House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke about Democrats options on Saturday as Republicans rush to fill the Supreme Court seat left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Asked about the possibility of impeaching President Donald Trump again, Pelosi refused to comment, saying cryptically: “We have our options.” Some Democrats are also reportedly calling for the impeachment of U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr.
Pelosi joined ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on This Week, discussing the practical options for preventing another Trump appointee from getting a lifetime position on the Supreme Court. Stephanopoulos noted: “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.” Pelosi answered: “Well, we have our options.”
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President Trump and his henchmen have threatened to not accept the results of the November election. We have a responsibility to do all we can to protect the integrity of our democracy. #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/oIosGCb6Yo
โ Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) September 20, 2020
“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,” she went on. “This president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election with statements that he and his henchmen have made. So, right now, our main goal โ and I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg would want that to be โ would be to protect the integrity of the election as we protect the American people from the coronavirus.” She later added: “I have faith in the American people on this Sunday morning.”
The House of Representatives successfully impeached Trump in 2019, charging him with abuse of power and obstruction of justice. However, the Republican-controlled Senate acquitted Trump in February of 2020 by a narrow margin. With the Senate’s current make-up, another impeachment would like to achieve the same result.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress is grappling with the legal question of how to replace Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. In 2016, Justice Antonin Scalia passed away, but the Republican-controlled Senate refused to vote on then-President Barack Obama’s appointed replacement, arguing that it should not be done in an election year. That was in March, yet after Ginsburg’s passing in September, those same Republicans are now rushing to get their party’s replacement lined up.
Many analysts like Stephanopoulos have asked Pelosi what recourse the Democrat-controlled House has to stop this contradictory act, and so far there has been no clear answer. While Pelosi spoke about “protecting our democracy,” she would not define any of the “arrows in our quiver.”