Two years ago, Minnesota Republicans hammered together the party platform.
Economic prosperity. Civil rights. Family. Respect for the rule of law. They laid out their bedrock principles, plank by plank, where Minnesotans could stand when everything else seemed to be falling apart.
Principles like a code of conduct for elected state officials and requiring them to resign and lose their pensions and benefits if convicted of a felony.
A jury just convicted former President Donald Trump of 34 felonies. The Minnesota GOP has a problem with that.
Specifically, a problem with the rule of law when it’s being applied firmly to the backside of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
“I am deeply disappointed by the verdict in Presidential Donald Trump’s trial,” Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman David Hann said in a statement issued shortly after the conviction of a candidate who paid off a porn star and was found guilty of manipulating campaign finance law to cover it up. “[I]t raises serious concerns about the fairness and impartiality of our judicial system.”
In the space of a news cycle, the MNGOP pivoted from screaming for the removal of a Democratic state senator accused of a felony to calling on Minnesotans to vote for the 34-fold convicted felon, Donald Trump.
DFL state Sen. Nicole Mitchell has been the end-of-session gift that kept giving to the GOP after she allegedly crept into her stepmother’s basement in the dead of night, dressed all in black like a cat burglar. She stands accused of felony burglary and, wow, does the state stand united in wanting to know the backstory on that one. She says she wanted her father’s ashes. Her backpack says she also wanted her stepmother’s laptop.
