From the beginning, removing Trump from office through a Senate impeachment trial was always a near-impossibility with today’s Senate, requiring a two-thirds supermajority.
Yet Republican Senators have still botched nearly every aspect of their involvement in Trump’s impeachment. If they had went with the same mantra of a full and impartial trial as the Democratic Party called for, things may have ended up looking a bit more grim for Trump, but it would have provided enough cover for several GOP senators facing reelection to not have impeachment cause them significant political pain.
We can start with how McConnell declared that he would not be an impartial juror — despite swearing on oath to do just that as required. But with the supermajority still required even then, this is basically like a #1 seed basketball team declaring that, faced with the 16th seed team, they would still cheat. In McConnell’s mind, he must feel so politically untouchable at this point that he had no reservations about being so blatant — but still, there was just no reason to be so provably blatant about it. A serious blunder by almost any measure.
Then, there is McConnell’s decision to be so adamantly opposed to allowing witnesses in the Senate trial. Setting aside that this became motivation for Speaker Pelosi to withhold the articles of impeachment, which is seemingly by the day looking like a critical move to the Dem Party and the House’s benefit. Setting aside that rather than strengthening his position, drawing all the attention to trying not to call witnesses may be backfiring. The stance by McConnell to oppose witnesses, in a trial of any sort, screams nothing but GUILT and COVER-UP to anyone with even a passing understanding of how one goes about defending yourself from charges and trials.
Still, even with McConnell calling the shots, and making it blatantly obvious that he is stacking the deck in favor of Trump, practically spitting on the Constitution in the process, this leaves plenty of room for the same individual Senators — again, many seeking re-election this year, and in tough races no less — to put themselves squarely on the side of seeking a fair trial — and again, with little risk of actually removing Trump.
Yet, instead of being examples of how to remain composed and retain an image of impartiality, these vulnerable Republican Senators are seemingly in a contest to see who can be the King of the shit-rolls-down Hill.
You have Arizona’s Martha McSally, who seemingly made a deliberate ploy of calling reporter Manu Raju a “Liberal hack.” Which would be an obvious demographic that you don’t want to energize, especially when you just lost your last election, in the same state, to Kyrsten Sinema, a Blue Dog and one of the most conservative Dems in Congress. So not only did McSally just voluntarily give up one of the most easily-quoted smears to energize the Left, but the state’s Conservatives have already shown once before that they consider a Dem a better representative than you.
You have Maine’s Susan Collins, whose efforts at coming off as impartial in this impeachment process are about as endearing as the classroom tattletale.
You have South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, who is about as cemented to Trump’s bum as one can get, but still manages to bungle it up. I guess he is trying to sound impartial? Like when he inexplicably compliments Schiff’s opening statements — who exactly this is meant to convince, I haven’t the foggiest. Perhaps he will make a last-ditch about-face, in the honor of his late friend John McCain. But, forgive me for not giving Graham even that much credit.
This goes beyond just the Senators facing re-election in 2020, mind you. There are many who will soon be up for re-election in the near future, as well. Senators like Pat Toomey — who literally waited until the dead of night to vote for his own Party’s Trump for President. Senators like Ohio’s Rob Portman, who takes supposed principled stands against Trump and then submits to Trump faster than a merry-go-round. And I bet a lot of these same Senators will frantically point to their records to show how far they are willing to stand against Trump. But will that really compare to a vote defending Trump from impeachment? Voting against one or two of Trump’s pet projects just does not compare.
Faced with now being solidly involved in McConnell’s efforts at a sham trial — unless any take a stand now (as I’m sure many of us here are holding our breaths for) — these Republican Senators will have no excuses for how they allowed Trump to remain in power. They will have no choice but to accept the Trump brand — which did so well for the likes of Rick Saccone in PA, Kris Kobach in KS, and Matt Bevin in KY, in recent years.
In a best case scenario, McConnell’s Republican-controlled Senate could have held Trump to a full accounting of all the evidence and charges against him in the House’s case for impeachment, even give vulnerable Senators the choice to vote to remove, if they thought it to be in their best interests — and still come nowhere close to the two-thirds votes required. And while we all fully expect Trump to take a victory lap all throughout the 2020 campaign season once the Senate dismisses the charged — facing a truly fair and impartial trial from the get-go would have actually lended him a more robust defense.
Now no matter what, Trump’s eventual Dem opponent can point to all the stonewalling by McConnell and Co., of evidence of a cover-up. While that may not move the needle with Trump’s devoted base, it will significantly hurt him with undecideds, and swing voters, and a lot of the same voters who have shown throughout the midterm races, that they will not be as forgiving of Trump’s corruption.
Yet if ever there was any possible worst-case scenarios for McConnell and his Republican-majority Senate, this is probably as closest as they could have gotten, without Trump stepping out in Times Square to shoot someone down. They have fit every description of accomplices setting up a sham trial. They have provided almost comically poor efforts of maintaining the role of impartial jurors, acting for the best of the country — which they are sworn to do. They are feeding fuel to every Dem opponent to play their sound bytes and incriminating tweets in attack ads and stump speeches, until November and beyond. And even doing their best to ensure a trial tilted in their favor — the #1 ranked team cheating against the #16 ranked team, oh and the head referee is on their payroll, to boot — they are still managing to bungle it so bad that Trump’s guilt is essentially laid bare to the entire nation by Schiff and the rest of the House’s team, while the best the defense can do is scream “Look how fast their investigation was, they couldn’t even get to the tip of the iceberg of how much evidence there is of Trump’s guilt!“ in a catch-22 level defense that would make Doc Daneeka blush. Because of how poorly McConnell and the rest of the Senate Republicans are composing themselves, even if they manage to dismiss the impeachment trial as everyone predicts, not only have they done significant unforced damage to Trump’s reelection efforts, but likely their own, as well.