A Long-Shot Candidate’s Defense of Trump Could Undermine the Rule of Law
In the overheated basement of the Thunder Bay Grille in Davenport, Iowa, on Thursday night, Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur turned Republican presidential candidate, tried out a new opening for his well-practiced stump speech.
“Although it would be easier for someone like me to win this primary or win this election if certain people like Donald Trump were not in the race, that’s not how I want to win,” the biotech millionaire told the Scott County Republican faithful who packed the room on the outskirts of this Mississippi River city.
“That’s not how we do things in America,” he continued. “We are not a country where the party in power should be able to use police force to indict its political opponents. And I stand not on the politics but on principle.”
It was a portentous broadside for a man running to be president, one that questioned the integrity of a justice system that had just brought the first federal charges against a former president. And it is something that Mr. Ramaswamy admits he has wrestled with, given that his assertions could undermine the rule of law that he says he stands by firmly.
Source: The New York Times
