Why Mitch McConnell and Republicans are letting Donald Trump off the hook on impeachment

Let me take a crack at helping you understand how and why Senate Republicans landed where they did on Jan. 27, the day Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul forced a floor vote on a simple question: Is an impeachment trial of Donald Trump, now former president, constitutional?

Paul’s position — that Trump cannot be tried since he’s out of office — attracted 45 of the 50 Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader. Paul’s gambit confirmed Trump will not be convicted, despite the horrific events of Jan. 6 (and others leading up to them) in which Trump obviously played a central role.

McConnell’s vote surprised some since he had publicly expressed such displeasure with Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. It was thought that perhaps McConnell might lead his conference to convict Trump, holding him accountable for his atrocious behavior.

But ultimately McConnell came around to Paul’s view — also shared by legal scholar Jonathan Turley, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, and several others — that the Constitution doesn’t permit the trial of a former president, and that perhaps impeachment just isn’t, as conservative godfather George Will wrote, “worth it.”

McConnell's slide rule

The questions before McConnell and his fellow Republicans were laced with more than a sprinkle of politics to go along with the constitutional issues. McConnell keeps his eyes on the future and his moves are always in service of producing outcomes. Siding against Trump on the Paul question would not have produced a different result.

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As the leader of a conference, McConnell has responsibilities that go beyond those of a rank-and-file senator, including taking the temperature of his conference and driving as much party unity as possible. While McConnell can and sometimes does shape the views of others, they often shape his views as well.

McConnell is not a dictator among Republicans, but rather a consensus builder. He often jokes that being a Senate leader is like being the caretaker at a graveyard — everyone is under you, but no one is listening. He did not become the longest-serving Republican Senate leader by siding with five against 45 very often.

In this case, McConnell’s members had a passable off-ramp that protects them from taking an anti-Trump vote and might help the party move on (at least in the short term) as they focus on stopping the worst impulses of the Democratic Party. While many Republican senators know Trump is in the wrong, they simply didn’t want to confront him (and his supporters) when it wasn’t clear that conviction would have any real-world effect on him, anyway. The wisdom of this is in question, but the reality is not.

When cheaters prosper

Does this make them feel good about themselves? Probably not. Who can feel good about allowing someone — even a former president — to get away with such egregious behavior? Letting Trump off the hook could incite a future president to push the envelope even further (now that presidents can absolve themselves by simply resigning following an unconstitutional bender), and it undermines a fundamental lesson we teach our children: that cheaters never prosper.

Republicans don't make the case: Donald Trump's impeachment filing fails to make a case for acquittal

We haven’t seen the last of Donald Trump in our politics, and the Republican Party’s two factions are likely headed for a collision in the 2022 and 2024 primaries. But for now, he again escapes accountability for his actions, even as McConnell continues his crusade to keep conspiracy theorists from defining the Republican Party. He directly attacked Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for pushing "looney lies and conspiracy theories," and called those views a "cancer" on the GOP.

McConnell knows the Republican Party can’t unify and offer a responsible counterbalance to the Biden agenda if the cancer isn’t removed. And with the radical liberal agenda being pushed by President Joe Biden, the country needs responsible Republicans more than ever.

For a man who preached moderation and unity during his campaign and inaugural address, Biden sure has a funny way of showing it. His armada of executive orders was a veritable blue navy of bad ideas on which progressives are happily sailing the liberal fever swamps. If you think Republicans are hostage to Trump, then it is equally apparent that Biden is hostage to radical progressives. Neither circumstance, mind you, is good for America.

And the consequences for the economy could be disastrous. If Biden and his party pursue a $1.9 trillion COVID package through the partisan exercise of budget reconciliation (in which the majority party can effectively mute the minority), consider that one of the bill’s provisions — raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour — could kill as many as 3.7 million jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Many companies that would be devastated by an increase were recipients of loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, in which the federal government spent hundreds of billions to keep people employed through the pandemic.

Would it make any sense to have spent all that money keeping people employed, only to kill their jobs less than a year later simply to satisfy Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders? McConnell and his team are a hard no on that. Plus, Republicans just supported $900 billion in relief in December, money that has largely not permeated throughout the country.

A group of 10 Republicans has proposed a scaled-back package that better targets the money to the truly needy, strips out the non-germane progressive wish list and focuses on vaccine distribution and opening schools. Biden would be wise to deal with them, as partisan, progressive overreach cost his old boss — President Barack Obama — dearly in the 2010 and 2014 midterms.

Scott Jennings is a Republican adviser, CNN political contributor and partner at RunSwitch Public Relations. This column was originally published in the Louisville Courier Journal. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY.

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This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Impeachment: Why Mitch McConnell, GOP are letting Trump off the hook