WASHINGTON — Many Republicans on Capitol Hill are all but daring New York Judge Juan Merchan to lock Donald Trump up ahead of November.
After former President Donald Trump and Republican campaign committees saw a windfall of donations after the guilty verdict came down, the GOP base is enlivened and that’s only emboldening rank-and-file Republicans who are feeling bullish.
“I think it’s bulls—,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Raw Story of the guilty verdict. “It’d be seen as election interference on steroids.”
ALSO READ: How Donald Trump could run for president — and lead the nation — from prison
Others are predicting political retribution to come for Democrats if Trump’s locked up, as one rumored GOP vice presidential contender told Raw Story.
“I think it would blow up the country,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Raw Story at the Capitol this week.
In these unprecedented, post-verdict times — mere days after the former president was found guilty on 34 felony counts by a jury of his New York neighbors — some on the formerly fringe-right are calling for the GOP to officially coronate Trump the Republican presidential nominee prior to the party’s scheduled national convention in mid-July, before the earliest time Trump could be sentenced to time in the slammer or otherwise placed in detention.
But of the 10 Republican lawmakers Raw Story exclusively interviewed this week, most are practically giddy about Trump’s post-conviction prospects regardless of whether the would-be leader of the free world himself remains a free man.
That’s a lot of money
Much of this enthusiasm revolves around money: The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee said they raised a combined $141 million in May — a figure that must formally be reported to the Federal Election Commission later this month.
It’s a staggering figure that nearly doubles Team Trump’s previous high fundraising mark this cycle. While some Republicans are nervous about the prospects of what’s just over the horizon, most Republicans are confident publicly and say Trump would be an effective GOP standard bearer whether behind bars or, say, on house arrest.
To Republicans, the entire trial was tainted from its inception, thus any sentence handed down is also necessarily tainted.
“Just further confirms the level of corruption,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) told Raw Story of the trial.
ALSO READ: 'Most powerful thing': Witness details Trump's last moments before 'shocking' verdict
“But do you think he'd be effective as the GOP nominee?” Raw Story asked.
“Yes,” Wilson said. “It shouldn't occur. And people really need to focus: If it can happen to a former president, every American citizen — regardless of party — is at risk.”
Talking points aside, even as Trump’s lawyers appeal the verdict, the reality TV star-turned-politician is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. If the judge decides to lock Trump up, Graham thinks Trump’s base will erupt, again.
“I don't know how much more of a boon they can get. I talked to ‘em this morning,” Graham told Raw Story at the Capitol. “They can't count the money fast enough. The reaction in terms of financial support has been beyond anybody's imagination. I think if they continue to trend in the eyes of millions of Americans using the New York case to interfere with the election, you know, it only gets more support for Donald Trump.”
The head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), has seen a massive spike in donations since the verdict. He predicts a similar response if Trump’s jailed in New York, because he says it would turn Trump into a martyr for the MAGA cause.
“His fundraising will explode, even more so. And I think they'll see this as a political prisoner,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) told Raw Story. “It's awful. Trump probably had a better chance getting a fair trial in Honduras.”
Nevermind that Honduras’ former president, Juan Orlando Hernández, was convicted in Manhattan Federal Court this March — on cocaine smuggling and weapons charges.
Desperate times, desperate convention?
Shortly after the guilty verdict reverberated across the globe last Thursday, the MAGA wing of Trump’s base started calling — some say, conspiratorially so — for the GOP to move the party’s scheduled convention up. The convention is scheduled for July 15 to July 18 in Milwaukee, Wis.,, afterall, and the sentencing is scheduled for July 11.
Coincidence? Never.
New conspiracy? Always.
Republicans in Congress were quick to follow their followers, even if altering the convention’s timing would be a logistical nightmare.
“Consider moving the convention. Don't let that get messed up by virtue of that,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told Raw Story. “Like, move it up. And whether that's in Milwaukee or whether you do a sort of an informal — or a different kind of convention — to get the nomination knocked out before that occurs.”
Roy says it would send an important message.
“It sends a signal that the party’s resolved,” Roy said. “Look, I've been very public in my differences with the [former] president on different things. This is a republic. This is where we are. He's the nominee of the Republican Party for president of the United States. He's been targeted in a ridiculous politically motivated personal prosecution.”
The Republican drumbeat is deafening. Nobody knows what Merchan will do. In fact, because Trump’s never been convicted before and because he’s not charged with a violent crime, some prominent legal minds don’t expect any jail time — perhaps probation, a fine, community service, even nothing at all. Trump has also vowed to appeal his conviction, and the appeals process could take months.
You wouldn’t know that from talking to rank-and-file Republicans, though.
“They are gonna do it, and he will get the biggest, have another big fundraising haul,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) told Raw Story. “American people sense what's going on, and they're furious. And it'll just incite them more to take up for Trump, and you're seeing it already.”
One of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s top lieutenants, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), agrees.
“I think people are awake,” Cornyn — who’s running to replace McConnell as GOP leader —- told Raw Story. “There's been so many abuses — that would just be the icing on the cake.”
Those GOP talking points have now, seemingly, become a part of the party’s DNA.
Republican retribution on horizon?
Republicans aren’t going to forget that Trump was convicted in a blue state, regardless of whether it’s the former president’s home state — a state Trump recently said he could win in 2024. If the GOP standard-bearer is jailed, then we should all brace for a new low in today’s gutter politics.
“It would be next level, man,” Vance of Ohio told Raw Story. “This is going to come back around, right? Eventually Republicans are going to have power, and I guarantee there are going to be really strong pressures to use this new precedent in a way that's going to harm Democrats.”
Republican rhetoric leaves no wiggle room: If Trump is jailed, the conservative messaging machine is going to unleash an unrelenting barrage of accusations that the prosecutions are all politics — jurors and their independent verdicts be damned.
“If there were, of course, a house arrest, it would be very transparently taken as a way to keep former President Trump off the campaign trail and a way to try to get Biden reelected through election interference as opposed to through our legitimate processes,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story. “The same would be true with a jail sentence. Most people can't even figure out what crime former President Trump was convicted of. So it just looks like such a sham.”
‘Let's not be distracted’
While Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) agrees that a Trump imprisonment would mean the former president would “raise more money and more likely win the election,” he’s also cautioning his fellow party members against focusing on the trials, tribulations and tumults of Trump.
“We should not take the bait and shift their focus away from the failure of [the Biden administration] on the economy, on the border, on global leadership,” Tillis told Raw Story at the Capitol this week. “Let's not be distracted and say, ‘poor me.’”
July 11 is just about a month away, but Tillis says it should be just another day to the GOP.
“I don't think he will be sentenced anytime — because that would, I just think, it's already mind blowing what he's going through — but if he is, let’s keep focusing on the thing that's gonna win November,” Tillis said.
Still other Republicans — even those who usually have an answer for everything — are mum.
“I don't want to answer hypotheticals,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Raw Story. “I mean, this whole thing is just a travesty.”
NOW READ: Michael Cohen, Red Finch and the fateful moment Trump lost the jury