Mitch McConnell 'underestimated both Pelosi and the tolerance of the American people for Trump's criminality': columnist

In an op-ed for The Daily Beast this Thursday, David R. Lurie tackled the question of why "moderate" Republican lawmakers are hesitant to speak out against "Mitch McConnell’s scheme to undermine the Constitution by preventing witnesses from testifying during Donald Trump’s upcoming removal trial." According to him, it's because they're scared of losing the support of their party's loyal Trump voters.

"...if they vote to acquit [Trump] after figures like Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton further implicate the president in a scheme to undermine the next election (and an ally under attack by Vladimir Putin’s Russia), they risk losing the support of most other voters. It is a dilemma of Republicans’ own creation, and it’s becoming more excruciating every day," Lurie writes.

Lurie then cites House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to withhold articles of impeachment from the Senate unless they hold a fair trial, and the dismissive response her move invited from Senate Republicans.

"Some of them bragged off-the-record to reporters that Pelosi was out of her depth, and didn’t understand what a master of the Senate McConnell is, particularly when it comes to preventing things from happening in the upper chamber." But that was a gross miscalculation their part, according to Lurie, who writes that "it has since become increasingly clear that McConnell is the latest of many men of power in the GOP to underestimate both Pelosi, and to overestimate the tolerance of the American people for presidential criminality."

"Washington Republicans spent the days following the impeachment hearings focused on political maneuvering, and seemed to forget the virtually undisputed evidence of a massive criminal scheme directed by the president that had emerged before Congress."

Read the full piece over at The Daily Beast.