Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed his continued fealty to Donald Trump on Saturday morning, as he revealed plans to let the disgraced dictator off the hook for the Jan. 6 insurrection. McConnell, like 45 other Senate Republicans, continues to hide behind the fake “constitutionality” defense, which hinges on whether or not an impeachment trial can be held after the subject has left public office.
McConnell, of course, also famously refused to hold the impeachment trial while Trump was still in office, and thus made this ridiculous non-defense copout possible.
The announcement comes even as Washington state Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and other Republicans came out to confirm that Trump knew Pence was in danger and did not care, most vividly illustrated by a nasty call with a frantic Kevin McCarthy, where the one-term tyrant mocked the House Minority Leader’s distress. This revelation also comes even as multiple senators—Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, and Ed Markey, as well as Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney as of this writing—are expressing support for witnesses.
Saturday, Feb 13, 2021 · 6:04:54 PM +00:00
·
Jessica Sutherland
In a choice that fills me with absolute disgust and rage, House impeachment managers have acquiesced to the Sedition Party and Trump’s disaster lawyers, and there will be no witnesses after all. Herrera Beutler’s statement was read into the record instead.
Make no mistake: By delaying the trial until after Biden’s inauguration, Mitch McConnell paved the way for today’s vote, where in the Republican Traitors will set precedent for the so-called January Exception, and demonstrate not just their approval of Donald Trump’s heinous and violent actions, but of their embrace of him as the future of their diseased party.
As Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner wrote Saturday, there’s no reason for the Democrat House impeachment managers not to call witnesses. The Senate is currently scheduled to be off next week, so important Senate business won’t be impacted by the additional time spent on the trial. The only thing delayed by the calling of witnesses would be a Senate mini-vacation.
McConnell’s email offers GOP senators a thinly veiled copout to the “January exception” rule, expressly saying that thanks to his refusing to hold the trial while Trump was still in office, McConnell does believe he’s given his cowardly colleagues a thin talking point to deflect valid accusations of supporting a seditious traitor and letting him get away with inciting a deadly insurrection.