It has always seemed unlikely that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the Senate, would vote to condemn the disgraceful former president, who even rules exile in Mar-a-Lago over most of his party.
But the justification McConnell offered when he announced his vote for acquittal on Saturday was an act of political cynicism and a substantial evasion of the main issue the Senate asked to be decided: whether Donald Trump is responsible for firing the Capitol on January 6th.
McConnell has already said what he thinks about the facts: Trump is guilty of incitement, at least under a common sense definition of the word.
“The crowd has been lying,” McConnell said in a Senate speech last month. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific process” – the certification of President Biden’s election – “which they did not like.”
For the usually sphinx-like McConnell, it was a moment of astonishing clarity – as close to an act of courage as we have seen lately in a party whose members are alternately enchanted or terrified by Trump.
But McConnell then withdrew and voted to spare Trump from being held accountable – not because he was innocent, but on strict procedural grounds.
“While I have been on a close call, I am convinced that accusations are primarily a tool for removal, and that we therefore have no jurisdiction,” he wrote to other senators before the vote.
Even though Trump was charged when he was president, McConnell argued, he could not be tried after the end of his term.
Most jurists, conservatives and liberals, believe that the argument is wrong. In recent centuries, the Senate has tried at least two officials who were no longer in power. And last week, the Senate upheld the precedent by a dual vote of 56 to 44.
The motive for McConnell’s withdrawal is clear: he wants to give his Republican colleagues a front-page story, a technical excuse to vote against accusation, so that it does not backfire. Most Republican primary voters remain loyal to Trump, often fiercely.
But the reason McConnell provides it is so thin that it is unlikely to stand up well in the eyes of history.
McConnell’s evasion was not the only weak excuse reached by GOP senators, as they sought reasons to acquit an accused, many of whom are privately guilty.
Some kept them busy with old-fashioned tits: Of course Trump raised the mob, but did some Democrats not do the same when they made excuses for violence on the brink of Black Lives Matter protests?
“You had a summer where people across the country did similar things,” sen said. Roy Blunt of Missouri said. So what’s the big problem that Trump is encouraging the people who fired the Capitol and threatened to kill the vice president?
Equally weak was the claim that the accusation was’ just ‘political’, a product of hatred for Trump and his followers.
“This is about humiliating the individuals who have supported President Trump,” he said. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee argued.
Let it be said that ten Republics of the House, including Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, took the charges seriously enough to join the Democrats in voting in favor of the indictment.
Then there is the first amendment: the idea that Trump is responsible for the effect of his words is a violation of his rights.
This is simply wrong. The first amendment protects Citizen Trump’s right to vote. It does not protect former President Trump from losing his job – or from resigning – if Congress decides he has committed crimes against the Constitution. And the first amendment does not protect incitement to violence.
And that brings us to the real accusation against Trump – the one that the Republicans keep trying to evade.
The evidence made it clear that Trump did not just encourage the mob; as they wandered through the Capitol, he waited hours before telling them to go home.
The president’s defenders want senators to judge Trump’s guilt of incitement according to the standard of criminal law, which requires that he intentionally and directly caused the riot.
But accusation is not a criminal process. It is the process by which Congress can remove a high-ranking official who has violated his oath and removed him from office in the future.
The senators who voted for acquittal must clearly state whether or not they believe Trump incited the mob. McConnell said Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the events of Jan. 6, but allowed him to do so in a technical way. Most other Republicans have not even gone that far.
History will remember their voices as their statements about Trump’s words and actions – not as a decision on whether officials were released from prosecution for trial in their last month of government.
They need to consider what their political calculation may look like in the short term years after that, also for voters in the upcoming election.
On Saturday, Trump demanded his acquittal as a victory and promised his followers that he would remain politically active. “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to make America great again has just begun,” he said.
In the coming months, new evidence could emerge to show whether Trump was directly connected to the extremists who assaulted the Capitol. As we heard Saturday, Trump seemed unconcerned that members of Congress were in mortal danger that day.
And if Trump survives all investigations into his behavior, retains his grip on the IDP and wins his party’s presidential nomination in 2024, his loyalists in the Senate will be held accountable – even though they pretend not to do so.
McConnell, no fan of Trump, seems to be gambling that the former president will naturally disappear and that his hold on the Republican Party will weaken. He and the IDP must hope they are right.