Confirming that he would indeed,under Senate rules,conduct an impeachment trial, 77-year-old Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told CNBC to look out for what you want. Once a trial begins in the Senate, all bets are off when it comes to the Republican Party defending 73-year-old President Donald Trump, pulling out all the stops, including talking about former Vice President Joe Biden and his 50-year-old son Hunter’s role in Burisma Holdings, the Cypress-based energy company for whom he earned $50,000 a month. Democrats want to control the narrative—and the airwaves—when it comes to the whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump tried to extort dirt on Biden and his son in exchange for $400 million in military aid. Democrats, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) have been pounding their chests with their new “smoking gun.”
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided to start impeachment proceedings Sept. 24, she acquiesced to her Party’s left wing, led by 29-year-old Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who’s pushed impeachment against Trump since taking office Jan. 3, 2019. Ocasio-Cortez, who’s of Puerto Rican extraction, considers Trump a racist, especially for his 2017 response to Category-5 Hurricane Maria that decimated the island, claiming nearly 3,000 lives. Going ahead with impeachment proceedings, Democrats expose themselves to the other side of the story, including how the Obama administration conspired with former Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign to investigate Trump during and after the 2016 campaign. Opening up an impeachment trial, no holds are barred, allowing Trump’s attorney’s to set the record straight about himself and the Bidens’ activity in Ukraine
McConnell confirmed that under the Senate rules, he’s obligated, should the House move ahead with impeachment, to hold a trial in the Senate. “Under the Senate rules we’re required to take it up if the House does do down that path, and we’ll follow the Senate rules,” McConnell said, warning Democrats that there’s no stopping what comes out in the Senate. McConnell considers himself the Senate’s gatekeeper, deciding which bills or votes the Senate takes up. Democrats feared that on a procedural vote McConnell could stymie the House from getting their Senate impeachment trial. Only Democrats favor impeachment proceedings with Republicans uniformly opposed, attesting to Washington’s extreme partisan divide. There’s no support for backing among House or Senate Republicans for Trump’s impeachment based on the whistleblower complaint or anything else.
Democrats don’t have the 67 votes, not even close, to convict Trump in the U.S. Senate. “There is not way we could somehow bar the doors and prevent the managers from presenting the articles to the Senate,” McConnell. The rules of impeachment are clear on this point,” opening the door to a trial if House Democrats really gets that far There’s a growing possibility that the House will not advance articles of impeachment to be tried in the Senate. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said he favored impeachment because it would hurt Trump’s chances of reelection. That seems to be the prevailing view of Democrats: Impeach Trump to make him look bad to voters in the 2020 election. Democrats think it’s positive that McConnell has agreed to conduct a Senate impeachment trial should they push the issue to the brink. It’s possible Democrats will reverse gears, knowing the risks.
Democrats know that if Trump survives a Senate trial, which is highly probable, he could claim total vindication over Democrats “rush to judgment.” Democrats hope that impeachment proceedings would damage Trump’s brand heading into 2020, giving Democrats a leg up in the election. Democrats claim that Trump’s attempt to solicit dirt on the Bidens from Ukraine would be seen as unacceptable heading into the 2020 presidential election. Democrats, like Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), hope that enough Republicans will face election challenges if they don’t flip on Trump. So far, there’s zero indication that any Republican would flip on Trump, because of concerns about their re-election. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens with Republicans come back for this [October] recess,” wishing the GOP Senate would turn on Trump, eventually flipping loyalty against Trump.
If the House goes ahead with impeachment, they’re likely to get a full-throttled defense of Trump at any Senate trial. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stated emphatically that Trump did nothing wrong asking Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens for corruption. Battle lines drawn, Democrats will be forced in any Senate trial to defend counter-allegations about the Bidens and the whole “Deep State” conspiracy, including the so-called whistleblower complaint that implicates Democrats in the counterintellgence investigation against Trump. Unlike the slam-dunk in the Democrat friendly media, Democrats would be subjected in any Senate trial to withering cross-examination, something that doesn’t happen when you try cases in the media. Exposing Democrats to cross examination, Democrats could weaken their case against Trump and embarrass themselves in any Senate trial.
