Convicted criminals take Republican stage despite focus on ‘law and order’

The Republican party that promised in its 2024 policy platform to restore “law and order” as a “pillar” of “American civilisation” packed up and left Milwaukee on Friday after a convention featuring numerous felons.

The most prominent was the keynote speaker: Donald Trump , the former president turned nominee who in May was convicted in New York on 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star.

Trump also awaits trial on at least 14 and as many as 54 other criminal charges , and in addition has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars in civil cases for business fraud and defamation arising from a rape claim a judge said was “ substantially true ”.

Related: Donald Trump case tracker: where does each investigation stand?

But there was also Peter Navarro , once Trump’s trade adviser, who addressed the convention on Wednesday fresh out of a Florida jail where he served four months for criminal contempt of Congress.

“I went to prison so you won’t have to,” declared Navarro – who was convicted for refusing to comply with subpoenas from the House January 6 committee – to a jubilant crowd that responded with a standing ovation.

Another former Trump aide turned convicted criminal in attendance was Paul Manafort , Trump’s campaign manager in 2016. Three years later he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison on charges including bank fraud, tax fraud, money laundering and witness tampering, arising from the investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow.

In 2020 Trump pardoned Manafort , who later wrote a memoir called Political Prisoner . At the convention, Manafort was briefly linked with an organising role before backing off, though he was still in Milwaukee to tell Fox News : “I’ve done 10 conventions. This is the best.”

Roger Stone, who like Manafort is a longtime operative convicted on charges arising from the Russia investigation, was also at the convention in Milwaukee .

Stone was sentenced to more than three years in prison after being convicted of criminal charges including witness tampering and obstructing Congress. He never set foot in jail, as Trump commuted his sentence .

Rod Blagojevich attended as well. In July 2011, the former Democratic governor of Illinois was convicted on 17 criminal charges, including bribery, fraud and extortion, arising from an attempt to sell Barack Obama’s former US Senate seat.

Blagojevich was jailed for 14 years. In 2020, Trump commuted his sentence . This week, Blagojevich told NBC : “I think President Trump is the most demonised political figure in American history, and I know something about being demonised.”

Another former Trump aide jailed for criminal contempt of Congress over January 6 did not make it to the convention hall, but Steve Bannon was getting updates via phone from his daughter in Wisconsin to his federal prison in Connecticut.

“He’s doing good,” Maureen Bannon told Politico . “He’s able to see the news in there. Read. We can email him articles. So he’s still getting a sense of what’s going on while he’s a political prisoner.”

The irony of “the party of law and order” being led by one criminal and welcoming other criminals was not lost on many observers.

One of the defining elements of authoritarianism is selective application of the law,” wrote Will Saletan in the Bulwark, an anti-Trump conservative publication.

“In fascist movements, ‘law and order’ is invoked against scapegoats and political enemies, while the leader and his allies are exempt from legal accountability.

“This distinction has become central to Donald Trump’s Republican party.”