McConnell says he hasn’t ruled out convicting Trump in Senate trial

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican colleagues on Wednesday that he had yet to make up his mind on the fate of President Donald Trump, ahead of a House vote to impeach the president later in the day.

“While the press has been full of speculation, I have not made a final decision on how I will vote and I intend to listen to the legal arguments when they are presented to the Senate,” McConnell wrote in a letter.

Though McConnell’s statement gives no indication which way he will eventually decide, the fact that the top Republican in the Senate would not rule out convicting a president of his own party is a striking indication of the tumult within the GOP and its relationship to Trump. In 2019, during Trump’s first brush with impeachment, McConnell was far more direct that Trump would be acquitted of the charges against him — which he ultimately was in early 2020.