- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is considering a vote to convict President Donald Trump in an impeachment trial, Republican sources told Insider.
- “He’s seriously entertaining it,” said one GOP source familiar with the Kentucky Republican’s thinking. “He wants to hear it out.”
- Convicting Trump and removing him from office isn’t the end game here since the impeachment trial likely won’t start in earnest until after his term is up. The Senate would next vote to ban Trump from ever holding a federal government position again, and a simple majority is all that’s needed to make that happen.
- McConnell knows Trump is at his most vulnerable right now as he prepares to leave office while facing a raft of potential criminal charges, according to Republicans close to the majority leader and the White House.
- “It’s the time to shiv him and then brace for the fallout,” said one GOP source with ties to the Trump White House.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is weighing whether to convict President Donald Trump for his role in inciting last week’s violent riot at the Capitol, Republicans familiar with the GOP leader’s deliberations told Insider.
It’d be an explosive move for the Kentucky Republican that could ultimately lead to Trump becoming the first former president banned from ever again holding federally elected office.
McConnell is said to be enraged at Trump for directing the heavily-armed mob that swarmed the Capitol in protest of Congress certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory. He now sees the Democrat-led House effort that culminated Wednesday with a bipartisan 232-197 vote to impeach the president as a potential avenue to rid his party and American politics once and for all of Trump.
