Sen. Mitch McConnell said he believed Donald Trump was undeniably guilty of a “disgraceful breach of duty” on January 6, when he incited and then did nothing to stop a deadly assault on the Capitol.
“There is no question, no question, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell, R-Kentucky, the minority leader, declared Saturday afternoon in an anti-Trump tirade as scathing that I could have. been turned over by any of the nine House attorneys seeking a conviction.
But minutes before speaking, when it came time for Washington’s most powerful Republican to hold Trump accountable for the charge of causing the riot, McConnell said his hands were tied. It couldn’t be done, he argued. He voted in favor of acquittal.
“We have no power to convict and disqualify a former official who is now a private citizen,” McConnell said, adding that he reached that conclusion after “intense reflection.”
McConnell accused the former president of spreading lies about a stolen election that he knew would provoke dangerous acts on the part of his supporters, though the senator said little about his own refusal for weeks to acknowledge President Joe Biden’s victory.
He spoke at length about the unfortunate timing coincidence that he said deprived the Senate of jurisdiction in the trial, alluding to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “scheduling decisions” to retain the impeachment office until Trump to leave office. He did not insist on his own refusal to call the Senate to hear the case while Trump was still president, except to say that he had been right “not to consider a lightning-fast process to try to escape the loss of jurisdiction. “
Outraged Democrats saw the approach as a classic McConnell tactic. They argued that he had tried to maintain his policy both ways, appeasing Trump supporters with his vote for acquittal while trying to signal to establishment figures that he was on his side and that they should continue to support Republican candidates.
The dance around the sentencing question of McConnell, a man generally eager to deploy the power of the Senate to suit his purposes, encapsulated the dilemma of Republicans, 42 of whom joined McConnell in trying Trump not guilty and delivering his second impeachment acquittal in the Senate in a short time. more than a year.
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.