Mitch McConnell is finally cornered, and it’s a sight to see
This week Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced what is at least the sixth publicly stated iteration of his plan for Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. Throughout the impeachment process, McConnell has been trying to keep the other side on its toes by announcing random ideas for the trial as if they were fact. First it was no witnesses. Then it was a grueling six day a week trial. He just kept changing it up. The thing is, Mitch’s posturing didn’t get him anywhere.
If McConnell was hoping to throw Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi off her game by throwing out all of these conflicting trial iterations, it clearly didn’t work. And if McConnell was hoping to convince the public that he was in control of the impeachment process all along, that only worked until Pelosi finally began to reveal her gameplan (and if you’re a Palmer Report reader, you saw this coming the entire time). Now McConnell is cornered.
Pelosi isn’t going to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate until she gets some concessions about the fairness of the Senate impeachment trial. McConnell would just as soon not even hold a trial, but Donald Trump desperately wants to be exonerated, so he’s pushing McConnell to have the trial as soon as possible. Of course McConnell can’t hold a trial until he makes the concessions to Pelosi, which will hurt Trump, and could make the Republican Senate look bad heading into 2020. But Trump isn’t going to let McConnell rest until there’s a trial, regardless of what McConnell has to give up in order to make it happen.
It’s why Mitch McConnell is now announcing that maybe he’ll consider allowing relevant witnesses to testify at the Senate impeachment trial after all. McConnell is merely doing what he always does: posturing and testing the waters. He’s seeing if this might be enough to please Pelosi (it won’t be), and if Trump will allow such concessions to be made (anyone’s guess). McConnell is trying to please two masters, one of whom has outfoxed him, the other of whom is clinically erratic. McConnell is finally cornered – and it’s a sight to see.
