Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stated Tuesday that he did not talk with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about then-President Donald Trump’s inactivity as a throng stormed the US Capitol on January 6.
In a departure from House Republican leaders who characterized the committee’s work as partisan, the Kentucky Republican showed curiosity in what more the House select committee probing the Capitol assault may unearth.
“I was not,” McConnell stated when asked if he was in contact with Meadows and or White House officials to urge Trump to do more to stop the riot. “But I do think we’re all watching, as you are, what is unfolding on the House side, and it will be interesting to reveal all the participants involved.”
Meadows’ texts with members of Congress and others on the Hill on January 6 were published by the House select committee on Monday.
Meadows received messages from unknown senators, Fox News celebrities, and Donald Trump Jr. pleading with her to persuade Trump to put an end to the chaos at the US Capitol. New texts were also read aloud by committee members on the House floor on Tuesday during discussion about recommending Meadows to the Justice Department for criminal contempt of Congress. Later that night, the House decided to recommend to the DOJ that Meadows face criminal prosecution.
Republicans Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, both members of the committee, voted with Democrats to approve the referral.
Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat and the committee’s chairman, told Raju on Tuesday that the panel would “make a decision within a week or so when to release” the identities of the texts’ writers to Meadows. At this time, he continued, the panel had only identified House members who had exchanged text messages to former House colleagues, not senators.
Thompson said that the committee believed it was “important” to first provide the material before releasing the identities.
“Then we will do our own review on the committee as to if and when we will release them,” he said. “We will do it. I can’t tell you exactly when that will be.”
McConnell had at one time attempted to disinvite former President Trump from President Biden’s inauguration following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
According to an excerpt obtained by Politico from ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl’s forthcoming book, McConnell wanted to have Trump removed off the Biden inaugural guest list because he “felt he could not give Trump another opportunity to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” according to an excerpt of “Betrayal” obtained by the media outlet.
According to Karl, McConnell wanted the four congressional leaders to inform Trump that he had been disinvited from the constitutionally mandated event, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) rejected the plans, “arguing it would be an important message of unity” to have Trump be at the Capitol for the official transfer of power, Karl writes.
According to Karl, a top McConnell adviser informed Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, that the Republican leader wanted him disinvited from the event, and McCarthy separately informed the White House that McConnell wanted Trump disinvited from the event, prompting Trump to announce his absence from the inauguration on Twitter.
According to Politico, that tweet was the last one he sent before his Twitter account was suspended.
On Tuesday, Karl’s book will be released. Karl’s latest story highlights the worsening relationship between the former president and the Republican leader.
Trump has recently chastised McConnell for voting with 18 other Senate Republicans for a bipartisan infrastructure measure.
In a message released on Saturday, the former president referred to the Republican leader as a “Old Crow” and chastised him for voting with Democrats to send the $1.2 trillion bill to Biden’s desk for final approval, claiming that it would harm their chances of reelection.
Donald Trump recently made some harsh claims about McDonnell and his book, “the Long Game” published in 2018.
The autobiography opens with a flattering prologue from then-President Donald Trump, who says the then-Senate Majority Leader was his “ace in the hole” and that he “couldn’t have asked for a finer partner” in Washington.
Two and a half years, two impeachments, and a Capitol insurgency later, Trump now claims that he never penned any of McConnell’s compliments and that the adoring note was written by McConnell himself.
“Why don’t you write it for me, and I’ll put it in, Mitch?” Trump told the Post he told McConnell. “Because that’s the way life works.”
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McConnell did not dispute that he wrote his own accolades. “I really don’t have anything to add related to him,” Kentucky Senator Rand Paul stated.
On Jan. 6, when supporters of Trump stormed the Capitol, McConnell was taken away to a secret location and cloistered with a few other key members.
The Kentucky senator had spent the previous four years as one of Trump’s key enablers, bolstering his victory by leaving a Supreme Court seat available, advancing his agenda with party-line votes, and standing by for weeks while Trump falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen. But their political convenience marriage had been dissolved three weeks before when Trump slammed McConnell for accepting Joe Biden’s triumph.
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