Former President Donald Trump found guilty on all counts, angering KS, MO Republicans
Kansas and Missouri Republicans embraced former President Donald Trump on Thursday as a New York jury found the presumptive GOP nominee for president guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star just before the 2016 election.
The verdict marked the first time in American history that a former president has been convicted of a felony. But the extraordinary moment only reaffirmed the staunch support Trump enjoys among top Republicans in both states, who have long cast the criminal cases against him as a political persecution.
“Soviet-style show trials have predictable results,” Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, said on social media. “What happened in New York today is no different. The American people will reject this unprecedented lawfare in November.”
Kansas and Missouri are solidly Republican states in presidential elections and Trump appears in no danger of losing either. Polls have shown him leading several key battleground states and it’s unclear how voters in those areas will react to the verdict.
Shortly after the verdicts were announced, Will Scharf, a Republican candidate for Missouri attorney general who serves on Trump’s legal defense team, vowed to “speedily appeal.”
As recently as a decade ago, appearing on the same ballot as a top-of-the-ticket criminal nominee would have been an excruciating experience for candidates. Today, however, many Republicans believe the conviction poses little danger to their own campaigns and, if anything, may encourage angry Trump supporters to head to the polls.
Rep. Jason Smith, a Republican from Salem, responded to the verdict by sending out a link to Trump’s campaign fundraising page.
“I am SEVERELY disappointed in the lack of nobility shown in our justice system today!” Smith wrote on social media. “Finding Trump GUILTY is a grave mistake.”
Kansas and Missouri Democrats as a whole have said relatively little about the legal cases against Trump. The state parties have not used the trial as a cudgel against Republican candidates, and Kansas City-area Democratic Reps. Sharice Davids and Emanuel Cleaver have refrained from making frequent comments about the case.
“Rep. Davids has always said that no one is above the law and she trusts the justice system to work as it should,” said Zac Donley, Davids’ communication director.
GOP lawmakers have long dismissed the credibility of the trial, claiming it was a politically motivated attempt to hurt Trump’s chances at reelection. Prosecutors alleged Trump falsified business records to cover up an alleged affair that could have potentially damaged his campaign in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.
For months, Republicans have cast charges against Trump as an attempt by the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden to weaken the standing of his political opponent. Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said the trial was a dangerous abuse of the political process and instantly laid the blame on Biden, even though the case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, equated the verdict to authoritarian regimes, calling it the “most egregious miscarriage of justice in our nation’s history.”
“The true judge and jury will speak loudly in November, and Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.”
Two Missouri lawmakers – Schmitt and Rep. Eric Burlison – traveled to New York to lend their support to Trump over the course of the trial.
Burlison remained steadfast in his support for Trump following his trip to New York claiming all of the cases brought against Trump – not just in New York, but in Georgia, Florida and Washington as well – were “falling apart.”
Asked whether there was a red line in which he would stop supporting Trump, Burlison said none of the allegations against Trump have crossed that line.
“He’s the one taking the punches for us,” Burlison said. “If he had sat on the sidelines his entire life, he would be a happy, rich billionaire, living his best life. But he’s not. His giving himself up for political service, giving up his paycheck while being President of the United States.”
Trump has loomed over all statewide Republican primary races in both Kansas and Missouri. Republican candidates have over the past several months aligned themselves with the former president, hoping to earn his endorsement.
Trump’s grip on statewide politics is perhaps most visible in the Republican contest for Missouri attorney general. Incumbent Andrew Bailey has cast himself as a staunch defender of the former president while Scharf, his opponent, serves on Trump’s legal team.
Bailey on Thursday said he was “outraged by the sham verdict.”
“This is the result of a rigged system, where the judge manipulated the process to turn jurors against President Trump,” Bailey alleged on social media.
Scharf, in a statement to The Star, said it was “a tragic day in the history of the American Republic.”
“We will speedily appeal, and we will win on appeal because this case is meritless, baseless, and should have never seen the inside of an American courtroom,” he said.
While Republicans swiftly denounced the verdict Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, called it a victory for the rule of law.
“I hope that my fellow Americans will take this moment to reflect deeply on the road we walked to reach this point and which direction we want to take moving forward,” Cleaver said in a written statement.
This story was originally published May 30, 2024 at 4:21 PM.
