Rove: If Trump Continues to Claim Election Fraud, There Will Be Bipartisan Conviction in the Senate

Anchor Chris Wallace asked, “Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell says that he is keeping an open mind about the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, a big difference, sharp difference, from his clear opposition from the very start of the first impeachment trial just a year ago. What do you think, Karl, are the chances that 17 Senate Republicans, and that’s what it would take if all of the Democrats vote for conviction, 17 Senate Republicans would vote to convict Donald Trump and to keep them from running again?”

Rove said, “Normally we say not much chance, but I think Leader McConnell’s statement is a sign that every Republican Senator needs to take this seriously. I think it’s all going to boil down what’s the president’s defense. Rudy Giuliani charted a very bad course for the president in the morning papers when he suggested that the argument was going to be in there couldn’t have been incitement because all the charges of widespread voter fraud are true. Well, those charges and the so-called experts that the campaign has mustered to advocate them have been rejected by over 50 courts with judges appointed by President Trump, President Obama, Present Bush, President Clinton, and I think even one Reagan justice. So if it’s the Rudy Giuliani defense, there is a strong likelihood that more than 17 Republicans will because essentially that argument is this was justified, the attack on the Capital and the attempt to end the congressional hearing on certifying the election was justified because all these charges are true and frankly they aren’t. They have been given every opportunity to prove them in a court of law and have failed to do so. I think it really boils down to what’s the defense that the president is going to make, and if it is Rudy Giuliani’s defense, I think it raises the likelihood of more than 17 Republicans voting for conviction.”

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