Republicans come to court to ‘kiss the ring’ during Trump’s criminal trial

Hannah Knowles, Marianne LeVine
| WashingtonPost

New York – Sen. J.D. Vance, who once recoiled from Donald Trump’s lewd comments about women, was in court this week to support Trump as prosecutors replayed the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that rocked his 2016 campaign.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), an amiable advocate of conservative Christian morality, came to the courthouse the next day to call the Trump trial a “disgrace,” a “mockery” and a “partisan witch hunt.” ‘ to name. He left without answering questions, including one that referred to the accusation that Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actress.

An hour later, one of Trump’s former presidential rivals stood in a nearby park, attacking witnesses the former president is legally barred from discrediting himself. “Right out of a Kafka novel,” said former Trump opponent Vivek Ramaswamy, the latest in a parade of Republican lawmakers, activists and potential running mates who flocked to New York to support the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Ambitious Republicans are eagerly parachuting onto the sidelines of the first criminal trial of a former president, with a lineup that also sees former Trump critics wading into the proceedings. The pilgrimages demonstrate the need for today’s Republican Party to show loyalty to Trump and his fervent supporters amid a case that has become a model of salacious scandal.

Conspicuously absent from the courtroom: Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, who defended her husband after the “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016. She has stayed away even as Trump’s lawyers tried to convince the jury that he is a “family man” ‘ is who wanted that. protect his reputation and his loved ones from tasteless accusations he has denied. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump is also keeping her distance, once an important advisor, who has withdrawn from politics and has not joined her brother Eric in the pews.

The visits show how the party has changed in some ways since 2016, when Republicans initially struggled to distance themselves from Trump’s suggestion in the “Access Hollywood” tape that as a celebrity he could kiss and grope women whenever he wanted. wild. Now they have provided a small army of surrogates who claim the charges are unfair and unusual, often reinforcing exaggerated or unsubstantiated claims about the case and the legal system.

To his critics, the endorsements are evidence of the shameless lengths Republicans will go to align themselves with Trump and his movement — the accusations they are willing to dismiss and the reversals they have carried out.

“Who are they performing for? It. There’s so much of an audience of one,” marveled Dan Scheffey, 68, a New York Democrat who lined up around 3 a.m. Tuesday in hopes of getting one of the few public seats in the Trump trial. He arrived too late to attend Monday, but still heard about the day’s appearances from Vance (R-Ohio) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.).

Trump has been acquitted in New York of falsifying company records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress who claimed to have had sex with Trump in 2006 and whose story was in danger of becoming public before the election. 2016 elections.

Prosecutors allege Trump was eager to suppress her story amid fallout from the “Access Hollywood” tape. Star witness Michael Cohen this week portrayed Trump as concerned about his political prospects rather than his wife’s reaction — prompting Trump to angrily shake his head from the defense table.

The group that has shown up to support him is fitting for a candidate who has battled through the conventions for a lawsuit and tried to turn his legal jeopardy into a political rallying cry — a strategy that has helped him win the Republican Party’s primaries to achieve, but who is confronted with a darker perspective. at the general election.

“I’ve done a lot of campaigning,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who is running for re-election and spent a day in court with Trump last week. In the counties he visited, Scott said, “people came up and said, I just want to thank you for supporting the president.”

Scott said in an interview that he made the trip after speaking with top Trump adviser Susie Wiles, a friend of Scott’s who managed his 2010 campaign. “She asked me if I would consider going to trial, and I immediately said yes,” Scott said.

Other Republicans contacted Trump and his team, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Johnson — who recently survived a speakership challenge with Trump’s full support — was not proactively invited by the campaign, according to a person familiar with his thinking who, like some others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations . . A person close to Vance said no one from the Trump team asked him to attend but that he “just thought it was the right thing to do.”

For weeks, the area outside Trump’s trial saw scattered demonstrators but no mass protests, which Trump has lamented.

“We have nothing here right now, let’s face it,” one Trump supporter, Gary Phaneuf, complained one afternoon as he walked alone through the park in front of the courthouse, singing. “You don’t see any prominent Republicans here today, do you?”

But visits from GOP politicians have increased in the past week. On Tuesday, Ramaswamy, Johnson, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and Florida Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills all came down at the same time. Assembled in suits and red ties, they stood behind Trump as he made his usual remarks in a hallway outside the courtroom.

“It’s sad that we’re here today and we’re not talking to the American people about the issues that matter most to them,” said Burgum, who ran a lengthy campaign as a low-key, policy-oriented candidate and is now considered a contender for to become Trump’s bombastic running mate.

Ramaswamy — who defended Trump at every turn, even when he was running against him — gave a short, fiery speech in the park, drawing attention to something the judge has not banned Trump from talking about: the judge’s adult daughter , whose political firm has done work for the Democrats . Ramaswamy echoed Trump’s claims that the prosecution was aimed at derailing the campaign, saying indignantly that “our justice system must be blind to politics.”

The park was busier than usual on Tuesday, but still barely overflowing with protesters — for or against Trump. Kenneth White, a former federal prosecutor in California, emphasized that the parade of Republican lawmakers is unlikely to sway the jury and suggested it is instead about “soothing Trump’s ego.”

“They are there to kiss the ring,” echoed Alan Morrison, the dean for public interest and public service at George Washington University Law School.

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LeVine reported from Washington. Adriana Usero and Jorge Ribas contributed to this report.

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