If Trump gets convicted, there is only one way for Republican lawmakers to react | Opinion

The rerun election many Americans do not want features Democratic President Joe Biden against former Republican President Donald Trump.

Yet before Election Day arrives, consider the possibility of Trump getting convicted in one or more of the four trials he faces. How will Republican politicians in the San Joaquin Valley react? How will Republican voters react?

The answer for GOP politicians and voters alike must be the same: Quit supporting Trump. Or, at least, don’t vote for him.

I am thinking particularly of two incumbent GOP congressional representatives from the San Joaquin Valley — David Valadao of Hanford and John Duarte of Modesto. Both are in difficult re-election battles with strong Democratic opponents.

Two years ago, Duarte beat Adam Gray by just 564 votes. It was the second-closest House race in the nation. Duarte faces Gray again this fall for a district with more Democrats than Republicans.

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Valadao had an easier time defeating Democrat Rudy Salas in 2022, but they will meet in a rematch again in November. Looming over Valadao is the reality that he also is in a district that has more Democrats registered than Republicans.

Trump is near the number of delegates he needs to achieve the GOP nomination.

On March 25, however, jury selection begins in the New York case that alleges Trump falsified business records to keep secret hush-money payments he made in 2016 to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, with whom Trump had a sexual encounter some years before.

There are three more cases:

▪ Trump faces charges for allegedly violating the Presidential Records Act by mishandling documents from his first term in the White House, including top secret and confidential ones. The records were found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The trial is to start in May.

▪ He was indicted in Georgia for allegedly trying to reverse his loss in that state in the 2020 election. The Washington Post says Trump “faces 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.”

▪ Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election by “spreading claims about voter fraud that he knew to be false, then pressuring local, state and federal officials to block Joe Biden’s victory,” the Post reports. The case relates to the Jan. 6, 2021 rioting at the U.S. Capitol.

Trials for the Georgia and Jan. 6 cases have yet to be scheduled.

Integrity vs. politics

Valadao and Duarte have been stalwarts for their party in the current Congress, with both voting as leaders have wanted. For example, they backed the impeachment inquiry into Biden, as ill-conceived it has been.

Both could likely remain in lockstep with party leaders in any reaction to a Trump conviction. (It should be noted that Valadao broke with his party by voting to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6 rioting at the Capitol.)

How would Valadao and Duarte want history to judge them? If Trump gets convicted, they need to show personal courage and announce they no longer back him.

Voters should also not support a convicted defendant, even if his name is Trump.

America is a world superpower with a great history of freedom and democratic government. Should a convicted man to be its next president?

Call that what it would be: a disgrace.

Neither elected representatives nor voters have ever faced the possibility of a major party’s nominee for president facing criminal charges, let alone being convicted. But this is America today and the Grand Old Party now.

The one way out for Republicans is this: Don’t back Trump.