BREAKING NEWS: Mitch McConnell wil vote to ACQUIT Donald Trump in sign that ex-president will escape conviction at end of his second impeachment trial – with hours to go until final vote
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has told fellow Republicans that he plans to vote to acquit Donald Trump on charges incitement of insurrection – a signal that the House-led effort to convict the former president will fail.
McConnell made his position known on what could be the last day of the trial, as closing arguments were set to begin.
Although he had denounced Trump’s actions in an emotional Senate floor speech immediately after the Jan. 6 MAGA riot in the Capitol, McConnell also did not act to hasten the impeachment trial while Trump was still in office.
He voted along with 44 other Republicans that the post-presidency impeachment was unconstitutional – a position that did not prevail.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell arrives at the US Capitol for the fifth day of the second impeachment trial of former US President Donald Trump, on February 13, 2021, in Washington, DC. He told colleagues he will vote to acquit Trump
House Democratic managers brought up numerous Trump administration officials who quit following the riot – among them McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao.
McConnell’s decision makes it likely that only a handful of Republicans cross over to join Democrats voting to convict. With two-thirds of the Senate required, this raises the likelihood that Trump would be impeached and acquitted twice.
There was a last minute wrinkle Friday night, however.
CNN reported Friday that Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy engaged in an expletive-laced shouting match during the riot, with the California Republican begging the president to rein in his supporters.
‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,’ Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call by McCarthy.
GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who voted for Trump’s impeachment and who spoke on the record about what McCarthy told her, pleaded with ‘patriots’ to go public with their own accounts.
‘To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time,’ she said.
‘To the patriots who were standing next to the former president as these conversations were happening, or even to the former vice president: if you have something to add here, now would be the time,’ Jaime Herrera Beutler said.
F-word call: Kevin McCarthy pleaded with Donald Trump to call off his mob on January 6, and when Trump said ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,’ responded: ‘Who the f**k do you think you’re speaking to?’
‘When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,’ Herrera Beutler recounted.
‘McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’
Other sources told CNN that McCarthy replied to Trump: ‘Who the f**k do you think you are talking to?’ and that McCarthy had phoned Trump because the MAGA mob were smashing the windows in his office.