Pressure mounts on Nancy Pelosi to release articles of impeachment as Democrats side with Republicans on moving forward with a trial

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is under mounting pressure to send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate.
• Pelosi has withheld the articles from the upper chamber since December chiefly over Republicans' refusal to agree to call witnesses to testify as part of the trial.
• But after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on Tuesday that he will move forward with a trial even without Democratic votes, several Senate Democrats have come forward to urge Pelosi to transmit the articles.
• At least six Democratic senators so far have called on the House Speaker to let the process move forward.
• At the same time, former national security adviser John Bolton's Monday announcement that he's willing to testify in the Senate impeachment trial could make it more difficult for the GOP to prohibit witnesses from testifying.
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The pressure is mounting on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to transmit the two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate so the upper chamber can begin a trial.

Following the December House vote to impeach the president, Pelosi decided to withhold the articles from the Senate until Senate Republicans agreed to hold a trial that Pelosi deemed fair.

Among other things, Pelosi wants assurances that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would agree to call witnesses to testify and that Republicans would act as impartial jurors (McConnell has publicly said he is working closely with the White House on the trial and does not intend to be an impartial juror).

But the speaker is facing a dilemma this week as several Senate Democrats call on her to end the delay and transmit the articles to the Senate.

This comes after protracted negotiations between McConnell and Democrats over the terms of the Senate trial. Democrats pushed for the majority leader to commit to calling witnesses, which McConnell refused to do. On Tuesday, he announced he has the votes to move forward with the trial without calling for witnesses.

Instead, he said, the chamber would decide on that question after the trial begins, as it did during former President Bill Clinton's impeachment in 1998.

Now, as Democrats come to terms with the fact that Republicans will not agree to their demands, a growing number are calling for Pelosi to send the articles of impeachment over.

"The longer it goes on the less urgent it becomes," Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said in a statement. "So if it's serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn't, don't send it over."

"If we're going to do it, she should send it over," Feinstein added, referring to Pelosi. "I don't see what good delay does."

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut echoed Feinstein, saying, "I think the time has passed. She should send the articles over."

Sen. Joe Manchin of Virginia - a deep red state - struck a similar chord.

"I think it needs to start, I really do," Manchin said. "I can't tell the House how to do their business. I would never try to tell Speaker Pelosi. But the bottom line is, the holdout helped force [former national security adviser John] Bolton to step forward. Let us do what we have to do over here."

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut agreed: "We are reaching a point where the articles of impeachment should be sent."

And Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware said it is "time to get on with it," while Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said "the cake is already baked," referring to the expected outcome of the trial, according to Politico.

Bolton throws a wrench into the GOP's plans

Former national security adviser John Bolton's Monday announcement that he's willing to testify in the Senate impeachment trial has handed Democrats some amount of leverage in the battle over the terms of the trial.

McConnell announced the Senate would move forward with the trial without deciding whether to call witnesses shortly after Bolton's announcement. But the former national security adviser's statement throws a wrench into Republicans' game plan.

Throughout the battle over impeachment, Republicans have argued that Democrats held hearings with witnesses who only provided "hearsay" rather than witnesses with direct knowledge of the events at the center of the inquiry.

Yet they refused to acknowledge that the very reason some of those direct witnesses didn't testify was because the White House itself barred them from appearing at Trump's order.

Now, Democrats now have a key witness - someone with direct knowledge of Trump's dealings with Ukraine - ready and willing to make what could be very damaging claims against the president. And his announcement increases pressure on moderate and vulnerable Republican senators to take a more clear stance on the question of calling witnesses.

Bolton's lawyer has said the former Trump adviser witnessed "many relevant meetings and conversations" that would shed new light on the president's effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents and thus interfere with the 2020 election.

Several career national security and foreign service officials who testified in the House impeachment inquiry also revealed that Bolton was staunchly opposed to Trump's efforts to strongarm Ukraine into delivering political dirt in exchange for US military assistance and a White House meeting.

And Fiona Hill, formerly one of Bolton's top deputies and the National Security Council's Russia adviser, testified that Bolton had serious concerns about the shadow foreign policy campaign that Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was carrying out in Ukraine.