Republicans who see Trump’s conviction as politically motivated vow to ‘indict the left’

NEW YORK — In the days since Donald Trump was convicted of 34 crimes At his criminal trial, Republicans who consider the case to be politically motivated rallied around a new rallying cry: Sue the left.

Candidates, office holders and family members of the former president amplified Trump’s calls for revenge against political enemies and urged their Republican colleagues to start accusing Democrats of crimes.

“It’s time for Red State AGs and DAs to get busy,” Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia wrote on social platform X, formerly Twitter, after a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty.

Influential conservative activist Charlie Kirk called on Republican prosecutors to be “creative” in bringing charges: “Left the left or lose America,” he said on X.

In a podcast interview, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said, “We have to fight fire with fire.”

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

They represent a show of loyalty to Trump, who spent months calling the cases against him a form of partisan “election interference” and referring to President Joe Biden’s administration as “evil” and “corrupt.” They also signal a growing feeling among some Republicans that the criminal conviction of a former president for falsifying business records to illegally influence an election went beyond the bounds of judicial standards.

“What happened today is a line we cannot uncross,” conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly said after Trump was found guilty. “And these Democrats will rue the day they decided to use ‘legal warfare’ to stop a presidential candidate. I’m not talking about violence. I’m talking about an eye for an eye.”

In a post on , he said. we must wake up to the new reality and respond accordingly.”

The outcry arises when Trump and other republicans They claimed, without evidence, that Biden and his administration were controlling the New York trial. The case was led by a state prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Biden addressed Trump’s attacks on the judicial system during a fundraiser Monday night in Connecticut, calling them “dangerous to American democracy,” and noted that the former president was convicted in a state case rather than a federal case. Attorney General Merrick Garland criticized the idea that the federal government was involved as a conspiracy theory during an appearance on Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, calling it an attack on the judicial process.

Republicans pointed to real elements of the case to argue it was politically motivated. For one thing, Bragg, a Democrat, campaigned for office in 2021 in part because of his qualifications to take over the office’s 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, although he said none of this affected his ability to be impartial. And prosecutor Matthew Colangelo joined Bragg’s office after serving in the Biden administration’s Justice Department.

Trump also criticized Bragg for bringing The case in 2023, when his alleged crime was linked to a campaign seven years earlier. Bragg defended his timing, saying he presents cases “when they’re ready.”

Democrats in Congress have condemned Republican calls to use the justice system to target Democrats as “reckless” and potentially dangerous to democracy. They said in interviews that such a reaction was unnecessary as Trump had a fair jury trial and has the right to appeal.

“A jury of 12 unanimously concluded that, beyond a reasonable doubt, he committed 34 felonies,” said North Carolina Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross, deputy ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee. “This is entirely different from filing misleading charges and having members of Congress frivolously determine who should be prosecuted.”

Maryland Rep. Glenn Ivey, another Democrat on the committee, said there is a history of Republicans prosecuting Democrats and vice versa, but he feels “relatively confident that these cases will continue to be resolved by jurors who show up to the jury carrying their work seriously and trying to follow the evidence and the law.”

As Trump awaits his sentencing next month, prominent Democrats also face high-profile lawsuits. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is currently on trial on federal bribery charges in New York, while Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas and his wife were indicted last month on conspiracy and bribery charges.

Opening statements began Tuesday at a federal meeting case against President Biden’s son Hunterwho was charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from the purchase of a firearm in 2018, when, according to his memoirs, he was at the height of his crack addiction.

Trump has given mixed signals in the past about whether he believes prosecuting political enemies is appropriate.

On a campaign video Last August, he called on Republican attorneys general and district attorneys to “closely” monitor the trials against him: “It’s either an eye for an eye or fighting fire with fire.” But in a City hall In February, he responded to concerns that his second term would focus on settling old scores, saying, “My revenge will be a success.”

When asked if he would seek revenge on the morning show “Fox & Friends” on Sunday, Trump had difficulty answering, calling it “a really difficult question” because “these are bad people.” He said that when he was president he could have arrested former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton but refused to do so.

“So this happened to me,” he said, “and I might have a different opinion about it.”

___

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to improve its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. AP is solely responsible for all content.