McConnell Rejects Schumer’s Opening Offer on Impeachment Trial, Claims It Would Set ‘Nightmarish Precedent’
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rejected on Tuesday Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s suggestion that the Senate agree to call certain witnesses as part of their resolution detailing the parameters of the impending impeachment trial.
Schumer released his suggestion to the press before sending it to McConnell.
“It is not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to ‘guilty,’” McConnell said. The Majority Leader said Schumer’s proposal would set a “nightmarish precedent” for future impeachment trials.
“The Senate is meant to act as judge and jury, to hear a trial, not to re-run the entire fact-finding investigation because angry partisans rushed sloppily through it,” McConnell continued.
The House is expected to vote this week on two articles of impeachment against President Trump, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. With a solid majority of Democrats planning to approve both articles, the impeachment process will most likely continue to the Senate, where McConnell and Schumer must agree on the parameters of an impeachment trial.
McConnell faces pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to call certain witnesses the House either did not call or was not able to bring to testify. Republicans want to hear from Hunter Biden and Rudy Giuliani, while Democrats want to call on White House acting chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney, whose appearance at House hearings the Democrats were unable to compel.
For his part, McConnell slammed the incoming articles of impeachment as “the thinnest, least thorough presidential impeachment in our nation’s history.”
