{"id":28056,"date":"2024-06-04T21:46:37","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T02:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=28056"},"modified":"2024-06-04T21:46:43","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T02:46:43","slug":"republicans-who-see-trump-conviction-as-politically-motivated-vow-to-indict-the-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=28056","title":{"rendered":"Republicans who see Trump conviction as politically motivated vow to \u2018indict the left\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 In the days since Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies<\/u><\/a> in his criminal hush money trial, Republicans who view the case as politically motivated have coalesced around a new rallying cry: Prosecute the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Candidates, officeholders and members of the former president\u2019s family have amplified Trump\u2019s calls for retribution<\/a> against political enemies and urged their fellow Republicans to start charging Democrats with crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTime for Red State AGs and DAs to get busy,\u201d Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia wrote on the social platform X, formerly Twitter, after a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk urged Republican prosecutors to get \u201ccreative\u201d in bringing charges: \u201cIndict the left, or lose America,\u201d he said on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a podcast interview, Trump\u2019s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said, \u201cWe have to fight fire with fire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the former president on Tuesday suggested he might try to retaliate against Hillary Clinton, his 2016 opponent, if he returns to the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t it be terrible to throw the president\u2019s wife and the former secretary of state, think of it, the former secretary of state, but the president\u2019s wife, into jail? Wouldn\u2019t that be a terrible thing? But they want to do it,\u201d Trump said in an interview on Newsmax. \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible, terrible path that they\u2019re leading us to. And it\u2019s very possible that it\u2019s going to have to happen to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The calls to weaponize the judicial system against Democrats are a degree more intense than some other suggestions for retaliation that Republicans have made since the guilty verdict, such as calls to investigate the prosecutors in the Manhattan case or for voters to give their own verdict by sending Trump back to the White House in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They represent a show of loyalty to Trump<\/u><\/a>, who has spent months calling the cases against him a form of partisan \u201celection interference\u201d and referring to President Joe Biden\u2019s administration as \u201cevil\u201d and \u201ccorrupt.\u201d They also signal a growing feeling among some Republicans that the felony conviction of a former president for falsifying business records to illegally influence an election crossed a boundary in judicial norms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat just happened today is a line we can\u2019t uncross,\u201d conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly said after Trump was found guilty. \u201cAnd these Democrats will rue the day they decided to use \u2018lawfare\u2019 to stop a presidential candidate. I\u2019m not talking about violence. I\u2019m talking about tit-for-tat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a post on X, Republican House candidate Brandon Gill of Texas lamented what he viewed as \u201craw power\u201d rather than an \u201cequally applied legal system\u201d in the charges being brought against Trump: \u201cMight makes right,\u201d he said. \u201cRepublicans must wake up to the new reality and respond accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outcry comes as Trump and other Republicans<\/u><\/a> have claimed, without evidence, that Biden and his administration were pulling the strings behind the New York trial. The case was led by a state-level prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden addressed Trump\u2019s attacks on the judicial system during a fundraiser<\/u><\/a> Monday night in Connecticut, calling them \u201cdangerous for American democracy,\u201d and noted that the former president was convicted in a state case rather than a federal one. Attorney General Merrick Garland criticized the idea that the federal government was involved as a conspiracy theory during an appearance Tuesday<\/u><\/a> before the House Judiciary Committee, calling it an attack on the judicial process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do not control the Manhattan district attorney,\u201d Garland said Tuesday. \u201cThe Manhattan district attorney does not report to us. The Manhattan district attorney makes its own decisions about cases that he wants to bring under his state law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans have pointed to real elements of the case to argue it was politically driven. For one, Bragg, a Democrat, campaigned for office in 2021 in part on his qualifications to take over the office\u2019s investigation into Trump. The judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, donated $15 to Biden in 2020 and has a daughter who works in Democratic politics, though he has said neither affected his ability to be impartial. And prosecutor Matthew Colangelo joined Bragg\u2019s office after serving in the Biden administration\u2019s Department of Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump also has criticized Bragg for bringing the case<\/u><\/a> in 2023, when his alleged crime was connected to a campaign seven years earlier. Bragg has defended his timing, saying he brings cases \u201cwhen they\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congressional Democrats condemned Republican calls to use the justice system to target Democrats as \u201creckless\u201d and potentially dangerous to democracy. They said in interviews that such a reaction was uncalled for since Trump had a fair trial by jury and has the right to appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA jury of 12 people unanimously found that beyond a reasonable doubt he committed 34 crimes,\u201d said Democrat North Carolina Rep. Deborah Ross, the vice-ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. \u201cThat is entirely different than coming up with specious charges and having members of Congress dictate who should be sued in frivolous ways.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey, another Democrat on the committee, said there\u2019s a history of Republicans prosecuting Democrats and vice versa, but he feels \u201crelatively confident that these cases will continue to be resolved by jurors who come to the jury box taking their job seriously and trying to follow the evidence and the law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Trump awaits his sentencing next month, prominent Democrats also are facing high-profile prosecutions. New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez is currently on trial<\/u><\/a> on federal bribery charges in New York, while Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted last month<\/u><\/a> on conspiracy and bribery charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening statements began Tuesday in a federal case against President Biden\u2019s son Hunter<\/u><\/a>, who was charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, according to his memoir, in the throes of a crack addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has given different signals in the past on whether he believes prosecuting political enemies is appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a campaign video<\/u><\/a> last August, he called on Republican attorneys general and district attorneys to \u201cclosely\u201d watch the trials against him: \u201cIt\u2019s an eye for an eye, or it\u2019s fight fire with fire.\u201d But in a town hall<\/u><\/a> in February, he responded to concerns that his second term would be focused on settling old scores by saying, \u201cMy revenge will be a success.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked whether he would seek revenge on the morning show \u201cFox & Friends\u201d on Sunday, Trump struggled to answer, calling it \u201ca really tough question\u201d because \u201cthese are bad people.\u201d He said when he was president, he could have locked up Hillary Clinton but declined to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen this happened to me,\u201d he said, \u201cand so I may feel differently about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 In the days since Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felonies in his criminal hush money trial, Republicans who view the case as politically motivated have coalesced around a new rallying cry: Prosecute the left. Candidates, officeholders and members of the former president\u2019s family have amplified Trump\u2019s calls for retribution against political enemies and urged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":28057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[28833,1580,28832],"class_list":["post-28056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-politically-motivated","tag-republicans","tag-trumps-conviction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28056"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28058,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28056\/revisions\/28058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}