Watch Tommy Tuberville’s Very Reasonable Response to Trump Conviction

You might assume that members of Congress, whose job it is to craft legislation, would be the preeminent obeyers of the rule of law. But you’d be incorrect.

Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville made that abundantly clear Tuesday, telling Newsmax that Americans should prepare for a civil war following Donald Trump’s conviction by a New York jury.

“People in our caucus … to me, they’re not really taking this as serious as we should,” Tuberville said. “American people need to wake up. This is a war; this is a war on our constitutional rights, our constitutional republic. This is not as much about Donald Trump as it is about the people in this country.”

Tuberville also claimed that Democrats were “anti”-American, insisting that the liberal party was looking to strip citizens of their privacy and censorship rights while conveniently forgetting that it was Republican leadership who pushed through the reauthorization of a domestic spy program in April and who are continuing to press for literary censorship in majority-conservative states such as Florida.

A jury found Trump guilty Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in relation to hush-money payments dished out to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to hide information during the 2016 presidential election. It marked the first time in U.S. history that a former president had been convicted of a felony.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced mere days before the Republican National Convention, which has already crafted a contingency plan for nominating the felon even if he’s already behind bars.

Donald Trump’s foot soldiers are trying to set the stage to rig the 2024 election in his favor.

The America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump think tank, is backing the lawsuit of an election official in Fulton County, Georgia, who wants to be able to refuse to certify election results.

Julie Adams filed her lawsuit May 22, hoping to access voting records that she claims she was barred from seeing by Fulton County’s election director, Nadine Williams. Adams is also seeking a court ruling on whether her duty to certify election results is up to her discretion.

Adams has long been an election denier. She was a director for the Tea Party Patriots, which organized the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., that preceded the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and also was “southeast regional coordinator” for the Election Integrity Network, according to Rolling Stone. The EIN was founded by a lawyer for the Trump campaign, Cleta Mitchell, who also is a prominent election denier.

It’s an early attempt by Trump’s allies to make sure he wins Georgia in November. In 2020, Trump lost Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes—a margin of just 0.23 percent. Fulton County is a Democratic stronghold in the state, home to the city of Atlanta.

As November nears, this lawsuit foreshadows dangerous actions by Trump and his allies to ensure that he returns to the White House. He is more desperate this time to exact revenge and escape legal consequences, and has yet to face any repercussions for attempting to overturn the results in 2020. Trump himself has warned that “it’s gonna be a bloodbath” if he loses in November (he later claimed he was talking about the automotive industry) and said that 2024 could be the “last election we ever have.”

Trump and 18 of his allies were indicted last year for attempting to overturn Georgia’s election results, and the convicted felon and presumptive Republican presidential nominee has fought the charges every step of the way, most notably trying to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case. Trump’s trial over the Capitol insurrection has also been held up by the Supreme Court, sending the message that his attempts to fix election results in his favor don’t carry any real consequences.

Former Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina roundly debunked Republicans’ core conspiracy to delegitimize Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions—that his conviction is a politically motivated attack from Biden—calling it “one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.” Tacopina’s stinging rebuke was shared during a pre-taped interview with Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation that aired Monday night.

“This is a state case,” said Tacopina. “This is different than the Jack Smith cases. This is not federal prosecution. Joe Biden—or anyone from his Justice Department—has absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. They have no jurisdiction over him. They have no contacts with them. They have no control, certainly, over him. So to say that Joe Biden brought this case is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. We know that’s not the case. And even Trump’s lawyers know that’s not the case.”

Doubling down, Tacopina added, “People who say that, it’s scary that they really don’t know the law or what they’re talking about.”

Speaking with MSNBC, Tacopina assessed Trump is primarily seeking to use his conviction to raise campaign funds by casting himself as a martyr.

“How is he going to use this as a campaign boost? That’s the only thing he’s thinking, Tacopino said. “He’s clearly going to try now to use this to try to position himself as a martyr, and use this as someone who’s been politically attacked by his opponents, and that the justice system has been politicized. That’s how he’s going to use it.”

Tacopina represented Trump for his E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case and early into Trump’s criminal hush-money case, before he abruptly withdrew from both for unknown reasons.

Trump has spewed a stream of comically ignorant lies about his conviction while seemingly trying to rally his base to violence, and has indicated intent to appeal. If these claims are what he’s going with in pursuit of that appeal, we can reasonably expect it will be swiftly denied.

Representative Eric Swalwell slammed GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, arguing that the blatant hypocrisy in their devoted defense of a freshly convicted Donald Trump was nothing less than cultish. 

“Guys, I’m starting to think you guys are in a cult,” Swalwell said. “That is your right, but it’s not your responsibility. I promise you, that’s not what your constituents would want.”

“So if you believe in states’ rights except when a jury in that state convicts your nominee for president: You might be in a cult. If you claim you back the blue but want to defund the police when the police go to your nominee’s house to retrieve national security secrets: You might be in a cult. If you’re supporting a guy whose felony convictions prevent him from getting security clearance: You might be in a cult,” Swalwell continued.

“And if the guy you’re supporting for president has felony convictions that prevent him from going to Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Dominican Republic …”  

As he spoke, one lawmaker demanded that the California Democrat’s words be taken down. Swalwell continued in an alphabetized list of all the countries to which Trump can no longer travel.

“Egypt, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel …” Swalwell continued, well after his time had expired. “You might be in a cult.” 

Swalwell is no stranger to openly mocking his Republican colleagues. He’s also keeping a running timer on how long it’s been since House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan refused to comply with a subpoena to testify on his involvement in the January 6 insurrection. The counter is currently at 754 days. 

A state panel has smacked down New York Republican Representative Elise Stefanik’s ethics complaint against the judge in Donald Trump’s bank fraud case, a likely fatal blow to her soft campaign to be his vice presidential nominee.  

Stefanik eagerly declared in November that she had filed a complaint against New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron and his law clerk Allison Greenfield, by posting her letter in its apparent entirety to X (formerly Twitter). 

The Republican attacked Engoron and Greenfield for making donations to Democratic political campaigns, alleged that Engoron had “illegally” placed a gag order on Trump, and argued that the judge demonstrated “inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance.” Her decision to post about the complaint was an obvious, if not desperate, stunt to signal to Trump that she is the ideal sycophant to join him in office, if he is elected.

Too bad for Stefanik, because her theatrics appear to have been in vain. According to a document obtained by The Daily Beast, her complaint was quietly rejected by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct in March.  

“The commission dismissed the complaint, having found no basis on the facts presented to commence an investigation,” wrote Robert H. Tembeckjian, the commission’s administrator and counsel, in the panel’s decision.

The Beast reported that it was unclear whether Stefanik was even aware that her ploy had failed. When asked, she reportedly demanded to know how the Beast could assert the complaint had been dismissed. 

In a statement to the outlet, Stefanik’s executive director, Alex DeGrasse, said, “New York’s court system is partisan, corrupt, and rigged. Chairwoman Elise Stefanik and House Republicans will continue to expose the blatant illegal lawfare and weaponization of the government and courts against President Trump.”

While Stefanik’s antics may have fallen flat, and her political aspirations been injured, she is only one small part of the GOP-backed barrage on the judicial system that seeks to hold Donald Trump accountable for his crimes.