IMPEACHMENT/MITCH MCCONNELL/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Long before Donald Trump’s impeachment landed in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had one piece of advice for the president: Focus on the House. Gin it up. Use maximum effort. Make sure Republicans are united. And leave the Senate to him. The Republican leader encouraged the president not to turn attention on wayward GOP senators, like Mitt Romney, who were ‘troubled’ by Trump’s actions toward Ukraine, but to stir the partisan passions of the House. It was the GOP leader’s central strategy to produce as partisan an impeachment as possible — too polarizing for any centrists to touch — to secure Republican acquittal in the Senate.”
–Lisa Mascaro, “McConnell remaking Senate in age of Trump, impeachment,” Associated Press, February 6, 2020