A ‘Handful’ Of GOP Senators Could Flip On President Trump In Senate Trial, Democrat Claims

If the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump is formally voted on by the U.S. House of Representatives and a trial moves to the U.S. Senate, one Democratic senator claims that there could be several Republican senators who will vote to remove Trump from office.

According to The Hill, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy made the claim during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe when he was asked if he’d spoken with any Republican senators who might be leaning toward breaking rank with Trump and and voting to impeach the president.

“Yes,” Murphy replied. “It’s a small list, on one hand.”

Murphy was also pressed on the possibility that the Senate could hold a secret, anonymous vote if and when the time comes for members to vote on whether to impeach and remove Trump from the White House.

“I don’t buy this secret ballot thing. If there was a secret ballot, there’d still be only a handful of them that would vote to impeach this guy,” Murphy replied.

While Democrats would presumably welcome the idea of any GOP senators willing to cast a vote to impeach the president, the party still faces overwhelmingly low odds of getting such a vote to pass, as it would require two-thirds of the chamber to make it happen. Given that the Senate is currently controlled with a Republican majority, such an outcome would be difficult for Democrats to accomplish.

Murphy specifically stated that he believes there are only approximately five GOP senators who would actually vote to impeach Trump.

But according to Politico, the secret ballot idea is one that’s being floated in the hopes that it would provide an extended number of Republican senators the opportunity to cast a pro-impeachment vote without facing backlash from their constituents back home.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would heavily control over the rules of the impeachment trial. He would require 51 of the 53 Republican senators to vote in favor of whatever rules are decided, however, if three GOP senators broke rank, they could block the rules and ask for the secret ballot option as a condition to vote in favor of the additional rules.

With Murphy’s prediction that five GOP senators might vote with Democrats, there’s no telling what the rules of the Senate impeachment trial will actually consist of, should the impeachment inquiry make it that far.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano predicted on Thursday that Trump will testify during a Senate trial on live television, which would be an unprecedented and likely highly-viewed television event.