Top White House officials and Senate Republicans have reportedly reached an agreement to hold a full trial if the House votes to impeach President Trump.
According to a Politico report Thursday, multiple people familiar with the matter said that White House officials and Republican senators agreed to not dismiss articles of impeachment outright.
White House advisers Jared Kushner and Kellyanne Conway, along with White House legal counsel Pat Cipollone, reportedly met with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Ron Johnson (R-LA), Mike Lee (R-UT), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Thursday morning to discuss impeachment strategy now that the House impeachment investigation is nearly over.
Despite how some on the right attempted to push Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to ditch the notion of a fair trial earlier this month, two attendees told Politico that the White House wants the Senate to hold a trial and to not cut it short.
One attendee added that the White House and Trump’s GOP allies “want some kind of factual affirmative defense on the merits,” according to Politico.
Earlier Thursday, McConnell said that “we’ll be ready” for an impeachment trial “if it comes over here” after “the action is all over in the House,” according to CNN.
On Monday, McConnell doubled down on his stance that he “can’t imagine a scenario” where the Senate would vote to remove Trump from office.
