Establishment Republicans are wrong, if this report is correct
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We’ll just let us grownups handle this
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are both looking ahead to the Senate impeachment trial, but there is a growing divide between the two over what that trial should look like, CNN has learned.
In conversations with the White House, the Kentucky Republican has made clear he hopes to end the trial as soon as he can, an effort to both get impeachment off his lap and protect his conference from potentially damaging votes should the process break out into partisan warfare. ….
But the show is exactly what Trump wants. He's made clear to advisers privately that rather than end the trial as quickly as possible, he is hoping for a dramatic event, according to two people familiar with his thinking. He wants Hunter Biden, Rep. Adam Schiff and the whistleblower to testify. He wants the witnesses to be live, not clips of taped depositions. And he's hoping to turn it into a spectacle, which he thinks is his best chance to hurt Democrats in the election. ….
But Trump's position is the opposite of what some Republican senators, including some of Trump's closest allies on the Capitol Hill, are advising at this point. In closed-door meetings and phone calls over the course of the last month, several Republican senators have warned Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, not to "turn the Senate into a circus," according to one Republican senator. A source familiar with the matter said there was no daylight between Trump and Cipollone on the trial.
Instead, there has been a concerted push to allow both sides -- the House Democratic managers and the White House defense team -- to present their case, then quickly move to a vote to end the proceedings. It would give enough time for moderate Republicans to see it as a fulsome and fair process, while shielding the conference from divisive votes on potential witnesses, one person involved with internal GOP discussions said.
“Circus”? “A fulsome and fair process”? I’d say that’s exactly what we have already, especially the fulsome praise being heaped on our constitution by these charlatans. Trump and his voters recognize it, and Trump is smart to want to keep the farce going as long into the election year as possible. It’s understandable that the very people he was elected to do away with, Democrats and Republicans alike, would like to shut this down quickly to avoid further exposure of the nature of what’s been going on in Washington these past decades, but Trump would be a fool to go along.
And he’s no fool. Get the popcorn ready.