WASHINGTON — As the House of Representatives moves forward with drafting articles of impeachment, the President’s defense team is planning their next moves.

“We are fully prepared to defend ourselves,” said Pam Bondi, a special adviser to the president and a key member of his impeachment defense team.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the U.S. House of Representatives will officially pursue articles of impeachment against the president on Wednesday. However, Bondi said she is feeling optimistic as the team plots out their strategy. 

"We don't believe it's going to go to the Senate, because we believe Democrats in their districts back home know what's important to the American people,” Bondi said in an interview at the White House.

At the same time, Bondi addressed the President's recently expressed desire for the trial to happen quickly.

“The President has been very outspoken that when this does go to the Senate, we want a trial," Bondi said. "We want to be heard in a fair and impartial setting."

Bondi, who was hired on the eve of the House Intelligence Committee’s first public hearings, has become the public face of the White House’s impeachment defense. The former Florida Attorney General has been close with the President for years.

“I miss being Attorney General, but being here you get to do a lot of great things, too,” she said.

Behind the scenes, the White House is beginning to look past the proceedings in the lower chamber, where they have neglected to participate so far. Bondi would not clarify if the president’s attorneys intended to attend the House Judiciary Committee’s latest hearing, scheduled for Monday.

The White House has until 5 p.m. ET on Friday, December 6 to decide if they are going to participate in that panel’s proceedings.

“The Judiciary hearings followed the intelligence hearings, which were a sham to begin with,” she said. 

Instead of attending the House Judiciary Committee hearings on Tuesday, Bondi and a team of officials from the White House huddled with key Republicans on Capitol Hill, seeking to unify their message and focusing on making the President’s case in a potential Senate trial.

"We absolutely want to call Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Adam Schiff and the whistleblower,” Bondi said in response to a question asking if the president intended to call any members of his inner circle implicated in the inquiry in a future Senate trial. “We want to put on our case,” she explained.

The president had initially resisted bringing in an impeachment defense team, telling some lawmakers that it could make him look guilty. Now, that team is in place, and they are looking to control the narrative.

"We’re working hard, watching, because we don’t know what’s going to happen next," Bondi explained. "We don’t know if they are going to do a focus group tonight and throw another article of impeachment at him."

The Senate 2020 calendar has been released, with the entire month of January left blank to accommodate a potential impeachment trial.