(Tony Sifert, Headline USA) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was “ecstatic” about his role in discrediting President Donald Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 protests at the United States Capitol, according to a report by Julie Kelly at American Greatness.
McConnell took several actions before and on Jan. 6 that exacerbated the strife at the Capitol, and is ultimately responsible — along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser — for the turn events took that day, Kelly reported.
First, McConnell played a key role in killing a Republican plan — led by Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Ron Johnson — to “demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate” 2020 election fraud and to “reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states” if denied.
McConnell privately lobbied against this approach and then melodramatically took to the Senate floor on Jan. 6 to rebuke his colleagues, according to Kelly.
“The voters, the courts, and the States have all spoken,” McConnell said. “If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever.”
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” he continued.
After Cruz and Johnson “backed off,” McConnell bragged to New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin about how he had “crushed the sons of bitches” and went on to say that he had been “exhilarated by the fact that [President Trump] had finally, totally discredited himself.”
McConnell’s interview appears in a book on the 2020 election co-written by Martin with fellow-NYT reporter Alexander Burns.
Excerpts of the book have been published by The Washington Post.
“[Trump] put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger,” McConnell told Martin on midnight of Jan. 6. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”
According to Kelly, however, McConnell’s delaying tactics on J6 were responsible for the chaos.
The minority leader’s hand-picked sergeant-at-arms, Michael Stenger, “rejected multiple requests by the Capitol Police chief for extra help in advance of January 6,” and McConnell himself may have had a role in delaying the arrival of the National Guard until after crowds had been dispersed.
