'Synchronized sycophants': Columnist torches Trump 'mini-mes' for courthouse theatrics

Republican lawmakers traveling to former President Donald Trump's trial in Manhattan were slammed as "synchronized sycophants" by Dana Milbank in a blistering editorial for The Washington Post released on Friday.

Several days of the trial have now seen these Trump allies, all the way up to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), delivering manifestos against the prosecution and against court officers and their families. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) even proudly admitted they were there to attack people Trump was barred from going after under his gag order.

"In the park across the street from the courthouse on Tuesday stood the speaker of the House, the man second in line to the presidency, lying like a rug," wrote Milbank. "Without a shred of evidence, Mike Johnson alleged that 'the judge’s own daughter is making millions of dollars' off of the trial. He claimed a prosecutor in the case had 'recently received over $10,000 in payments from the Democratic National Committee.' He alleged that, in Trump’s classified documents case, prosecutors 'manipulated documents' and 'might have tampered with the evidence' — conduct 'so egregious' that it caused that trial to be 'indefinitely postponed.' All false or, at best, deeply distorted."

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This conduct, wrote Milbank, is "demeaning to the office of the speaker, and to Congress" — as was the further parade of "Trump mini-mes" from senators to representatives who showed up in the following days.

"They offered not a shred of evidence that the judge’s daughter, who works at a political consultancy, has made a dime off the trial," Milbank noted. "Even if she had, the judge had solicited an advisory opinion from New York’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which concluded that 'the judge’s impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned based on the judge’s relative’s business and/or political activities.'"

The prosecution is expected to rest early next week, after Trump's former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen — one of the most important witnesses — will be done with cross-examination and redirect. The defense plans to call an election law expert, and may also call Cohen's ex-attorney Robert Costello, before the trial moves to closing arguments and jury instructions.