Following President Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, conservative Republicans in Congress are threatening to stall the vast majority of legislation scheduled to come before the legislative branch in the coming months, including all judicial and political nominees and appropriations bills. The threats could lead to another stalled budget and vacancies in key federal posts. 

In an open letter published the day of Trump’s conviction, ten Republican senators said they would work to stall every non-national security measure that comes before Congress. 

“The White House has made a mockery of the rule of law and fundamentally altered our politics in un-American ways. As a Senate Republican conference, we are unwilling to aid and abet this White House in its project to tear this country apart,” the lawmakers wrote. 

They say that they will not “allow any increase to non-security related funding for this administration, or any appropriations bill which funds partisan lawfare” and will not “vote to confirm this administration’s political and judicial appointees.” 

Their demands for defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump were not successful in last year’s budget process, and it’s nearly guaranteed that such a cut to Mr. Smith’s budget would not take place with Senator Schumer leading the upper chamber. It could, however, cause headaches and long delays for important legislation pending before Congress. 

The House is already working on its 12 appropriations bills before the September 30 deadline to fund the government. Congress typically does the vast majority of that work before the end of July, when Congress goes on its six-week recess, only to return days before the budget deadline and vote on final passage. 

Currently, there are dozens of judicial and political nominees that are expected to receive Senate votes in the coming weeks. According to the Senate’s executive calendar, the upper chamber will soon vote on the nominations of 12 individuals for federal judgeships and more than 50 nominations for individuals who are seeking appointments to executive departments and agencies, commissions, and boards.  

Republican leadership has so far been mum on the threats to hold up important legislation and nominations. 

The most powerful elected Republican in America, Speaker Johnson, has not gone as far as some of his GOP colleagues in Congress. He says that oversight is more than enough to get answers out of Mr. Bragg. Mr. Johnson has not said that he would try to defund any of the prosecutions of Trump. 

“What we’ll do with our tools that we have in Congress — in the House — is we’ll use our oversight responsibility. We’ve already done that. You saw our judiciary chairman, Jim Jordan, issue requests for Alvin Bragg, the D.A. in Manhattan, and for the lead prosecutor … to show up for a hearing on June 13th,” the speaker told Fox News on Sunday. “The purpose of the hearing is to investigate what these prosecutors are doing at the state and federal level to use … political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents.”

Senator McConnell has also not called for the extreme measures that some conservatives are advocating. After Trump’s conviction, Mr. McConnell simply said that the jury’s ruling would likely be overturned on appeal. 

It isn’t just in Congress that conservatives are calling for action. Across the country, state and local Republicans have defended Trump’s innocence and demanded that he be exonerated. Some even say members of the Biden administration should be prosecuted in retaliation. The attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, is one of those elected leaders calling for retribution. 

“From the beginning of this sham trial, I stood by President Trump, and my support for him is stronger than ever,” Mr. Paxton said in a statement. “As Attorney General of Texas, I will unleash every tool at my disposal to fight this blatant corruption and political persecution spewing from New York and the Biden administration.”