Trump will never get his exoneration. Heads Nancy wins, tails Trumps loses."
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Nothing in extremely complex, fluid and erratic politics is a fraction as simple as this, even when the election isn't a battle between enormous powers for the future of our nation and for western civilization. It's a card, but only one we know about, and we need to respect our ignorance.
Trump-Ukraine's an example: reported to the world (us!) last spring, but unnoticed by most. Why didn't the pundits explain to us that it was huuuge and could turn into an impeachment bomb set off by Pelosi et al in the fall? They didn't know, of course. But you can bet Pelosi et al did.
Whatever. There will be a number of strategic reasons involved in not rushing the articles right over the day congress recesses for the holidays. 
But one simple one is that there's absolutely no reason not to. After all, McConnell already announced Trump innocent of all charges and promised a sham not-a-trial without witnesses.
And, gee, what might happen while they wait to get their sham show over with and behind them?
The Repubs do their best to turn time to their advantage also, but it's swarming with special dangers for them these days. McConnell has to be very afraid of the new revelations that keep happening and threatening to upset all their plans: like the new evidence the NYT presented directly to the world yesterday. 
Just for more on this one type of crime among many we know he's been involved with, no one believes Trump hasn't been trying to illegally coerce other nations to gain some personal advantage, but whatever those stories are, they haven't exploded. To date.
