WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in Congress are fervently backing Former President Donald Trump after he was found guilty by a New York jury.
Almost no Republican official has stood up to suggest Trump should not be the party’s presidential candidate for the November election — in fact, some have sought to hasten his nomination.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she’s voting for Trump “whether he is a free man or a prisoner of the Biden regime.”
The swift, strident and deepening commitment to Trump despite his felony conviction shows how fully Republican leaders and lawmakers agree with Trump’s assessment of a “rigged” system and of “weaponized” government, using them in their own attacks on President Joe Biden and the Democrats.
On Friday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, demanded the prosecutors Alvin Bragg and Matthew Colangelo appear for a June hearing on the “weaponization of the federal government” and “the unprecedented political prosecution” of Trump — despite the fact that Biden, as president, has no authority over the state courts in New York.
“What we’re gearing up for is if Trump wins, he’s going to use the apparatus of the state to target his political opponents,” said Jason Stanley, a professor at Yale and the author of “How Fascism Works.”
At his Trump Tower on Friday in New York, the former president returned to the kinds of attacks he has repeatedly lodged in campaign speeches, portraying Biden as the one who is “corrupt.”
Trump called the members of the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol “thugs” and said Biden was a “Manchurian candidate,” a phrase inspired by the 1960s movie portraying a puppet of a U.S. political enemy.
A Trump campaign memo contained talking points for Republican lawmakers, suggesting they call the case a “sham,” “hoax,” “witch hunt,” “election interference” and “lawfare” designed by Biden, whom it called “crooked.”
Joe Biden said Friday that “it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible, for anyone to say this is rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
Almost to a person, the Republicans in Congress who spoke out provided a singular voice for Trump.
Speaker Mike Johnson on “Fox & Friends” amplified the claim, that Democrats are trying to hurt Trump. Johnson, R-La., said he thinks the Supreme Court should “step in” to resolve the case.
“The justices on the court, I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned about that as we are,” Johnson said.
The outgoing Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said he expected Trump would win the hush money case on appeal, but the three senators seeking to replace McConnell as leader echoed Trump with stronger criticisms of the judicial system.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune said the case was “politically motivated.” Texas Sen. John Cornyn called the verdict “a disgrace.” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said that everyone who calls themselves a party leader “must stand up and condemn” what he called “lawless election interference.”
Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who is known as a bipartisan leader, said the prosecutor “brought these charges precisely because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specified criminal conduct.”
With sentencing in the case expected in July before the Republican National Convention, Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said the GOP should move up the convention to speed up Trump’s nomination as the party’s presidential pick.
Republican judicial advocate Mike Davis, a former top Senate aide mentioned for a future Trump administration position, circulated a letter outlining the next steps.
“Dear Republicans,” he said in a Friday post. If their response to the guilty verdict was “we must respect the process” or “we are too principled to retaliate,” he suggested they do two things: One was an expletive, the other: “Leave the party.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, circulated his own letter in which he suggested it was the White House that “made a mockery” of the rule of law and altered politics in “un-American” ways. He and other senators threatened to stall Senate business until Republicans take action.
“Those who turned our judicial system into a political cudgel must be held accountable,” Lee said.
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