McConnell begged Barr to stop Trump’s bogus election claims over fears for Georgia Senate seats

At the end of 2020, as Donald Trump continued to make false claims about a supposedly “rigged” election, Mitch McConnell reportedly urged then attorney general William Barr to publicly speak out, worried that trashing the electoral process could hurt the Republican party’s chances in upcoming runoff elections in Georgia which would determine who controls the Senate.

“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” Mr McConnell told Mr Barr, according to interviews for Betrayal, a new book from journalist Jonathan Karl, about the final days of the Trump administration, “and so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”

At the time, neither the Senate leader, who confirmed Karl’s account, nor the attorney general, believed Mr Trump’s debunked claims about the election.