Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will not agree to an emergency session to expedite a Senate impeachment trial for President Trump, all but ensuring that it wouldn’t take place before Inauguration Day.
With a House vote on impeachment imminent, an aide confirmed that McConnell’s office called Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s team on Wednesday to say the Kentucky Republican refuses to act on legislation passed in 2004 that allows the leaders of both parties to reconvene the Senate jointly at any time.
As it stands, the upper chamber is scheduled to come back into session on Jan. 19, the day before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Although McConnell won’t use his emergency powers to reconvene the Senate, a maneuver that Schumer sought, an impeachment trial could start sooner if there is unanimous consent from all senators.
The news comes after multiple reports about McConnell privately signaling support for the second impeachment of Trump. The Democratic-controlled House unveiled an article of impeachment charging Trump with inciting an insurrection after he encouraged his supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol last week before a group of rioters broke into the building as lawmakers counted electoral votes in an effort to affirm Biden’s victory.
More than 180 Democrats and five Republicans have announced that they support the impeachment effort.
Convicting Trump in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators. If the Senate does convict him before Inauguration Day, he will become the first president to be removed from office in U.S. history. Following two Democratic victories in the Georgia runoff elections, Schumer is set to become majority leader as early as Inauguration Day.
Trump was first impeached by the Democratic-controlled House in December 2019 on two Ukraine-related charges but was acquitted by the GOP-led Senate.
