Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), in a letter to Republican colleagues, wrote he would vote to acquit former President Donald Trump, reported by Politico Saturday morning.
In the report, McConnell “told GOP colleagues in a letter that he will vote to acquit Donald Trump in the former president’s impeachment trial, according to sources familiar with the communication.”
In the lead up to the trial, McConnell refused to reveal his intentions. He told reporters that he intended to hear both sides of the arguments.
“I think that’s what we ought to do. That’s what I said before it started. That’s still my view,” McConnell said at the time.
McConnell previously told colleagues that their vote would be one of “conscience” as he made waves after a speech on the house floor on January 19. The January 6 mob was “fed lies” and “provoked by the president and other powerful people.”
“And they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like,” he said.
Democrats and members of the establishment media were hopeful that McConnell would guide Republicans to convict the former president. The conviction remains unlikely, given that 44 GOP senators, including McConnell, have questioned the proceedings’ constitutionality with the trial this week.
According to a Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey taken this month, 53 percent of Kentuckians disapprove of McConnell’s job performance, and 41 percent approve.