Mitch McConnell’s effort to sabotage Trump impeachment could hit this brick wall

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his GOP allies have signaled that they might pass a highly partisan set of rules designed to sabotage an impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, which might include everything from time limits on Democrats trying to submit evidence, to a parallel public investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden to make Trump's Ukraine behavior look legitimate.

But on MSNBC's "AM Joy," justice and security analyst Matthew Miller walked host Joy Reid through how difficult such a package of rules could be to pass — and how even a small defection of senators from his caucus could block it.

"How many shenanigans should we expect?" asked Reid. "The Majority Leader is claiming he's going to do a rules-based discussion with Chuck Schumer but how many shenanigans should Democrats expect from him?"

"I think if Mitch McConnell has his way, you can expect him to behave like a House Republican," said Miller. "I think the question really is whether he can get all — every member of his caucus or his conference to go along with him, because he can only do that if he has 51 senators who will vote to hold this kind of, you know, ridiculous trial where you might see Joe Biden called to testify or — so if he wants to produce that kind of trial, he can do it if his caucus hangs together."

"I think it's why Democrats in the Senate are going to have to take this argument to the American people, that there needs to be a fair trial in the Senate, there needs to be an appropriate trial, so there's pressure on people like Susan Collins to make sure that's true," said Miller. "If Mitt Romney and Susan Collins — I don't have a lot of faith in her, but let's say Mitt Romney and three others vote against any kind of efforts by McConnell to limit the fairness of this trial, then he can't do it."

Watch below: