McConnell says Trump solely to blame for attack after voting to acquit
Although he voted to acquit the former president, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in remarks Saturday distanced himself from Trump and made clear he believed that Trump was solely to blame for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"Jan. 6 was a disgrace," McConnell began. "Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president. They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he’d lost an election."
McConnell reminded those listening of his words on the floor last month in which he said the mob was "fed lies" and "provoked" by Trump.
"There's no question -- none -- that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president," he said.
McConnell said it wasn't Trump remarks solely on Jan. 6 -- as House managers have argued -- but "also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe, the increasingly wild myths -- myths -- about a reverse landslide election that was somehow being stolen, some secret coup by our now president."
McConnell also shot down the defense equating Trump's rhetoric to past comments of Democrats telling supporters to "fight."
"That's different from what we saw. This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters' decision or else torch our institutions on the way out," he said, adding Trump's "unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence actually began."
He said there should be no question that Trump was aware of the violence underway, but he didn't move to stop it.
"Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day, whatever reaction he says he meant to produce, by that afternoon, we know he was watching the same live television as the rest of us. A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags and screaming their loyalty to him," he said.
"It was obvious that only President Trump could end this," McConnell said. "The president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job."
However, though McConnell said he ultimately didn't believe an impeachment trial in the Senate was the correct form of resolve since Trump was no longer in office, explaining his vote to acquit, he did leave the door open for Trump being criminally prosecuted.
"President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office," he said. "He didn’t get away with anything yet."
Notably, McConnell said he would have considered House managers' charge while he was still majority leader and Trump was still president, and then impeachment would have been an "acceptable" course, he said, but McConnell punted the trial to incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer during the transfer of power in the chamber last month.
