McConnell rebukes RNC, calls Jan. 6 ‘violent insurrection’

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is criticizing the Republican National Committee for censuring two House GOP lawmakers investigating the “violent insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, saying it’s not the party’s job to police the views of lawmakers.

As former President Donald Trump has downplayed the attack by his supporters last year — the worst attack against the Capitol in two centuries — the RNC last week took a voice vote to approve censuring Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at the party’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City. The two Republicans sit on a Democratled House committee that is aggressively investigating the siege and has subpoenaed many in the former president’s inner circle.

The RNC resolution censuring Cheney and Kinzinger accused the House panel of leading a “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” — words that drew outrage from Democrats and firm pushback from several GOP senators. The rioters who broke into the Capitol through windows and doors brutally beat law enforcement officers and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump.

“It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” McConnell said Tuesday. He said he still has confidence in RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, but “the issue is whether or not the RNC should be sort of singling out members of our party who may have different views than the majority. That’s not the job of the RNC.”

The dispute is the latest tug of war within the party over issues that McConnell and others see as politically beneficial and would prefer to talk about in an election year — inflation, for example — versus the discourse over the insurrection and Trump’s election lies.