Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is planning to hold an acquittal vote to clear President Donald Trump of all charges rather than a simple-majority dismissal of the impeachment articles to avoid a possible tie or nail-biter conclusion.
Really? CNN says this? We’re relying on CNN? Jebus wept.
We’ll give him a fair trial and then tell him, “Off you go, then”.
This is a real big tell from McConnell. It means he thinks there is a real possibility that there are 50+ votes against Trump in the Senate. By having the 67 threshold vote rather than the 51 threshold vote, he can spin that the vote “failed” even if it gets a majority of the Senate.
Trump’s going to cheat.
And Moscow McConnell is okay with that.
The brazenness in the title of the article “McConnell Plans for Acquittal Vote” will cement McConnell as a denizen of the dregs of the United States Senate.
I’m guessing here, but it would seem to me that opting for convict/acquit rather than dismiss means they at least have to put on the case then, right?
Well, how the hell else are you going to find out what the Constitution says?
And if that isn’t enough: /s
We’ll have to rely on hearsay?
I agree. The big prize for the Democrats is a majority of both the House and the Senate voting to remove Trump. McConnell must think THAT outcome is inevitable given the whip count. What he wants to do is stem the bleeding and get it over with quick, BUT the damage will have been done and the Democrats can endlessly repeat that the majority of the Congress thinks Trump is a crook in the 2020 campaign.
Good point, Tom. Not only will the damage have been done, but the Dems can argue that the only way the Repubs could avoid embarrassment was to clear Trump without hearing the witnesses who were not available to the House, i.e., Bolton and Mulvaney.
Moscow Mitch does as Moscow Mitch is told… by Moscow.
Deplorable Kabuki Theatre, orchestrated by the maestro MoscowMitch…
Sad how far this country has sunk…
And maybe it means he sees real political damage from treating this in such an offhand, contemptuous way. It would be like dropping the charges on a defendant most see as obviously guilty. And the only damage he fears that I can see is losing his majority. So that’s interesting.
“Moscow Mitch” does what he’s told by American-as-Apple-Pie anti-democratic businesses and oligarchs, I’m pretty sure.
The way Trump is now behaving, Moscow McConnell may have to offer Trump his acquittal congratulations to the man standing right beside a straitjacketed POTUS
Shouldn’t that be “show” trial? McConnell is depriving Trump of a grand production of fealty to the Republican’s lord and master.
Maybe should start calling this move “McConnell Wants to Deny Trump His Senate Rally”?
Historical votes from the USA Patriot Act, to the launch of the invasion of Iraq to, presently, the confirmation of unqualified judges to the federal bench have always been rushed. The Senate’s role as the cooler-headed deliberative body is again turned upside-down.
But “the tell,” as some astute minds have opined here, is in the ramifications of a trial on next year’s elections. Fast confirmation of judges is certainly one. Avoiding evidence presented at trial is another tell. A quick acquittal would skate past having uncomfortable testimony from those whom this administration has forbidden to appear before the House.
McConnell is hedging bets that his majority does not survive the next election.
I read reports a couple weeks back about the Turtle hiding under the cover of an anonymous vote in the Senate. What happened to that? Speculation that T rumpp could/would actually be convicted if no names were attached to the votes?
Oh, there’s that wild, overheated talk you libs love so much. He has a different style, but that’s what people voted for, and even admitting that, he’s obviously someone who has done a lot of things in life and can get through the day making sober, judicious, and perfectly normal responses to—oh wait, another tweet…
[Sigh.] So anyway, what else is new? Any plans for the holidays? 
A news fast, perhaps.