With today’s planned vote in the House to impeach President Trump for the 2nd time, there’s a question of what happens next in the Senate. And this leads us to a report last night from Axios saying that Mitch McConnell is “leaning toward” convicting the president:
SCOOP: McConnell leans toward convicting Trump https://t.co/bc8EFucBPP
— Axios (@axios) January 13, 2021
“There’s a better than 50-50 chance that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would vote to convict President Trump in an impeachment trial, sources tell Axios”:
Breaking Axios: McConnell leans toward convicting Trump.
"There's a better than 50-50 chance that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would vote to convict President Trump in an impeachment trial, sources tell Axios."https://t.co/wRr2bbKc1t
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 13, 2021
It’s likely, however, that any Senate trial would happen after President Trump has left office so ¯_(ツ)_/¯:
One question this scoop from @mikeallen doesn’t address is whether McConnell will move up the date, currently set for Jan 19, to reconvene Senate. So he may yet vote in favor of conviction, but he’s likely punting till after inauguration https://t.co/TymFh7J5zn
— Daniel Chaitin (@danielchaitin7) January 13, 2021
Recommended
The New York Times is also reporting that McConnell has told colleagues that he thinks President Trump has committed impeachable offenses and that he’s open to censure as well:
NEW: McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable offenses, believes the attack on Capitol gives Rs a chance to purge the president
and…
McCarthy has asked colleagues if he should urge Trump to resign, is open to a censure
w @maggieNYT >
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 12, 2021
The censure vote would have been instead of impeachment, so that looks off the table for now:
ALSO: Biden called McConnell yesterday and asked if Senate could dual track impeachment trial and cabinet confirmations.
Far from telling Biden he would not discuss the impeachment, McConnell said he would check with the parliamentarian and get back to Biden.
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 12, 2021
McCarthy has cycled through just what can be done about Trump, approached Hoyer about a censure and said he could deliver a lot of R votes.
But the deal was: Democrats had to back off impeachment.
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 12, 2021
Are there really 20 Republicans in the Senate who would vote to convict? This seems high:
A Senate Republican aide tells me he thinks there were about 20, give or take, Republicans who were *open* to a conviction
Before our story on McConnell
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 12, 2021
Full story here with one last nugget on Merrick Garland:
Our full story for tmrw’s paper w another nugget: McConnell not only told Biden he’d be for Merrick Garland for AG, he reminded him he urged Trump to name Garland to succeed Comey at FBIhttps://t.co/vMqV8swjMO
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) January 13, 2021
***
Join the conversation as a VIP Member