Not A Guarantee

From the Department of Wishful Thinking:

So that's 1 Republican vote for removal. https://t.co/ZhTDCFXoiS

— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 5, 2019

It's possible, of course. However, in July, 2015 presidential candidate Lindsey Graham labeled Donald Trump a "jackass" who "shouldn't be commander-in-chief."   Trump also was "unfit for office" and "a race-baiting, xenophobic bigot." Now Graham says

You can't get a parking ticket conviction based on hearsay. The whistleblower didn't hear the phone call. Who told the whistleblower about the phone call and everything else? Donald Trump is still an American. Every American deserves to confront their accuser. So this is a sham as far as I'm concerned.

The following February, presidential candidate Marco Rubio called Trump "a con artist" who "has spent his entire career sticking it to the little guy,"and warned the USA cannot give "the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual."

After (justifiably) criticizing mainland China the past few weeks, Rubio was asked his response to the President publicly challenging China to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. The Florida senator replied

I don’t think that’s a real request. I think he did it to gig you guys [reporters]. I think he did it to provoke you to ask me and others and get outraged by it. He plays it like a violin and everybody falls right in, that’s not a real request.

At least Trump Graham largely held out until he played golf with Trump, at which time the latter may have explained to the former the facts of life, which may have pertained to the power of the presidency or anything else. However, it's  disconcerting to see the President rip from the guy Trump once referred to as "little Marco" the little manhood Rubio still had left.

Donald Trump is typically very persuasive, where persuasive is spelled "intimidating."  Moreover, Republicans are, as a species, generally particularly attracted to power, strength, and a need to be with a winner, and Donald Trump is president of the United States of America.

So we cannot be confident that Senator Mitt Romney would vote to uphold the impeachment of President Trump. The Utah senator thus far has shown more courage than arguably any Senate Republican. However, though he undoubtedly is one of the two or three Republicans most likely to vote to convict the President, Romney is not a sure thing and would be unlikely to stand alone as a "yea." 

Additionally, the Senate would set its own rules if the House votes to impeach.And whatever his assurances now, Mitch McConnell ultimately would decide whether there is a trial, when it would take place and under what conditions, and when the vote would take place. No one can know how that would play out, as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Merrick Garland would tell us.

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