McConnell reports GOP Trump impeachment is a vote of conscience

Photographer: Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells fellow Republicans that the final vote on Donald Trump’s impeachment is a matter of conscience and that senators who challenged the constitutionality of the trial may still vote to condemn the former president, according to three people close to his thought.

The Kentucky Republican also suggested he had not decided how he would vote, two people said, even though he voted on Tuesday to declare unconstitutional for the Senate to hear the case against a former president.

This position is radically different from McConnell’s statement at the start of Trump’s first impeachment trial last year that he did not see himself as an impartial juror.

The Senate is highly unlikely to condemn Trump on the House’s sole impeachment charge for inciting an insurgency, which cited the former president’s actions around the Jan.6 attack on Capitol Hill. Conviction requires a two-thirds majority, which means at least 17 Republicans are expected to vote with all Democrats in the 50-50 chamber.

Only six Republicans voted Tuesday in favor of the constitutionality of the Senate process. While that was enough for the simple majority required to proceed with the trial, it suggests that most GOP senators do not want to vote against Trump.

McConnell, in a management meeting Monday night, said the same things he said publicly, a person familiar with the matter said.

(Updates with McConnell at the management meeting, in the last paragraph.)