McConnell goes to the dark side? Top Republican ‘pleased’ with Dem impeachment moves
It’s being reported that there is a better than 50-50 chance that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) will back impeachment proceedings against President Trump. Of course, that report comes via the New York Times for whatever that is worth. Telling is the fact that McConnell’s office will not comment on the matter. Sources say that he is “pleased” with congressional Democrats’ efforts to impeach President Trump over last week’s attack on the Capitol building by protesters. They are saying that McConnell sees this as an opportunity to purge Trump from the Republican Party.
McConnell allegedly blames Trump for Republicans losing control of the Senate in the Georgia runoffs. He’s deflecting blame as many see it as McConnell’s fault for doling out paltry stimulus checks to Americans when they are hurting the most from the pandemic. There’s also the matter that funding is being cut off to most Republicans from big business donors. The Republicans are in a panic over it. McConnell is also extremely upset about the president’s actions leading up to the riot at the Capitol.
According to the NYT, McConnell “has told associates 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.”
A source close to McConnell told Fox News that “nobody is pleased by anything.” They also claim that McConnell has not made up his mind.
We’ve heard this kind of salacious reporting from the NYT before but this one seems to have legs.
A spokesperson for McConnell declined to comment on the report, instead directing the outlet to the speech the Republican leader made condemning the attack.
Reporter Jonathan Martin, who co-wrote the piece, sent out a tweet saying that President-elect Joe 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.”
Martin referenced a tweet that he says is “the thinking in McConnellworld,” which read, “As stunning as Rs moving against Trump would be, the alternative is that he sticks around and makes their lives/careers hell for the next four years (at least.) If that’s going to happen anyway, a clean break looks pretty attractive. Now or never.”
CNN is giddy over this and is reporting that Trump and McConnell have not spoken since the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol. The Washington Post reported that McConnell had ignored the president’s calls the week before.
It is unclear how McConnell would vote in an impeachment trial, should House Democrats vote to impeach Trump. It is not clear at this point whether McConnell would vote to convict but it does not look good. Liz Cheney has already stated she will back impeachment and Republicans are calling on her to resign.
The day after the attack, McConnell’s wife, then-Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, became the first of several Trump Cabinet members to resign over the deadly incident. It should be noted that Chao has extensive business dealings in China and McConnell himself is involved with those ventures.
President Trump said Tuesday that Democrats are courting “tremendous danger” by attempting to impeach him a second time, calling it “a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in the history of politics.” He’s not wrong here.
Trump was impeached last year by House Democrats, but the GOP-controlled Senate led by McConnell voted against convicting the president on the articles brought before them at the time. Much has changed since then and a fractured Republican Party is now busy taking sides. That never ends well.
