impeachment

Pointing to Trump’s two impeachments, Kagan suggests that “party loyalty has superseded branch loyalty, and never more so than in the Trump era.”

Control of the House gives a party the power to initiate spending legislation and launch impeachment proceedings against officials.

Since Jan. 6, 2021, multiple of those checks, including the Supreme Court and an impeachment effort in Congress, failed to or delayed holding Trump to account over the plot to toss out election results.

His role in the impeachment lionized him among fellow Democrats, demonized him among Republicans and seeded his campaign for the Senate.

Even as the Democrat-controlled US Senate was preparing to hold Trump’s impeachment trial, McCarthy’s Palm Beach pilgrimage illustrated that one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress still viewed the former president as a king-maker.