As you‘ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump became the third president in history to be impeached last night and set a new record for the number of votes cast against him, an achievement that, deep down inside, some part of him probably wants to brag about on Twitter, because he’s a troubled man whose parents didn’t hug him as a child. So what happens next? Ultimately the proceedings will move to the Senate, where a trial will be held. But as Nancy Pelosi said last evening, she won’t be sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate just yet, and will delay naming the people who will argue the House’s case until the Senate lays out its procedures for the trial. Why? Because she doesn’t trust Mitch “Yeah, we’re just gonna let Trump get off” McConnell for shit.
Now, we know what you’re thinking—Mitch McConnell, untrustworthy? Mitch McConnell, a partisan hack? Our Mitch McConnell? But how could that be? Where would the House Speaker have come up with such an idea? In retrospect, though, there have been some hints. For instance, the time, earlier this month, that the majority leader told Fox News there was “zero chance” Trump would be removed from office and pledged “total coordination” with the White House and the president’s defense team, adding that there would be “no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.” Or when he told reporters this week that he wasn’t even going to go through the motions of being fair or impartial on the matter, declaring, “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision…I’m not impartial about this at all.” Or his general sliminess and fealty for the entirety of Trump’s time in office. Or the words “Merrick Garland.” Little tip-offs like that.
Despite the fact that Pelosi made clear she would not indefinitely delay a trial, McConnell and Co. have seized on her decision to wait to hear the terms, claiming Thursday that maybe she and fellow Democrats are “too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate,” and adding, over the course of a ghoulish, 30-minute speech on the Senate floor, “It’s like the prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial.” The president, naturally, also weighed in on the matter:
Asked about the taunts after McConnell’s remarks, Pelosi effectively said that McConnell and his ilk can piss off, and that perhaps they wouldn’t be in this position if the senator from Kentucky had an ounce of integrity in his neck pouch. “Frankly, I don’t care what the Republicans say,” Pelosi said. “It reminded me that our founders, when they wrote the Constitution, they suspected there could be a rogue president. I don’t think they suspected we could have a rogue president and a rogue leader in the Senate at the same time,” she added.
If you would like to receive the Levin Report in your inbox daily, click here to subscribe.