If House Impeaches, Will the Senate Convict Donald Trump?

If House Impeaches, Will the Senate Convict Donald Trump?

If House Impeaches, Will the Senate Convict Donald Trump?

Adam Schiff is convinced that impeaching President Trump is so urgent…that he and his fellow reps in the House and the Senate headed out of D.C. for an extended Thanksgiving vacation. I’ve lost count of how many vacations these do-nothings have taken so far this year, but hey, at least it keeps them from usurping our freedoms while they’re away.

But back to Adam Schiff, or rather the U.S. Senate, because that’s where this ludicrous impeachment will head should the House pass the as-of-yet undrafted articles of impeachment. I’m betting they will. Why? Because Pelosi et al must appease their pitch-forked base, and it’s likely the only, albeit minute, chance they have to regain the White House they so desperately covet.

So what happens if/when the Senate finds the impeachment nonsense now in its lap?

Well, if this New York Times article is at all accurate, it looks to be an even tougher sell than some imagined:

…In the Senate, Republican strategists said they believed they might lose two senators—Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska—while Democratic strategists said they also might lose two—Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.”

Ah, yes. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat senator representing a state that’s a bastion of Trump support. Senator Manchin is no idiot. He knows his state overwhelmingly supports their president, and if he were to vote to remove him from office for doing his job (and here’s where the media is wrong: asking for an investigation into what exactly happened amid the 2016 election—including potential corruption—is in Trump’s wheelhouse), and along partisan lines no less, would be as fatal to Manchin’s political career as stepping in front of a speeding bus.

Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema is also not one to toe the Democrat line. While I was hoping Arizona would elect Martha McSally in 2018, Sinema’s been surprisingly fair-minded and independent. Dare I say: I like her. She’s helped seat Trump’s federal judge nominees for starters, and then there was this during her attendance of the State of the Union address just after her election:

Yeah, that’s a big “I Do What I Want” from Ms. Sinema, I’d say. She seems to understand what’s right and who her constituents are. So it’ll be interesting to see where she stands on impeachment should it fall into her lap.

So that leaves us with Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, two of the women on the GOP side of the aisle who are typically squishy at best. Now I might remind you that Susan Collins delivered a phenomenal floor speech defending her support of Judge Kavanaugh way back when, a speech that any lover of our republic and due process should champion, so that’s a point in her favor. Murkowski, on the other hand, showed in that same moment her spinelessness, like a jellyfish floating through the political seas, sticking to whatever side butters her bread.

But here’s the thing: the Democrats (some of whom are already losing their nerve) know that impeachment is almost certainly dead in the Senate. So they’ll run campaign ads 24/7 screeching about how the Republican senators refuse to hold the tyrannical Donald Trump to account, and how they care more about party than country, yada yada yada, all in an effort to wrest back control of the Senate come 2020. Oooooh, look, Exhibit A:

Yes, that narrative has already begun, because make no mistake, impeachment is about two things, and two things only: covering up for the malfeasance of the establishment statists who believed their candidate would win the 2016 election, and gaining back the power they so desperately crave, either by getting a Democrat back into the White House, and/or re-taking the Senate, which, should Trump be re-elected, would significantly stifle the next four years of his presidency. Voila, coup successful.

And then there’s this issue:

Indeed. And while of course I’m not wishing ill on Justice Ginsburg, we’ve already witnessed the left’s collective hissy fit over Judge Kavanaugh and their case for postponing any nomination because “it’s an election year!” even though it wasn’t a presidential election year, thank you, Joe Biden. So, yes, impeachment, even if its stench is simply hanging in the D.C. air like moldy avocado toast, is their Plan B for attempting to prevent another potential Trump SCOTUS nomination that would remake the court for decades.

Nevertheless, the GOP-controlled Senate is not going to convict Donald Trump. It can’t possibly meet the two-thirds vote threshold required by our constitution. Regardless, Mitch McConnell can have lots of fun at their expense by pulling Democrat senators off the presidential campaign trail for weeks, where they’ll be forced to sit on their hands and listen (that’s not something any of them do well!) as the Republicans call witnesses that the House wouldn’t allow, witnesses that might even include Joe and Hunter Biden, and maybe even Adam Schiff himself. And voters will finally get a chance to hear the other side of the debate, the one that Schiff refused to present us in any kind of bipartisan fashion. Or…we’ll just tune it out given the three-year-long Russia/Ukraine/impeachment mental fatigue so many of us are acutely experiencing.

What comes after this House impeachment inquiry is anyone’s guess, but as of last night, it looks like Schiff is kicking the inquiry over to Rep. Nadler’s judiciary committee for further (televised?) theater:

So the House’s clown circus will continue a while longer, but only after they’ve consumed everything on their Thanksgiving plates.

The question is: if/when Trump is impeached in the House, will the GOP-lead Senate play the hand they’re dealt like expert poker sharks, or will they fold without calling like they so often do, allowing the Democrats and their Joe-Biden-protecting media comrades further control over the impeachment narrative? Right now, the momentum is in Trump’s favor with voters; we’ve seen no evidence of any impeachable wrong-doing, and the senate Republicans would fare well to take full advantage of that fact. The stakes could not be higher: the control of the White House, and the Senate, and thus the direction of our nation going forward, may just depend on it.

 

Welcome Instapundit readers!

Feature image credit: United States Senate via Wikimedia; public domain; image cropped.

Written by

4 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe
Become a Victory Girl!

Are you interested in writing for Victory Girls? If you’d like to blog about politics and current events from a conservative POV, send us a writing sample here.
Ava Gardner
gisonboat
rovin_readhead