It’s not just Trump, the GOP has long supported criminals

Corruption is part of GOP's brand

The fact Donald Trump is way ahead in the race to be the 2024 GOP presidential nominee says less about Trump and everything about the GOP base.  After all, anyone can seek a political party’s nomination, from criminals to white supremacist leaders. (I know what you are thinking: Trump is both!) But it’s how voters respond to these candidates in the secrecy of the election booth that defines what the party is truly about.

For those shocked by the GOP’s base love of Trump despite his attempted coup and being charged with 91 felonies—including for attempting a coup and 32 counts of Espionage--it’s only because you haven’t been paying attention. In recent years, the GOP has nominated--and elected to office in very red districts--candidates who have been charged with everything from securities fraud to campaign finance crimes to even one who had recently been charged with murdering his wife. (I’m serious!)

Let’s start with Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton who was indicted and arrested in 2015 after a grand jury charged him with three felonies in connection with securities fraud. The charges against Paxton came after two special prosecutors led the investigation and included two counts of first-degree securities fraud tied to Paxton’s work soliciting clients and investors for two companies while he was a member of the Texas House of Representatives. One of the most serious allegations was that then Texas State Rep. Paxton encouraged investors in 2011 to put more than $600,000 into an energy company while failing to tell them he was making a commission on their investment and misrepresenting himself as an investor in the company.

Despite those charges, Paxton ran unopposed in the GOP primary in 2018 to keep his job as Attorney General—and went on to easily win re-election. In 2022, with the felony charges still pending and after several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by helping a wealthy donor, Paxton did face a competitive primary challenge that led to run off against fellow Republican, George. P. Bush. Despite the charges and new accusations, Paxton crushed Bush in the primary 68% to 32% with the vocal endorsement of Trump. (Paxton was very visible in trying to help Trump overturn the 2020 election.)  Paxton then went on to win re-election by 10 points.

And recently in Paxton’s impeachment trial, Trump’s team pressured GOP members of the Senate to acquit Trump ally Paxton on 16 charges alleging corruption and bribery. Paxton was indeed acquitted because corruption is acceptable if not celebrated in today’s GOP.

During the  2018 election cycle, we saw two siting GOP members of Congress—both early supporters of Trump’s 2016 presidential run—get indicted and re-elected in their respective Trump supporting districts. First, there was NY GOP Rep Chris Collins--the first House member to endorse Trump’s 2016 campaign—who was charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and making false statements to federal agents stemming from alleged insider trading in stock of an Australian pharmaceutical company.

Collins shortly after he was indicted announced he would withdraw from the campaign. But he then changed his mind and went on to win in November 2018. That was no surprise given Trump carried this very red district in 2016 by 25 points.  Consequently, Republican voters came out in big numbers to help the Trump loving Collins.

Despite Collin’s initial claims of innocence, he plead guilty in October 2019 to violating federal insider trader laws and lying to federal agents. Collins was sentenced—as the Trump appointed US Attorney Geoffrey Berman who prosecuted the GOP Rep. announced—to 26 months in prison.

That same election cycle was when GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter was charged with federal crimes for using $250,000 in campaign contributions for personal expenses from family vacations, dental work, rounds of golf, birthday gifts, sporting events, school tuition and hefty bar tabs. When he was first charged, Duncan called it a “witch hunt” and blamed the “fake news.” That was enough for the voters in this Trump loving district to re-elect him in November 2018.

But like Collins, Duncan later pled guilty.  In December 2019, Hunter entered a guilty plea to the most serious charge, admitting that he “knowingly and willfully stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign funds that he and his wife used to maintain their lifestyle.” In March 2020, Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison with the federal judge rejecting Hunter’s request for home confinement instead of prison, explaining that “the number of years and the amount of transactions” made such sentence inappropriate because this wasn’t a single act of theft but a crime committed repeatedly over almost a decade.

But that is not the end of the story for Hunter and Collins. Despite their respective admissions in court that they committed crimes, guess happened a few months later? Trump pardoned both of them. (I hope your blood is boiling!) Yep, in December 2020—while in the midst of plotting his coup to overturn the 2020 election—Trump granted them both a full pardon "at the request of many Members of Congress." While no word on the identity of those members of Congress we can be confident they were Trump allies.

And more recently back in Texas, we have Frederick Frazier, a GOP candidate for the Texas state legislature who had been indicted by a grand jury months before the November 2022 election for impersonating a public servant.  The alleged crime took place during the GOP primary campaign when Frazier impersonated a city code enforcement officer to get rid of his primary opponent's campaign signs. But Frazer—with Trump’s endorsement—won the general election in this red district because the GOP is all about “Law & Order.”

Interestingly, during the GOP primary contest for Texas Attorney General between Ken Paxton and George P. Bush, the NY Times ran an article that posed this question that resonates even more today: “The race for Texas attorney general is asking Republicans to determine how many indictments and allegations of corruption are too many.” The article continued, “The answer may be there is no limit — so long as the candidate has an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump.” As we are learning, that rule applies even more to Trump himself.

Trump infamously boasted during the 2016 campaign, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"  Trump could update that statement to add he could also steal classified documents, obstruct justice, illegally share military secrets, attempt a coup and incite the Jan 6 attack yet he “wouldn't lose any voters.” That tells you all you need to know about how dangerous today’s GOP is to our Republic.