New reporting revealed this week that former President Donald Trump apparently got in touch with Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) after the ex-president’s recent criminal conviction in New York City proceedings, reportedly pushing to the GOP legislative leader for some kind of action to effectively undo the trial’s outcome.
“We have to overturn this,” Trump reportedly asserted, per POLITICO.
“In a functioning democracy, this would lead to formal investigations and both individuals resigning in disgrace. Instead it probably won’t even make front page news,” argued Democratic pollster and strategist Matt McDermott in reply online.
Though Congress does not generally have the power to directly overturn a criminal conviction, especially one that was delivered in state court, members of Congress do have far-reaching investigatory powers that Republicans have already used against some of the authorities going after Trump since the ex-president’s party took back control of the House in early 2023.
Trump was convicted by a jury on all counts in a case that accused him of the felony falsification of business records in connection to hush money from before the 2016 election for a woman named Stormy Daniels. He is now heading towards a sentencing set for next month, just before the Republican Party convention proceedings kick off at which the party is set to make Trump their presidential nominee yet again. Neither his conviction in New York nor his three other criminal cases stretching across both the federal and state levels have significantly shaken the support that Trump still enjoys from Republicans at the grassroots and elected levels.
