Republican party tanked to a new low in in their kowtow response to the Trump cult

Echo editorial board opinion published in the: The Washington Post:

The Trump hush money trial shows how far the GOP has fallen. (Maine Writer- Nothing "grand" about the Grand Old Party's MAGA cult fealty to Trump.)

Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. is the 37th District Attorney elected in Manhattan.   (Thank you 🙏😍Mr. Bragg.)

Of the four criminal cases pending against former president Donald Trump, the one tried in a New York criminal court involved both the least serious charges against him and the most legally debatable. 

But the results from the Manhattan proceedings have  provided a damning indictment of the Republican Party over which the defendant, the soon-to-be official GOP presidential nominee, holds sway.

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a 34-count business records falsification indictment against Trump last spring, legal analysts acknowledged it could be a tenuous case. 

The core offense was the alleged rebranding, in the Trump Organization’s internal documents, of a secret hush money payment paid to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels as a legal retainer to attorney Michael Cohen. The charge would usually be a misdemeanor, but Mr. Bragg was able to charge it as a felony by alleging that the payments amounted to an illegal campaign contribution (in violation of federal law), on the theory that the coverup was an attempt to influence voters in the 2016, election.

Manhattan hush money trial witness Michael Cohen

This was — and, more than five weeks after the trial began on April 15, still is — a venturesome strategy, lending some credence to critics’ claims that the prosecution by an elected Democratic district attorney in a deep-blue city was politically motivated. Mr. Bragg’s team did a fair job of rebutting that and demonstrating the link, aided by documentation that includes checks personally signed by the then-commander in chief. 

It appears as though the jury believed Mr. Michael Cohen, the defendant’s erstwhile fixer, who has already pleaded guilty to various offenses including lying to Congress, admitted multiple fibs in his testimony for the prosecution and wobbled under cross-examination.

The jury decided x 34- Trump paid off the the porn star because, he believed, he needed to suppress the seamy story, to win the election.

The mere fact such questions are relevant to the 2024, presidential race, let alone potentially pivotal to it, speaks volumes about the political moment.

The trial has taken the country back to the waning days of the 2016, campaign, when The Post had just reported on the “Access Hollywood” tape of Mr. Trump speaking cavalierly of sexual assault: “Grab ’em by the p----y. You can do anything.” Trump seemed on his way to losing to Democrat Hillary Clinton and taking the rest of the GOP down with him. 

Multiple Republicans, trying to control the damage, called on him to resign as GOP nominee. Then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan declared himself “sickened.” Mr. Trump won anyway. (He did, however, apologize first — a rarity for him.)

In hindsight, this episode was the beginning of Trump’s unconditional hold on the Republican (MAGA cult❗) base, and the beginning of the end for what was left of the traditional GOP. 

Those who denounced him in the fall of 2016, have either left politics — or fallen in behind Trump. Hence the pilgrimage of Republicans to Trump’s trial in Manhattan. 

Everyone from would-be Senate Majority Leader Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to House Speaker (Bible thumping!) Mike Johnson (R-La.) to Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) to Vivek Ramaswamy paid their respects. Even Nikki Haley — who, when running against Mr. Trump for this year’s GOP nomination, called his lack of character disqualifying — said this week she would vote for him in November.

The country, and the party, have come a long way since 2000: Then, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, running to replace President Bill Clinton — who had been impeached, and acquitted, for alleged perjury to hide an affair — pledged to “restore honor and integrity” to the White House. That implied a connection between character and policy. But now, the operative GOP principle seems to be "anything goes".

To be sure, the conduct at issue in the New York trial seems minor relative to the charges Trump faces in his two stalled federal trials: obstructing justice after sneaking classified documents to Mar-a-Lago or, worst of all, conspiracy charges tied to the January 6, 2021, mob attack on the electoral vote count in the Capitol. But the New York case and the GOP hierarchy’s reaction to it are points on the continuum in which excusing little or midsize ethical violations leads to excusing bigger ones.

The New York (Manhattan) jury decided the evidence proved the complex charges beyond a reasonable doubt.