(CNN) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a very bold statement on Thursday during an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News. Although Senate Republicans are supposed to be part of a jury hearing the evidence from the House managers, the majority leader bluntly stated that he would be in "total coordination" with the White House on the trial strategy.

Julian Zelizer

"There will be no difference between the President's position and our position as to how to handle this, to the extent that we can," McConnell said.

The statement was extremely revealing. Instead of giving the impeachment articles a fair hearing and a serious trial, the Senate majority leader is just going to give Trump total impunity.

Some commentators, including Carl Hulse of the New York Times, have argued that impeachment could be normalized as just another tool of partisan conflict going forward. Instead of speculating how partisanship will play out in the future, we should turn our focus instead to the way partisanship has paved the way for President Trump and benefited him in this terrible saga.

Presidents are not kings. They are given the leeway to act in an imperial fashion when Congress forgoes its duty to oversee the executive branch or in this case, when one party is willing to overlook charges of the misuse and abuse of presidential power.

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