George Conway Trolls Evangelical Leader’s Defense of Donald Trump

George Conway mocked evangelical leader Franklin Graham on social media after Graham’s social media post questioned the nation’s legal system and urged Americans to “pray for our nation” following former President Donald Trump’s guilty verdict.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, faced trial in New York City following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. The investigation led to a March 2023 indictment on 34 counts of falsifying business records. He was accused of attempting to conceal hush money paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels by his then-lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen during the 2016 presidential campaign.

On Thursday, a jury reached a guilty verdict on all 34 felony counts. Trump becomes the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime and faces possible jail time, which will be determined at his July 11 sentencing, just days before the Republican National Convention.

Hours after the guilty verdict, Graham, a vocal Trump supporter and president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic, posted a message urging followers to “pray for our nation” and questioning “whether our legal system can be trusted.” He previously endorsed Trump’s conspiracy theories claiming that the 2020 election was “rigged or stolen.”

Graham concluded his post on X, formerly Twitter, with a call for “God’s guiding hand that this republic will be one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”

The post garnered significant engagement on Facebook, with nearly 58,000 likes and 9,300 shares. On X, it received more than 7,000 reposts and 31,000 likes as of Friday morning.

Earlier Thursday, before the jury submitted a verdict, Graham posted: “Today is day 2 of jury deliberations in the NY trial of former President @realDonaldTrump. Pray that God will give members of the jury wisdom and insight to know truth.” Many argue that the jury did find the truth, while others, like the former president, believe it was a “rigged trial.”

Friday morning, a day after the jury’s highly anticipated verdict, Conway, a vocal Trump critic and lawyer who was previously married to former Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway, mockingly reposted Graham’s X post with a sarcastic comment: “Please pray that God restores our right to pay off porn stars to hush them up and to create fake records to cover up the payoff. Amen.” Conway’s post has received more than 1,100 reposts and over 7,300 likes as of Friday morning.

On Friday, Newsweek reached out to Graham on his website’s contact form and sent an email to Conway seeking comment.

Conway has a history of mocking the former president, most recently having paid for a billboard that reads “Vote for Joe Not the Psycho,” referring to the 2024 presidential election between President Joe Biden and Trump. The billboard was placed near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.