As assorted partisans compete for Donald Trump’s attention, his would-be running mates each try to excel in a specific area. For her part, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik is apparently trying to corner the market in baseless ethics complaints. Axios reported:
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) filed an ethics complaint Tuesday accusing the judge presiding over former President Trump’s New York hush money trial of a conflict of interest, Axios has learned. … The letter is unlikely to have an immediate effect on the trial, but it’s the latest chapter in Trump allies attempting to defend the former president by lodging complaints against the judge and prosecutors involved in the case.
The Axios report has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, though the New York congresswoman confirmed to the outlet that she believes Judge Juan Merchan has run afoul of state ethics laws.
The allegations are difficult to take seriously, but the point of this political gesture is not to present a compelling case to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Indeed, the commission’s members aren’t even the intended audience. Rather, this is about Stefanik trying to score cheap points with Mar-a-Lago.
Or, more to the point, Stefanik is trying to score cheap points with Mar-a-Lago again.
It was after all just a few weeks ago when the House GOP conference chair filed an ethics complaint against special counsel Jack Smith.
Which came on the heels of the GOP lawmaker filing a formal complaint against New York Attorney General Letitia James over her fraud case against the former president.
Which came on the heels of Stefanik filing an ethics complaint against the judge overseeing Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York and pressing the Justice Department to prosecute Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, ahead of his testimony in the former president’s trial. For those keeping score, the New York congresswoman has now filed formal ethics complaints against four key officials in the last six months. It’s hard not to wonder if her office has some kind of form letter in which names can simply be swapped out every time Stefanik wants to make Trump happy with a baseless gesture. I continue to believe that no one should want to be vice president this badly, but just as notably, it’s unsettling to see a congressional leader engage in such tactics. We are talking about an episodic campaign in which Stefanik is targeting those who are engaged in administering justice — not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because they might play a role in holding one of her partisan allies accountable. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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