The Senate is in recess until Jan. 19, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled he won’t reconvene if the House next week decides to vote on and pass impeachment articles against President Trump, a source familiar with the matter told the Washington Examiner on Friday.
That means it will likely be up to incoming Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, to take up impeachment after Trump leaves office on Jan. 20.
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The move is not surprising.
The Senate was not scheduled to be in session next week. The Democratic-led House could reconvene next week, however, and pass impeachment articles against the president, whom they blame for Wednesday’s siege of the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats introduced impeachment articles on Friday, citing Trump for prompting “insurrection” after his followers violently swarmed the Capitol, resulting in five deaths, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer and an Air Force veteran who was part of the protests.
If the Senate stays out until Jan. 19, as McConnell plans to do, the Senate won’t get to consider the impeachment articles until Trump is out of office. Schumer is slated to become majority leader around that time after Democrats won Georgia Senate runoff elections that will leave the Senate at 50-50.
Kamala Harris, who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, will become the swing vote that provides Democrats with the narrowest of majorities.
Democrats would then control the Senate floor and can use that power to bring up and vote on impeachment articles, McConnell told fellow lawmakers Friday night.
The post-office impeachment and conviction is legally questionable. Some believe it is constitutional to impeach a president after office and ban him from future office. Others say it’s not clear whether that can be done.
McConnell told lawmakers impeachment articles could first come up in the Senate after Jan. 20, when Trump is already gone from office.
“Senate trial would therefore begin after President Trump’s term has expired — either one hour after its expiration on January 20, or twenty-five hours after its expiration on January 21,” McConnell wrote to lawmakers, a source confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Legal scholars, however, have debated whether a president can be impeached after office.
It’s not certain at all that the Senate would provide the two-thirds needed to impeach Trump. Many Republicans indicated Friday they do not support the move and would rather participate in the peaceful transition of power to a new administration. Other Republicans told the Washington Examiner impeachment would further divide the nation.
