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
