In yet another effort to put their Party before their Constitutional duty, Republican Senators are warning newly-designated Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that he may lose his leadership role if he votes to convict Donald Trump in his upcoming impeachment trial, CNN reports.
McConnell has hinted that he may vote to convict Trump for the impeachment charge of incitement of insurrection, and he’s instructed his caucus to “vote [their] conscience” if they feel Trump should be convicted.
“If he does, I don’t know if he can stay as leader,” one senior GOP senator who said several of his colleagues held similar views and asked not to be named discussing sensitive internal politics told CNN.
“No, no, no,” Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican and Trump ally, told CNN when asked if he would support McConnell continuing in Party leadership.
Republicans are in turmoil because their party is splitting between those who believe Trumpism will be an ongoing influence in the party and those who look as the now-ousted president as toxic baggage that needs to be discarded.
The impeachment charge stem from Trump’s stoking of violence that led to a large group of Trump-supporting domestic terrorists storming the Capitol on January 6th. Five people died in the attack.
“The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said Tuesday on the floor. “They were provoked by the President and other powerful people. And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. But we pressed on.”