Kentucky Republicans help Trump tear down the system

Al Cross | Kentucky Lantern

When U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell vot­ed not to con­vict Donald Trump of impeach­ment for incit­ing the Jan. 6 insur­rec­tion, which he nev­er­the­less blamed on Trump, he excused him­self in part by say­ing “We have a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in this country.”

The Senate Republican leader was sure­ly not think­ing about the $130,000 in hush mon­ey the pres­i­dent paid a porn star to help his 2016 elec­tion chances, which led to Trump’s May 30 con­vic­tion on 34 counts of fal­si­fy­ing busi­ness records – judged to be felonies because they facil­i­tat­ed anoth­er crime, elec­tion interference.

It was the weak­est and least sig­nif­i­cant of the four crim­i­nal cas­es against Trump, and the ver­dict may be over­turned on appeal; the elec­tion-inter­fer­ence crimes weren’t spec­i­fied. But no oth­er cas­es are like­ly to be tried before the Nov. 5 elec­tion, so Republicans are using the curiosi­ties of the case to dele­git­imize the ver­dict of the jury — a linch­pin of our sys­tem of government.

They avoid direct attacks on the jury, blam­ing the judge and the pros­e­cu­tors. But when they say such things as “judges, inves­ti­ga­tors and pros­e­cu­tors . . . mis­led the jury,” as 4^th District Rep. Thomas Massie did on X, they impugn the intel­li­gence of the jury, which includ­ed two lawyers and peo­ple who get their news from a wide range of sources. And they are, with lit­tle evi­dence, under­min­ing pub­lic trust in our courts.

Sixth District U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, a lawyer who knows bet­ter, called it a “sham tri­al.” Second District Rep. Brett Guthrie, a for­mer Army offi­cer who should know bet­ter, called it a “kan­ga­roo court.” They didn’t hear the case; the jury did. McConnell was cir­cum­spect, say­ing “These charges nev­er should have been brought.” U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, state Attorney General Russell Coleman and U.S. Reps. James Comer of the 1^st District and Hal Rogers of the 5^th District, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor, called the case political. 

There’s no real proof of that. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a Democrat who, like most pros­e­cu­tors, is elect­ed on a par­ti­san basis. Prosecutors are sup­posed to be advo­cates, and while Bragg’s the­o­ry of mak­ing it a felony case looked like a stretch, he had a moun­tain of facts to prove the charges. And an appel­late court reject­ed Trump’s attempts to dis­qual­i­fy the judge for alleged conflicts.

Yes, the judge made $35 in anti-Trump polit­i­cal dona­tions, but he swore an oath to ren­der impar­tial jus­tice, and so did the jurors. Republicans’ attacks on that sys­tem are the purest form of cyn­i­cism: a belief that every­one always acts in their own self-inter­est. And the attacks are right in tune with Trump’s siren song to cyn­i­cal vot­ers, that our whole sys­tem is cor­rupt and noth­ing is on the lev­el — so he’s the one you should trust. Autocrats have been sell­ing that sewage for cen­turies, and some­times mil­lions of peo­ple join their cults. Sadly, that is what we see in our coun­try today.

The case’s details take some explain­ing, so some per­suad­able vot­ers will be steered by the sim­ple but vocif­er­ous argu­ments of Trump’s defend­ers. It seems that an out­ra­geous propo­si­tion — elect­ing a con­vict­ed felon who faces even more seri­ous charges in three oth­er juris­dic­tions — calls for a defense full of outrage.

The basic fact of the case is Trump did every­thing he was accused of, and as con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor David French said, “The under­ly­ing facts of the case here should be total­ly dis­qual­i­fy­ing for any pres­i­den­tial can­di­date ever.” That is also true of the oth­er cas­es (about the insur­rec­tion, elec­tion inter­fer­ence and secret doc­u­ments), which have much stronger facts that make con­vic­tions like­ly — if they ever come to tri­al. The elec­tion of Trump could pre­vent that, and cause more injus­tice. He’s already said he would use the gov­ern­ment to wreak revenge on his ene­mies; alle­ga­tions that Biden is doing that to Trump are com­plete­ly unproven, and his own Justice Department is try­ing his son!

But Trump has long run on lies, the biggest one being that he was defraud­ed in 2020, and now Republicans facil­i­tate those lies because his elec­tion chances will be the biggest fac­tor in their party’s elec­tion per­for­mance (that’s McConnell’s ratio­nale as par­ty leader); Trump may become pres­i­dent again, and has made clear he will help friends and pun­ish ene­mies; and even if he doesn’t win, apos­tates could suf­fer bad con­se­quences because he’s primed for revenge and has a firm grip on most Republican voters.

So, as dis­ap­point­ing as the reac­tions of lead­ing Kentucky Republicans are, they are under­stand­able if you think cyn­i­cal­ly, that they are act­ing pure­ly in their own polit­i­cal inter­ests. So much for the nation­al inter­est, and for the moral high ground. As con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor David Brooks says, moral char­ac­ter was once a pil­lar of American con­ser­vatism, and “Character is des­tiny, and if pri­vate virtue falls apart, the pub­lic order col­laps­es.” Danger lies before us.

This col­umn is repub­lished from the Northern Kentucky Tribune, a non­prof­it pub­li­ca­tion of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism.