President Donald Trump accepted “some responsibility” for inciting the storming of the U.S. Capitol in a conversation with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, McCarthy reportedly said Monday.
McCarthy reportedly made the statement on a call Monday with other Republican members of Congress on during a discussion of Democrats’ imminent attempt to impeach Trump. Multiple reporters on the call say McCarthy told Republicans he’d had a conversation with Trump in which the president made the admission.
NEWS: McCarthy tells Republicans on a call just now that Trump told him he does bear some responsibility for the Capitol riots, per source.
— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) January 11, 2021
And @Olivia_Beavers has a second source who confirms this as well.
— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) January 11, 2021
Democrats and many Republicans have argued Trump was the central factor in inciting his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol last week. the riot resulted in the deaths of five people, including a Capitol Hill police officer. (RELATED: Five People Died In The Capitol Riot. Here’s What We Know About Them)
House Democrats plan to vote Wednesday to impeach Trump for a second time, this time on accusations of “incitement of insurrection.” The article of impeachment says Trump’s repeated attempts since November 3rd to overturn the Biden’s win incentivized his supporters to commit violence.
“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” the resolution says. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
Once the Democratic majority in the House votes to impeach, the question of conviction will once again land with the Republican-held Senate. While several Republicans have expressed outrage with the storming of the Capitol, it is unclear whether enough senators will defect from the president to reach the two-thirds majority necessary for removal from office.