The Amoralists: Lindsey Graham, Part Four; Back and Forth

 

Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., couldn't care less if you think he is a hypocrite for working with the president.

Graham sat down with CNN's Kate Bolduan [June 2018], who asked the senator when he could trust the words coming out of President Trump's mouth. She also highlighted Graham's past scuffles and his current coziness with the president.

"I'm going to sum it up," Bolduan said. "You went from hating him, making fun of him, finding peace with trying to work with him where you can work with him. Then, he comes out and hits you again on whatever he decided to on a given day. Do you trust him now?"

The senator responded that it's not about trusting the president — it's about working together to get "things that are big and matter" done.

"Here's what I got: I got a relationship with the president at a time when I think he needs allies," Graham said.

Bolduan interrupted, asking, "People say this is two-faced. Where's the Lindsey Graham of standing up to Donald Trump? What do you say?"

Graham responded that he would let the president know when he thinks he's wrong, but that he didn't receive this kind of criticism when working with President Obama.

“… I know how the game’s played and I don’t give a damn. I’m going to do what’s best for the country."

Graham has recently criticized Trump for his approach of handling Russia and the Mueller investigation. Earlier this week, Graham disagreed with Trump's desire to add Russia back into G-7 and called the move "a mistake." He also distanced himself from the president after his #spygates tweets. Graham had pointed out that “a confidential informant is not a spy” and said he is not buying the Rudy Giuliani's claim that Mueller is trying to frame Trump.

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"So if you don’t like me working with President Trump to make the world a better place," Graham said, "I don’t give a shit” (Ramirez 1-2).

[September 2019] Senator Lindsey Graham, once among Donald Trump’s harshest critics, is set to lead the charge to defend him in the court of public opinion as Democrats make the case for impeachment.

The Republican senator from South Carolina has rejected the allegation that Trump betrayed America’s national security interests by pressing the Ukrainian president  Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to investigate political rival Joe Biden days after freezing some military aid to the country.

Graham and other allies of the president have sought to fight back by arguing that a whistleblower who raised the alarm was not on the call between Trump and Zelenskiy but based his complaint on officials’ recollections of it.

“In America you can’t even get a parking ticket based on hearsay testimony,” Graham tweeted on Saturday. “But you can impeach a president? I certainly hope not.”

The senator played golf with Trump, as well as professionals Gary Player and Annika Sörenstam, at the president’s club in Sterling, Virginia on Saturday morning, according to a White House pool report. It seemed likely Trump and Graham had plenty of time to strategise how to reclaim the political narrative.

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… Graham was overheard saying: “This is Kavanaugh on steroids! This is hearsay – and this person has bias” (Smith 1, 2).

In 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina praised the integrity of the nation’s elections system, criticizing claims by Donald J. Trump that the vote was “rigged.”

“Like most Americans, I have confidence in our democracy and our election system,” Mr. Graham said in a statement on Twitter. “If he loses, it will not be because the system is ‘rigged’ but because he failed as a candidate.”

What a difference four years makes.

Mr. Graham, who has transformed during that time to become one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies, now seems determined to reverse the election’s outcome on the president’s behalf. On Friday [November 2020], he phoned Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state of Georgia and a fellow Republican, wondering about the possibility of a slight tinkering with the state’s elections outcome.

What if, Mr. Graham suggested on the call, according to Mr. Raffensperger, he had the power to toss out all of the mail-in votes from counties with high rates of questionable signatures on ballots?

In an interview with The Washington Post, Mr. Raffensperger said he was stunned that Mr. Graham had appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots.

“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Mr. Raffensperger said of the call from Mr. Graham, the chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Graham seems bent on making every attempt to engineer a second term for Mr. Trump, despite President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s clear victory. The senator has suggested that this year’s vote represents the Republican Party’s last gasp, unless something is done to reverse the current state of election operations — the same system he praised in 2016.

“If Republicans don’t challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again,” Mr. Graham said on Sunday on Fox News.

The phone call to Mr. Raffensperger was one in a string of episodes in which Mr. Graham, who won his own re-election bid this month, has tried to cast doubt on the presidential election’s outcome, demanding that Mr. Trump not concede the race to Mr. Biden despite the Democrat’s decisive Electoral College victory —306 to 232 electoral votes.

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In an appearance last week on Fox News, Mr. Graham claimed that Nevada’s vote-counting system had failed to verify signatures because the software was turned off, an accusation that had been refuted.

…

On Tuesday, Mr. Graham’s office said he had raised concerns about vote counting in Georgia as well as in Arizona and Nevada “as a United States senator who is worried about the integrity of the election process nationally, when it comes to vote by mail” (Saul 1-2).

Regarding the Attack on the Capitol Building January 6, 2021

Let's see what Lindsey Graham thought on the evening of January 6, a speech that sounds a lot like what many Republican leaders were saying that week.

Trump and I have had a hell of a journey. I hate it being this way. Oh my God, I hate it. From my point of view, he's been a consequential president. But today...first thing you'll see.

All I can say is: Count me out. Enough is enough. I've tried to be helpful. But when the Wisconsin supreme court ruled 4 to 3 that they didn't violate the constitution of Wisconsin, I agree with the 3 but I accept the 4. If Al Gore can accept 5-4 he's not president, I can accept Wisconsin 4-3.

Pennsylvania—it went to the second circuit. So much for all the judges being in Trump's pocket. They said, "No, you're wrong." I accept the Pennsylvania second circuit, that Trump's lawsuit wasn't right.

Georgia—they say the secretary of state took the law in his own hands, that he changed the election laws unlawfully. A federal judge said no. I accept the federal judge, even if I don't agree with it.

Fraud—they say there's 66,000 people under 18 voted. How many people believe that? I asked, "Give me 10." And they had one. They said 8,000 felons in Arizona voted. "Give me 10." Haven't gotten one. Does that say there's problems in every election? I don't buy this. Enough's enough. We've got to end it.

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… the path from Trump's attempts to overturn the election loss to January 6 was completely and abundantly clear to everyone. The mob stormed the Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power to Joe Biden and keep Trump in office. But now, we hear, this is all being politicized (Holmes 1-2).

As lawmakers were being evacuated from the Capitol on Jan. 6, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reportedly told the Senate sergeant-at-arms to use guns to quell the people who had breached the building.

According to a long-form piece published by The Washington Post on Sunday, the Republican senator was furious that lawmakers were being forced to evacuate and yelled at the Senate sergeant-at-arms, "What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them.”

“We give you guns for a reason,” Graham reportedly continued. “Use them.”

According to the Post's report, Graham also called former President Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, giving her suggestions on what her father should say to appeal to the rioters to calm down and vacate the Capitol.

“You need to get these people out of here,” Graham reportedly said to Ivanka Trump over the phone. “This thing is going south. This is not good. You’re going to have to tell these people to stand down. Stand down.”

The South Carolina senator was reportedly enraged by former President Trump's subsequent video message to the rioters, in which he said, "We have to have peace. So go home. We love you, you’re very special."

…

"They could have blown the building up. They could have killed us all. They could've destroyed the government," Graham said to reporters one day after the breach. "Lethal force should have been used. ... We dodged a major bullet. If this is not a wake-up call I don't know what is."

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Graham was among the most vocal Republican lawmakers to decry the insurrection and to tie Trump to the incident, though he ultimately did not vote to convict the former president in his second impeachment trial (Choi 1, 2).

With Trump now out of office, banned from social media, and fresh off a trial in which a bipartisan majority of senators voted for his conviction, the Republican Party is polarized.

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On the pro-Trump side stands Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham was one of Trump’s most loyal supporters during his time in office, but that momentarily changed following the January 6 insurrection when Graham gave a speech distancing himself from Trump.

“Count me out. Enough is enough.” Graham said.

Graham quickly had second thoughts about this stance, traveling with Trump during his last trip as president and shamelessly defending Trump on TV.

If Graham’s Sunday morning appearance on Fox News Sunday [February 2021] is an indication, his loyalty to the former president is stronger than ever.

“Donald Trump is the most vibrant member of the Republican Party,” Graham said, distancing himself from former UN ambassador Nikki Haley’s comments about Trump not having a future in the GOP. “The Trump movement is alive and well ... all I can say is that the most potent force in the Republican Party is President Trump.”

Those comments came at the end of an interview that began with Graham suggesting Republicans will go as far as to retaliate for Trump’s second impeachment by impeaching Vice President Kamala Harris if they take back the House next year.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an avid Trump supporter who voted to acquit the former president during his second impeachment trial, joined lawmakers' calls for a 9/11-style commission into the Jan. 6 Capitol siege while on "Fox News Sunday."

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… Graham seems to be calculating that Trumpism represents the Republican Party’s best bet to retake one or both chambers of Congress next year (Rupar 2).

… Momentum has been growing since last month for a bipartisan commission to investigate the lethal attack on the Capitol, and is one of the last ways Congress could attempt to hold Trump accountable for the violence, the New York Times reports.

… “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again, and I want to make sure that the Capitol footprint can be better defended next time,” Graham said on Fox [February 2021]. He also made clear on Sunday that he believes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's condemnation of Trump following his acquittal was a mistake and could come back to haunt Republicans in 2022 (Rummier 1).

In the immediate aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, a number of Republicans, even those who protected Donald Trump from impeachment, paid lip service to the idea of a probe into the events of that day. “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened,” Lindsey Graham said in February, “and make sure it never happens again.” But it was always obvious they didn’t actually support such an undertaking. Any real investigation into the deadly riot and everything that led to it would surely find fault not only in their demagogic leader, but in themselves. Graham and the rest of the Senate GOP shot down legislation to establish such a commission in May (Lutz 1).

Sandra Garza, the longtime partner of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, recalled confronting Sen. Lindsey Graham while advocating for a bipartisan commission to investigate January 6.

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Garza told The New York Times that she and Sicknick supported former President Donald Trump and had doubts about the 2020 election. She met with Graham and other Republican senators in May [2021], alongside other officers, as the Senate considered approving the commission.

But, Garza said, Graham appeared bored and distracted while D.C. Metropolitan Police officer Michael Fanone recounted his experiences during the riot, so she confronted the South Carolina senator.

“I feel like you're being very disrespectful, and you're looking out the window and tapping your fingers on the desk,'" she recalled telling Graham. Another Republican senator then tried to tell her she was misreading Graham's body language, further infuriating her, according to The Times.

South Carolina's junior senator, Tim Scott, was also at the meeting and said that both he and Graham were in favor of accountability, but not a commission.

In a statement at the time, Graham said that he would not support the commission, because its "approach will turn into a partisan food fight." … (Metzger 2).

Works cited:

Choi, Joseph. “Graham Told Officers on Jan. 6 To Use Their Guns on Rioters: Report.” The Hill, November 1, 2021. Net. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/579453-graham-told-officers-on-jan-6-to-use-their-guns-on-rioters-report

Holmes, Jack. "Let's Compare What Lindsey Graham Said on January 6 to What He Said One Year Later.” Esquire, January 6, 2022. Net. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a38684158/january-6-anniversary-wall-street-journal-lindsey-graham/

Lutz, Eric. Republicans Are Already Turning the January 6 Investigation into a Clown Show.” Vanity Fair, July 20, 2021. Net. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/republicans-already-turning-january-6-investigation-into-a-clown-show

Metzger, Bryan. “Fallen Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick's Partner Called Out Sen. Lindsey Graham for Being 'Very Disrespectful' during a Jan. 6 Commission Meeting.” Yahoo News, January 4, 2022. Net. https://news.yahoo.com/fallen-capitol-police-officer-brian-203018252.html

Ramirez, Izzie. “Lindsey Graham on Being Called a Hypocrite for Cozying Up to Trump: ‘I Don’t Give a Sh*t’.” Salon, June 15, 2018. Net. https://www.salon.com/2018/06/15/lindsey-graham-on-being-called-a-hypocrite-for-cozying-up-to-trump-i-do-not-give-a-sht/

Rummier, Orion. Lindsey Graham Voices Support for 9/11-Style Probe into Capitol Siege.” Axios, February 14, 2021. Net. https://www.axios.com/capitol-siege-trump-republicans-bf26f1cf-f7fa-456b-9629-252c80d5dd8d.html

Rupar, Aaron. “Lindsey Graham’s Latest Fox News Sunday Appearance Highlights the GOP’s Identity Crisis.” Vox, February 14, 2021. Net. https://www.vox.com/2021/2/14/22282840/lindsey-graham-bill-cassidy-impeachment-votes

Saul, Stephanie. “Lindsey Graham’s Long-Shot Mission To Unravel the Election Results.” New York Times, November 17, 2020. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/lindsey-graham-georgia-trump-biden.html

Smith, David. Graham Prepares Trump Defence as Impeachment Fury Intensifies.” The Guardian, September 28, 2019. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/28/donald-trump-impeachment-lindsey-graham-republicans-jared-kushner-ivanka

The Amoralists: Mitch McConnell, Part Five; Fixated on Regaining Power

Then came the [2020] election. Mr. Trump refused to accept the results, making wild and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Mr. McConnell indulged him and refused to recognize President Biden as the winner until he could avoid it no longer after the states certified their electoral votes on Dec. 14. He congratulated Mr. Biden the next day.

The interests of Mr. McConnell and Mr. Trump now sharply diverged, with Mr. McConnell fixated on regaining power in 2022 while Mr. Trump was stuck on 2020, making outlandish allegations that threatened to drive off more suburban voters and imperiled two Georgia seats that went to Democrats on Jan. 5. Then the riot the next day found marauders in the Senate chamber, Mr. McConnell’s sanctum sanctorum.

“This mob was fed lies,” Mr. McConnell declared on Jan. 19, accusing Mr. Trump of provoking the rioters and prompting rumblings that he of all people might vote to convict Mr. Trump in the coming impeachment trial. But he did not. Instead, he voted to acquit Mr. Trump then tried to bury him minutes later while distinguishing between Mr. Trump’s responsibility for the riot and the Trump voters Mr. McConnell and Republican Senate candidates would need next year.

“Seventy-four million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it,” Mr. McConnell said. “One person did. Just one.”

Mr. [Karl] Rove said Mr. McConnell handled it well.

“McConnell reads his conference and he knows that, like him, they thought simultaneously that this was a highly partisan process and not good for country, but also that Trump had played a significant role in fomenting Jan. 6,” he said (Hulse “Relationship” 6).

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said on Saturday that Donald Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January – minutes after voting to acquit the former president in his impeachment trial for that very same act.

McConnell, like the senators who voted in favor of impeachment, was deeply critical of Trump’s conduct leading up to the attack. “They [the mob] did this because they’d been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth because he was angry he lost an election,” McConnell said.

But McConnell argued the Senate could not convict Trump because he had left office before the Senate trial began – a timeline McConnell orchestrated as Senate majority leader after refusing Democrats’ requests to call the Senate into an emergency session in January.

The House impeached Trump for a second time in his final days in office, but McConnell delayed starting the Senate trial until after Joe Biden was sworn in.

McConnell said the Senate was not meant to serve as a “moral tribunal” and said Trump could still be open to criminal prosecution.

“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he’s in office,” McConnell said. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”

House majority leader Nancy Pelosi criticized McConnell’s remarks in a press conference on Saturday and said the issue of timing “was not the reason that he voted the way he did; it was the excuse that he used”.

“For Mitch McConnell – who created the situation where it could not have been heard before the 20th, or even begun before the 20th in the Senate – to say all the things he said, oh my gosh, about Donald Trump and how horrible he was and is, and then say, ‘But that’s the time that the House chose to bring it over’ – Oh, no. We didn’t choose. You chose not to receive it,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi was also critical of the “cowardly” Republicans who voted against impeachment after the attack.

“I salute the Republican senators who voted their conscience and for our country,” Pelosi said. “Other Senate Republicans’ refusal to hold Trump accountable for igniting a violent insurrection to cling to power will go down as one of the darkest days and most dishonorable acts in our nation’s history” (Holpuch 1-2).

Mitch McConnell’s opposition to a bipartisan proposal to independently investigate the Capitol insurrection is turning GOP senators against the bill, potentially dooming its prospects in the Senate.

The Senate minority leader informed Republicans on Wednesday that he is opposed to the 9/11-style commission that would probe the deadly Jan. 6 riot, as envisioned by the House. And in the wake of McConnell’s remarks, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) — who had expressed support on Tuesday for the idea — said he could no longer back the commission in its current form.

…

McConnell had signaled on Tuesday that he was undecided but came down more firmly after another day of deliberations and explained his views in a Wednesday floor speech. The Kentucky Republican called the House’s proposal “slanted and unbalanced” and said the ongoing congressional investigations are sufficient to probe the pro-Trump riot at the Capitol.

“It’s not at all clear what new facts or additional investigation yet another commission could lay on top of the existing efforts by law enforcement and Congress,” McConnell said (Levine and Everett 1).

Shortly before members of Congress left Capitol Hill for their holiday break, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked what he hoped to learn from the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. I assumed he'd dismiss the bipartisan panel and its relevance.

But he didn't. "I read the reports every day," the Kentucky Republican told reporters, "and it'll be interesting to see what [investigators] conclude."

…

Let's not forget that the original plan was for an independent, 9/11-style commission that would be responsible for investigating the attack. Democratic and Republican leaders negotiated the terms of how such a commission would be structured, and the expectation was that Congress would move forward in a bipartisan way after Democrats effectively endorsed all of the GOP's requests.

McConnell balked anyway. On May 19, the minority leader denounced the bipartisan plan, suggesting an independent investigation wouldn't produce any "new facts."

…

A week later, McConnell told his members a Jan. 6 probe was likely to undermine the party's midterm election message. By May 28, the top Senate Republican was reportedly telling his members he'd consider it "a personal favor" if they opposed the legislation to create an independent Jan. 6 commission.

…

… here we are, seven months later, watching McConnell sing a very different tune. The minority leader who went out of his way to block an independent investigation is now publicly endorsing the House select committee's probe, telling Americans that what investigators "are seeking to find out is something the public needs to know."

What's far from clear is why in the world the Kentuckian's perspective has changed.

Did McConnell learn important new intelligence as a member of the gang of eight? Is this a rhetorical shot across the bow at Donald Trump, who's working desperately to replace McConnell as the top Senate Republican?

I won't pretend to know what the senator is thinking, but as a recent Washington Post analysis concluded, "[What McConnell is] saying is a departure from his party that significantly hamstrings efforts to undermine the committee. And it's certainly worth keeping an eye on" (Benen 1-2).

Top Republican senator Mitch McConnell has attacked Joe Biden’s push for a voting rights bill, underscoring the difficulty the Democrats face attempting to steer legislation through Congress with a narrow majority.

The US president [Joe Biden] has called for his party to jettison the Senate’s longstanding “filibuster” rule, which requires 60 of the 100 senators to agree to advance most legislation, a move that McConnell said would irreparably damage the chamber.

“The president’s rant yesterday was incoherent, incorrect and beneath his office,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Wednesday, referring to Biden’s speech in Atlanta the day before in which he appealed for voting-rights legislation and called Republicans cowardly for not supporting it.

McConnell accused the president of giving “a deliberately divisive speech that was designed to pull our country further apart”.

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Donald Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election defeat was the result of fraud inspired a wave of new restrictions on voting in Republican-controlled states last year.

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Democrats see their voting rights bills as a last chance to counter those before the 8 November elections, when they run the risk of losing their razor-thin majorities in at least one chamber of Congress.

Since Trump’s defeat, Republican lawmakers in 19 states have passed dozens of laws making it harder to vote. Critics say these measures target minorities, who vote in greater proportions for Democrats.

The Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act together would make election day a holiday, expand access to postal voting and strengthen US justice department oversight of local election jurisdictions with a history of discrimination.

“Twelve months ago the president said that politics need not be a raging fire destroying everything in its path,” McConnell said. “But yesterday he poured a giant can of gasoline on the fire.“

Republicans argue that the bills Democrats are proposing are an infringement of states’ rights to run their elections. They come as Trump supporters who have embraced the former president’s false claims of election fraud are running for offices that could give them oversight over local elections. Democrats and election analysts have raised concerns that they could use those posts to influence election outcomes (Incoherent 1-3).

Senator Mitch McConnell is extending an open invitation to Senator Joe Manchin III — come on over to our side.

…

“Why in the world would they want to call him a liar and try to hotbox him and embarrass him?” Mr. McConnell, who is just one Senate seat away from regaining the majority leader title, asked in an interview. “I think the message is, ‘We don’t want you around.’ Obviously that is up to Joe Manchin, but he is clearly not welcome on that side of the aisle.”

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Mr. McConnell’s appeal to Mr. Manchin came as the Republican leader celebrated the year coming to a close without Democrats advancing two of their most ambitious priorities: legislation to bolster voting rights and the sprawling domestic policy bill that Mr. McConnell characterized as part of a “socialist surge that has captured the other side.”

Considering how Republicans began 2021 — in the minority in Congress, a newly elected Democrat poised to move into the White House and a public worn down by a pandemic and alarmed by an assault on the Capitol — Mr. McConnell and his colleagues say they have had a successful year. In some respects, it was all the things they did not do that may have served them best.

They did not maneuver themselves into shutting down the government as they have in the past — despite demands from the right that they never work with Mr. Biden. And they did not allow the government to default, with Mr. McConnell providing Democrats a circuitous path to raising the debt ceiling. Either could have created a backlash for Republicans.

As Democrats spent months trying to hammer out the huge policy bill among themselves, Republicans were relegated to the sidelines. Mr. McConnell said Democrats’ inability to come together on it so far reflected a misreading of the 2020 elections, when voters gave them the White House but bare majorities in both the Senate and the House.

“They did not have a mandate to do anything close to what they tried to do,” said Mr. McConnell, suggesting that progressive “ideology overcame their judgment.”

The decision by Mr. McConnell and other Republicans to help Democrats write and pass a separate, $1 trillion public works bill was, Mr. McConnell said, a smart one, even though Republican supporters of the measure took heat from others in the party, notably Mr. Trump.

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… Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, also intends to press forward with voting rights measures fiercely opposed by Mr. McConnell and is threatening to try to change Senate rules if Republicans try to filibuster it again.

Democrats say Mr. McConnell is being complicit in allowing some states to impose new voting restrictions meant to target voters of color, a charge he rejects, saying that the impact of the new laws is being exaggerated. He said he was relying on Senator Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat who recently reaffirmed her opposition to changing filibuster rules, to hold steady.

“Kyrsten Sinema has been quite unequivocal that she is not going to break the Senate and eliminate the legislative filibuster,” he said. “Thank goodness for that.”

…

Mr. McConnell said he believed his party’s performance this year and the struggles of the Democrats were setting Republicans up for a strong midterm election next year and his potential return to running the Senate no matter what party Mr. Manchin is in. Despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to encourage candidates he favors in key Senate races, Mr. McConnell said he was intent on avoiding the type of primary contests that in the past have hurt Republicans by saddling them with primary winners who falter in general elections (Hulse “McConnell” 1-3).

Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, pushed back hard on Tuesday against the Republican Party censure of Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and its characterization of the Jan. 6 riot as “legitimate political discourse,” saying the riot was a “violent insurrection.”

The remarks from Mr. McConnell, the normally taciturn Kentucky Republican, added to a small but forceful chorus of G.O.P. lawmakers who have decried the action that the Republican National Committee took on Friday, when it officially rebuked Ms. Cheney and Mr. Kinzinger for participating in the House investigation of the Jan. 6 attack, accusing them of “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

Mr. McConnell repudiated that description, saying of the events of Jan. 6, 2021: “We saw it happen. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”

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Mr. McConnell’s comments were a rebuke of how far the party has gone to deny the reality of the violence that unfolded during the bloody assault on the Capitol, sending lawmakers from both parties running for safety. More than 150 people were injured in the attack, which led to several deaths, and nearly 750 individuals have been criminally charged in connection with it.

In the days since the Republican National Committee passed the resolution at its winter meeting in Salt Lake City, a handful of Republicans have criticized the move as everything from a political distraction to a shame on the party. Mr. McConnell, who orchestrated the impeachment acquittal of former President Donald J. Trump and blocked the naming of an independent, bipartisan commission to examine the attack, was among the most blunt in his defense of the only Republicans serving on the committee that rose from that proposal’s ashes.

“Traditionally, the view of the national party committees is that we support all members of our party, regardless of their positions on some issues,” he said. “The issue is whether or not the R.N.C. should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views of the majority. That’s not the job of the R.N.C” (Weisman and Karni 1-3).

Works cited:

Benen, Steve. “Mitch McConnell Changes His Tune about the Jan. 6 Investigation.” MSNBC, December 28, 2021. Net. https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mitch-mcconnell-changes-his-tune-about-jan-6-investigation-n1286683

Holpuch, Amanda. “Mitch McConnell Savages Trump – Minutes after Voting To Acquit.” The Guardian, February 13, 2021. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/13/mitch-mcconnell-trump-republicans

Hulse, Carl. “McConnell to Manchin: We’d Love To Have You, Joe.” New York Times, December 21, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/us/politics/mcconnell-manchin-republican.html

Hulse, Carl. “The Relationship between McConnell and Trump Was Good for Both — Until It Wasn’t.” New York Times, February 19, 2021. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/19/us/trump-mcconnell-republicans.html

“‘Incoherent, Incorrect’: McConnell Dismisses Biden’s Push for US Voting Rights Bill.” The Guardian, January 13, 2022. Net. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/13/us-senator-attacks-bidens-rant-in-favour-of-voting-rights-bill

Levine, Marianne and Everett, Burgess. “McConnell Turns Senate Republicans against Jan. 6 Commission.” Politico, May 19, 2021. Net. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/19/mcconnell-opposes-houses-bipartisan-jan-6-commission-bill-489573

Weisman, Jonathan and Karni, Annie. “McConnell Denounces R.N.C. Censure of Jan. 6 Panel Members.” New York Times, February 8. 2022. Net. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/politics/republicans-censure-mcconnell.html