Where the Republican Candidates Stand on the Trump Indictments
Former President Donald J. Trump faces an expanding collection of felony charges: There’s the indictment in New York City over hush payments to a pornographic actress, plus a federal indictment over his retention of classified documents, plus another federal indictment over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, which culminated in his supporters’ storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. There’s an investigation into election interference in Georgia, too.
Mr. Trump has cast every investigation as politically motivated and legally meritless — and, with few exceptions, the Republicans looking to beat him next year have gone along.
Here is what the other candidates have said.
Ron DeSantis
Like most of the Republican field, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has framed the charges as products of a corrupt justice system, while offering muted criticism of Mr. Trump’s actions.
“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” he wrote on Twitter after the indictment in the documents case. A few weeks later, he suggested in an interview with CNN that an indictment in the election case would show the country “going down the road of criminalizing political differences” — and declared on social media that Washington was such a “swamp” that not only Mr. Trump but also any criminal defendant should have a right to be tried somewhere else.
Source: The New York Times
