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Let the Senate ImpeachmentTrial be Swift
The Constitution says that the Senate, “shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” The immediate question before us is when? Speaker Nancy Pelosi initially said that she will hold up delivering their two articles of impeachment to the Senate until the democrats know what the rules will be. Reality is that the rules will be what the Republicans want, no matter how long Pelosi hangs back.
In Bill Clinton’s Presidential Impeachment Senate Trial, leaders of both parties met and hammered out an agreement on the rules, which the Senate passed unanimously even though the Republicans had two more Senators than they do now. It’s not the number of Republicans in the Senate that is shaping this trial, it’s the intensity of loyalty to Trump that is endangering any bi-partisan path forward.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel told Fox News he was “taking my cues” from the White House and “There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position …” in shaping the trial. Trump has tweeted that the effort to remove him from office is an “attempted coup.” That is a pretty strong cue that McConnel will not be reaching an agreement with the Democrats on the Senate’s trial procedures.
If no agreement is reached, McConnel only needs 51 Senate Republicans to pass a resolution governing the proceedings, as long as…
