In the wake of Donald Trump’s criminal conviction, the former president and his allies have embraced a rather specific conspiracy theory: Voters should discard the jury’s verdict because the entire prosecution was a plot orchestrated by President Joe Biden and his team.
The GOP doesn’t just want this conspiracy theory to be true, the party needs it to be true. It’s foundational to the Republicans’ defense: All of their other absurd “weaponization” talking points are built on top of it. If it were to collapse, Trump and his allies might actually have to contend with the expansive evidence of the former president’s criminal wrongdoing.
Pressed to substantiate their theory with some kind of evidence, GOP officials, including Trump, point to one thing: Matthew Colangelo, one of the prosecutors in the local district attorney’s office, previously worked in the Justice Department during Biden’s term. That’s it. That’s the evidence. That’s the sole basis for the entire conspiracy theory. That’s why Republicans at multiple levels of government have spent the last week blaming the White House for a jury finding Trump guilty of 34 felonies.
There are, of course, some rather dramatic flaws with the argument.
First, prosecutors sometimes move from office to office. It happens all the time, and it’s just not that big a deal.
Second, even Joe Tacopina, a prominent former member of Trump’s own legal defense team, has panned the conspiracy theory as “ridiculous” and an “uneducated, unintelligent” claim.
Finally, just three days after Tacopina made those comments on MSNBC, Attorney General Merrick Garland delivered sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, and as my colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim noted, the nation’s chief law enforcement official knocked down the theory, too.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., accused the attorney general of “dispatching” Matthew Colangelo, a former senior official at the DOJ, to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. … “I did not dispatch Mr. Colangelo anywhere,” Garland said. “I assume he spoke — he applied for a job there and got the job. I can tell you I had nothing to do with it.”
At the same hearing, in response to questioning from Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California, the attorney general also said in reference to Colangelo, “The Justice Department had nothing to do with that person going.” Garland added that he has “not had any communications 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. “Just because Garland denied the claim doesn’t necessarily mean the claim isn’t true,” some conservative MaddowBlog readers are saying. “The attorney general might very well be lying.” But let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture: At this point, the foundational GOP conspiracy theory has to contend with common sense, condemnations from Republicans’ ostensible allies and the sworn testimony of the attorney general. On the side of the ledger, proponents of the conspiracy theory have … literally nothing. Indeed, part of what made yesterday’s partisan clash at the House Judiciary Committee hearing notable is that it offered Republicans an opportunity to make their case, present their proof and put Garland on the spot. But GOP members barely even tried — because they had no evidence to bolster their case. The theory was a joke before yesterday’s hearing. Now it’s worse.
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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