Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has come under intense pressure from the left-wing of her party to impeach President Donald Trump. However, so far Pelosi has been unwilling to call for impeachment. Many analysts believe that this is because Republicans in the Senate would thwart any effort to impeach the president.
Now, Republican Senators are all but confirming that they would, in fact, stand with President Trump. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has stated that any impeachment efforts “would be disposed of very quickly.” Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) echoed these sentiments.
Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would be required to act on impeachment, if it passed the House. However, McConnell would have a lot of discretion in shaping the trial. And with impeachment necessitating 67 votes in the Senate, Trump would almost certainly find himself behind an impregnable Republican firewall.
It seems that the only possibility of Trump being impeached would be if McConnell turned on the president. While McConnell has largely avoided impeachment as a topic, it seems almost certain that he’d side with President Trump. For Pelosi, this means impeachment is all but dead in the water.
According to May’s Quinnipiac poll, 57 percent of Americans believe that President Trump committed crimes before he entered office. Still, 66 percent of Americans oppose starting the impeachment process. A majority of Democrats, 56 percent, support impeachment. However, 95 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents oppose impeachment.
Given the president’s strong support among his political party, it’s no wonder Republicans have been quick to defend the president. Likewise, Pelosi surely wants to avoid getting dragged into a costly political quagmire that could alienate voters and produce little in the way of results.
