Would a conviction sink Trump? These Republicans are convinced

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If you took the summer off from the threads of the American political conversation –

– this is the week to tune back in.

Trump’s political fortunes will collide, not for the last time, with his legal problems when he briefly surrenders to authorities in Atlanta this week but skips the first GOP primary debate in Milwaukee.

There’s a push by legal scholars, including the influential conservative and former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, to encourage states to bar Trump from their ballots. The 14th Amendment technically bars those who support insurrection from holding public office.

But that idea to end-run his candidacy, however appropriate on the merits, would have to be taken up by election officials in key states and survive a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives.

For now, it is a mere hypothetical.

The question alarming many Trump-skeptical Republicans this week is whether Americans would ever send a convict to the White House.

Trump is the subject of four criminal trials in state and federal courts. Two trials – in state court in New York related to a hush-money payment scheme and in federal court in Florida related to his treatment of classified data – won’t get underway until after the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary next year.

Trial dates have not yet been set for charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in federal court in Washington, DC, and state court in Georgia.

“I think that Joe Biden needs to be replaced, but I don’t think that Americans will vote for someone who has been convicted,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican, during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
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