Republican North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (C), Republican Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., center right and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, second from right, listen as Trump speaks after court proceedings ended for the day in his trial at Manhattan criminal court.
Credit: Reuters Photo
New York: On a sunny spring day this year, two members of Congress and two former presidential candidates stepped out of the Manhattan courthouse where Donald Trump was being tried on criminal charges.
The four were the latest in a parade of Trump's allies who attended the trial to show support for the once and future president. Like Trump, they all wore red ties. And like him, they all called the case an act of persecution.
"The sooner that this scam trial can be concluded," said one of the four, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, "the sooner that the president can get back to getting out and campaigning."
Trump's subsequent conviction on 34 felony counts did not keep him from regaining the presidency. Now, as he fills out his new administration, he has picked more than a dozen political operatives, lawyers and elected officials who attended the proceedings for key roles.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said it was natural for Trump to reward such displays of loyalty.
"It was not a litmus test in any way," said Malliotakis, who attended the trial with Trump's eventual choice for running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. "But it did show Mr. Trump who is willing to ride the peaks and the valleys with him, and I think that is invaluable in politics."
Burgum, who ran an unsuccessful Republican primary campaign last year, has been tapped to lead the Interior Department and coordinate federal energy policy. He was among those who during the trial attacked the family of the presiding judge in ways that Trump, under a gag order, could not.
At the time, Burgum was considered a potential running mate for Trump. Joining him that May day was Vivek Ramaswamy, another failed presidential hopeful seen as a possible candidate for vice president. Trump has chosen Ramaswamy to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency with billionaire Elon Musk.
Matthew Umhofer, a former federal prosecutor who is now in private practice, said that instead of speaking on Trump's behalf outside court, his defenders could have taken the witness stand to testify to what they believed to be his good character.
That they had not, Umhofer said, showed that their real audience was Trump and the voters who would decide his political fate.
"Having a public figure showing up on someone's behalf has less to do with the law and more to do with public messaging," Umhofer said.
Contacted for comment, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson who attended the trial and has been picked as White House communications director, replied by citing the move by Jack Smith, the special counsel, to drop charges against Trump for trying to subvert the 2020 election.
"The American people and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system," Cheung said in a statement.
Ramaswamy said in a statement Monday that the dropping of the federal charges and the postponement of Trump's sentencing in the Manhattan case "simply confirms that it was really just politics all along."
Other trial attendees who are poised to occupy significant positions in the new administration include Susie Wiles, a co-chair of Trump's campaign whom he has named as White House chief of staff; Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, who has been picked as national security adviser; and Sebastian Gorka, who is in line to be a deputy assistant to the president.
Emil Bove and Todd Blanche, Trump's trial lawyers, have been chosen for senior Justice Department roles. Blanche, who will require Senate confirmation, declined to comment.
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was another stalwart supporter of Trump's who appeared at the trial, joining about 10 other members of Congress there during the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump's former fixer.
At the time, Gaetz posted a photo on social media of himself standing behind Trump in a courthouse hallway.
"Standing back, and standing by, Mr. President," he wrote in an accompanying message, a reference to a 2020 comment by Trump about the far-right Proud Boys group.
Gaetz, too, was picked by Trump for a high-profile post -- attorney general. But unlike others who showed their support in lower Manhattan this past spring, he will not be joining the administration.
When it became clear that Senate Republicans would be deeply reluctant to confirm his nomination in the face of accusations of sex trafficking and drug use against him, Gaetz withdrew from consideration. (Trump's second choice for the job, Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, also attended the trial.)
Appearing with Burgum and the others in May, Ramaswamy had said that, ultimately, the American electorate would "cast the vote on this case."
As a result of that vote, Trump's sentencing is on hold and prosecutors have signaled a willingness to freeze the case while he is in office -- the leader of an administration stocked with allies who put their loyalty on public display.