(WASHINGTON) — Shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell did something extraordinary: He decided to disinvite Donald Trump from President Joe Biden’s upcoming inauguration because he was worried Trump could use the occasion to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, according to a new book by ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl.
Karl’s book, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, details how after the Capitol attack, McConnell told aides he wanted the top Congressional leaders to draft a letter telling the then-sitting president that he was not welcome to attend the inauguration.
The events eventually prompted Trump to send off what would be his final tweet before being banned by the social media platform, according to Betrayal, set to be released on Nov. 16.
“McConnell felt he could not give Trump another opportunity to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” Karl writes in the new book. “McConnell wanted to get a letter together from the top four congressional leaders informing Trump that he had been disinvited.”
But not everyone in Republican leadership was on board with McConnell’s plan.
“Kevin McCarthy opposed the idea, arguing it would be an important message of unity to have Trump attend the ceremony as Biden took the oath of office,” according to the book. “But McConnell was determined to disinvite Trump regardless of whether McCarthy would sign the letter.”
McCarthy, Karl writes, would alert the White House about McConnell’s plan to disinvite Trump. And before the letter could be drafted, “Trump sent out a tweet saying he wouldn’t be attending.”
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20,” Trump wrote on Jan. 8.
“Trump apparently wanted people to think it was his decision alone to become the first outgoing president after an election to fail to attend an inauguration since Andrew Johnson skipped the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant in 1869,” Karl writes.
Following an initial suspension following the Capitol attack, Twitter had briefly reinstated Trump’s account on Jan. 7, during which time Trump reverted back to complaining about the election, writing, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
But his tweet about not attending the inauguration would be his last.
Following that tweet, the social media company responded by issuing a “permanent suspension” of Trump’s account, determining that in the context of the Capitol attack, Trump’s tweets violated its glorification of violence policy.
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