McConnell Wanted Trump To ‘Pay A Price’ For J6, Backed Jack Smith Appointment
In a biography set to be released shortly before the election, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell voiced support for special counsel Jack Smith and expressed his hope that former President Trump will "pay a price" for his role in the events surrounding January 6th.
Axios revealed that while "McConnell has long been a Trump critic... a new book places his support behind some of the most significant federal charges against Trump."
“If he hasn’t committed indictable offenses, I don’t know what one is,” McConnell told journalist Michael Tackett in an interview for “The Price of Power,” shortly after Smith became the first prosecutor to charge a former president in August 2023.
"From the beginning, McConnell believed the charges brought by federal prosecutors against Trump were justified," Tackett wrote. McConnell explained, "There’s no doubt who inspired it, and I just hope that he’ll have to pay a price for it," referring to the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
During the riot, Ashli Babbitt, a 36-year-old Air Force veteran and unarmed Trump supporter, was fatally shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer with a controversial background. Her family filed a $30 million wrongful death lawsuit against the U.S. government in early 2024.
"Tackett’s book highlights how seriously McConnell considered voting to convict Trump on related impeachment charges in 2021," Axios reported. "A conviction could have resulted in the Senate barring Trump from running for office again."
McConnell seriously contemplated conviction, as he indicated in an interview a week after the riot.
“I’m not at all conflicted about whether what the president did is an impeachable offense. I think it is,” McConnell stated in the interview.
He accused Trump of inciting the attack on the Capitol, stating that it "is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine." However, Trump never explicitly called for supporters to storm the Capitol, instead urging them during a “Stop the Steal” speech to “march peacefully” to the building and make their voices heard.
Ultimately, McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, voted for acquittal, noting that Trump 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 held accountable by either,” McConnell remarked following the vote.
In a statement, McConnell said, “Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now.”
In March, McConnell publicly endorsed Trump.
The book also notes that McConnell requested former House Speaker Paul Ryan to arrange a secret meeting in 2022, where McConnell could voice his concerns to Fox founder Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan.
Axios also pointed out that if Trump manages to avoid conviction on any of the charges brought by the Biden administration, it will be largely due to McConnell's decision to eliminate the filibuster and confirm all three of Trump's Supreme Court nominees. Earlier this year, the court ruled that presidents are nearly immune from prosecution for "official actions."
Meanwhile, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy expressed concern on Friday that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of D.C. risked prejudicing the jury pool in Trump’s January 6 case by allowing the public release of over 1,800 pages of evidence requested by special counsel Jack Smith.
Chutkan granted Smith’s request to make the documents available to the public in the federal election interference case.
“I’m not surprised because I always thought this was a political exercise," McCarthy told guest host Trace Gallagher on “The Story.” "That doesn’t mean there’s no case, but the timing of this has always been political."
He added, "I have to laugh when Judge Chutkan says she wouldn’t allow politics to influence her decisions. A judge in a typical case would be worried about tainting the jury pool."