McConnell Says GOP Will Be Voting Their Conscience on Impeachment

There is little doubt that Donald Trump is, once again, going to escape conviction in an impeachment trial, making him not only the only President to ever be impeached twice, but also the only President to ever be acquitted twice.

The likelihood of Trump’s acquittal was so high, in fact, that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham seemed to be boasting about it just days ago.  The Democrats are also fairly sure, and have even begun to work up a “plan b” to keep Trump from ever holding public office again.

But Mitch McConnell may not be so sure.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is signaling to fellow Republicans that the final vote on Donald Trump’s impeachment is matter of conscience and that senators who disputed the constitutionality of the trial could still vote to convict the former president, according to three people familiar with his thinking.

The Kentucky Republican has also suggested that he hasn’t made up his mind how he’ll vote, two of the people said, even though he voted Tuesday to declare it unconstitutional for the Senate to hear the case against a former president.

That position is starkly different than McConnell’s declaration at the start of Trump’s first impeachment trial last year that he did not consider himself an impartial juror.

McConnell remained a staunch ally of Donald Trump throughout nearly the entirety of his first term, but the then-Senate Majority Leader began to back away from the Commander in Chief after the events of January 6th.