RNC member: State parties should develop 'options' to deny Trump nomination if he's a convicted felon

Bill Palatucci, a Republican National Committee member from New Jersey, is sounding the alarm that the RNC needs to adopt an escape hatch to boot former President Donald Trump from the presidential nomination in the event that he wins but is convicted of a felony, reportedThe New York Times on Wednesday.

“Given what’s happening on the legal front, state parties need to think about what options they’re giving themselves,” said Palatucci, who thinks some state parties need to update their rules for how they allocate delegates at the party convention to allow some to more easily break from Trump if necessary. “All this is happening so quickly, it’s unprecedented, and so as states formulate what their rules are going to be. Everybody’s got a whole new set of circumstances to consider.”

Palatucci currently advises a super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, one of the few Trump rivals to be raising alarms about the former president's legal situation; other candidates, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, have suggested the justice system is rigged against Trump.

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Former President Donald Trump is facing four separate criminal cases: a bookkeeping fraud case in Manhattan, a federal Espionage Act case in South Florida, and election interference cases in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta.

It is highly unlikely that a verdict will be rendered in all three cases before the 2024 election, but at least some could; jury selection in the D.C. case is scheduled for next March, just before the "Super Tuesday" primaries.

The RNC has struggled with how to handle the issue of Trump being convicted of a crime, and for now is simply not planning for it. Party chair Ronna McDaniel refused to alter the terms of the party's "loyalty pledge" required to participate in the primary debates to allow candidates to renounce a nominee who is a convicted felon, angering candidates like former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, although he and Christie did ultimately sign the pledge anyway.