Trump's Goal of Impeaching Mitch McConnell Is Doomed

Donald Trump's longstanding feud with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell escalated to a new level Thursday after the former president called for the impeachment of the Senate's top Republican in an interview.

Asked about the possibility of Republicans defaulting on the national debt next Congress—and McConnell's longstanding aversion to budgetary brinkmanship—during an appearance on John Fredericks' Real America's Voice radio show on Thursday morning, Trump offered yet another harsh rebuke of his party's leader in Congress' upper chamber, calling for him to be removed from his position if he continues to make deals with the Biden administration.

"It's crazy what's happening with this debt ceiling," Trump said on the show. "Mitch McConnell keeps allowing it to happen. I mean they ought to impeach Mitch McConnell if he allows that."

Whoever "they" are, they may have trouble doing that, however. Members of Congress, according to the U.S. Constitution, cannot be impeached.

"The United States Constitution does not provide for nor authorize the recall of United States officers such as Senators, Representatives, or the President or Vice President," a 2003 report by the Congressional Research Service reads. "Thus, no Member of Congress has ever been recalled in the history of the United States."

While Trump is technically incorrect, members of Congress can, however, be expelled. And it's much simpler to do than impeachment.

Where an impeachment trial requires a conviction in both chambers—and can only be applied to members of the executive or judicial branches—members of Congress can be expunged from their seats in Congress on a two-thirds vote for severe violations of their respective chamber's rules.

And by severe, Congress means severe. In the history of the U.S. Congress, only a very small fraction of its membership has ever been kicked out of their seats, and only on violations along the lines of serious corruption or—in the case of 14 of the 15 members who had ever been expelled from the United States Senate—treason, as related to their support of the Confederacy in the Civil War.

Since then, expulsions have been highly uncommon.

Since the Civil War, no members of the U.S. Senate have faced expulsion, while just two other House members have lost their seats: one, Michael J. Myers, in 1980 after his conviction of conspiracy and bribery in office, and another, James Traficant, in 2002 after his conviction for conspiracy to commit bribery, receiving illegal gratuities, fraud against the government in receiving "kickbacks" from staff and obstruction of justice.

Several other members facing pressure for illegal activities have chosen to resign from office rather than face a vote of their peers in Congress—which has largely been reluctant to enlist the authority to remove members for fear of setting a precedent of the party in power abusing their majority against members they disagree with or dislike.

In a recent vote to censure the far-right Republican Representative Paul Gosar for sharing a cartoon video depicting the decapitation of his Democratic colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused Democrats of establishing a precedent in Congress that "cannot be easily undone."

"Their actions today and in the past have forever changed the way the House operates," he said at the time.

A real revolt in leadership would likely need to come not by McConnell's impeachment, but by the nomination of a new Republican leader in the Senate.

While nobody has stepped forward to challenge McConnell, some in Washington speculated Florida Senator Rick Scott was angling to lead the party after releasing his own version of the party platform entering the 2022 midterm election cycle, drawing criticism from members of his own party.

Both have also regularly criticized each other's approach to campaign strategy this cycle, with Scott in particular offering his own rebuke of McConnell following his skepticism around the GOP's chances to gain control of the Senate this cycle. Others, like New Hampshire Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc, have openly expressed that they want new leadership in the U.S. Senate.

But after McConnell's own strong fundraising for battleground Republicans this cycle—and his proven record of whipping votes against a vocal minority faction within his party on issues like Ukrainian aid—the opportunity to remove McConnell from his job is likely a shrinking one.

"McConnell's the leader," a Republican with ties to both McConnell and Scott told CNN this week when asked about his future. "He has the support of the donors. He has the support of the senators. That's it."

Newsweek has contacted Trump's office for comment.