Regardless of whether or not the U.S Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump on two articles of impeachment, former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said that the "jury" would still be out.
"[Democrats] never actually thought they were going to remove the president," said the former federal prosecutor and senior fellow at National Review Institute on Fox Nation's "Deep Dive" on Wednesday before the Senate overwhelmingly acquitted the president.
"What this has always been about is political," he continued. "It's always been about the 2020 campaign. It's always been about trying to bruise him up as much as they could bruise him up going into the stretch run of the campaign."
"So you can't look at it, I don't think, as an impeachment that failed. It's a political strategy that the jury is still out on," he argued.
McCarthy suggested that the Democrats' so-called 'impeachment strategy" will have failed if President Trump is reelected in 2020.
"Right now, it looks like impeachment has been a very bad political strategy for them," he said.
New polling by Gallup reveals that President Trump's approval rating is at an all-time high for him.
Trump's job approval rating now sits at 49 percent, with a 94 percent approval rating among Republicans and a 42 percent rating with independents, both numbers being highs for his presidency.
The poll was taken between Jan. 19-26, while Trump's impeachment trial was taking place.
The Republican party has also seen its approval rating rise. Fifty-one percent of Americans said that they have a favorable view of the GOP -- that is up from 43 percent in September, and it is the first time that a majority has expressed a favorable opinion of the Republican party since 2005.
Other the other hand, 45 percent say that they have a positive opinion of the Democratic party -- that is down slightly from September.
"Trump's numbers are up. Their numbers are down. If that holds, maybe the lesson coming out of this is that the public actually will punish you where it counts if you politicize impeachment," McCarthy concluded.
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Fox News' Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
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