After Menendez was convicted, Democrats demanded he resign; after Trump was convicted, GOP made him their nominee

The RNC is a GOP criminal sanctuary

Despite the speakers at this week’s Republican National Convention (wrongfully) claiming that immigrants are bringing crime, in reality it was the GOP literally bringing crime to the RNC by welcoming Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Paul Manafort, Peter Navarro and a host of people convicted of crimes--or awaiting trial for their crimes!  But before we get to that, let’s start with what happened earlier this week that sums up one of the many fundamental differences between today’s GOP and Democratic Party.

After Democratic US Senator Bob Menendez was convicted on Tuesday of 16 felonies related to political corruption, Democratic leaders from the Governor of New Jersey to the US Senate demanded the New Jersey Senator resign.  Some Democrats including NJ Gov. Murphy went as far as to say if Menendez doesn’t resign, “I call on the U.S. Senate to vote to expel him.”

Compare that to the GOP.  After Donald Trump was convicted of 16 felonies for illegally influencing (cheating) in the 2016 election, GOP leaders not only defended him, this week the Republican Party officially—and gleefully--made him their 2024 presidential nominee.  In fact, the GOP nominated Trump this week despite his also facing felony criminal charges in both federal and state courts for attempting to overturn the 2020 election to remain in power despite losing. Trump has also defended the Jan 6 attackers as “warriors” and pledged to pardon these despicable criminals.

But Trump was far from the only convicted felon--or person currently charged with serious crimes--who was welcome with open arms at this week’s RNC by the party of “law & order.”  Indeed, without even a hint of irony, Tuesday’s second night of the RNC was titled, “Make America Safe Again” with the theme being law and order. (I’ll pause for you to laugh!) House Speaker Mike Johnson even told the convention, "We in the Republican Party are the law and order team,” and that Republicans "always have been and we always will be the advocates for the rule of law.” (Again, I’ll pause for laughs.)

For starters—and what would be too unbelievable to even put in a Netflix TV series—Trump’s former top aide Peter Navarro LITERALLY was released from jail Tuesday morning after serving a four month prison sentence and later that very day was a featured speaker at the RNC. As a reminder, Navarro had been convicted in September 2023 by a federal jury of  two counts of criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the Jan 6 House committee seeking his testimony and documents relating to Trump’s coup.  In other words, Navarro went to jail to protect Trump.

But on Tuesday—just hours after his release—there was Navarro on stage at the RNC receiving a hero’s welcome from the party of “law and order!” A defiant Navarro used his speech to incite anger in the crowd, telling the audience,  “What these lawfare jackals don’t understand is that when they put people like me in prison and fire figurative and now literal bullets at Donald Trump, they also assault our families.”  He added, “I got a very simple message for you. If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump. Be careful. They will come for you.” I guess that is the GOP’s idea of “unity.”

Then there was Rudy Giuliani being celebrated as he walked—and bizarrely fell—on the floor of the RNC. (As Entertainment Weekly put it in their article on Giuliani’s spill, “Watch Borat 2 star Rudy Giuliani fall at the Republican National Convention.”) As a reminder, Guiliani is a facing a slew of felonies for his efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. In Georgia, Giuliani was charged with 13 felonies for his illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state including with two counts of conspiracy to commit forgery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit filing false documents and Violation of the Georgia RICO act.

And just two months ago, Giuliani was charged in Arizona with nine felonies in connection with his illegal efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state on Trump’s behalf.  In that case, Giuliani and other former Trump aides face charges for conspiracy, forgery and fraud charges.

One more person at the RNC charged with crimes in that Arizona case is lawyer Christina Bobb. What is Bobb’s current position with the Republican National Committee? She was hired this spring shortly before the charges were announced to head the RNC’s “Election Integrity” unit. That’s right, the GOP’s head of election integrity has been charged with crimes for election fraud. Again, too unbelievable for even a TV show—except maybe “Veep.”

Also seen hobnobbing at the RNC was former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort. He had been convicted of bank fraud, illegal foreign lobbying, and lying to investigators about his contacts with Russian officials.  In 2020, Trump pardoned Manafort from—as he put it—"convictions prosecuted in the course of Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation, which was premised on the Russian collusion hoax.” (In reality, Manafort was convicted of bank fraud!)

Despite the GOP welcoming this human crime wave, there were Republicans at the Convention like Rep. Elise Stefanik calling Biden “corrupt” while slamming “Democrats’ pro-criminal sanctuary cities.”  In reality, the RNC is a GOP pro-criminal sanctuary convention!

And of course the GOP peddled lies about crime rates that actually were the ones under Trump in 2020—as fact checkers have noted. They even featured a speaker, Madeline Brame, who spoke movingly about her son being killed in New York. The only problem was her son was tragically killed in 2018--when Trump was President.

We can (and should) laugh at the hypocrisy but as my friend and authoritarian expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat noted this week, there’s a much darker issue at play here. As she wrote: “Trump’s agenda, as with all autocrats, is to replace rule of law with rule by the lawless.” She added, “Elevating criminals to positions of prominence within the party is part of that.”

As Yale Professor Jason Stanley-- author of “ How Fascism Works”—explained instructively back in 2020: “The fascists are the most corrupt people, like the Nazi party was incredibly corrupt, incredibly lawless. But they accused their opponents of being corrupt.”

What we are seeing at the RNC is far more than hypocrisy. It’s another reminder of the GOP’s embrace of the fascist playbook. And if Trump won, like past fascist movements, he would openly embrace corruption to benefit his inner circle and his wealthy backers. It’s up to us this November to not let that happen!

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