Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed in an account published Sunday that he declined to publicly confront former President Donald Trump’s election lies because he did not want to upset Trump and wanted to win Senate elections in Georgia.
The Atlantic‘s Jonathan Karl reported that ahead of two January runoff Senate elections in Georgia, McConnell told then-Attorney General William Barr that he wanted Barr to confront Trump over his lies about the 2020 election results and would not do so himself.
“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” he said. According to Karl’s reporting, McConnell was afraid Trump would “sabotage” the Georgia campaigns if he declared Joe Biden had won the election. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.” Continue reading.