McConnell: Senate Won’t Help ‘Sloppy Schiff’s’ Case, May Dismiss Impeachment After Opening Arguments

With the House about to pass articles of impeachment against President Trump, and the Senate firmly settled on a speedy, Biden-less ‘trial’ to acquit, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suggested in a Tuesday morning speech that he will move to dismiss the articles immediately following opening arguments.

Responding to Monday demands by Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that current and former White House officials testify, McConnell argued that Schumer was trying to make “Chairman Schiff’s sloppy work more persuasive,” according to Breitbart.

McConnell accused Schumer of going straight to the news media with his proposals rather than speaking to him in person, as Senate leaders had done in the past.

He also noted that Schumer had misquoted the Constitution. The Democrat leader had claimed the Constitution gave the Senate “sole Power of Impeachment,” whereas Article I, Section 3 actually states, “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

“We don’t create impeachments over here … we judge them,” he declared.

It was the House’s role to investigate, and to build a case. “If they fail, they fail! It’s not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach to search desperately for ways to get to guilty. That would hardly be impartial justice.”

The Senate would not, he said, participate in “new fact-finding” that House Democrats were “too impatient” to pursue. –Breitbart

In other words, McConnell won’t allow the Trump administration to defend itself in the court of public opinion, or get to the bottom of alleged corruption by the Bidens, as Trump will likely be acquitted either way. He also won’t let Schumer take another bite at the anti-Trump apple.

McConnell agreed with Schumer that the Senate follow the same procedure as they used with Bill Clinton in 1999 – though he said Schumer had since departed from his own suggestion. The Republican leader then noted two procedural motions brought at the start of Clinton’s trial – one which allowed for a motion to dismiss – which Schumer supported for Clinton, and the other guiding how the trial would proceed.

The Senate Majority Leader slammed the impeachment effort, warning that Democrats are setting a terrible precedent for the “constitutional remedy of last resort.”

“By any ordinary legal standard, what House Democrats have assembled would appear to be woefully, woefully inadequate to prove what they want to allege,” he said, adding “we will invite future Houses to paralyze future Senates with frivolous impeachments at will.”