One of the beneficiaries of Virginia’s aggressive attempt to gerrymander the state for Democratic advantage could be a former federal prosecutor whose campaign for Congress hinges on his efforts to use the law to target President Trump and his supporters.
When a slim majority of Virginia voters gave the legislature authority last month to create congressional districts that could give Democrats a 10-1 advantage, J.P. Cooney cheered the outcome in a message on social media, boasting that the new district he was running in had been drawn “expressly for the purpose of standing up to Donald Trump’s and MAGA’s corruption.”
Although the fate of Virginia’s 7th Congressional District remains unclear – a state judge immediately blocked the measure, and the issue is expected to end up before the Supreme Court – Cooney’s candidacy represents a small but growing wave of former prosecutors who are running on their anti-Trump bona fides. So far, at least two other former Justice Department officials are seeking office by touting their work against the president, his supporters, and his current administration. All are running as Democrats.
To their supporters, these candidates represent a principled stand against what they see as the lawless excesses of the Trump administration. To many Republicans, the entry of supposedly neutral federal prosecutors into the brass knuckle world of politics confirms their suspicions that the DOJ is filled with partisans who used their power to target the president and the MAGA movement in general.
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