The Impeachment ‘Kill Switch’: McConnell Dismissal Rule Corners Democrats, Blocks Antics as Trial Commences

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is as of now including in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial rules a “kill switch” that effectively allows for the president’s legal team to seek an immediate verdict or dismissal of the case should Democrats engage in any shenanigans like they did in the House process.

The revelation comes after the House finally late last week formally sent the Articles of Impeachment it adopted before Christmas—after holding them for more than a month without transmission—to the U.S. Senate, thereby triggering the start of a Senate trial. The Senate will formally commence its trial procedures in votes this coming week, and while some Republicans want to outright dismiss the charges altogether from the outset, others believe a trial should take place.

In so finally transmitting the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also named impeachment case managers—the Democrats who will present and manage the House’s case to the Senate—last week. They include House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). Both Schiff and Nadler were widely panned for the highly unfair process they ran in the House of Representatives, and many Senate Republicans do not trust them to refrain from playing games that seek to make the Senate trial unfair to the president as the highly partisan process in the House ended up.

Republicans on the House side, who were essentially powerless to stop the Democrats’ shenanigans since they are in the minority in the lower chamber, are warning Senate Republicans to be on the lookout for Schiff’s gamesmanship and that from his ilk.

“It’s incumbent upon the Senate to preserve the right of the President’s legal team to ask for a verdict or move to dismiss this sham impeachment anytime they see fit during the Senate trial,” a source close to House GOP leadership told Breitbart News. “Otherwise, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans risk allowing Adam Schiff and his conspiracy caucus to hijack and take control of the trial.”

Senate GOP leaders, including Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO)—the conference chair—say there are not yet enough votes to dismiss the charges altogether from the outset. But Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), a freshman senator who emerged as a top ally of the president and had previously drafted a measure dismissing the charges if the House did not formally transmit them by changing Senate rules to do so, has said that the rules package for the impeachment trial includes a measure that allows for the president’s legal team to quickly push for a summary judgment or dismissal at any time should things get wild.

Hawley’s original measure that would have dismissed the charges altogether before the House formally transmitted them to the Senate by changing Senate rules was co-sponsored by several GOP senators including McConnell—the GOP leader—and thereby forced Pelosi’s hand, making her finally transmit the Articles after holding them up for a month.

Read the rest of the story HERE and follow links below to related stories/opinions:

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