It's possible that, without Julie Kelly's dogged journalistic efforts, almost no one would remember the January 6 martyrs, immured in dirty, cruelly managed D.C. prisons for the sin of entering the Capitol last January.  For 15 months, Kelly has lived and breathed the story, ferreting out every bit of information that the government isn't hiding from defendants and journalists alike.  That knowledge, combined with a book revealing Sen. Mitch McConnell's feelings about Trump, led her to suggest that McConnell encouraged the breakdown on January 6 to avoid protest votes against Biden's assuming the presidency.

I strongly urge you to read Kelly's entire article, because she includes chapter and verse to make her case.  Here's the short version.

Mitch McConnell was as desperate as Democrats to get Biden into the White House after the election ended:

During a conference call on December 31, 2020, McConnell urged his Republican Senate colleagues to abandon plans to object to the certification, insisting his vote to certify the 2020 election results would be "the most consequential I have ever cast" in his 36-year Senate career.

From the Senate floor on the afternoon of January 6, McConnell gave a dramatic speech warning of the dire consequences to the country should Republicans succeed in delaying the vote. He downplayed examples of voting fraud and even mocked the fact that Trump-appointed judges rejected election lawsuits.

Despite his pleas, McConnell knew that fourteen senators were going to reject the Electoral College results from disputed states.  (As an aside, there was nothing extraordinary about this, except for the fact that Republicans were doing it.  Beginning in 2002, Senate Democrats objected when Bush's and Trump's Electoral College votes were being counted.)

Although McConnell knew that these objections would fail, he also knew that they had publicity value, writes Kelly.  "The Hail Mary effort was doomed to fail; yet the American people would have heard hours of debate related to provable election fraud over the course of the day."

It turns out that McConnell wasn't just thinking in somber terms about America's well-being.  Instead, he was "exhilarated" that Trump was on his way out:

While he projected a sober tone to the American public, McConnell privately was ecstatic, a new book about the 2020 election reveals. "I feel exhilarated by the fact that this fellow finally, totally discredited himself," McConnell told New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin late on January 6, 2021 about Trump. Martin is the co-author of This Will Not Pass, of which excerpts were published in the Washington Post this week. Martin in the book recounts his midnight conversation with McConnell.

[snip]

Calling Trump a "despicable person," McConnell reportedly bragged how he "crushed the sons of b-----" on January 6 and promised to do the same to them in the 2022 primaries.

With that as background — McConnell's vicious hatred for Trump and his desperation to ignore the mountains of evidence that there was fraud in the disputed states — Kelly asks an important question: "why did McConnell's office fail to protect the Capitol on January 6?"

Image: Mitch McConnell (edited).  YouTube screen grab.

She explains that we've heard that Nancy Pelosi asked Paul Irving, her sergeant at arms for the House, not to provide any extra policing despite the expectation that 100,000 Trump-supporters would descend on the Capitol.  It turns out that McConnell's sergeant at arms, Michael Stenger, was also unwilling to provide any extra help.  Beginning on January 4, Steven Sund, a Capitol Police captain, was unable to get additional support from either Irving or Stenger.

Once events began to unfold on January 6 (despite, or perhaps because of, an FBI presence), Sund again asked for help.  Both of the sergeants at arms later said they were waiting for authority from Pelosi and McConnell.  "That approval came an hour later, but with a caveat: Sund also needed the Pentagon's authorization," writes Kelly.  The Pentagon (which also hated Trump) dragged its feet, and extra help arrived only 4.5 hours after the request and long after the protest ended.

McConnell had a role in the protest because he refused to act to prevent or minimize it:

Not only did McConnell's top law enforcement officials purportedly overlook the potential for violence on January 6, he denied requests for more officers days before and delayed sending guardsmen to Capitol Hill that afternoon.

I will always be grateful to McConnell for keeping Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court.  Other than that, it's currently hard for me to think of any other reason to respect this man.  He is a stark reminder that, during primaries, Republicans must stop electing the same old RINOs.  If we want to push back against the anti-American madness in Washington, D.C., we must vote for politicians who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, owe nothing to China, and support the American people.