Mitch McConnell just said something about impeachment that Donald Trump is not going to like
At this point it’s a given that the House will end up passing one or more articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. Before such a vote, look for the House to try to milk the televised impeachment hearings as much as possible, in the hope of convincing as many Americans to support impeachment as possible. After all, once the House is done and impeachment goes over to the Senate, it’ll simply die there… right?
One hope on the part Team Trump would be that Mitch McConnell would simply refuse to even hold an impeachment trial in the Senate. He’s legally more or less expected to hold a trial, but as we’ve seen time and again, McConnell isn’t exactly one for playing fair or following the rules. That said, McConnell just told NPR that “if the House were to act, the Senate immediately goes into a trial.” This is a big deal.
This does not mean that McConnell would support Donald Trump’s impeachment or removal. If anything, McConnell and the Republican Senators would very much like to not have to remove Trump, considering the political carnage that would be involved with Trump’s base. But the reality is that if the American public becomes so sold on impeachment that the Republican Senators have to oust Trump in order to selfishly protect their own chances of reelection, they will of course do it.
So it’s notable that Mitch McConnell is already staking himself to going through with an impeachment trial. This tells us that McConnell doesn’t think he and the GOP Senate could politically get away with simply refusing to hold a trial. Of course this means that the Republican Senators would all have to vote on whether to impeach Trump, which could blow back on them in their reelection campaigns no matter how they vote on it. One way or another, this is a ticking time bomb for the GOP Senate.
