The outgoing Republican Senate leader ‘knew what had happened’ on the day of the attack on the Capitol House, according to a former Democratic House Speaker.
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has blasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his failure to hold Donald Trump accountable for inciting the violent crowd that attacked the United States Capitol on January 6 in an effort to overturn the results of the presidential election in 2020.
Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives whose office was vandalised in the attack, also expressed her sympathy to Semafor for McConnell, who has supported Trump’s current bid for the White House despite the fact that the former president has insulted him on multiple occasions.
According to Pelosi, McConnell was aware of the events that took place on January 6.
The president was held accountable for his actions, despite the fact that he had stated that he was responsible.
During the time that the crowd was besieging the Capitol, she noted that she and other congressional leaders had tried to get Trump to send in the national guard but were unsuccessful.
McConnell delivered a speech on the floor of the Senate in the days that followed the riot, which resulted in five deaths at the time, with four police officers taking their own lives in the seven months that followed. In the speech, McConnell stated that Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events.”
However, after the House of Representatives had impeached Trump for a second time, he voted to acquit Trump in a trial that was held in the Senate. Trump would no longer be eligible to hold elective office in the future if the Senate had found him guilty, which requires a two-thirds majority vote. Although there were 57 senators who voted to convict, only seven of them were Republicans. This was ten votes less than what was required to reach a conviction.
As stated in the book This Will Not Pass by Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, both of whom work as reporters for the New York Times, McConnell’s vote was in stark contrast to his belief that Trump was guilty. It is stated in the book that McConnell is quoted as stating, “If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.” Additionally, he is quoted as suggesting that holding Trump accountable should be left to the Democrats. It is stated in the book that he informed two associates, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us.”
According to reports, McConnell explained the inconsistency to a friend by saying, “I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference.”
McConnell expressed his disapproval of the Republican National Committee’s decision to censure Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, both of whom were Republican Party members in the House of Representatives at the time, for their involvement in a Democrat-led congressional investigation into January 6. Both Kinzinger and Cheney have subsequently resigned from their positions in Congress, and they are among the notable Republicans who have announced their support for Kamala Harris’s bid for the presidency.
“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell stated in reaction to the censure. “For the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power,”
“I feel sorry for Mitch McConnell,” Pelosi remarked in response to a question about whether or not she had any words of wisdom for McConnell, who will stand down as the head of the Republican Party in November but will continue to serve in the Senate.
There have been times when Pelosi has not been as harsh. “Mitch McConnell is to be recognised for his patriotism and decades of service to Kentucky, to Congress, and to our country,” she said in a heartfelt tribute that she made just after McConnell announced his decision to step down from the leadership position in the Senate. Since we were both appropriators, he and I have collaborated on projects together… We shared our obligation to the American people to find common ground wherever it was possible, despite the fact that we frequently disagreed with one another.
During his administration, Trump has repeatedly targeted McConnell for abuse and has directed racial slurs at his wife, Elaine Chao, who served as transportation secretary. McConnell has also been the victim of Trump’s abuse.
McDonnell has been referred to as a “broken-down crow,” a “stone-cold loser,” and a “dumb son of a bitch” by the former president, who has used these terms in a variety of contexts.