The New York Times is reporting that Mitch McConnell has told members of his conference that he "believes President Trump committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased that Democrats are moving to impeach him, believing that it will make it easier to purge him from the party, according to people familiar with his thinking."
So let's assume for the moment that the Times is correct in its reporting and that old Turtle Face does indeed feel that way about Trump. [The fact that he hasn't pushed back on the story could be seen as tacit approval of it.] The real question that remains to be answered is will McConnell take the next step? Will he go along with Chuck Schumer and call the Senate back in to session early enough to conduct a trial before Joe Biden takes office?
There's no doubt McConnell blames Trump for the disastrous results in both Georgia runoff elections. And with good reason. Had this been any other runoff election, Republicans would've easily won and held onto their Senate majority. But with Trump attacking both the integrity of the election AND members of his own party, Republican turnout was down significantly and Democrats flipped both seats.
For an experienced poker player like McConnell to tip his hand like this is an indication that the soon-to-be former majority leader has had it with the soon-to-be former president. Perhaps this is his way of cutting his losses. After all, he does have six justices on the Supreme Court and he's managed to fill almost every vacancy on the bench. What more does he need from Trump?
Personally, though, I still have my doubts. It's one thing for McConnell to "leak" a story like that - and I assume McConnell either leaked it or told one of his staffers to leak it - it's quite another to encourage at least 17 members of his conference to take that final plunge and flush Trump down the drain. Including McConnell, I'd say there are perhaps seven Senate Republicans who as of now would vote to convict: Mitt Romney, Pat Toomey, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkwski, Ben Sasse and Richard Burr.
It should be noted that both Toomey and Burr are not running for reelection in 2022, Romney has already voted to convict Trump once in the first impeachment trail, Sasse is on record as disapproving of his conduct, and both Collins and Murkowski have been the targets of his wrath on several occasions. So, none of these senators could be seen as what you would call profiles in courage.
The real challenge will be convincing ten more "brave souls" to jump off the bandwagon and put country ahead of personal ambition. And that's where we will see how "done" McConnell is with Trump. Will he whip up his members to do what they should've done a year ago, but were just too chicken shit to do? We'll know soon enough.
The first test will come Thursday when the House sends over the article of impeachment. If McConnell joins with Schumer to call the Senate back into session early, then there's hope; if not, if he sticks to his guns and decides not to reconvene until the 20th, then the Times piece was just him blowing off some steam, and the majority of his conference will take that as permission to resume business as usual.
And another opportunity to rid the nation of this man once and for all will have been wasted.
P.S.: CNN is now reporting that McConnell won't agree to bring the Senate back before January 20. So much for an early trial.
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