- Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell believes that President Donald Trump has committed several impeachable crimes and is “satisfied” with the idea that he will be impeached, according to The New York Times.
- McConnell believes that the impeachment of Trump and then potentially condemned and removed from office by the U.S. Senate “will make it easier to expunge him from the party,” the Times said on Tuesday.
- McConnell, once one of Trump’s most powerful allies, now plans to never speak to him again after Wednesday’s deadly US Capitol insurrection.
- House minority leader Kevin McCarthy is said to be talking to colleagues from the Republican Party about whether to ask Trump to step down, according to The Times.
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Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell believes that President Donald Trump has committed a number of unacceptable crimes and is “satisfied” that Trump is ousted and removed from office, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote on Trump’s impeachment on charges of inciting an insurrection in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. That would make Trump the first president in American history to face two charges.
McConnell believes that Trump’s impeachment and then potentially condemned and removed from office by the U.S. Senate “will make it easier to purge him of the party,” the Times said, citing people familiar with his thinking.
McConnell was one of Trump’s staunchest allies who supported the embattled president during his first Senate impeachment trial in January 2020. Now, however, the two seem to be on the outside.
Trump and McConnell have not spoken since mid-December, when McConnell publicly acknowledged Trump’s electoral defeat in a December 15 Senate floor speech and congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on his victory. McConnell plans never to speak to Trump again about his role in inciting violence in the Capitol, as well as his lack of leadership in responding to the insurrection.
In addition to the Capitol siege, The Times said McConnell blames Trump for the loss of two essential Senate seats in Georgia in the two January 5 elections, which not only cost Republicans control of the upper house, but personally cost McConnell his. position as a majority in the leading Senate.
McConnell wants to completely revise the impeachment article that the House plans to vote on before taking a public stance on impeachment or censorship, but he wants to do some damage to Trump’s career prospects on his way out the door, according to The Times .
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House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, for his part, personally opposes impeachment, but is open to the idea of formally censoring Trump in Congress, the Times reported. He talked to colleagues about asking Trump to step down before his term ends on January 20.
Unlike the first impeachment trial in Trump’s House in December 2019, McCarthy did not “whip” his caucus against the impeachment vote. Up to a dozen House Republicans could vote for Trump’s impeachment, the Times said. That list includes Caucus Republican President Rep. Liz Cheney, who openly criticizes Trump since the siege of the Capitol.
Also on Tuesday afternoon, Republican Representative John Katko of New York became the first House Republican to speak out publicly in favor of Trump’s impeachment. Katko is one of the few Republicans who represent a congressional district won by Biden in 2020 and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Katko was closely followed by Cheney, a Wyoming congresswoman, who said she would also “vote for the president’s impeachment”.
Last week, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois became the first Republican lawmaker to publicly declare his support for Vice President Mike Pence by invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump’s presidential powers. He was followed by Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, urging Trump to step down.
“I want him to resign. I want him to leave. He has already done enough damage,” said Murkowski, the first Republican senator to make such a request to the president.