He is considered a clever tactician and man for the rough: As majority leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell is said to have his back on Trump’s impeachment process, which begins on Thursday.
The impeachment proceedings against Trump begin this Thursday – Mitch McConnell makes no secret of how he played his role in impeachment against the US President Donald Trump sees. “I’m not an impartial jury,” said Republican Senate majority leader. The 77-year-old political veteran has even promised “full coordination” with the White House. In plain language: In the impeachment process in the Senate starting this Thursday, McConnell will do his utmost for the President.
The clever tactician plays a central role in the Senate process. Because U.S. Supreme Judge John Roberts will preside over the trial. As the majority leader, McConnell is the real master of the house: the senators vote on procedural questions – and ultimately on the question of impeachment.
McConnell blocked countless Democratic bills
The Kentucky state senator has the process reins in hand. His goal: keep your own ranks closed – and let the Democrats run as far as possible. McConnell blocked the opposition’s request to commit to a subpoena of key witnesses prior to impeachment for weeks.
Even under US President Barack Obama, Republican McConnell fought vehemently against Obama’s plans for a stricter weapons law or for a better health care system. (Source: imago)
There is no doubt that McConnell will use his power. In his position as majority leader, he has blocked countless Democratic bills since 2015, including to tighten guns.
The image of the “Grim Reaper”
McConnell himself flirts with his image of a “grim reaper”: the Republican sabers away everything that the political opponent presents. Even as a minority leader in the Senate between 2007 and 2015, he drove the Democrats to white heat with procedural tricks that he used to slow down parliamentary work.
With his approach, McConnell, whom critics always ridicule as an honest creature of Washington’s back room policy, has made many enemies. That doesn’t seem to bother him particularly. Years ago he jokingly compared himself to Star Wars villain “Darth Vader”.
Member of the US Congress for 35 years
McConnell, born in the state of Alabama in 1942, had to get a thick coat early on. He fell ill at the age of two poliomyelitis, there is still a slight limp from the infection to this day. He was teased at school and his parents instilled in him a fighting spirit.
As a 13-year-old, McConnell moved to Kentucky with his parents, where he later studied politics and then law. After a few years in local politics, he ran for the Senate in 1984 and defeated the democratic mandate. He has been sitting in the Congress Chamber for 35 years.
McConnell entered into a symbiosis at first glance with the political newcomer Trump after his election victory in 2016. The senator is part of the political establishment that Trump likes to blaspheme about. However, the president benefits from the experience of the political veteran and can rely on McConnell to largely keep his back free in the upper house.
The President’s dressing up
McConnell even has family ties to the government: his second wife Elaine Chao is Minister of Transport. However, the majority leader is not an unconditional defender of the president. In foreign policy, McConnell has repeatedly crossed with Trump. He criticized the decision to withdraw troops from Syria as a “serious strategic error”.
But times of impeachment bond together. McConnell is set to become the President’s prime mover during the impeachment process, in which the senators jury judge Trump’s fate. McConnell has already predicted the outcome of the trial: “The likelihood that the President of the Office will be removed is zero.”
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