McCarthy Says Trump Should Not Be Found Criminally Responsible for Jan. 6

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said Wednesday he does not believe former President Donald Trump should be held criminally responsible for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

"I don't see how he could be found criminally responsible," he told reporters. "What criminal activity did he do? He told people to be peaceful."

McCarthy's comments come after Trump announced he is likely to be indicted after receiving a letter from special counsel Jack Smith this week informing him that he’s the target of a Jan. 6, 2021, grand jury investigation.

Notably, the speaker is seeking to vindicate Trump before even knowing what the charges Smith may bring or what evidence his team has gathered in their investigation.

In the immediate hours after the Jan. 6 riots, McCarthy spoke on the House floor and said Trump bears some responsibility for the attack. But he has since avoided repeating that characterization as he tries to remain in Trump's good graces.

McCarthy said Trump called him Tuesday and he returned the former president's call, but dismissed the notion that they were strategizing about how to respond to Trump's potential pending indictment in the Jan. 6 probe.

“No, it wasn’t no strategy on possible indictment," he said. "I think the strategy sessions happen in the Democrats’ Department of Justice where they go after anybody who is running against the president it seems.”

McCarthy's defense of Trump stands in contrast to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had been more vocal about how he has ceased to have a relationship with Trump since Jan. 6, and since leaving the White House.

But now that Trump is running for the Republican presidential nomination, McConnell is declining to comment on matters involving him, including his latest legal woes.

"I've said every week out here that I'm not gonna comment on the various candidates for the presidency,” McConnell told reporters at his weekly press conference Wednesday. “How I felt about that, I expressed at the time. But I'm not gonna start getting into sort of critiquing the various candidates for president."