After more than two weeks off, Senator Clinton came back to her day job today — arriving on Capitol Hill to the cheers of some 50 interns and the hounding questions of the political press corps. She welcomed the applause but ignored the questions, turning to wave as she entered the building.

Clinton missed an early vote on housing, showing up in time for the Democrats’ weekly strategy session. She emerged to talk to reporters staking out the meeting outside the LBJ room, saying “I am rolling up my sleeves and getting back to work.”

“To my friends here in the leadership in the caucus and all of our colleagues I expressed my appreciation for the work that is done here in the Senate every single day and my commitment to working on behalf of the issues and values that we all stand for,” she said.

“It’s going to be up to the Democratic Party and particularly the Democratic Senate to make progress on everything from healthcare and the economy to ending the war in Iraq and I look forward to being back with this great team that we have here doing everything I can to make that happen.”

On her presidential bid, Clinton said “It was such an honor and a privilege for me to spend the last eighteen months as I did going across our country and having a chance to immerse myself in the extraordinary resilience and resourcefulness that is the American people. And I come back with an even greater depth of awareness about what we have to do here in Washington.”

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Major Garrett reports that it was pressure from three high-powered House Democrats that finally forced Hillary Clinton into setting a date to suspend her campaign for the nomination.

Congressional sources tell Major that Reps. Charlie Rangel of New York, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, and Norm Dicks of Washington leaned on Hillary Clinton to end her campaign this week, after she declined to give a date for her departure on a conference call with about 20 congressional supporters

Rangel, Frank and Dicks made separate appeals to Clinton to come up with a plan to leave the race and throw her support behind Obama, telling her the party needs to unify.

All three were dissatisfied with Clinton’s speech on Tuesday, when Clinton failed even to acknowledge Obama’s insurmountable delegate lead. On Wednesday, Rangel told ABC News that “Unless she has some good reasons– which I can’t think of– I really think we ought to get on with endorsements and dealing with what we have to deal with… so we can move forward.”

Clinton later told congressional backers that she’d move to begin unifying the party soon, but the of lack a specific date caused Rangel, Franks, and Dicks to ratchet up the pressure

Overnight, Clinton sent a letter to supporters letting them know about her Saturday event where she’ll thank those who have been behind her for the last 16 months and express her support for Obama’s candidacy. You can read the full letter after the jump.

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