A group of House Democrats proposed renaming a Miami federal prison after former President Donald Trump on Friday—a tongue-in-cheek response to a similar proposal from a group of House Republicans earlier this week to rename a Washington, D.C. airport after the former president.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a campaign event on April 02, 2024 in Grand Rapids, ... [+]
Reps. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., and John Garamendi, D-Calif., introduced the resolution to designate the Miami Federal Correctional Institution as the “Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution.”
The legislation was filed in response to a proposal earlier this week to rename the Washington Dulles International Airport after Trump, filed by Reps. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., Barry Moore, R-Ala., and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas.
The Democrats took jabs at Trump and his Republican allies in statements explaining their reasons for introducing the resolution—Connolly said the federal prison would be “a more fitting option” than the airport, noting Trump’s various civil and criminal court cases, while Moskowitz noted “everyone knows President Trump loves to write his name in gold letters on all his buildings.”
Both proposals were referred to committee, and neither is likely to pass the divided Congress.
The Miami federal correctional institute is the closest federal prison to Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort and is located in the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida—where the Justice Department indicted Trump on 40 felonies last year for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office.
717.5. That’s the maximum total number of years former President Donald Trump could be sentenced to in his four criminal cases, including 450 years in his classified documents case. He’s likely to get a far shorter sentence if found guilty: Judges usually sentence people to far below the maximum, and the logistics of jailing an ex-president under Secret Service protection are expected to be difficult if not impossible.
Democrats widely rebuked the resolution to rename the airport after Trump, with some, including Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., noting the travelers who were detained there under Trump’s controversial executive order blocking entrants from seven Muslim-majority countries. Trump showed interest in having an airport renamed after him in 2020, the Daily Beast reported, and has publicly mentioned the possibility of having his face engraved into Mount Rushmore.