Privately, Pelosi has been working behind the scenes with leaders of the CBC and Conyers to figure out his next steps. One senior Democratic aide said she was trying “to lay groundwork for him to step aside gracefully.”

Since the allegations first surfaced last week, Conyers has faced mounting internal pressure to relinquish his ranking member post even as Democratic members danced around the topic publicly. Still, Democratic leaders hoped Conyers would step down from the Judiciary panel he has led for more than a decade before lawmakers returned on Tuesday…

Multiple Democratic sources said they don’t expect widespread calls for Conyers to resign from the House altogether — at least not yet. Privately, according to aides and lawmakers, there is an effort to preserve Conyers’ legacy on issues ranging from voting rights to the creation of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as much as possible while trying to avoid the appearance of washing their hands of multiple serious sexual harassment accusations.