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Democrats with criminal pasts (and one who was recently indicted) have begun to feature prominently in Donald Trump’s campaign for president. And I can think of several reasons why.
Last weekend, it was former Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who appeared at a Republican National Committee event hosted at Mar-a-Lago. The New York Times reported that Trump spent an extended period of time discussing the former fraudster, who was convicted of corruption but was released after Trump commuted his sentence in 2020.
Per the Times:
[Trump] spent several minutes acknowledging Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois whose lengthy prison sentence after being convicted of corruption charges was commuted by Mr. Trump, and who was at the R.N.C. event. The former president said that he came to the decision to issue the pardon after seeing Mr. Blagojevich’s wife on television advocating his release, and that it was sealed that he would intervene when he learned that James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director whom Mr. Trump fired amid an investigation into Mr. Trump and his campaign, was connected to the Blagojevich investigation.
So Trump set this convicted, corrupt former official free. And, by his own admission, this had nothing to do with questions of justice or accountability for Blagojevich and what he was convicted of doing. Keep that in mind.
Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, also a Democrat, is another unexpected former official to turn up at a recent Trump campaign event. Kilpatrick was dealt a multi-decade sentence for obstruction of justice, mail fraud and other charges in 2013 but was released in 2021 after Trump commuted the sentence on his last day as president. Kilpatrick appeared at Trump’s campaign event in Detroit last week, where he shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with Michigan’s Trump-endorsed GOP chair, Pete Hoekstra.
I think I’m beginning to see a trend.
This past weekend, Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, in defense of another Democrat. This time, it was Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was recently indicted on federal corruption charges. Cuellar has denied the allegations against him, and Trump has begun pushing the conspiracy theory that Cuellar’s indictment stems from the conservative Democrat’s opposition to some of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
“He was for Border Control, so they said, “Let’s use the FBI and DOJ to take him out!” This is the way they operate,” Trump wrote, as always lacking any kind of evidence to back up his overheated assertions.
One obvious theory for why Trump and his campaign are embracing liberals convicted or accused of corruption is that the former president is facing criminal charges himself, in his hush money case in New York, his election-related RICO case in Georgia, his classified document handling case in Florida and his election interference case in Washington, D.C. (Trump has pleaded not guilty on all charges.) Perhaps he thinks that by arguing the Democrats' charges were unjust, he can persuade voters that he's similarly being railroaded. Alternately, he may think that highlighting Democratic corruption gives his supporters permission to decide "they all do it" and forgive his clear moral and ethical lapses.
Either way, the Democrat who's had legal troubles has become a fixture in Trump's campaign and we should expect to hear more.