The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: Fight Fire With Fire :- In reaction to Donald Trump’s felony conviction in New York, some of his Republican allies are demanding retaliation charges and other actions against Democrats.
The G.O.P. Push for Post-Verdict Payback: Fight Fire With Fire
After a jury found Trump guilty last week, the outrage quickly turned into calls for action. Ever since, high-profile members of the Republican Party both inside and outside of government have insisted that elected Republicans utilise every tool at their disposal to subdue Democrats, including focusing investigations and prosecutions.
After the verdict, Trump’s level of rage and explicit determination to use the criminal justice system against Democrats surpassed anything that has been witnessed in his turbulent years in national politics. The spectrum of Republicans who now support revenge and no longer mask their intentions with euphemisms is different.
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Stephen Miller, a former top adviser to President Trump who continues to assist him on policy matters, yelled a directive on Fox News subsequent to the jury’s verdict that found Trump guilty of fabricating bank records to conceal a 2016 campaign payment of hush money to a porn star.
Miller asked Republicans in positions of authority, including local district attorneys, a series of questions. “Is every Republican-controlled House committee making every necessary use of its subpoena power right now?” he insisted. “Are all Republican DAs currently opening all necessary investigations?”
“To compete with Marxism and defeat these communists, every aspect of Republican Party power and politics must be utilised immediately,” Miller declared, employing a broad term that Trump’s followers frequently use to disparage Democrats.
Former Trump senior strategist Steve Bannon stated in a text message to The New York Times on Tuesday that it was time for obscure Republican prosecutors across the nation to gain notoriety by taking on Democratic targets.
“Many aspirational backbencher state attorneys general and district attorneys must’seize the day’ and take ownership of this historic moment,” Bannon said.
Along with calling Joe Biden “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people,” Florida senator Marco Rubio, a leading Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee and a potential Trump running mate, posted on the social media platform X that it was time to “fight fire with fire”—using flame emojis to symbolise the fire.
Requests for reaction from Trump campaign officials were not answered. For Trump, using the legal system to exact revenge is hardly a novel idea. He supported and encouraged cries of “lock her up” in 2016 in reference to his opponent, Hillary Clinton, who had been spared legal action by the government for using a personal email account while serving as secretary of state.
Trump frequently expressed to aides that he wanted his political rivals to be charged by the Justice Department while he was president. The Justice Department began a number of investigations into Trump’s opponents but ultimately decided not to file charges, which enraged Trump and caused him and his attorney general, Bill Barr, to separate ways in 2020.
A “genuine special prosecutor” would be appointed by Trump, if he were to win the presidency again, in order to “go after” Biden and his family. It is still uncertain, at least for the time being, if calls for legal retaliation will result in many real convictions.
People close to Trump are pushing red state attorneys general and district attorneys to begin aggressively going after Democrats for vague crimes now that they are not in the White House. Their main claim is that the four criminal proceedings against Trump in four different jurisdictions are baseless and just represent the political weaponization of the legal system.
Implicitly or overtly, they reject the idea that Trump has been charged with crimes based on proof by advancing the theory—which is supported by no evidence—that all four cases are the product of a conspiracy by Biden.
But they are saying that Republican prosecutors not only should but may do the same to Democrats, based on their assumption that the allegations, and now convictions in the fake business records case, are unjustified and were fabricated for political reasons.
In short, Republicans are suggesting they should retaliate in kind after accusing Democrats of “lawfare,” or using the legal system to wage war against political opponents.
A few seasoned Republican attorneys have attempted to present the necessity of this kind of retaliation as a constitutional principle. John C. Yoo, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is one of those advocating for eye-for-an-eye prosecutions.
Yoo is well-known for having written secret legal memos during the Bush administration that stated the president could legitimately break the law by torturing detainees and wiretapping without a warrant.
Yoo stated in an essay that was published by The National Review, “Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents, in order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system.”
“Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction,” he continued. “Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint if they do not face the threat of legal action from their own leaders.”
“President Biden should just be ready because what’s good for the goose is good for the gander on January 20 of next year when he’s former President Joe Biden,” close Trump ally Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, stated during a broadcast on the pro-Trump network Newsmax.
“As a member of Congress, I am going to encourage all of my colleagues and everybody over whom I have any influence to go after the president and his entire family, his entire criminal family, for all of the misdeeds that are currently out there related to this family,” declared Jackson.
