With just over two weeks till the 2024 presidential election, the gloves are off, and divide and conquer seems to be the play for some, desperate to stay in power.

According to an upcoming biography, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed his support for the federal charges against former President Donald Trump in relation to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and expressed his desire that Trump would "pay a price" for the attack, as VOZ reported.

McConnell has been critical of the former president for years, yet he has publicly supported him. In 2023, he expressed his support for Special Counsel Jack Smith.

What McConnell Said

“If he hasn’t committed indictable offenses, I don’t know what one is,” McConnell allegedly told Michael Tackett while he was writing the book, The Price of Power.

McConnell allegedly made the remark just a few weeks after Smith filed the charges in August of last year. The publication date of the book is scheduled for one week before the election.

“From the start, McConnell thought the charges brought by federal prosecutors against Trump had merit,” the journalist writes, according to Axios.

“There’s no doubt who inspired it, and I just hope that he’ll have to pay a price for it,” McConnell told Tackett about January 6.

More Book Details

In the second trial for Trump's impeachment, the book claims that McConnell considered voting to convict. The ex-president would not have been able to run for office again if he had been found guilty.

“I’m not at all conflicted about whether what the president did is an impeachable offense. I think it is,” McConnell said in comments provided to Tackett.

According to the minority leader, backing a siege on Congress "is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine," which, to McConnell's mind, is what Trump did.

The Final Vote

According to McConnell, Trump was ineligible for conviction since he had already resigned from office, so he voted to exonerate him.

“We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one,” he said at the time.

On the other hand, the president is exempt from legal consequences for official acts taken while in office, according to a recent Supreme Court ruling.

“Whatever I may have said about President Trump pales in comparison to what JD Vance, Lindsey Graham, and others have said about him, but we are all on the same team now,” McConnell said in a statement, according to Axios.