Chuck Schumer may have just found a way to force an impeachment trial before the end of Trump’s term
Over the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he will not hold an impeachment trial prior to the end of Donald Trump’s term. At the time, Palmer Report pointed out that McConnell may not be able to pull that off, and that he has a history of announcing impossible positions as if they were definitely going to happen, in the hope of baiting us into giving up instead of fighting him on it.
Now, predictably, McConnell’s gambit is beginning to fall apart. Chuck Schumer is now looking to use his emergency powers as Senate Minority Leader, granted in 2004, to force the Senate into session before the end of Trump’s term so that the impeachment trial can take place. This is according to CNN. If Schumer can pull this off, then Trump will be on trial in the Senate as soon as next week.
We’ll see what happens. McConnell can still try to use procedural moves to fight this, or to delay things. But it’s crucial to remember that McConnell doesn’t have some kind of evil magic wand for automatically getting his way. If he did, he would have used it to retain Republican control of the Senate, which he’s now roughly nine days away from losing. We may see a Senate impeachment trial next week after all.
