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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that if the House goes ahead and impeaches President Donald Trump, the Senate “has no choice” but to conduct a trial to determine whether the president is removed from office.
The Kentucky Republican told NPR on Friday that “if the House were to act, the Senate immediately goes into a trial.”
McConnell had not previously indicated whether the Senate would act on any articles of impeachment, though the Constitution anticipates that it would. It’s commonly assumed that the GOP-held chamber would acquit Trump just as Democrats held together in 1999 to deny the GOP House from winning a conviction of President Bill Clinton.
McConnell is among the few senators remaining in the chamber who participated in the 1999 Clinton impeachment trial.
More must-read stories from Fortune:
—A running list of questions on the impeachment inquiry, answered
—5 allegations made in the declassified whistleblower complaint
—What is CrowdStrike? Trump mentioned the company in his Ukraine call
—These are the key players in the Trump impeachment inquiry
—How whistleblowers have taken down titans of American business
—The 25 most powerful women in politics
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