The potential 2024 Republican primary field quickly coalesced on Thursday around a strategy for responding to former President Donald Trump’s indictment: Attack Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor, but stop short of praising Trump.
If the news of the former president facing more than 30 counts related to business fraud was unprecedented, the reaction from his possible GOP rivals was, in large part, familiar. Rather than risk the backlash from base voters loyal to Trump, ambitious Republicans zeroed in on a liberal foe. It’s a tactic that underscores the former president’s hold over the Republican Party – even when under indictment.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely viewed as Trump’s most formidable potential Republican opponent, did not mention the former president in his response, instead going after “the Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney” – a reference to the billionaire liberal donor George Soros often at the center of conservative conspiracy theories.
“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head. It is un-American,” DeSantis tweeted. “The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent.”
DeSantis also reiterated that he would not “assist in an extradition request” for Trump, a Florida resident. Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday in New York, where he had lived most of his life.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, for years one of Trump’s most ardent defenders before offering some measured criticism after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol, called the indictment of his former boss “an outrage” and suggested that Bragg was politically motivated.
Pressed by…
Read the full article here
