Republican political strategist Karl Rove told a Sunday morning “Fox News Sunday” panel that there is a “strong likelihood” that President Donald Trump could be convicted by the U.S. Senate on impeachment charges if he goes with “Rudy Giuliani’s defense.”
Discussing Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and the chances that the Senate could muster the 17 Republicans necessary to secure a conviction, Rove pointed out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “open mind” this time around as a sign that Republicans should “take this seriously.”
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“I think it’s all going to boil down to what’s the president’s defense,” Rove said. “Rudy Giuliani charted a very bad course for the president in the morning papers when he suggested that the argument was going to be well there couldn’t have been incitement because all the charges of widespread voter fraud are true.”
Rove pointed out that dozens of courts and judges appointed by presidents of both parties have definitively ruled that those claims are not true.
“If it’s the Rudy Giuliani defense there is a strong likelihood that more than 17 Republicans will, because essentially that argument is this was justified, the attack on the Capitol and the attempt to end the congressional hearing on certifying the election was justified because all these charges are true and frankly they aren’t,” Rove continued. (RELATED: Ben Sasse Blasts QAnon In Op-Ed: ‘Nourished By Treachery, Poor Political Judgement, And Cowardice’)
While the Senate is unlikely to vote on impeachment before Trump ends his term on January 20, a conviction would bar him from running again for office.