Lexington police respond to protesters at KY Sen. Mitch McConnell’s local office
Lexington police responded Thursday to a group protesting a federal cabinet nomination at U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s Lexington office.
No protesters were arrested, but they were ordered to leave the office on Corporate Drive, just off Harrodsburg Road.
The group — about two-dozen people, the youngest of whom was 50, according to the group — was protesting President Donald Trump’s nomination of Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Vought is an architect of Project 2025, a controversial Republican agenda that seeks to reshape the federal government and remove many checks on executive powers.
Among the protesters was Kim Edwards, an area resident and the author of the 2005 New York Times best-selling novel “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter,” who posted on Facebook about the incident after the fact.
“We expressed amazement that we could be trespassing when it’s our tax dollars that pay the rent on the building and the salaries of our Senator and his staff,” Edwards wrote in the public post.
Lexington police confirmed basic details of the incident and said protesters were asked to leave the lobby of the office and move to the sidewalk, and they complied.
In a statement to the Herald-Leader, Stephanie Penn, McConnell’s press secretary, said that “protesting in America is as American as apple pie.”
“It is no surprise that a group of self-described progressives are not fans of this new administration, but everybody is free to have their say about whatever the issues of the day are,” Penn continued. “However, it should have been done in a peaceful and respectful manner.”
Edwards wrote on Facebook that when the group first arrived, one of McConnell’s staffers agreed to see protesters two at a time. The first two people went in and had a calm discussion, Edwards said.
One of those first two people tried to record the conversation but stopped when a staffer asked them not to.
Then, Edwards said, the next two people were not buzzed in when they tried to enter. A staffer eventually emerged and handed the group comment forms. They were asked to fill out the forms on the sidewalk and mail them in.
In a video posted to Facebook by a second protester, a woman can be heard saying, “We are being escorted out of Mitch McConnell’s office. They don’t want to hear from us. We are being very peaceful, standing in the line.”
As the officer explains they can relocate in “eyeshot” of the building, the woman recording says, “We want to talk. We have the right to talk to people.”
The group eventually chose to leave, according to police.
The incident came two days after a protest at the federal courthouse in Paducah, where residents urged McConnell to vote against Vought’s nomination and voiced their opposition to Trump’s appointment of Elon Musk as a special government employee.
Vought was confirmed to the position Thursday night in a party-line Senate vote, with Republicans, including McConnell, voting yes, and Democrats voting no.
McConnell, 82, also made headlines Wednesday when he fell down some steps at the U.S. Capitol. His office said he was “fine” and that “lingering effects of polio in his left leg will not disrupt his regular schedule of work.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2025 at 4:13 PM.
