Posted on 09/30/2019 1:45:11 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that if the House impeaches President Trump he will “have no choice” but to hold a trial in the Senate and a vote on removing the president from office.
His comments in an interview with CNBC confirm the position he took in an interview with NPR in March, and the conclusion of a Senate staff memo that was obtained by HuffPost.
“Under the Senate rules we’re required to take it up if the House does go down that path, and we’ll follow the Senate rules,” McConnell said Monday. “It’s a Senate rule related to impeachment that would take 67 votes to change, so I would have no choice but to take it up. How long you’re on it is a whole different matter, but I would have no choice but to take it up based on a Senate rule on impeachment.” […]
The Constitution gives the Senate the power to try the president if he is impeached by the House, but it does not set a timetable for the process. …
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I agree with you. It’s put up and shut up time for the Dems, Repukes and their Deep State cohorts. All of their “evidence” is going to be manufactured.
I've been saying that for years. Most of them are being blackmailed.
HEAR HEAR !
This is a good thing.
Given that President Trump is innocent and his accusers are guilty, the more light shined on this, the better for the President.
The only way the Democrats can win this showdown is in the court of public opinion, taking advantage of their media whores to spread lies and smears.
In a real court, the President has every advantage because he is innocent and his accusers are guilty of the very crimes they are accusing him of committing.
Their case is a joke and will collapse under the rigors of an actual trial. Moreover, it will put them in legal jeopardy and they know that full well.
This is why I still doubt any of this will actually happen, despite their rhetoric. There hasn’t been a House vote yet - maybe it will really happen, but there is a real good chance these these are empty threats.
After all, empty threats fit their playbook far better than an actual House vote on impeachment, or an actual Senate trial on removal. Empty threats allow them to lie and smear without taking any risks.
I trust the GOP as far as I can spit a bowling ball.
Mitch is a Bitch!
I don’t understand all the anxiety about Senator MCConnell and the possibility of a Senate trial on impeachment. The Senate has a rule for everything and with the death of Robert Byrd, no one in the Senate knows those rules as well as Senator McConnell. As to his reliability, he successfully prevented a vote on Merric Garland’s nomination for the Supreme Court and successfully orchestrated approval of two of President Trump’s Supreme Court nominees and a record number of lower court judges. It can be argued that the courts, especially the Supreme Court is more important to the democrats than the Presidency. The threshold for defeating those judicial votes is only 51 votes. For successful impeachment they need 67 votes.
Why all the bed wetting about the sky falling. Yes, it would be better if the House did not impeach, but if they do, why let them off the hook by preventing a public trial and recorded vote. As the old saying goes, If they cook it, make them eat it.
Here’s another way of looking at it, a little long but pertinent:
The Constitution does not by its express terms direct the Senate to try an impeachment. In fact, it confers on the Senate “the sole power to try,” which is a conferral of exclusive constitutional authority and not a procedural command. The Constitution couches the power to impeach in the same terms: it is the House’s “sole power.” The House may choose to impeach or not, and one can imagine an argument that the Senate is just as free, in the exercise of its own “sole power,” to decline to try any impeachment that the House elects to vote.
The current rules governing Senate practice and procedure do not pose an insurmountable problem for this maneuver. Senate leadership can seek to have the rules “reinterpreted” at any time by the device of seeking a ruling of the chair on the question, and avoiding a formal revision of the rule that would require supermajority approval. The question presented in some form would be whether, under the relevant rules, the Senate is required to hold an impeachment “trial” fully consistent with current rules—or even any trial at all. A chair’s ruling in the affirmative would be subject to being overturned by a majority, not two-thirds, vote.
This is a replay of the argument and related procedure followed for the “nuclear option” that changed the threshold for “cloture” of judicial nomination debates from a two-thirds to a majority vote. When the Republican leadership floated the option in 2005, some made the case that because the Constitution conferring the Senate’s advice and consent authority does not subject that authority to any supermajority confirmation requirement, the Senate rules could not provide otherwise. Some might argue that the rules also cannot constitutionally bind the Senate to a trial of a House impeachment if, in the exercise of its “sole power” to try, it decides against one. In this way, the Senate rule may be “reinterpreted.”
The Senate has options for scuttling the impeachment process beyond a simple refusal to heed the House vote. The Constitution does not specify what constitutes a “trial,” and in a 1993 case involving a judicial impeachment, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Senate’s “sole power” to “try” means that it is not subject to any limitations on how it could conduct a proceeding. Senate leadership could engineer an early motion to dismiss and effectively moot the current rule’s call for the president or counsel to appear before the Senate. The rules in place provide at any rate only that “the Senate shall have power to compel the attendance of witnesses”: they do not require that any other than the president be called. Moreover, the Senate could adjourn at any time, terminating the proceedings and declining to take up the House articles. This is what happened in the trial of Andrew Johnson, in which the Senate voted on three articles and then adjourned without holding votes on the remaining eight.
rwood
Uh - then you were not paying attention at all. There was a trial. There were tickets sold - there were opening and closing arguments. Perhaps you need to get to the doctor and get that old memory checked. I remember it very vividly.
The sad thing is - you are not the first to post such a thing. This is more of a case of revisionist history than what you really vividly remember (or, in this case, don't).
yup. Nancy Pelousy and her commie cronies are re-electing PDJT
and making sure he runs for reelection, too
since he’s not a quitter type, he will refuse to step aside or retire or turn things over in 2020 to VP Pence while PDJT is under siege
The Democrats had some dirty dirt on Trent Lott, and forced him (i.e., threatened (BLACKMAILED HIM!)to expose his “secrets”) to not try Slick.
I was in DC at the time, and the whole thing stunk to high heaven!
Republicans folded, and lost the next election; the tragedy of it is the wrong lesson was learned!
Slick was (and still is!) a perjurer, and should have been removed FRom office; had the Republicans not lost their testicles, they probably would have won the next election, and the lesson learned would be a positive one!
As it is, We the People suffered BIGLY!
This happened at a time in my life that was pretty tumultuous from a bad relationship with a psychotic female who happened to be the person that gave birth to my daughter.
Even if OJ confessed, I would give him a pass on the murder of his wife, but I would hang him for killing the waiter
HUH? SO - you want the dems to impeach him and then let that charge hang over his head without him having a chance to have a TRIAL and call witnesses and FINALLY let his lawyers put people on the stand and FINALLY allow the American people see - ONCE AND FOR ALL - what a witch hunt this really HAS BEEN?
Oh yeah - that's REAL smart!
IF Mitch accepts this in the Senate and then does a straight not guilty vote - I WILL BE PISSED!
Do you not get it? THIS IS TRUMP'S CHANCE! This is HIS ONE CHANCE to bypass the media and go STRAIGHT to the public and all witnesses regarding Fusion GPS - and everything else and expose the corruption once and for all.
Let's say you were the mayor of a small town and the DA had it out in for you and wanted you to lose the next election and he charged you with raping a child - even though he KNEW you were innocent. YOU have evidence you were out of town on the day in question.
Would you not be perfectly happy to go to trial? Sure you would!
The DA would be perfectly happy to hang an indictment over your head until after the election and let everyone in the town - thanks to the corrupt media - think you are guilty....because he won't take you to trial and let you clear your name.
If the House impeaches and the Senate doesn't put on a trial - that is what you are asking for...and that HURTS Trump.
Let him have his day in court in front of America and once and for all EXPOSE these evil people for who they are.
That is the LAST THING the deep state wants. Watch and see how they handle it.
Just saving you the trouble...you may have already looked it up. I guess most of us would prefer forgetting all about that time in our history - thanks be to those carpetbaggers who have gotten away with everything since their college days (his draft dodging) and Arkansas days (Whitewater) and on and on into the WH etc. Incredible how they can even show their faces but it’s like water off a duck’s back!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton
McConnell knows that.
Mitch should state loud and clear that this bogus process will be DEAD ON ARRIVAL in the Senate.
The GOP is aiding and abetting it.
BTW, when is Lindsey Graham ever going to issue a subpoena to appear before his Judiciary Committee???
All this lying and all this criminals getting by with good media reports... all this against Trump and I’m wanting those younger than me, to pick up the gavel and DO SOMETHING to save our nation for my and your grandkids... we fought a war in Europe for this nation... we are not weak...and there are laws that prevent what the dems and media are doing... we just live in a passive notion, because you all younger folks have had it too easy and have so much and so little time to enjoy all there is...
WHEN will this nation realize it all can go in a week... when will this nation realize we have a man who is fighting for us and the world is against him.... we dont do anything? it’s not worth it? your freedoms are a vote away from losing them all and everything you own... ask those who fled from cuba when castro came in... it was the drs and lawyers and businessmen who were trying to flee to America... and we have some dumb younguns in congress who don’t know who they are nor who we are...
and though I don’’t swear.... i’m exasperated... DAMN!!!!
“I don’t remember a Trial for slick willies impeachment...]
Then you weren’t paying attention. You don’t recall Chief Justice William Rehnquist and his newly fashioned, gold armed robes overseeing the sham?
I also recall Lindsay Graham was instrumental in ensuring the Clinton subornation of perjury impeachment trial was an absolute joke for the ages.
Google is your friend, (well not really, but in this case it is).
Br’er Donald is not afraid of that there briarpatch. Don’t panic unless he does.
On one show tonight (Trish Regan, I think), it was said that the Chief Justice of SCOTUS act as Judge during a Senate impeachment trial. We have plenty of reasons to not trust John Roberts. Worrisome.
Let me add another.
The Constitution says that "When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside:"
Does this give the Chief Justice the power to force the Senate to convene to try the impeachment? Or must the Senate first convene the trial and then the Chief Justice presides?
I'd say that the Constitution was expecting separation of powers, and that the Senate and the Chief Justice both have plenary powers here; neither is dependent on the other to act first because they are co-equal branches.
-PJ
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