McConnell Plots Path to Deliver Swift Trump Acquittal by Senate

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is setting a course to quash Democrats’ attempts to extend the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump by calling new witnesses, as he pushes toward a goal of ending it swiftly in acquittal.
McConnell on Tuesday made clear he’s not interested in giving in to any demands from Democrats. He said that the partisan House impeachment would result in “an almost entirely partisan outcome in the Senate as well.”
“I’m not an impartial juror,” McConnell said. “This is a political process.”

McConnell’s strategy relies on keeping Democratic requests on procedures, documents and witnesses bottled up and maintaining pressure on any wavering Republicans who might agree with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s push for more evidence.

Democrats would need only four GOP votes to force the issue, but McConnell and Trump are fighting hard to keep the Republican wall of opposition to impeachment solid. Senate Republican leaders huddled earlier today with a few GOP senators who could vote their own way on things. They included Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, a frequent Trump critic, and Cory Gardner of Colorado, who is the most vulnerable Republican on the ballot in 2020.

Earlier in the day, McConnell ripped Schumer’s call for testimony from acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and former National Security Adviser John Bolton as a “fishing expedition” to make up for a “sloppy” House impeachment. Mulvaney and Bolton refused to testify in the House without a court order at the direction of Trump.

“It’s not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to guilty. That would hardly be impartial justice,” McConnell, who has promised to coordinate with Trump’s lawyers on how to conduct the trial, said on the Senate floor.

The Democratic majority in the House is poised to impeach Trump in a vote Wednesday. The Senate would begin a trial in January and McConnell has said there is zero chance the president would be convicted and removed from office.


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