In this MAGA corner of California, the GOP offers an audacious defense of Donald Trump | Opinion

In California, you would be hard pressed to find a group of voters more devoted to former President Donald Trump than the leaders of San Luis Obispo County’s Republican Party.

The SLO County GOP was the first in the state to endorse Trump for reelection in 2024.

The party regularly sponsors showings of “documentary” movies peddling pro-Trump conspiracy theories about past elections — and it has no qualms about endorsing election deniers for local offices.

It surprised no one when the SLO County GOP blasted the jury’s decision to convict Trump of 34 felony charges relating to his (failed) attempt to cover up a sex scandal by defending the former president in a manner that managed to be both jaw-droppingly audacious and obtuse.

“If a former president can be brought up on charges for his personal lifestyle, we as a nation have no justice or law,” Randall Jordan, chairman of the SLO County GOP, wrote in an email to The Tribune.

Personal lifestyle?

That’s what you call it when a man cheats on his wife with an adult film actress — just four months after his wife has given birth? And later pays $130,000 to cover it up because it might lose him the election for the presidency of the United States? And in the course of that cover-up, falsifies business documents to hide the true reason for the payment?

But hey, there’s no crime in any of that. It’s just the way he chooses to live his life. Philandering, fraud, election interference and all.

That’s good to know.

Just think, we can now use the “personal lifestyle” defense to excuse all sorts of bad behavior.

‘Tearing down of the family unit’

Jordan’s apologia didn’t stop there.

“We (the Republican Party of San Luis Obispo County) stand behind our president,” he continued, “and urge the nation to re-elect President Trump and move toward healing this nation that has been ravaged by the far left with open borders, runaway inflation, rampant crime and the tearing down of the family unit.”

Tearing down of the family unit?

Please. Has any president done more to tear down the family unit than Donald Trump?

Sure, other presidents had extramarital affairs, which they, too, tried to hide. But the contempt Trump has shown for women — including members of his own family — is unprecedented for a president.

This is the man who gave shock jock Howard Stern permission to call his daughter, Ivanka, a “piece of ass.”

The man who bragged that if you’re a celebrity, you can “do anything” to women, even grab them by the p----.

The man who was ordered to pay damages in a civil case for sexually abusing a woman in a department store dressing room.

But that’s all OK because it’s his “personal lifestyle” to disrespect women.

SLO County’s district attorney joins the discussion

It wasn’t just the SLO County Republican Party that found a way to spin the verdict.

One of San Luis Obispo County’s top elected officials, Republican District Attorney Dan Dow, offered his own legalistic take on the case in an op-ed that appeared in the California Globe, a conservative publication founded by an associate of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Dow started on neutral note, by pointing out that the verdicts “present a very significant historic event for our nation.”

Then came this zinger: “I became a prosecutor because of the requirement to exercise our authority with honesty, integrity, and fairness to all concerned,” he wrote. “I am disappointed to see political prosecutions by some district attorneys — and their simultaneous dereliction of their duty to enforce the law and protect their communities from violent criminals.”

Dow never mentioned Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg by name, but given the context, it wasn’t difficult to figure out his target.

Dow devoted the bulk of his op-ed to quoting the entire 1940 speech by former U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson.

Much of the speech aligns with Dow’s views.

Jackson called for “a rededication to the spirit of fair play and decency,” and he cautioned every prosecutor against picking “some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense. ...”

But here’s where things get interesting.

Jackson also urged prosecutors to have “a detached and impartial view of all groups in his community.” And he spoke favorably about the Hatch Act, the 1939 federal legislation that restricts the political activities of most U.S. government employees.

“I am convinced that a good-faith acceptance of the spirit and letter of that doctrine will relieve many district attorneys from the embarrassment of what have heretofore been regarded as legitimate expectations of political service,” Jackson wrote. “There can also be no doubt that to be closely identified with the intrigue, the money raising, and the machinery of a particular party or faction may present a prosecuting officer with embarrassing alignments and associations.”

DA: ‘Never ever ever’ prosecute someone for political beliefs

That’s where Dow parts ways with Jackson.

The district attorney has weighed in on partisan issues before, though generally in local races. For instance, in 2022, he contributed $25,000 from his own campaign chest to a political action group that ran a smear campaign against Democratic Supervisor Bruce Gibson.

In Dow’s view, that’s perfectly OK.

The Hatch Act “does not and should not apply to state and local prosecutors. And the law is quite specific of what it prohibits. It is not a broad prohibition of all political activities,” he said in an email to The Tribune.

“Every human has their own political preferences. DAs included,” he continued. “Anyone saying they don’t is not being honest. That is not the issue.

“What is most important is that every prosecutor (federal, state or local), no matter what their political preference, must perform their important duty by the same ethical standard — to never ever ever prosecute someone based on the subject’s political beliefs or popularity. The authority of the office shall never be used — by any prosecutor — to target other individuals based on their different political preferences.”

Remember, this is coming from the DA who was booted from prosecuting activist Tianna Arata for leading Black Lives Matter protests in San Luis Obispo in 2020.

Why? Because multiple judges concluded he was biased and incapable of fairly litigating the case.

Pot, meet kettle.