With Donald Trump criminally convicted in New York City on Thursday on all counts in a case accusing him of the felony falsification of business records, leading Republican figures promptly began targeting the iteration of the justice system that produced the development.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance, went after the jurors. He complained about a “jury pool that comes from one of the most liberal areas of America,” meaning New York City, though that high-profile city is as much a part of the United States as the most sparsely populated rural area. And there is already a precedent of concern about individuals including jurors potentially being exposed to possible threats and violence. It wasn’t because the day ended in “y” that Trump himself was put under a gag order blocking public comments from him against those very individuals.
“Watching all these GOP politicians disparage American citizens and the jury system is disgusting. They are NOT the party of law and order. They are authoritarian weaklings scared of a tiny hands felon,” Kinzinger wrote online.
Well before the verdict, multiple Trump allies directly indicated an ambition of getting around the ex-president’s gag order with some of their own public commentary in support of his cause. (That list includes Sen. Tommy Tuberville [R-Ala.] and Rep. Lauren Boebert [R-Colo.].) In theory, there could be a problem for the former president himself if he is found to have substantially directed any such commentary, as his gag order blocks the targeted comments if either made or directed by him.
For now, Republicans are continuing to flip out — and largely standing behind the ex-president, even as he’s now a convicted felon for a scheme that prosecutors tied in court to an alleged covert ambition to impact the 2016 election in a manner favorable to Trump’s campaign.
