Donald Trump’s fiercest Georgia allies spent much of the last four years criticizing the election system after his 2020 defeat. Following his felony conviction, they are escalating their attack the criminal justice system.
The Georgia GOP dismissed the New York trial as a “kangaroo court.” Former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who voted to certify Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in 2020, said Thursday’s verdict was a step toward “tyranny.” Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, an elector for Trump despite his loss in 2020, called the former president a “political prisoner,” even though he has spent no time in jail.
“Democrats in this country have opened up Pandora’s box with this trial,” said Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon. “I would argue to Georgia voters the way to slam shut the lid of this Pandora’s box is to vote for Donald Trump.”
The broadsides over Trump’s conviction on 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election mirror the unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud that the former president and his allies spread after his defeat in Georgia.
Democrats warned that attempts to frame Trump as a political martyr waging war on the judicial system come with a substantial cost to American democracy by undermining another cornerstone of the nation’s foundation.
“They want us to stand on the side of law and order in any other circumstance – except for when it comes to their presidential candidate,” U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, told the Politically Georgia podcast.
“Donald Trump continues to break the law, and for once he’s being held accountable,” she added. “And the Republican Party is losing its mind.”
The contrasting narratives are playing out in a volatile moment in Georgia, once so staunchly Republican that presidential candidates hardly bothered to campaign here.
And while the political fallout of the guilty verdict won’t become clear for months, the partisan clashes echo the back-and-forth over the pending Fulton County Trump election-interference case once seen as the biggest legal threat to the former president’s comeback.
With the Fulton County case likely on hold until 2025, the narrower trial over Trump’s hush money payments to a porn star burst into the forefront. It marked the first time a former U.S. president was convicted in a criminal case.
Trump on Friday delivered a rambling 33-minute speech using some of his harshest language yet to undermine his guilty verdict.
A large majority of Trump supporters in Georgia regularly tell pollsters they see the charges against him as politicized. Still, about 40% of GOP voters also said in a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll they wouldn’t back a candidate convicted of a felony.
That underscores the internal divisions within the Republican Party over Trump’s comeback, as even Gov. Brian Kemp and other skeptics of the former president reluctantly rally around him.
Some senior Republicans are pointedly quiet on the verdict. Others, including Kemp and House Speaker Jon Burns, offered more muted responses disparaging the trial while not defending Trump.
“On Nov. 5, the American people will deliver the final verdict and determine the future of our nation,” said Burns, who only formally endorsed Trump after his last formidable rival, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, quit the race.
Democratic reaction spanned the spectrum, too, reflecting the uncertain impact of the conviction.
At an voter mobilization event, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff repeated his mantra that voters don’t care for the “daily partisan drama.” Still, he added that the conviction helps sharpen a “very clear contrast between the chaos and criminal activity” of Trump’s campaign and Biden.
In coastal Georgia, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson spoke at a Biden rally as supporters sporadically cheered “lock him up.”
“Never would I have expected to experience what we did yesterday. The reality is a former president is now a convicted felon,” he said. “We can’t make our case on the misdeeds and criminality of someone else, but on what has been accomplished over the last four years and the potential for what’s ahead.”
The president has opted for more cautious remarks about the trial, which reflects how some of his allies see the verdict as unlikely to fundamentally shake up the race beyond further polarizing supporters of the rivals.
Shortly after the verdict was announced, Biden said that the only way for voters to rid themselves of Trump is “at the ballot box.” And in remarks Friday at the White House, he said the verdict simply reaffirmed “the American principle that no one is above the law” while criticizing Trump for deriding the outcome.
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said. “Our justice system has endured for nearly 250 years and it literally is the cornerstone of America. Our justice system, the justice system should be respected.”
Staff writer Adam Van Brimmer contributed to this report
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