More from the article...

... Why it matters: McConnell has long been a Trump critic, but a new book throws his weight behind some of the most serious federal charges against Trump.

- - - "If he hasn't committed indictable offenses, I don't know what one is," the longest-serving Republican leader told journalist Michael Tackett in an interview for "The Price of Power," weeks after Smith brought the charges against Trump in August 2023.

- - - "From the start, McConnell thought the charges brought by federal prosecutors against Trump had merit," Tackett writes.

- - - McConnell told him "there's no doubt who inspired it, and I just hope that he'll have to pay a price for it," referencing Jan. 6.

Between the lines: Tackett's book reveals just how seriously McConnell considered voting to convict Trump of related impeachment charges in 2021.

- - - Conviction could have led to the Senate blocking Trump from running for office again.

- - - McConnell explicitly considered the idea, according to one of his oral history interviews done a week after the insurrection. ...

@#2 ... Yeah, no. Turtle is a fucking lying cowardly bitch. ...

Apparently, the main goal of his rule as Senate Majority Leader was to be the longest-serving person in a leadership position. That, apparently, brought him to tears.