Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) surprised many when he warned against efforts to overturn the Electoral College results in Joe Biden’s favor, saying there is not enough evidence behind Donald Trump’s voter fraud allegations.
“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side our democracy would enter a death spiral. We’d never see the whole nation accept the election again,” McConnell said on Wednesday on the Senate floor as Congress began their process for certifying the Electoral College votes.
Not long after, Trump supporters breached the Capitol building, prompting evacuations and panic. Images showed what appeared to be an armed stand-off between protesters and police at the door of the House of Representatives chamber. Video later emerged of a woman being shot elsewhere inside the building.
Also on rt.com Trump supporter SHOT during Capitol breach, now in critical conditionIn his comments before the chaos, McConnell added it would be “unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts and states on this extraordinarily thin basis.”
McConnell said he supported Trump pursuing legal avenues in the wake of his loss to Biden, but “over and over the courts rejected these claims including all-star judges whom the president himself has nominated.”
Trump’s allegations of fraud, he continued, do not equate to be massive enough to tip the scales of the election.
“The Constitution gives us here in Congress a limited role. We can’t simply declare ourselves a national board of election on steroids,” he said.
McConnell breaking with Trump and other Republicans who have supported voter fraud allegations surprised many on social media, especially liberal pundits who are typically highly critical of the Senate majority leader.
More conservative users called the senator out for his sudden turn on the president.
Thousands had gathered in Washington, DC for the ‘Save America’ rally where President Donald Trump himself spoke, saying he will “never concede” the election to Biden and once again called on Vice President Mike Pence, who presides over the certification, to overrule the “fraudulent” Electoral College votes.
In a statement released Wednesday, Pence said after a study of the Constitution, he does not believe he has the authority to choose which electoral votes get counted and which do not, though he said he shares concern about “the integrity of this election.”
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