Republicans rallied to Donald Trump’s defense after the former president was indicted in Georgia on 13 criminal charges for attempting to reverse his defeat there by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
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Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the US House, said“Justice should be blind, but Biden has armed the administration against his leading political opponent to interfere in the 2024 election.”
Trump faces a total of 91 criminal charges, including paying hush money to an adult film star, withholding classified information and subverting the federal election.
Either way, he dominates the Republican primary, leading his nearest challengers nationally and in states with early voting by about 40 points.
Referring to Fani Willis of Fulton County, McCarthy continued: “Now a radical [district attorney] in Georgia follows Biden’s lead by attacking President Trump and using it to raise money for her political career. Americans see through this desperate sham.”
Trump has long used his legal predicament as a fundraising engine, both for his campaign and as a way to pay his ever-increasing legal bills.
Monday night, after charges were filed in Georgia, an email asking for donations called for a “FOURTH ACT of election interference on behalf of the Democrats in an effort to keep the White House under Crooked Joe’s control and its single largest opponent of the 2024 elections in prison. ”.
Republicans in Congress firmly sided with Trump.
New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a member of the House leadership, insisted Trump “had every right to challenge the results of the election,” which he lost decisively.
She added: “This blatant election meddling by the far left will not work. President Trump will defeat these false allegations and win the White House back in 2024.”
In the Senate, Ted Cruz of Texas, Trump’s closest rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said he was “pissed.” Cruz also called the charges against Georgia “disgraceful” and reiterated McCarthy’s complaint about “armaments” — a point of contention in the party.
South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who briefly failed him during the Jan. 6 attack on Congress but quickly backed out, told Fox News: “The American people can decide whether to [Trump] to be president or not.
“This should be decided at the ballot box and not a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail. They are arming the law in this country. They are trying to bring down Donald Trump.”
Among the Republicans bent on taking down Trump — the other candidates in the presidential primary field — many were slower to respond.
On Tuesday, Ron DeSantis, the second-placed candidate in most polls, told reporters that the Georgia indictment was “an example of this criminalization of politics. I don’t think this is something that is good for the country.”
DeSantis also accused Willis of using an “excessive amount of resources” on the Trump case while failing to crack down on the crime.
Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey who is now challenging DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire, also questioned Willis’ motives.
The charge was “unnecessary,” Christie, herself a former prosecutor, told Fox News, adding that suing Trump was “probably an ego decision.”
Christie said he last spoke to Trump in December 2020, amid Trump’s plans to overturn the election. Christie said he told the man he had supported four years earlier, “There’s nothing left. You have to give in to the elections.’
Trump, he said, replied, “I’ll never, never, ever admit it.”
On social media, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has polled surprisingly strongly, says said“I would voluntarily write the amicus brief to the court: prosecutors should not be deciding the U.S. presidential election, and if they are so overzealous as to commit constitutional violations, then the cases should be dismissed and held accountable.”
Ramaswamy also echoed the Trump campaign by seizing an error where a version of the indictment was posted to a court website Monday afternoon and then quickly removed while grand jury testimony continued.
“Since the four charges against Trump use new and untested legal theories,” Ramaswamy said, “it is fair game for him to do the same in the defense: immediately file a motion to dismiss a violation of constitutional process before the public issuing an indictment before the grand jury had even signed one.
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“He should make a strong argument on these grounds and it would send a strong signal to the ever-expanding prosecuting police state.”
Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, who like Christie has opposed Trump, said: “Over a year ago I said Donald Trump’s actions disqualified him from ever being president again. Those words are more true today than ever before.”
Another anti-Trump candidate, former congressman Will Hurd, like Hutchinson a vanishingly small presence in the polls, called the Georgia indictment “another example of how former President Joe Biden’s baggage will hand over to reelection if Trump is the nominee.”
Hurd complained of “further evidence that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election and was willing to do whatever it took to stay in power,” saying the former president would “use this latest indictment as another opportunity to manipulate Americans into paying his legal bills”.
