MILWAUKEE — T-shirts declaring “I’m voting for the convicted felon” in five different styles filled a table at a gift stand. The crowd roared at a mention of the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted Donald Trump.
But the court cases hanging over Trump’s bid for a second term seemed almost like an afterthought for many who gathered in Milwaukee this week to formally nominate him at the Republican National Convention. An attempt on Trump’s life at a rally last weekend had taken the spotlight, and to many Republicans here, the threat of criminal charges derailing the former president’s electoral chances seemed to shrink by the day.
“It’s now last week’s news,” Tennessee delegate James Garrett declared. “The cases are all being delayed. We don’t see them active in the court very much anymore.” Garrett was happy that perhaps the strongest of the four criminal cases against the GOP nominee — in which Trump is accused of mishandling classified documents — was dismissed this week by a Florida judge. But he hadn’t heard many people in Milwaukee talking about it.
Dozens of Republicans interviewed at the convention are more confident than ever in their decision to plow ahead with nominating a man convicted on 34 felony counts and prosecuted for 54 more — brushing past and even embracing something that in another election year might seem like insurmountable baggage. Heading into the convention, polls showed Trump increasing his lead over President Biden, whose faltering debate performance at the end of June has thrown Democrats into chaos and bickering over whether he should remain atop their ticket.
In Milwaukee, the GOP’s unbridled disdain for a justice system they say unfairly targeted Trump and has been “weaponized” against him and his allies was on peak display Wednesday night. Taking the convention stage was Peter Navarro, released just hours earlier from a four-month prison sentence for refusing to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
“If they can come for me — and if they can come for Donald Trump — be careful,” Navarro said of the justice system. “They will come for you.”
Democrats have been branding Trump a “convicted felon” and reminding voters as often as they can of the outstanding court cases against him, which seem unlikely to be resolved before November.
A New York jury this spring found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in an attempt to conceal payments to an adult-film star, but sentencing was recently delayed until September after the Supreme Court ruled presidents have immunity for official acts.
Trump was also charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, mishandling classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them. But those cases are unlikely to be heard before the election, and a Florida judge on Monday dismissed the classified documents case, saying special counsel Jack Smith was improperly appointed (Smith is appealing).
“Donald Trump has been demonized, he’s been sued, he’s been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life. We cannot let him down,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said in a prime-time speech in Milwaukee on Tuesday. He used to argue — while running against Trump — that the former president’s legal woes would be a drag on the party.
“They’ve attacked his reputation. They impeached him. They tried to bankrupt him, and they unjustly prosecuted him,” said South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), who spoke to delegates Monday “But even in the most perilous moment this week, his instinct was to stand and to fight.”
The GOP convention, by design, has largely focused on policy issues that poll best for Trump — inflation, immigration, crime — rather than more polarizing topics, including the legal woes that helped Trump win the primary by firing up his base. Hardly anyone mentioned Trump’s prosecutions in the prime-time lineup on the first night.
But Republicans have also sought to feature some vocal critics of the prosecutors who have brought charges against Trump.
Savannah Chrisley, whose parents starred in a reality TV show before going to prison on fraud-related charges, told the convention Tuesday that they were “persecuted by rogue prosecutors in Fulton County” — the Georgia jurisdiction where Trump faces state charges over efforts to overturn his 2020 loss.
“Donald J. Trump has only one conviction that matters, and that is his conviction to make America great again,” Chrisley said.
And one of the most fiery speakers to take the stage all week was Madeline Brame, who accused Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg — the man behind Trump’s New York conviction — of mishandling her son’s 2018 murder. Trump, she shouted, has “been a victim of the same corrupt system.”
Democrats are betting that Trump’s legal cases will hurt him with swing voters, even as they rally his base. But with voters holding net-negative views of both Trump and Biden, polling suggests that the former president’s conviction in the spring did not upend the race.
Republicans on the convention floor were mostly happy to talk about Trump’s conviction and unified in brushing his legal cases aside as partisan attacks. They called them “lawfare” — an abuse of the legal system against political enemies — and even “fictitious.”
“I think it’s been in the background, especially with what happened this past weekend,” said Steven Giorno, another delegate from Tennessee, referring to the attempt on Trump’s life. He echoed the former president’s claims that the prosecutions against him amount to “election interference.” The prosecutors, meanwhile, have said they are only following the facts.
Florida state Sen. Debbie Mayfield (R), who initially endorsed DeSantis for president last year, said she has no worries “whatsoever” about Trump’s legal cases.
“People should be worried that it even happened to start with,” she added.
At the gift stand outside the media center, customers said they loved the “I’m voting for the felon” shirts. But the hot item on Wednesday was a new offering: Customer after customer shelled out $50 for shirts with Trump surrounded by Secret Service after Saturday’s shooting, raising his fist in front of an American flag.
