McCONNELL EFFECTIVELY CONFIRMS THAT HE DOESN'T PLAN TO HOLD A FULL IMPEACHMENT TRIAL IN THE SENATE

Mitch McConnell continues to say that House managers will be allowed to present their impeachment case in the Senate. This is from Roll Call:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reiterated on Monday that he is bound by Senate rules to take up articles of impeachment if they are presented by the House.

“Under the Senate rules, we’re required to take it up if the House does go down that path, and we’ll follow the Senate rules,” McConnell said. “It’s a Senate rule related to impeachment that would take 67 votes to change.”

But here's the asterisk:

He said, however, that, “how long you’re on it is a whole different matter.”

So there you have it.

That points to the ability of majority Republican senators to set ground rules for the trial or to potentially adopt a motion to dismiss any charges against President Donald Trump during the early stages of a Senate trial.

The latter is what's going to happen unless Democrats start raising hell well before impeachment reaches the Senate. They should be accusing McConnell of having just this in mind. They should be warning that McConnell plans to "sweep this under the rug." They should do this relentlessly -- maybe not now, but as soon as a successful impeachment vote appears inevitable -- and hammer away at this point until McConnell and other Republican Senate leaders are being faced with the question "Do you intend to conduct a vote to dismiss without holding a full trial?" every time they set foot in public.

Democrats should stress that Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton had full trials in the Senate. They should argue that failure to conduct a full trial is a mockery of what the Framers intended. They should make McConnell's plan seem unpatriotic.

It's not Democrats' style, but they can do this if they try.