McConnell Preps GOP Senators For Trump’s Trial

The Hill reports:

The GOP leader told colleagues during a PowerPoint presentation that they would not be allowed to speak during the trial and that any motions to dismiss the impeachment articles would be reserved for Trump’s defense team and the House Democratic impeachment managers, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who attended the meeting, told The Wall Street Journal.

McConnell later told reporters that the Senate would have no choice but to hold a trial that would require the chamber to convene six days a week in the afternoon.

“Under the impeachment rules of the Senate, we’ll take the matter up,” he said. “The chief justice will be in the chair. We will have to convene every day, six days out of seven, at 12:30 or 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Senators will not be allowed to speak, which will be good therapy for a number of them. And we intend to do our constitutional responsibility.”

The Chief Justice is likely to play more than a decorative role in the first serious Senate impeachment trial of a president — the first based on genuine abuses of presidential power — since Andrew Johnson’s trial in 1868. https://t.co/vb4oqf9wMk

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) October 22, 2019

McConnell’s past position will make it difficult for him to champion any motion to dismiss a Senate trial of articles against President Trump. https://t.co/58pxG5hkD1

— The Hill (@thehill) October 22, 2019