Republicans call judicial system ‘weaponised’ after Trump conviction
The former president’s allies push false claims of biased courts in wake of hush-money trial.
Donald Trump and Republicans are heightening criticism of the U.S. justice system after the former president became the first to be convicted of a felony, adding fuel to an already toxic political atmosphere where Americans increasingly distrust democratic institutions.
The former president has suggested that a Manhattan jury’s Thursday conviction is evidence that President Biden’s Democratic allies are using the courts to try to hurt the presumptive GOP nominee’s White House bid. It comes after the former president and his allies have more broadly cast doubt on his various prosecutions since he left office, including federal agents’ seizure of classified U.S. documents from his Florida resort in 2022.
“It’s weaponisation of the Justice Department, of the FBI,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” which aired on Sunday. “That’s all coming out of Washington.”
Biden has no control over state courts, and Trump’s legal team — like any criminal defendant — was given broad latitude in jury selection, legal motions and appeals.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s case and who Trump has repeatedly attacked, is as “honest as the day is long” on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. “I think he handled a very difficult trial with a neutral hand, and gave the president every benefit of the doubt he was entitled to under the law.”
The GOP attacks on the courts come as faith in a variety of institutions has been on the decline, according to Gallup polling. In 2023, 43% of Americans said they had very little confidence in the criminal justice system, compared with 31% in 2015 before Trump took office.
The rhetoric about the courts also echoes the unfounded claims that the 2020 election was stolen, a campaign that led to Trump’s effort to remain in office after his loss and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters. These claims have become a staple of a Trump re-election campaign filled with messages of vengeance and political retribution.
American governance relies on free elections and an independent judiciary, and the public’s faith in both.
“Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years, and it literally is the cornerstone of America,” Biden said Friday. “The justice system should be respected, and we should never allow anyone to tear it down.”
Trump’s criticism of the verdict and the courts was amplified by numerous surrogates his campaign sent to Sunday television shows.
“What people are seeing now is that they can’t trust our judicial system,” Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and a Republican National Committee co-chair, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
“It has gone way too far,” she said. “The judicial system being weaponized against a political opponent.”
The American judicial system has always had its critics, even up to its highest court: The public’s faith in the Supreme Court has eroded, according to research by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, especially since abortion rights were curtailed by a conservative majority after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
But Trump and his allies have effectively fuelled further distrust down to state courts, the kind where the former president’s trial was held — and where the public is most likely to interact with the justice system.
Trump has a long history of weighing in on the judicial system for perceived unfairness. He has said his separate New York civil fraud case — which resulted in a judgment of $454 million — was politically motivated.
He had four criminal cases brought against him on charges ranging from his handling of classified documents to his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss. The Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies for falsifying records to cover up hush money to a porn star on the eve of the election. The three other cases aren’t expected to go to trial until after November.
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Pollsters were racing to try to measure the fallout, a challenging task at a time of so much political noise and before the conviction had been fully absorbed by voters. Some initial surveys suggested the verdict could become a drag on Trump’s bid.
A plurality of Americans, 50%, think Trump’s guilty verdict was correct, an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday showed. Almost as many, 49%, said they think he should end his presidential bid because of the conviction while 47% said they believe the charges were politically motivated.
Among independent voters, a critical group in November’s election, 52% said they think the verdict was correct, and the same share think he should end his candidacy.
Republicans said the conviction was solidifying their unity around Trump.
“What we’ve seen is Never Trumpers calling me and saying, ‘Tim, I’m on the bandwagon now,” Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.), a leading contender to be picked as a Trump vice-presidential running mate, said on the “Fox News Sunday” program.
Lara Trump said more than $70 million in donations came in within 48 hours of the verdict to the former president’s campaign and the Republican National Committee.
Trump has promised a presidency of “retribution” against his foes if he wins in November and he has a record that suggests he is serious.
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, Trump made it his mission to defeat GOP politicians who voted for his impeachment and who publicly disputed his claims of election fraud. That resulted in some Trump-favoured candidates winning their primaries before losing in the general election, leaving the party in the Senate minority and with a slim House majority.
Biden’s family is expected to soon face its own time interacting with the courts. Hunter Biden, the first child of a sitting president to be a criminal defendant, is scheduled to stand trial in federal court this week in a case involving gun charges that could include embarrassing details of his past crack cocaine addiction.
