In the wake of Donald Trump’s criminal conviction, the former president and his allies have embraced a rather specific conspiracy theory: Voters should override the jury’s verdict, Republicans insist, because the entire prosecution was a plot orchestrated by President Joe Biden and his team.
The GOP doesn’t do this alone want to this conspiracy theory to be true, the party needs it’s true. It’s fundamental to the Republicans’ defense: all their other absurd talking points about “weaponization” are built on top of it. If it were to collapse, Trump and his allies could have to deal with the extensive evidence of the former president’s criminal misconduct.
Under pressure to back up their theory with some evidence, Republican officials, including Trump, are pointing to one thing: Matthew Colangelo, one of the prosecutors at the local district attorney’s office, worked at the Justice Department during Biden’s term. That is it. That’s the proof. That is the only basis for the entire conspiracy theory. That’s why Republicans at multiple levels of government have spent the past week blaming the White House for a jury finding Trump guilty of 34 crimes.
There are, of course, quite dramatic flaws in this argument.
First, prosecutors sometimes move from office to office. It happens all the time, and it’s just not that big of a deal.
Second, even Joe Tacopina, a prominent former member of Trump’s own legal defense team, has blasted the conspiracy theory as “ridiculous” and an “uneducated, unintelligent” claim.
Ultimately, just three days after Tacopina made these comments on MSNBC, Attorney General Merrick Garland provided sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, and as my colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim noted, the nation’s top law enforcement official also has theorized pushed aside.
At the same hearing, the attorney general, in response to questioning from Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California, also said, referring to Colangelo: “The Department of Justice had nothing to do with that individual’s departure.” Garland added that he has “not had any communication with Mr. Colangelo” since the prosecutor joined the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
At this point, I know what many on the right are probably thinking. “The fact that Garland denies the claim does not necessarily mean the claim is untrue,” say some conservative MaddowBlog readers. “The attorney general could very well be lying.”
But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: At this point, the Republican Party’s foundational conspiracy theory must stand up to common sense, condemnations from the Republicans’ ostensible allies, and the sworn testimony of the attorney general. On the ledger side, conspiracy theory proponents have…literally nothing.
Part of what made the partisan clash at yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing notable is that it gave Republicans an opportunity to make their case, present their evidence and put Garland on the spot. But GOP members barely tried — because they had no evidence to support their case.
The theory was a joke before yesterday’s hearing. Now it’s even worse.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
