Pelosi Says Trump Has Options for State of the Union

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says President Donald Trump can keep his Feb. 4 appointment with Congress to deliver his State of the Union address, or he can ask to postpone it until after his Senate impeachment trial.

Pelosi told reporters Thursday the decision is “up to the president."

Pelosi says the president “has options.” She says he "could come that day, we are prepared to welcome him that day." She says he also could send a printed copy of his speech “or he could ask us to postpone it if in fact he wants to have it after all of this is resolved.”

But Pelosi says the timing of the trial on abuse and obstruction charges “should not be hastened because of the speech he wants to make to the Congress of the United States.”

There has been no response from the White House.

There is precedent for a president to speak amid impeachment proceedings.

In 1999, an impeached President Bill Clinton defiantly delivered a State of the Union address to Congress as the Senate considered charges against him. Clinton spoke jovially for more than an hour and about policy and did not mention the trial at all.

Clinton said at the time, “The state of our union is strong.”

In other comments, Pelosi said a federal watchdog's report of Trump's freeze of aid to Ukraine makes it more important for Congress to get new testimony and documents.

Pelosi spoke Thursday after the watchdog agency reported that withholding the military aid violated the law. Withholding the aid is at the center of Trump's impeachment.

Trump became the third impeached president in history over his demand that Ukraine investigate his political rivals while he froze the congressionally approved money.

Pelosi told reporters, “Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.”

She added: “This reinforces again the need for documents and eyewitnesses in the Senate.”

Trump has denied doing anything wrong.