Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell briefed Republicans in a closed-door session about how they would conduct a Senate trial if the House sends over articles of impeachment.
Senate Republicans believe it is becoming increasingly likely, if not inevitable, that House Democrats will pass articles of impeachment against President Trump in the coming weeks. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, on Wednesday gave fellow GOP lawmakers a tutorial on how to conduct a trial based on how the process proceeded in the past.
“Every indication is that articles will be coming our way, eventually,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican, said after the meeting.
Republicans in the meeting discussed the possibility of moving to dismiss the charges outright, which would kill the impeachment effort before a trial in the Senate.
But Senate lawmakers determined the rules would not allow any senator to move to dismiss the charges and that they would not be able to win consent from the Democrats to bring up a vote to dismiss.
[Related: McConnell: Senate would have ‘no choice’ but to take up impeachment]
Kramer suggested Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial, might have the authority to move to dismiss the case.
Democrats want to impeach Trump for obstructing their investigation of his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats believe Trump used the prospect of withholding security aid to coerce Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee.
They charge Trump with stonewalling their investigation by refusing to cooperate with subpoenas and attempting to block administration officials from participating in closed-door depositions.
McConnell told reporters after the meeting he anticipates holding a full Senate trial that meets daily to decide whether the president is guilty of the charges put forward by the House.
“Under the impeachment rules of the Senate we’ll take the matter up, the chief justice will be in the chair, we’ll have to convene every day, six days out of seven at 12:30 or 1 p.m. in the afternoon. Senators will not be allowed to speak, which will be good therapy for some of them,” McConnell told reporters. “We intend to do our constitutional responsibility.”
Most Senate Republicans are so far sticking by the president and view the House proceedings as unfair because they are being held in private and without the formal House vote that sanctioned past impeachment investigations.
The investigation also lacks the customary bipartisan cooperation on rules for the inquiry. Republicans say they are left in the dark about the witness list and have not been allowed to call their own witnesses to testify.
“It’s been very unfair, very partisan, and it’s been a blight on the institution,” Cramer, a former House lawmaker, said. “We are looking at the removal of the president. The bar ought to be very high. I’ll fight back against that any day.”
It would take 67 votes to convict the president, which means 20 Republicans would have to turn on Trump.
That’s not likely at all, Cramer said.
The handling of the inquiry in the House, Cramer said, has Republicans backing Trump and “looking at him like he’s a victim.”
