Of course, this is all based on whether Nancy Pelosi gets around with sending the articles of impeachment over to the Senate or sits on them forever
GOP predicts bipartisan acquittal at Trump impeachment trial
Republicans are becoming increasingly confident they’ll be able to hand President Trump a bipartisan acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial.
With 67 votes needed to convict the president and remove him from office, and the outcome of a Senate trial all but guaranteed, GOP senators are broadening their sights as they plot their strategy.
Senate Republicans think they’ll be able to pick up one or two Democrats on a final vote on the articles. That would let them tout Trump’s acquittal as bipartisan — an angle they’ve already seized on when talking about the House vote, in which a handful of Democrats crossed the aisle to oppose impeachment.
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) declined to say who he thinks will flip, arguing he didn’t want to put pressure on them.
“I think we might have a couple,†Perdue said. “I don’t want to speculate on who — obviously that puts too much pressure on them — but I really think we have people on both sides that are trying to get to a reasonable, nonpartisan answer.â€
A few Democrats might as well cross over, especially ones from toss-up states, because there is no possible way to get to 67 votes with the silly charges from the House. Just like it was a foregone conclusion that the Democrats would vote for impeachment in the House, it’s the same with the Republicans in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), during a recent Fox News interview, also predicted that Democrats would break ranks. He doubted any GOP senators would vote to convict Trump.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if we got one or two Democrats. It looks to me over in the House, the Republicans seem to be solid and the Democrats seem to be divided,” McConnell said.
In, reality, you most likely will get no more than 2-3 Democrats tops. Despite the whining from Democrats about going into the trial “unbiased” and “listening to the arguments” and being “impartial”, you know that the vast majority of Senate Democrats have already made up their minds. Heck, their minds were made up on November 9, 2016. So, the Democrats can give up their talking points.
Senator Doug Jones (D-AB), who would never have been elected in the first place had the GOP nominated someone other than Roy Moore, faces a very tough re-election bid; if he votes for conviction, he can kiss his already slim chances goodbye.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) represents one of the two states in which Donald Trump carried every county in the state, and his 68.50% of the vote was his largest margin in any state. Senator Manchin has been the Democrat most likely not to march in goosestep with the rest of his party. He does not face the voters again until 2024.
And the House Democrats have given the Democrats in the Senate a gift: they haven’t charged President Trump with any actual crimes. Robert Mueller spent two years and $40 million trying to come up with an actual crime Mr Trump committed, and couldn’t, and despite ‘Jethro’s’ claim that Mr Trump “has committed felonies,” the House Democrats charged him with nothing from the Mueller Report, nor with any specific felonies at all. Senate Democrats who want a way to vote for acquittal have been given that open door.
Mr Trump has actually committed only one “crime,” that of defeating Hillary Clinton in the election, but the Democrats couldn’t quite find a way to say that in their articles of impeachment.