Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting from the GOP.
The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him.
“I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”
The party’s shift toward Trump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP. In the interview, she would not say if she would remain a Republican.
Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.” And she added: “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”
The thing is, you are thinking of the way the legal system works for ordinary people. This is not how it works for the rich and powerful. It is extremely difficult to get a conviction in cases like this because of his popularity and wealth.
And Trump may be a fool in some respects but he has a lifetime of experience skirting the law and several effective techniques to avoid consequences. Most criminals get caught because they are extremely inexperienced, stupid, and have to physically commit crimes themselves. Trump just issues a vague command that his underlings all understand but is vague enough to not be provable. He also destroys most documents when he’s done with them.
But again, your hypothesis is premature. He hasn’t been acquitted of anything so there’s no reason to believe these are wild, unjustified accusations. The system moves slowly and we still need to wait and see what the evidence is before we can know for sure—although in my view at least some of these crimes are well-supported by publicly available evidence.