Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected a plan to reconvene the Senate in an emergency session to hold trial over an impeachment article against President Trump in the House.
McConnell press secretary Doug Andres confirmed a report that the Kentucky Republican would not sanction such a move on Wednesday.
Without the emergency session, the Senate is due back in session on Jan. 19, so McConnell’s decision all but kills a Democrat-led effort to oust Trump from office before his term is up and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20. A trial over the impeachment article is unlikely to conclude within such a short time.
Democrats have proposed holding the trial over Trump’s impeachment well-into Biden’s presidency. Michael Luttig, a former judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, slammed the idea on Tuesday, asserting that impeaching and removing a president after he left office is “unconstitutional.”
“It appears that even if the House of Representatives impeaches President Trump this week, the Senate trial on that impeachment will not begin until after Trump has left office and President-Elect Biden has become president on Jan. 20,” Luttig wrote in The Washington Post. “That Senate trial would be unconstitutional.” – READ MORE
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