Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of being “in cahoots” with President Donald Trump on impeachment Wednesday night.

She said that McConnell could not hold a “fair trial” in the Senate as long as he was coordinating strategy with the White House. But Senate Democrats, too, coordinated strategy openly with the White House during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999.

As the Associated Press reported at the time, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) initially resisted efforts by Clinton to marshal support in the Senate, when the investigation was in its early stages. But by January 1999, as Clinton was facing the prospect of removal by the Senate after being impeached by the House — both of which were controlled by Republicans — Clinton and Daschle worked together, while maintaining arm’s-length appearances.

As the Associated Press reported at the time (via Byron York):

During the impeachment trial, Daschle has stayed in constant contact with Podesta and spoken with Clinton several times, updating him on the proceedings as well as discussing farm problems, the State of the Union message and the Democrats’ congressional agenda. Clinton has “indicated an interest to me that he’s following (the trial), but he hasn’t been giving me anything other than his comments or reflections on how he perceives it’s going,” Daschle said. “There’s a certain degree of autonomy and independence required here and I think they respect that,” he added.

Despite that “autonomy,” Daschle managed to keep his caucus united: every single Senate Democrat voted to acquit the president.

Moreover, Senate Democrats have largely already declared their hope to remove the president, including nearly every presidential candidate among them.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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