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TOP SENATE REPUBLICAN Mitch McConnell delivered a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump yesterday despite voting to acquit the former president on an impeachment charge, saying he was responsible for the 6 January mob assault on the US Capitol.
“There’s no question – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day,” McConnell said in a speech following the vote that led to Trump’s acquittal.
“These criminals were carrying his banners. Hanging his flags. And screaming their loyalty to him.”
He called Trump’s actions leading up to the siege “a disgraceful dereliction of duty.”
McConnell went further and suggested Trump could face charges now that he is out of office.
“President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen,” he said. “He didn’t get away with anything yet.”
The Republican from Kentucky, however, said he voted to acquit Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection because, he said, it is unconstitutional to convict a president in an impeachment trial after he has left office.
The five-day trial concluded last night as expected – with most Republicans declaring Trump not guilty.
But while the 57-43 majority that voted to convict fell short of the two-thirds needed in the Senate, seven Republicans joined with Democrats to seek Trump’s conviction, making it the most bipartisan impeachment trial in US history.
President Joe Biden said that despite the acquittal the charges against Trump are “not in dispute” and called on Americans to defend democracy.
Trump, who has been secluded in his Florida club since leaving office on January 20, welcomed the verdict — denouncing the proceedings as “yet another phase of the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.”
Despite the stain of a second impeachment, Trump hinted at a possible political future, saying that “our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun.”
“We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future,” he said in a statement.
After the trial, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was openly targeted by rioters and evacuated from the Capitol on 6 January, laid into the “cowardly” Republican senators who voted to acquit.
“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,” she said in a statement.
A furious Pelosi later belittled the prospect that Trump might now be the subject of a censure vote in Congress.
“These cowardly senators who couldn’t face up to what the president did and what was at stake for our country are now going to have a chance to give a little slap on the wrist?” she said to reporters, making that gesture.
“We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose. We don’t censure people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the Capitol,” said Pelosi.
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This country has a long way to go in achieving fair, equitable and evidence based care for its women and babies. An epidemic of unnecessary intervention and distrust of the woman’s body are leading to poorer maternity outcomes year on year. This is the tip of the iceberg. Great to see it in the media.
@Aoife Duff: serious question but has this only happened in the last number or years or was it always like this? I only ask because my ex wife and I had 2 children through the rotunda hospital and every single step of both pregnancies she was taking care of amazingly both in 2016 and 2018.
@pBDSiMMi: lucky you.
Many women only have 1 child because maternity experiences are often not great, and traumatic.
@pBDSiMMi: a quick google of the Rotunda birth stats for July 2023 will show you 50.3% of first time mother’s were induced, 27.3% required an instrumental delivery and a frightening 44.8% had a Caesarean section. Now it’s naive to think that all of these women had a negative feedback experience, of course they didn’t, and the need for medical intervention in many of those women’s cases drastically changed the outcome of their labour and birth for the better. It’s also naive to think that as the human race, we have devolved so significantly that almost half of our first time mother’s needed major abdominal surgery to give birth to their first baby.
I won’t go on, the staff are incredible in all of these hospitals but the understaffing, lack of training, and poor policy decisions are failing the women of this country.
I’m so glad you and your wife had a positive experience. I did too, only this June. We are the lucky ones.
@Aoife Duff: thank you for your reply. I really appreciate the information you put in your comment. We are indeed both lucky ones. I wish you all the happiness with your newborn and enjoy parenthood as much as I did before it was cut short. Enjoy your week.
Childbirth can throw up a multitude of different and unforeseen problems. It can also be quick and relatively easy at times. The point is that we can not predict with certainty which one it will be. Each birth was completely different for my 4 children. I agree that sometimes the care, especially the aftercare, received by women falls way below what it should be. Saying that, if I was in difficulty giving birth, I would want to be in a hospital so that that immediate assistance was available for myself and my baby, not a paddling pool at home.
@Helen Murphy: it’s not a “paddling pool” it’s a specially made birth pool you have to buy or rent. I had 2 babies in hospital, one home birth with hospital transfer and one home birth in a birth pool and felt safest at home in the pool. I don’t judge any woman on what way she decides to have her babies the choice should be there for all women and not restricted due to the mostly uneducated opinion of others. Do the research the home birth stats speak for themselves it’s very safe
Cmere Maria Delaney kudos to that headline:)
I agree with a birth pool in a hospital setting but not at home. So many problems can happen that can put the life of the baby and the mother at risk. Hospital births are already dangerous, imagine in a non sterile place as your own living room… And also, people have to stop demonizing C-sections. Don’t see anything wrong with it, had all my kids through elective surgery and don’t regret any of it. Much rather they cut me off than the horrors of a natural birth (saying that after seeing all women from my family suffering health issues for years due to 30 plus hours of pushing).
@Louise: there’s nothing wrong with c sections. Nothing wrong with homebirth either. Google the recently released homebirth stats for yourself.
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