The supporters of US President Donald Trump gather in front of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Probal Rashid | LightRocket | Getty Images
President Donald Trump and others provoked the swarms of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday.
“The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,” said McConnell in the Senate, who had been evacuated two weeks earlier after the riot crowd broke into the building.
The remarks made by McConnell, R-Ky., Came as he and Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., Senate minority chairman, worked to work out details of Trump’s impeachment trial.
The GOP leader made the direct link between the Republican president’s rhetoric and the January 6 uprising that killed five people the day before President-elect Joe Biden was sworn in as president.
McConnell has denied pressure from the Democrats to hold this process before Trump leaves office, but he has told colleagues that he is unsure whether Trump should be sentenced in the Senate for incitement to insurrection.
Trump has denied responsibility for the Capitol break-in, insisting that what he said at a rally outside the White House shortly before the attack was “perfectly appropriate”.
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request to comment on McConnell’s remarks.
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