Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is bragging that he's handing over control of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump to President Donald Trump.
"Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with White House Counsel," the Kentucky Republican Leader told Fox News' Sean Hannity Thursday night. "There will be no difference between the President’s position and our position as to how to handle this."
"We'll be working through this process, hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with the White House Counsel's Office and the people representing the President in the well of the Senate," he said, presumably referring to Republican Senators.
To be clear, this is effectively the jury foreman taking orders from the defendant's attorneys to determine how the trial will play out, how long it will go on for, who – if any – the witnesses will be, and how it will end.
In short, McConnell just admitted there will not be a real trial.
NCRM was the first outlet to report earlier Thursday that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and White House Legislative Affairs Director Eric Ueland had walked in to McConnell's office this afternoon.
Later, NBC News reported they in fact did meet with McConnell for an hour to plan how the impeachment trial will go forward.
Legal, political, and ethics experts seeing McConnell admit to relinquishing control of a co-equal branch of government to the person who will be on trial in the Senate are expressing shock.