‘Moscow Mitch’ Knew of Trump’s Attempts to Overturn 2020 Presidential Election Weeks In Advance
According to a soon-to-be-released book by New York Times political reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was aware of Donald Trump’s plan to remain in office, because Trump himself wanted McConnell to know.
The book details how Trump was certain he could subvert the election outcome, and he told McConnell and other top Republicans that he had personally been on the phone with officials in Pennsylvania and Michigan who told him they would move to keep him in power, despite the results showing Joe Biden had won their states.
As contributors to CNN, Martin and Burns provided the network with an excerpt of the book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future”, which stresses that McConnell wasn’t exactly a willing participant, saying Trump’s conspiracies left McConnell “in a bad spot” as he was hoping to shift the focus away from the 2020 election to focus on the important races for two Senate seats in Georgia, both of which were headed to January 2021 runoffs and would determine the next Senate majority. McConnell shrewdly and strategically remained silent regarding Trump’s lies in an attempt to prevent him from sabotaging the GOP’s chances ahead of the runoffs, the book says.
Mitch McConnell knew Trump was planning to overturn the election and stayed quiet. Any reporter asking him about anything else from now until eternity can F right off.
— Mr. Newberger (@jeremynewberger) April 14, 2022
The excerpt shares that Trump believed that if Republican Gov. Brian Kemp could be pressured to de-certify Joe Biden’s narrow win in Georgia, it would lead to a domino effect in other battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, which would then follow suit and overturn Biden’s legitimate electoral victory.
Dec. 2020, I asked McConnell why he's not speaking out against Trump/"stolen" election:
"I'm focusing on trying to accomplish as much as we can during this three-week period" in Congress
Privately, MM believed criticizing Trump would hurt GOP in #gasenhttps://t.co/NihlbL9bHR pic.twitter.com/4Q4iyrf7Nu— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 13, 2022
Read the full story at CNN.