Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) is introducing a resolution demanding that the GOP-controlled Senate exclude anyone running for president from participating in Trump’s increasingly likely impeachment trial. This is the latest in a series of stunts by Trump and his congressional GOP defenders aimed at distracting from Trump’s conduct.
Smith’s resolution urges the Senate to change its rules “to require a sitting United States Senator actively seeking election to the Presidency of the United States to recuse himself of herself” from the impeachment trial for any first-term incumbent president. Such a move would exclude Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and the millions they represent from having a say on whether to remove the president for high crimes and misdemeanors.
With a Democratic House majority, the resolution is unlikely to make it to the floor — much less be adopted. But it comes on the heals of an array of other stunts and bizarre arguments made by Trump and his GOP defenders in recent weeks.