by Hudson Kamphausen CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT – Democratic leaders in the state Senate on Friday said that comments made by the General Assembly’s two top-ranking Republicans following former President Donald Trump’s conviction were “reckless” and only served to undermine the justice system.
Trump was convicted by a jury of his peers last week on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment that was intended to cover up his alleged affair with a porn star during a tight election campaign.
Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney and Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff said in a statement Friday morning that the outcome and proceedings of Trump’s trial – and the guilty verdict unanimously reached by a jury of 12 New Yorkers – were completely straightforward.
“Let’s be clear about what happened. Law enforcement professionals conducted this investigation. Career prosecutors brought the indictment,” they said. “A jury of Donald Trump’s peers, selected with input from him and his lawyers, convicted the former President.”
FILE PHOTO: As House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, listens at left, Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, right, speaks to reporters about Republican proposals to mitigate electricity costs in Connecticut on Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford. Credit: Hudson Kamphausen / CTNewsJunkie
House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora and Senate Minority Leader, as reported by CTNewsJunkie Friday, said they viewed the guilty verdict in the former president’s trial as a “weaponization” of the legal system for a political purpose.
“We cannot ignore the fact that the events that have transpired in New York City point to a weaponization of those very institutions to achieve a political end,” Candelora and Harding said. “These events have created a highly troubling scenario which will invariably end up on appeal and raise serious Constitutional challenges. The one thing we are sure of is that our Constitution will prevail.”
Democrats pushed back on those comments, calling them irresponsible and reckless. They vowed to always prioritize Connecticut residents as opposed to the “political interests of one man.”
“Yesterday’s statement by the highest ranking Republicans in the Connecticut General Assembly was reckless and seeks to undermine confidence in our judicial system. We are troubled to see Republican legislative leaders side with election deniers and play into Trump’s dangerous accusation that the process is rigged,” Looney and Duff said, adding that it is “dangerous” to undermine the decision.
“No one is above the law and we were all better off when that was something both political parties believed in,” they said.
Looney and Duff asserted that the unanimity of the conviction was an indication of how Trump is a “rightfully convicted” felon.
“A unanimous verdict on 34 felony counts means that the jury made 408 separate decisions to find Donald Trump guilty. There was not even one count where Trump had a single juror dissent in his favor,” they said.
Trump is widely expected to appeal the decision, possibly before his sentencing in mid-July. Multiple news reports suggest that it is unlikely that the former president and reality TV star will face any time behind bars.