Daily US Times: Senator Mitch McConnell delivered a scalding denunciation of former president Donald Trump, calling him “morally responsible” for the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Senate minority leader gave the speech on Saturday from the Senate floor.
But in his vote on Donald Trump’s impeachment, McConnell said “not guilty” because he said a former president could not face trial in the Senate.
Washington’s most powerful Republican used his strongest language to date to excoriate Donald Trump minutes after the Senate acquitted the former president. Seven Republicans voted to convict as the voting 57-43 was to convict him but falling short of the two-thirds majority needed to find him guilty.
Clearly angry, Mr McConnell said Trump’s actions surrounding the attack on Congress were “a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.” The Senate’s longest serving GOP member even noted that though Trump is now out of office, he remains subject to the country’s criminal and civil laws.
McConnell said: “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”
He said: “There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the event of that day.”
The Republican Senator turns 79 next Saturday and has led the Senate GOP since 2007.
It was a stunningly bitter castigation of Donald Trump by Mitch McConnell, who could have used much of the same speech had he instead decided to convict Trump.
But by voting for acquittal, McConnell and his fellow Republican Senators left the party locked in its struggle to define itself after Trump’s defeat in November.
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