Maine’s junior congressman, Democrat Jared Golden, called on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday to submit the articles of impeachment adopted last month to the U.S. Senate.

Golden, a first-term lawmaker from Lewiston, said he agrees 100% with U.S. Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, that holding them isn’t necessary.

“I don’t think her holding them puts any particular pressure,” King told NBC News a few days ago.

Pelosi has refrained from delivering the impeachment articles to the Senate in a bid to pressure its leaders to conduct a real trial. Her office said this week it plans to hand them over soon.

Republicans have been increasingly vocal in their demand that the House speakers forward the  articles.

“It’s time for Pelosi to stop sitting on the bogus articles of impeachment and send them over to the Senate, or drop the whole thing altogether,” the national GOP said on its Twitter feed Wednesday.

Golden, whose 2nd Congressional District voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, favored the president’s impeachment on abuse of power charge for his dealings with Ukraine last year.

But Golden was the only House member who backed impeachment to vote against a second article that charged Trump with obstruction of justice as well. Both articles passed without a single Republican vote.

Golden said that in the weeks since his controversial stance, he’s become more certain he chose the correct course.

He said the House could have shown more patience and tried to compel the testimony of insiders such as former National Security Adviser John Bolton, taking the issue to court if necessary to get a judge to order them to talk to Congress.

“We should probably have taken care of this ourselves,” Golden said.

“The process demanded patience,” Golden said, and he wishes the House had not rushed the obstruction of justice charge through.

Even so, he said, he thinks the Senate ought to want to hear from people who can shed light on what happened when Trump sought to convince Ukraine’s leaders to launch an investigation into the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.

“The Senate would be well-served to hear” from officials who know what occurred, Golden said.

King told NBC on Tuesday, “The important thing to me is getting to the facts. I think it’s going to be very hard for somebody to vote against calling witnesses — particularly, again, someone like John Bolton, who’s indicated willingness to come in.”

Maine’s senior senator, Republican Susan Collins, said, “There are a number of witnesses who may well be appropriate, of which John Bolton may certainly be one. It is difficult to decide in isolation what the full universe of witnesses should look like before we have even heard the opening statements from the House managers and the president’s counsel.”

Golden said there is already “pretty strong evidence of abuse of power” in the testimony and evidence collected by the House.

He said, though, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who controls the Senate agenda, hasn’t shown any sign that he’s interested in pursuing the truth of what occurred.

Golden said the Senate, which is required to hold a trial of the president, should take the matter seriously and determine if the House was on the mark with its impeachment.

« Previous

Feds award nearly $14 million in grants to fight homelessness in Maine

Next »

Oakland man injured after attempting to load snowmobile onto trailer, landing in road