Trump legal woes force another moment of choosing for GOP

From the moment he rode down the Trump Tower escalator to announce his first presidential campaign, a searing question has hung over the Republican Party: Is this the moment to break from Donald Trump?

Elected Republicans have wavered at times — whether it was Trump's condemnation of John McCain's war record, his racist attack against a Mexican-American judge, his sexually predatory language caught on video, his alleged extramarital affairs, his decision to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence, his promotion of false allegations of election fraud and his incitement of a violent mob that threatened the lives of lawmakers in both parties.

But after almost eight years of near-constant scandal, Republicans have ultimately rallied behind Trump over and over and over again.

Now, on the eve of a new presidential campaign season, that loyalty is being tested anew as Trump prepares for the possibility that he may soon become the first former U.S. president charged with a crime. New York prosecutors are wrapping up their probe into whether Trump engaged in an illegal hush money scheme involving a porn actress.

"This is another moment — not just this indictment, but the others likely to follow — where Republicans have the opportunity to break with Trump," said Sarah Longwell, a vocal Republican Trump critic and founder of the Republican Accountability Project. "If they fail to do so, they'll have no one to blame but themselves when Trump is the nominee again."

So far, at least, the vast majority of the Republican Party appears to have made its choice.

As charges loom, many party leaders have begun to defend the former president — even as other Republicans with far less baggage line up against him in the...