I’ll employ a legal metaphor — “fruit of a poisonous tree” — to trace the path of one of the worst failures in U.S. history: The failure to hold Trump criminally responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and Congress, a failure that kept Trump eligible to run for president a third time.

And whose actions set in motion the scenario that led to Trump’s second ascendancy to the presidency? It was Mitchell McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, who poisoned the tree in 2016 when he refused to bring President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court to the Senate for consideration. McConnell claimed the next president — and not the sitting president, with eight months left in office — should be allowed to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

It was outrageous, but it stood. And Obama’s nominee, a federal judge named Merrick Garland, never got a hearing.

Trump won the 2016 election and got to collect the fruit of that poisoned tree: He put three new justices on the high court, the last confirmed by the Senate just a week before the 2020 election. “The Senate is doing the right thing,” McConnell said at the time. A more cynical and hypocritical creature never surfaced along the Potomac.

And he will be remembered as history’s greatest enabler of a former president who should have gone to prison instead of the Oval Office.

Track the history: In what looked like a political countermove after he defeated Trump, President Joe Biden made Garland the Attorney General. You’d think cleaning up the Trump mess would have been Garland’s priority because, after all, Trump had attempted to undermine the constitutional system established at the dawn of the republic; he had resisted the peaceful transfer of power and called on his MAGA minions to march on the Capitol and disrupt Congress’s certification of Biden’s victory. But, Garland was apparently so worried about appearing to be political that he did little to nothing to hold Trump accountable.

As Attorney General, he did not name a special counsel to investigate Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection until November of 2022, nearly two years into Biden’s presidency. Jack Smith acted quickly and secured an indictment of the ex-president. But, of course, it was too late to get to trial, much less secure a conviction. Then came the disastrous November 2024 election. Trump gets to be president again, with not a scratch on him.

Smith says he had enough evidence to get a conviction, and it’s totally believable, given the findings of the congressional committee that investigated the insurrection. But Smith has closed up shop. Trump will never face consequences for his subversion of the Constitution and his oath.

You can blame Merrick Garland, as many do.

But I go back to Mitch McConnell. He was the founder of this feast of poisoned fruit. He kept Garland off the Supreme Court, enabling Trump to stack the court with justices awed by executive power. He blamed Trump for the attack on Congress but voted to acquit him in Trump’s second impeachment trial. Then, Garland, in a position to establish Trump’s criminality, did nothing for months, then allowed the remorseless authoritarian to run out the clock. Next week, Trump will become chief executive again, and the American tragedy continues, owing to the cynical, destructive actions of an 82-year-old Republican senator who will go down in history as the chief enabler of a criminal president.

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Published by Dan Rodricks

Dan Rodricks is a former long-time columnist for The Baltimore Sun, winner of numerous national and regional journalism awards, a radio and TV personality, podcaster and fly angler. His narrative memoir, "Father's Day Creek," was published in May 2019 by Apprentice House at Loyola University Maryland.

12 thoughts on “Mitch McConnell, the greatest enabler in U.S. history, kept Trump out of prison”

  6. Michael H C McDowell
    And in Maryland, our lone Trump Party Congress Member, Rep. Andy Harris “M.D”, as he insists, plotted in the Oval Office with Trump on Dec. 20, 2019 to overturn the election on January 6, 2020. Harris, has been 14 years in the House, all mouth and no ears, with a single measly bill passed on renaming of a…post…office! Now he heads (unopposed) the GOP extremist FreeDumb Circus/”Freedom Caucus.” Harris’s model for the USA is neofascist strongman of Hungary, Viktor Orban. Harris regularly visited Hungary year after year and liked what he saw. Harris also swore to run for only 6 terms. He lied and is now on his 8th term! The man is irredeemable.

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  8. Dan, you are spot on re blatant hypocrisy of McConnell and the GOP, but neither Mitch nor his criminal underlings really care about justice, only raw power.

    And Garland was too concerned about propriety and following the norms to do what needed to be done, prosecuting Trump. Garland will also not be judged favorably by history, sadly. A lost opportunity we will pay dearly for.

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  9. Thank you so much for continuing to write and publish your commentary. I will sorely miss you and your column in The Baltimore Sun. I’ve been reading your spot-on writings since the very early 80’s, when I was just entering high school, and have always looked forward to your insightful commentary on all things Baltimore and beyond. Thank you for always being honest about the good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly, and for accomplishing all of that without being mean, petty or demeaning. You and your column have truly been a bright spot all of these years and I thank you for the countless stories and individuals you highlighted and brought to life for everyone reading the newspaper.
    As for Mitch McConnell and his slimy political maneuverings, one would hope his legacy will have a big black mark and include how his dealings contributed to the precarious state of democracy in our country.

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  10. I was a long time customer of the Sunpapers – think full financial and weather reporting. I always loved reading your columns until the Sunpaper and I parted ways. There were too many changes after they were bought and I didn’t trust the news as a factual reporting. This morning, your decision to leave came through on my Facebook thread. I wish you well as your adventure continues! Your words and perspective either voiced or written are always welcomed. Now that I have discovered your page, I will look forward to your next adventure! Thanks for letting me follow!

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