Republican allies of Donald J. Trump are calling for revenge prosecutions and other retaliatory measures against Democrats in response to his felony conviction in New York.
Within hours of a jury finding Mr. Trump guilty last week, the anger congealed into demands for action. Since then, prominent G.O.P. leaders in and out of government have demanded that elected Republicans use every available instrument of power against Democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions.
The intensity of anger and open desire for using the criminal justice system against Democrats after the verdict surpasses anything seen before in Mr. Trump’s tumultuous years in national politics. What is different now is the range of Republicans who are saying retaliation is necessary and who are no longer cloaking their intent with euphemisms….
And Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee who is in contention to be Mr. Trump’s running mate, wrote on X that President Biden was “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people” and it was now time to “fight fire with fire” — using flame emojis to represent the fire.
Officials with the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Seeking retribution through the justice system is hardly a new concept for Mr. Trump. In 2016, he echoed and encouraged chants of “lock her up” against his opponent, Hillary Clinton, whom the authorities had declined to prosecute for using a private email server while she was secretary of state.
While president, Mr. Trump repeatedly told aides he wanted the Justice Department to indict his political enemies. The Justice Department opened various investigations of Mr. Trump’s adversaries but did not ultimately bring charges — infuriating Mr. Trump and contributing to a split in 2020 with his attorney general, William P. Barr. Last year, Mr. Trump promised that if elected again, he would appoint a “real special prosecutor” to “go after” Mr. Biden and his family.
Now, it remains unclear whether calls for legal retribution will amount to much in the way of actual prosecutions, at least in the short term. Without control of the White House, people close to Mr. Trump are urging district attorneys and attorneys general in red states to start aggressively targeting Democrats for unspecified crimes.
A central tenet of their argument is that the four criminal cases in four different jurisdictions against Mr. Trump are illegitimate and nothing more than political weaponization of the justice system. They continue to put forward the theory, without evidence, that all four cases are the result of a conspiracy by Mr. Biden — implicitly or explicitly rejecting the notion that Mr. Trump has been charged with crimes based on evidence.
But based on their premise that the charges — and now convictions in the fraudulent business records case — are baseless and were invented for political reasons, they are arguing that Republican prosecutors not only should but can do the same thing to Democrats. In short, having accused Democrats of “lawfare” — or using the law to wage war against political opponents — Republicans are saying they should respond in kind.
Some veteran Republican lawyers have sought to dress up the need for such retribution as a matter of constitutional principle. Among those calling for eye-for-an-eye prosecutions is John C. Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor best known as the author of once-secret Bush administration legal memos declaring that the president can lawfully violate legal limits on torturing detainees and wiretapping without warrants.
“In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system, Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents,” Professor Yoo wrote in an essay published by The National Review.
He added: “Only retaliation in kind can produce the deterrence necessary to enforce a political version of mutual assured destruction; without the threat of prosecution of their own leaders, Democrats will continue to charge future Republican presidents without restraint.”…