WASHINGTON (AP) – In his speech on Saturday in the Senate plenary, Senator Mitch McConnell made a scorching denunciation of Donald Trump, calling him “morally responsible” for the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
But in his vote on Trump’s impeachment, McConnell said “innocent” because he said that a former president could not be tried in the Senate.
Washington’s most powerful Republican and Senate minority leader used their strongest language so far to criticize Trump minutes after the Senate acquitted the former president, voting 57-43 to convict him, but did not reach a majority of two. thirds needed to find you guilty. Seven Republicans voted to condemn.
Clearly angry, the Senate’s longest serving Republican leader said that Trump’s actions around the attack on Congress were “a shameful and shameful neglect of duty”. He even noted that although Trump is now out of office, he remains subject to the country’s civil and criminal laws.
“He hasn’t gotten away with anything yet,” said McConnell, who will be 79 next Saturday and has led the Republican Party in the Senate since 2007.
It was an incredibly bitter punishment on Trump for McConnell, who could have used much of the same speech if he had decided to condemn Trump.
But in voting for absolution, McConnell and his fellow Republicans left the party in their struggle to define themselves after Trump’s defeat in November. The fiercely loyal pro-Trump Republicans and the party base they represent are clashing with more traditional Republicans, who believe the former president is undermining the party’s national appeal.
A guilty vote by McConnell, who probably would have brought some other Republicans with him, would have marked a more direct effort to uproot Trump’s party.
This could have created primary challenges for 2022 against Republican party officials, complicating Republican efforts to win a majority in the Senate by nominating less-elected extreme right candidates. McConnell has spent years rejecting such candidates.
“Time will take care of it in one way or another,” said Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked about the party’s course. “But remember, to be a leader you need to have followers. So, let’s find out. “
After Saturday’s vote, angry Democrats launched their own attacks on McConnell and the Republican Party. Speaking to reporters, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Mocked the “cowardly group of Republicans” in the Senate that she said was afraid to “respect the institution they served”.
She also said that McConnell had created a self-fulfilling prophecy, forcing the Senate trial to begin after Trump left the White House, keeping the camera out of the session. Republicans say Pelosi could have started the process earlier, delivering official impeachment documents earlier.
McConnell had signaled last month that he was open to pleading Trump guilty, which in itself was a telltale sign of his alienation from the former president. He told Republican Party senators how he would vote in a private e-mail early on Saturday, saying: “Although it is a difficult decision, I am convinced that impeachments are primarily a removal tool and therefore we have no jurisdiction.”
He expanded his reasoning on the Senate floor after Saturday’s call, making clear his enmity with Trump’s actions.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for causing that day’s event,” he said.
Even before the November election, Trump repeatedly stated that if he lost it would be due to fraud by the Democrats, a false accusation that he continued to make until he left office.
He summoned supporters to Washington for January 6, the day Congress would formally certify his defeat at Electoral College for Joe Biden, then used a provocative speech near the White House to urge them to march on Capitol Hill while the count was underway. . His supporters fought violently against the police and entered the building, forcing lawmakers to flee, temporarily interrupting the counting of votes and producing five deaths. The visceral and bloody images of that day were at the heart of the Democrats’ impeachment process against Trump.
McConnell called this attack a “predictable consequence” of Trump using the presidency, calling him “the biggest megaphone on planet Earth”. Rather than canceling the rioters, McConnell accused Trump of “praising the criminals” and appearing determined to overturn the election “or to burn our institutions on the way out.”
The 36-year-old Senate veteran maneuvered during Trump’s four years in office as a captain steering a ship across a rocky strait in stormy seas. Downcast at times by vengeful presidential tweets, McConnell has become in the habit of saying nothing about many of Trump’s outrageous comments.
He ended up leading the Senate to victories like the 2017 tax cuts and the confirmations of three Supreme Court ministers and more than 200 other federal judges.
Their relationship, built more out of convenience than admiration, plummeted after Trump’s denial of his November 3 defeat and tireless efforts to reverse voters’ verdict with their baseless allegations that Democrats stole the election of fraudulently.
He languished completely last month, after Republicans lost control of the Senate with two defeats in Georgia’s second round that they attributed to Trump, and the savage attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters. On the day of the riot, McConnell protested “bandits, mobs or threats” and described the attack as “this failed insurrection”.
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Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
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