Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Tuesday he doesn’t anticipate the Senate voting to impeach President Donald Trump.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1260452
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Tuesday he doesn’t anticipate the Senate voting to impeach President Donald Trump.
That sounds kind of un-American.
You know who else used to state the outcome of a trial before the trial? the Russians.
Oh, OK, Moscow Mitch. Thanks for the clarification. We’ll all just walk away then. No harm, no foul. Sure wouldn’t want to waste your time with a little thing like abject public corruption and abuse of power.
No need to bother with pesky technicalities like hearing evidence.
Signaling to his boss (not Trump, Putin) Moscow Mitch never disappoints.
Does the rule that senators can’t campaign during the trail really exist?
But the goals are moving. He is admitting that there indeed be a Senate trial.
However, Schumer, or at least somebody, should probably start raising hell that McConnell is already counting votes, which means having discussions with the eventual jurors about the potential trial.
That isn’t allowed under current Senate rules for impeachment.
Technically he can argue that there isn’t actually a Senate trial under way, so he didn’t break any rules. But we should be forechecking him on this now anyway. Put him on notice.
Well if the only thing that comes out of all this is that the DoJ’s OLC memo is trashed then be careful what you wish for MoscowMitch. I’d love to see Trump indicted in Sept/Oct 2020.
Sounds like McConnell’s running scared. He’s concerned about the ability of Democratic Senators running for President to campaign? Spare me.
He knows Republicans lose either way. If they acquit Trump, especially after the prosecution drops indisputable evidence of multiple crimes and/or misdemeanors, the 2020 campaign becomes a referendum on Republicans whitewashing the acts of a criminal President. There’s a very good chance he becomes the minority leader in 2020.
“So the question is: Just how long does the Senate want to take?” McConnell asked. “How long do the presidential candidates want to be here on the floor of the Senate instead of in Iowa and New Hampshire?”
Again, this is weak tea. Since when does McConnell care about Democratic presidential candidates?
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McConnell has said before that the trial would go six days a week, including I believe any Holidays, for the duration.
So while technically I guess they could skip town, politically it would be suicidal.
Trump said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters. McConnell is using the same standard for the impeachment trial so he’s right about how the GOP senators would vote.
Wondering how long it will take for the president to begin bragging that Republican senators would never remove him after all of the campaign cash he’s promised them. If he can turn ‘Senate will never convict’ into a chant you will hear it at his next rally.
Merrick Garland.
The current Senate Rules On Impeachment Trials provide that after the trial commences the Senate “shall continue in session from day to day (Sundays excepted) after the trial shall commence (unless otherwise ordered by the Senate) until final judgment shall be rendered.”
And water is wet.
“If we had the trial today…” says juror who hasn’t yet reviewed the evidence–how is this even news? It would be utterly batty for him to say anything else.
This becomes news after the televised public hearings are underway. If the evidence is overwhelming and the polls want Trump’s head on a pike AND THEN McConnell makes a statement about the Senate trial exonerating him despite all that–that’ll be news. That an American is presumed innocent prior to trial perhaps feels like news in 2019, but it ain’t.
On top of that, I can’t help but think.
“Hey, Mitch. Most of us democratic voters want this criminal president impeached. The Candidates being seen in the senate vociferously defending the core precepts of our democracy might actually be better for their campaigns than stump speeches in podunk nowhere Iowa.”
We’ll give him a fair trial and then tell him he can do a scarper.”
" I will make sure that a traitor to America, who broke his oath of office and takes bribes is not removed from power. Nothing, not our relationship with traditional allies, our incarcerating children and our destruction of God’s Green Earth is more important than tax cuts."