Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird traveled to New York to support Donald Trump during his ongoing criminal trial on allegations of committing business fraud in order to win the 2016 presidential election. That support included serving as a surrogate for the former president by denouncing a witness Trump cannot make public comments about because of a gag order imposed at the beginning of the trial.
Trump has a long history of attempting to intimidate opponents through public attacks, often involving false claims and baseless charges, and using social media to encourage others to launch similar attacks, often resulting in Trump’s targets being deluged with death threats.
In order to protect witnesses, court staff and their families, the judges in both Trump’s New York business fraud trials have imposed gag orders on the former president. In his civil business fraud trial, which concluded in February with Trump being found civilly liable for multiple counts of business fraud and ordered to pay more than $350 million as a consequence, Judge Arthur Engoron held Trump in contempt of court for violating his gag order, fining the former president for the violations.
In Trump’s criminal business fraud case — which involves charges related to a completely separate set of frauds Trump is alleged to have committed — Judge Juan Marchan has so far found Trump in contempt of court 10 times for violating his gag order. Marchan has levied the maximum fine available under New York law of $1,000 for each violation. While imposing the 10th fine on May 6, the judge warned Trump that in the future he would consider jailing him for violations of the gag order. That led to a change of tactics on Trump’s part.
Now prominent Republican politicians, and a couple of lesser-known loyalists such as Bird, have attended the morning session of Trump’s trial, and then held photo opportunities in front of the courthouse during which they complained about the trial and launched attacks Trump can’t without risking another contempt charge.
The first such Trump surrogate was Sen. Rick Scott of Florida. “On Monday, as Trump-lawyer-turned-antagonist Michael Cohen testified,” the Washington Post noted in its report on Trump’s surrogates, “it was Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).”
Like some of the other national news outlets, the Post failed to notice Bird was there. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was also part of the group on Monday, speaking after Bird at the photo op, and while the Post didn’t list him alongside the senators it did list him as one of the speakers at the photo op. Bird went unmentioned.
“I came all the way from Iowa to show our strong support that we have for President Trump,” Bird said at the beginning of her remarks. “He won our caucuses, the first-in-the-nation caucuses, by more than any other candidate ever has. He will do a great job, we need him back as our president leading our country again.”
The attorney general continued, calling the trial “a travesty” and dismissing the 34 felonies Trump is charged with in the case as “a scam and a sham.” Bird said Trump was on trial because “Biden knows that he cannot defeat President Trump,” instead of because Trump was indicted 34 times by a Manhattan grand jury.
“I worry for the future of our country if this is the direction campaigns are going to take,” Bird said.
In her remarks, Bird did something Trump cannot do under the terms of his gag order: disparage his former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who was testifying on Monday. The attorney general said “a star witness who’s a perjurer, disbarred, convicted of lying” was one of the “ridiculous things” about the trial.
Bird did not mention that Cohen was convicted and disbarred for actions he did on Trump’s behalf. And although she began her comments on the trial by saying “My background is as a prosecutor,” the attorney general at no point engaged with the voluminous documentation that had been introduced by prosecutors, or discussed any of the other witnesses who have testified against Trump.
As Trump was headed into court on Tuesday, a pool reporter asked him if he “directed surrogates to speak on his behalf.” The former president replied, but did not answer the question.
“I do have a lot of surrogates, and they are speaking very beautifully,” Trump said. “And they come all– from all over Washington and they’re highly respected, and they think this is the greatest scam they’ve ever seen. And some are Democrats. They’re very embarrassed by what’s going on.”
So far, no Democrats have appeared as one of Trump’s surrogates. After making that claim, Trump immediately moved on to complaining about “the electric vehicles that Biden is pushing down everybody’s throat.”
According to the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, no taxpayer money was used for Bird’s trip to New York to support Trump.
While Gov. Kim Reynolds cited Trump’s legal problems as one reason she believed he can’t win in 2024 when she endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination, Bird was Trump’s highest-profile supporter in this year’s Iowa Caucus.
Bird formally endorsed Trump on Oct. 16, the same day a judge in one of the two federal criminal cases he is facing imposed a gag order on the former president, ordering him to stop making statements attacking prosecutors and court personnel, or attempting to intimidate witnesses.
