RealClearPolitics’ Tom Bevan Predicts Trump Impeachment Will Be a Problem for Schumer, Biden

RealClearPolitics co-founder Tom Bevan predicted Thursday that the effort to impeach President Donald Trump would become a problem for the incoming Biden administration and new Democratic majority in Congress as the issue turns into an anchor on their policy agenda.

“It’s never going to happen,” Bevan said in an afternoon interview on Fox News, dismissing the possibility that Senate Democrats might win the 17 Republican votes they would require to convict the president. “To get to the number that you’d need to remove him from office, you would have to have a massive shift in terms of the number of senators that would vote for this.”

The House on Wednesday voted to impeach Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection, with 10 House Republicans breaking ranks to support the measure. Republican Sens. Mitt Romney (UT), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Pat Toomey (PA), and Ben Sasse (NE) have spoken favorably about removing Trump from office — but none have committed to supporting his conviction on the charge passed by the House when it comes up in the Senate this month, after Trump has left office.

Bevan said President-elect Joe Biden and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who is slated to become his chamber’s majority leader this month, may be looking for an “off-ramp” as they try to chart a course forward between pressure from the Democratic Party’s progressive wing and its more moderate members. This is particularly true now that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) has said he will not reconvene the adjourned Senate until the day before Biden’s inauguration, ensuring Trump could not be convicted and removed from office before his term officially expires on Jan. 20th.

“Joe Biden would be better off to come out … when Democrats take control of the Senate, [and] say, ‘Look, don’t move forward with removal of the president. Do not move forward with the trial, the impeachment trial. We need to lower the temperature, we need to conduct business. New business, my administration, my agenda, and get things moving and put the past behind us.’

“The off-ramp is to just let it die,” he added. “They did what they wanted to do, which was impeach the president. It was never going anywhere to begin with. This was always a symbolic thing. As much as they said the other day, ‘Trump is a threat to the nation, he can’t be in office a day longer,’ this was always about symbolism. This was always for posterity and for history. There was never a chance he was going to be removed from office.”

Watch above via Fox News.