In a biography set to publish just a week before the election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) supported Jack Smith and wanted former President Donald Trump to “pay a price” for the January 6 Capitol protests, according to a report from Axios.
While McConnell has had a number of disagreements with Trump in the past, the new book is set to provide his most thorough critiques to date. “If he hasn’t committed indictable offenses, I don’t know what one is,” McConnell, now 82, told journalist Michael Tackett in an interview for the new book after Biden DOJ-appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith brought charges against Trump in August 2023.
“From the start, McConnell thought the charges brought by federal prosecutors against Trump had merit,” Tackett writes in “The Price Of Power.
In reference to January 6 — a minor riot and mostly peaceful protest in which the only casualties were Trump supporters — McConnell said there was “no doubt who inspired it” and “I just hope that he’ll have to pay a price for it.”
The book will explore how close McConnell came to voting to convict then-President Trump in his second impeachment trial, that was brought despite the fact he told supporters to “remain peaceful” both before and after the disturbance. To date, the federal government has refused to reveal how many undercover agents were embedded within the crowd, though former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund believes there were dozens.
Undercover D.C. Metropolitan Police Officers were also seen firing up the crowd and urging them to enter the Capitol Building, according to footage uncovered by a January 6 defendant.
According to several oral interviews conducted with the senator, McConnell gave serious consideration to a vote to convict, which could have led to the U.S. Senate blocking Trump from running again. “I’m not at all conflicted about whether what the president did is an impeachable offense. I think it is,” McConnell said in the oral history interview provided to Tackett.
McConnell repeated Democrat talking points about the mass trespassing event being an “insurrection,” which was “about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine,” McConnell added.
The longtime Senate GOP leader ultimately voted to acquit, arguing that Trump was not eligible for conviction since he was no longer in office. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one,” McConnell said after the vote.
In 2022, McConnell reached out to former House Speaker Paul Ryan in order to set up a secret meeting in which he could voice his concerns about Trump to Fox founder Rupert Murdoch and his son, Lachlan. “I don’t think Murdoch has been in love with Trump for a long time,” McConnell told Tackett.
While Smith’s case against Trump will not be going to trial before Election Day, his office will reportedly be working on the case through January at the earliest, even in the event of a Trump win.
