Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election established no conspiracy took place between Russia and the Trump campaign and the case is "closed," during a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday.
McConnell took Democrats and the media to task for using the investigation to try to avoid coming to terms with the 2016 election results.
"It bears remembering what this investigation was actually supposed to be about: Russian interference in 2016. Many of the president's opponents had quickly morphed it into something else: a last hope that maybe they'd never have to come to terms with the American people's choice of a president. In some corners special counsel Mueller came to be regarded as a kind of secular saint, destined to rescue the country from the inconvenient truth that the American people actually elected Donald Trump," McConnell said.
McConnell argued the Democratic Party has not behaved seriously in recent days.
"What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report which said the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," McConnell said. "That's the conclusion."
"Two years of exhaustive investigation and nothing to establish the fanciful conspiracy theory that Democratic politicians and TV talking heads had treated like a foregone conclusion. They told everyone there had been a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign—conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign yet on this special question, the special counsel's finding is clear: Case closed. Case closed," McConnell continued.
McConnell also took Democrats to task for directing their anger at Attorney General William Barr.
"The Democrats are angry, angry that the facts disappointed them, angry that our legal system will not magically undo the 2016 election for them. And they've opted to channel all their partisan anger on to the attorney general," McConnell said.
"Working with the special counsel team, [Barr] released as much as possible within standard safeguards. So it's hard to see, Madam President, the source of the anger. Maybe our Democrat colleagues are thinking of some strange new kind of cover-up where you take the entire thing you're supposedly covering up and post it on the internet," McConnell added.
"This whole angry barrage the Democrats had prepared to unleash on President Trump, except the facts let them down. The facts let them down, and so the left has swung all these cannons around and fired them at the attorney general. Not for any legitimate reason. Just because he is a convenient target. So look, Madam President, there is this outrage industrial complex, outrage industrial complex that spans from Capitol press conferences to cable news," McConnell said.
McConnell said Democrats are "grieving" because the crisis they wished for "did not materialize," and argued they are now "slandering a distinguished public servant because the real world has disappointed them."
"The American people sent us here to deliver results for their families. That's what republicans have been doing for the past two years and counting. That's what Republicans will continue to do, and whenever our Democratic friends can regain their composure, can regain their composure and come back to reality, we look forward to their help," McConnell concluded.