oh lawd he comin'

Note the passive voice. This is just the next phase of his turtling.

indeed, I did notice that.

But he's inching closer to the truth! To be fair, the next words out of his mouth were these.

The impeachment trial will be clarifying one way or another about him and every other GOP Senator.

Don't let him pull his head in until you get a good sample!

“It was a victimless crime. Like punching someone in the dark.”

— Nelson Muntz

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-impeach-idUSKBN29O26Z

He read the political tea leaves and sees this as the best way for him. It has nothing to do with him caring about the country.

Oh yeah, not saying he's doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

McConnell does have a killer political instinct, which other Republicans (notably Mike Pence, after failing to invoke the 25th and the opportunity to position himself as a "national hero" in spite of the deafening calls to do so) quite evidently lack.

He and any Senate Republicans with presidential ambitions ought to relish this opportunity to clear a 2024 rival from the field. Voting to convict Trump would be the best way to whitewash themselves from the Capitol Hill riots and their last 4 years of complicity in all the Trump scandals we know about, and more intriguingly, those scandals we don't yet know about.

Perhaps naked GOP partisan interest and the national interest will coincide, just this once.