McConnell backed Jack Smith, wanted Trump to “pay” for Jan. 6
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a news conference after a lunch meeting with Senate Republicans. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
In a biography set to publish a week before the election, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell backed special counsel Jack Smith and said he hopes former President Trump will "pay a price" for his role in Jan. 6th.
Why it matters: McConnell has long been a Trump critic, but a new book throws his weight behind some of the most serious federal charges against Trump.
- "If he hasn't committed indictable offenses, I don't know what one is," the longest-serving Republican leader told journalist Michael Tackett in an interview for "The Price of Power," weeks after Smith brought the charges against Trump in August 2023.
- "From the start, McConnell thought the charges brought by federal prosecutors against Trump had merit," Tackett writes.
- McConnell told him "there's no doubt who inspired it, and I just hope that he'll have to pay a price for it," referencing Jan. 6.
Between the lines: Tackett's book reveals just how seriously McConnell considered voting to convict Trump of related impeachment charges in 2021.
- Conviction could have led to the Senate blocking Trump from running for office again.
- McConnell explicitly considered the idea, according to one of his oral history interviews done a week after the insurrection.
Zoom in: "I'm not at all conflicted about whether what the president did is an impeachable offense. I think it is," McConnell said in the oral history interview, provided to Tackett.
- Urging an insurrection and people attacking the Capitol "is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine," McConnell added.
George Will, a writer close to McConnell, even wrote a column suggesting McConnell would vote "yea."
- Will sent the early draft to some conservatives — including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), but then changed the text the next morning. The columnist told Tackett he did not remember writing the earlier version.
- McConnell ultimately voted to acquit, arguing on the Senate floor that Trump was not eligible for conviction because he 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 accountable by either one," McConnell said after the vote.
What they're saying: "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," McConnell said in a statement.
- He endorsed Trump for president in March.
The intrigue: McConnell went so far as to ask former House Speaker Paul Ryan to set up a secret meeting in 2022 for McConnell to share some of his concerns with Fox founder Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan.
- "I don't think Murdoch has been in love with Trump for a long time," McConnell told Tackett.
The bottom line: If Trump manages to evade federal consequences, it will be at least in part thanks to one of McConnell's proudest accomplishments — confirming a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court bench.
- The court ruled in July that presidents have some immunity from prosecution when it involves "official actions."
- Smith has made his case for what he believes to be prosecutable, and the case is ongoing.
Editor's note: This article was updated to add a statement from McConnell.
