Source: Win McNamee / Getty
WASHINGTON — The fallout of former President Trump’s conviction on business fraud charges continues as Republican lawmakers are outraged over the verdict.
Trump was found guilty by a jury of fraud for trying to cover up illegal hush money payments to a porn star to keep quiet about an affair the two had before the 2016 presidential election. The charges were brought on by Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg.
The conviction was the subject of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday in which lawmakers sought perspective from legal experts on the case. One of the people questioned was Norman Eisen, a current senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic under President Obama.
Eisen was called as a witness in Trump’s case and observed the trial from start to finish.
“The verdict of twelve ordinary Americans, that Mr. Trump was part of a scheme to deceive voters and then falsified business records to hide it, was strongly supported by the evidence and the law,” Eisen said in his opening testimony to the committee.
“The jurors got it right,” he added. “Witness after witness from inside Mr. Trump’s orbit many of whom expressed their continued respect and affection for the former president supported both parts of the jury’s conclusion.”
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.-5th) took a few minutes to grill Eisen. Clearly upset that Trump was found guilty, Spartz likened the trial to a “political prosecution.”
“I think a lot of Americans should be intimidated (by the verdict) and worried,” she said to Eisen. “If they pay a bill to an attorney and put it as a ‘legal expense’ and they can have 34 felony counts for that, that is true intimidation.”
Spartz refers to the parameters of the case which stated that Trump gave the money to his attorneys at the time claiming it as a “legal expense” who then admitted to funneling the money to Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about he and Trump’s affair.
Spartz asked if the case “looked like interference in the election” to which Eisen said no. Spartz then clapped back bringing up Hunter Biden’s recent conviction and asked Eisen if it was strange that President Biden didn’t face any charges in regards to the possibility he may have used the laptop at the center of his son’s case.
Eisen reminded Spartz that David Wise, who prosecuted the case against Hunter Biden, was a holdover U.S. attorney appointed by President Trump. He called Hunter Biden’s conviction “an affirmation of the law” in regards to Trump’s conviction.
Spartz was not having any of it and accused the Department of Justice of having a “double standard.” She ended her line of questioning likening the whole situation to that of a “tyrannical” rule of law like what she says she experienced in Soviet Ukraine.
