Lawrence O’Donnell is right about why the GOP Senate might actually remove Donald Trump

Yesterday Palmer Report pointed to the evidence that House Democrats may be looking to bring an additional article of impeachment against Donald Trump for having lied in his testimony to Robert Mueller. That’s a felony, but it’s a minor one in comparison to the other crimes Trump has committed. So why bother?

We laid out the theory that if House Democrats approve several articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, it’ll give Senate Republicans the opportunity to acquit Trump on all of the major articles, while still voting to convict and oust Trump on the perjury article. In the minds of Senate Republicans, this might give them a fighting (if feeble) chance of being able to play both sides when it comes to their own reelection campaigns.

GOP Senators would be in position to try to convince Trump’s base that they tried to save him by voting down as many of the articles of impeachment as possible, while also being able to make the case to mainstream voters that they did indeed get rid of Trump. It’s not the best platform for Senators to run on in 2020, but impeachment isn’t leaving them any good options, and this might be the least bad of the bunch. Sure enough, last night, Lawrence O’Donnell floated essentially the same theory during his MSNBC show.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley spoke up in defense of the whistleblower yesterday, making clear that he’s more interested in protecting his own career prospects than in protecting Donald Trump. These are the kinds of cracks you look for when assessing whether GOP Senators might be tempted to selfishly oust Trump. If this trend continues, they’ll be looking for a way to split the difference on impeachment, and it’ll be up to House Democrats to hand it to them.