参议院少数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔回击了那些指责他投票支持前总统无罪的伪善者唐纳德·特朗普然后指责他挑起国会大厦的攻击，以及他声称当批评者说他本可以早些打电话给参议院时，定罪已经太晚了。

在一个点评在《华尔街日报》上，麦康奈尔重复了他在参议院的讲话周六的投票“毫无疑问，前总统特朗普负有道德责任。”

“但经过紧张的研究，我得出结论，第二条第四款限制弹劾和定罪，”他写道。

特朗普在周二下午的一份冗长的新闻稿中抨击了这位参议员，称麦康奈尔是“一个阴沉、阴沉、不苟言笑的政治黑客，如果共和党参议员要和他在一起，他们不会再赢了。”

这位前总统在离职后发表的罕见声明中表示:“有米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)这样的政治‘领导人’掌舵，共和党再也不会受到尊重或强大。”“麦康奈尔一如既往地致力于商业、维持现状的政策，加上他缺乏政治洞察力、智慧、技能和个性，这使他迅速从多数党领袖变成了少数党领袖，而且只会变得更糟。”

特朗普还对麦康奈尔的连任表示赞赏，称他现在对这一支持感到遗憾，并指责他在佐治亚州两次赢得民主党胜利后失去了对参议院的控制。

众议院议长南希·佩洛西周六，他辩称，在特朗普仍在任期间，麦康奈尔推迟了审判没有让参议院回来直到1月19日，特朗普离开白宫的前一天。

佩洛西说:“参议员麦康奈尔关闭参议院是如此可悲，以至于参议院无法收到弹劾条款，并以此为借口不投票给唐纳德·特朗普定罪。”

麦康奈尔回应说:“时间安排的批评者实际上是在说:参议院共和党人应该效仿众议院仓促的程序，用一个光速参议院骗局。”“他们认为我们应该粉碎正当程序，并在一场赛跑中引发一场宪法危机，以逃脱我们失去司法管辖权的命运。”

“考虑到有人声称，在特朗普还在任的时候，我可以在1月14日至1月20日期间召回参议院，从而绕过管辖权问题，”他写道。“突出的日期不是审判的开始，而是审判的结束，在这一天，解除职务的惩罚必须是可能的。在不到一周的时间里，没有一个公平或正常的参议院程序能够开始和结束。就连我们刚刚结束的轻快弹劾程序也花了19天。”

关于他的论点，即一旦特朗普离开，参议院就不再有管辖权，他写道，“一位在审判开始时称赞宪法的众议院经理现在嘲笑它为“技术性问题”。另一个人把这个关键问题称为“漏洞”。...自由派人士表示，他们谴责前总统的鲁莽行事。但许多人显然无法抗拒同样的诱惑。"

“了解参议院的拜登总统早在1月8日就表示，他的宣誓就职是改变白宫居住者的“最快”可能途径。尤其是因为众议院直到1月13日才投票，任何合法的参议院程序肯定会在就职日之后结束，”麦康奈尔继续说道，他上个月也提出了这一点。

他把自己描绘成宪法的保护者，写道参议院通过无罪释放投票“证明了宪法是正确的，而不是特朗普”。

参议院上周二以55票对45票，确认特朗普的审判符合宪法，在他们的权限内可以进行。麦康奈尔当时投票反对其合宪性。

一旦审判在参议院正式开始，它将在五天内完成——这是历史上最短的总统弹劾审判。特朗普在2020年的首次弹劾审判持续了21天。

麦康奈尔在宣判无罪后于周六发表的公开讲话中，痛斥了他的前盟友，并表示“毫无疑问”，特朗普“在实践和道德上应对当天的事件负责”。

他说，“如果特朗普总统还在任期内，我会仔细考虑众议院的管理人员是否证明了他们的具体指控”——但鉴于这一选择，由于特朗普在1月13日星期三被众议院弹劾，他没有使用它——即使包括参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)在内的民主党人公开敦促他尽早召集参议院召开紧急会议，开始审判。

“很明显，只有特朗普总统才能结束这一切，”麦康奈尔周六表示。“总统没有迅速采取行动。他没有尽职。”

因为麦康奈尔直接同意他们的观点，但仍然坚持认为参议院无权审判前总统，众议院弹劾经理决定不传唤证人，即使在获得足够的选票后，这说明了他的投票的重要性。

“我们本可以有5000名证人，米奇·麦康奈尔也会发表同样的讲话，因为他声称参议院从来没有对前总统拥有管辖权，”众议院弹劾经理杰米·拉斯金(Jamie Raskin)说。“出于我不需要赘述的原因——因为试验的很大一部分是关于这个——我们完全拒绝那个。这与我们的历史完全不符。”

在他看来，麦康奈尔为特朗普被刑事起诉敞开了大门。

“特朗普总统仍然要为他在任期间所做的一切负责，”他周六表示。“他还没有逃脱任何惩罚。”

然而，他在评论中没有提到这条路线。也许是为了在面临巨大分歧的党内建立团结，麦康奈尔写道，他尊重民主党的决定七名共和党人他们投票定罪，支持他们对宪法的解释。

“我尊重得出相反答案的参议员，”他写道。"不值得尊重的是声称宪法问题是小事，勇敢的参议员会忽略这些。"

Mitch McConnell responds to critics after voting to acquit Donald Trump

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is hitting back at critics who accuse him of hypocrisy for voting not guilty in former President Donald Trump's trial and then blaming him for provoking the Capitol attack -- as well as for his claim it was too late to convict when critics say he could have called the Senate back earlier.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, McConnell repeated what he said on the Senate floor after Saturday's vote that there is "no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility."

"But after intense study, I concluded that Article II, Section 4 limits impeachment and conviction to current officers," he wrote.

Trump blasted the senator in a lengthy press release Tuesday afternoon, calling McConnell a "dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again."

"The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political 'leaders' like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm," the former president said in the rare statement issued since he left office. "McConnell’s dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse."

Trump also took credit for McConnell's reelection -- saying he now regrets the endorsement -- and blamed him for losing control of the Senate with two Democratic victories in Georgia.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued on Saturday that McConnell delayed a trial while Trump was still in office by not bringing the Senate back until Jan. 19, a day before Trump was to leave the White House.

"It is so pathetic that Senator McConnell kept the Senate shut down so that the Senate could not receive the article of impeachment and has used that as his excuse for not voting to convict Donald Trump," Pelosi said.

"Here's what the scheduling critics are really saying: Senate Republicans should have followed a rushed House process with a light-speed Senate sham," McConnell responded. "They think we should have shredded due process and ignited a constitutional crisis in a footrace to outrun our loss of jurisdiction."

"Consider the claim that I could have steered around the jurisdictional issue by recalling the Senate between Jan. 14 and Jan. 20, while Mr. Trump was still in office," he wrote. "The salient date is not the trial’s start but the end, when the penalty of removal from office must be possible. No remotely fair or regular Senate process could have started and finished in less than one week. Even the brisk impeachment process we just concluded took 19 days."

With regard to his argument that once Trump was gone, the Senate no longer had jurisdiction, he wrote, "One House manager who lauded the Constitution when the trial began now derides it as "a technicality." Another called this pivotal question "a loophole. ... Liberals said they condemned the former president's rules-be-damned recklessness. But many apparently cannot resist that same temptation."

"President Biden, who knows the Senate, stated as early as Jan. 8 that his swearing-in was the 'quickest' possible path to changing the occupant of the White House. Especially since the House didn't vote until Jan. 13, any legitimate Senate process was certain to end after Inauguration Day," McConnell continued, a point he argued last month, too.

Painting himself as a protector of the Constitution, he wrote that the Senate "vindicated the Constitution, not Trump" with the acquittal vote.

The Senate voted last Tuesday, 55-45, to affirm its power that Trump trial's was constitutional and within their authority to proceed. McConnell voted against its constitutionality then.

Once the trial kicked off in the Senate in earnest it was completed in five days -- the shortest presidential impeachment trial in history. Trump's first impeachment trial in 2020 spanned 21 days.

In floor remarks Saturday after his acquittal vote, McConnell excoriated his former ally and said there was "no question" Trump was "practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day."

He said, "If President Trump were still in office, I would have carefully considered whether the House managers proved their specific charge" -- but given that option, since Trump was impeached by the House on Wednesday, Jan. 13, he did not use it -- even as Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, publicly urged him to call the Senate back early for an emergency session to begin the trial.

"It was obvious that only President Trump could end this," McConnell said Saturday. "The president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job."

Because McConnell directly agreed with their case but remained adamant the Senate lacked jurisdiction to try a former president, House impeachment managers decided not to call witnesses even after getting enough votes to do so, illustrating the significance of his vote.

"We could have had 5,000 witnesses and Mitch McConnell would have made the same speech because what he's asserting is that the Senate never has jurisdiction over a former president," lead House impeachment managers Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said. "And for reasons I don't need to belabor -- because a big part of the trial was about this -- we reject that completely. It's totally at odds with our history."

McConnell has left the door open, in his view, for Trump to be criminally prosecuted.

"President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he's in office," he said on Saturday. "He didn't get away with anything yet."

However, he did not make mention of that route in his op-ed. Perhaps in an attempt to build unity in his party which is facing massive fissures, McConnell wrote he respects the decision of the seven Republicans who voted to convict, supported by their interpretation of the Constitution.

"I respect senators who reached the opposite answer," he wrote. "What deserve no respect are claims that constitutional concerns are trivialities that courageous senators would have ignored."

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