Dems celebrate Trump’s indictment while GOP strongly unites against Manhattan DA
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People on both sides of the political aisle reacted to the news of former President Donald Trump’s indictment. While many Democratic lawmakers were happy to see Trump charged for his part in hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, many in the GOP coalesced around the former president.
A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced that Trump’s attorneys have been contacted to “coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan DA’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” as the Deseret News reported.
This prompted lawmakers on the left, like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to cheer the Manhattan grand jury’s decision.
“No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence,” Pelosi said on Twitter. “Hopefully, the former President will peacefully respect the system, which grants him that right.”
Schumer in a statement posted to Twitter also indicated that the nation’s laws should apply equally to Trump, who will now have “to avail himself to the legal system, and a jury, not politics, to determine his fate.”
He also encouraged Trump’s supporters to let the legal proceedings carry on “peacefully and according to the law.”
Trump, who is a leading GOP contender for 2024 in the polls, was quick to release a reaction video in response to the news of his indictment. “Remember this, nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy,” he says over recent and decade-old clips of him, as well as photos of people who he’s gone up against like Pelosi and former President Barack Obama. He talks about courage and “pushing ahead,” even when “a broken system tells you you’re wrong.”
“I’m just standing in their way, and I always will stand in their way,” he says.
The indictment has led many Republicans to point fingers at the Manhattan DA and his charges. As conservative commentator Saagar Enjeti said on Twitter, “Bragg has now united the entire GOP around Trump with potentially the dumbest charge relative to consequence in modern American history.”
Enjeti may be right about uniting the right, starting with Trump’s 2024 competition. Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said Trump’s indictment was “more about revenge than justice” and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy called it “un-American” and “politically motivated.”
The two are on a long list of prominent Republicans who spoke out in Trump’s support, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Flordia Gov. Ron DeSantis, both of whom have had a tough relationship with Trump.
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Pence, who may be mulling his run for the presidency, said the “unprecedented indictment” over the campaign finance issue was “an outrage,” during an appearance on CNN.
“And it appears to millions of Americans to be nothing more than a political prosecution that’s driven by a prosecutor who literally ran for office on a pledge to indict the former president,” he said, referring to Bragg.
DeSantis, who is also expected to run for president in 2024, directly attacked the “Soros-backed Manhattan district attorney,” who has “consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct.”
CNBC News reporter Ben Collins wrote that Republicans have criticized Braggs’ ties to billionaire George Soros, who is known for his large donations to progressive district attorneys and his disdain for Trump. But, Soros “has never met or spoken to Alvin Bragg,” an adviser to the billionaire said.
But Soros gave $1 million to a group that supported Bragg in his election, according to a New York Times fact check.
DeSantis said his state would not help with Trump’s extradition, citing “the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”
The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head.
It is un-American.
The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct. Yet, now he is…— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) March 30, 2023
Attacks on Soros and Bragg also came from other conservative lawmakers, like House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and Rep. Weasley Hunt of Texas.
“A Manhattan grand jury at the behest of a weaponized prosecutor; who received a million dollars from Soros, has indicted a former U.S. president,” Hunt said. “If they can come for him, they can come for you. Our judicial system is not blind or just, it has been weaponized by dangerous people hellbent on remaking our nation into something unrecognizable.”
McCarthy, also targeting Bragg, claimed the DA has “weaponized our sacred system of justice.”
South California Sen. Lindsey Graham chimed in with a joke, saying that for Trump to avoid prosecution, he “should smash some windows, rob a few shops and punch a cop,” while Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia said she plans to be in New York on Tuesday to “protest the unconstitutional witch hunt.”
I’m going to New York on Tuesday.
We MUST protest the unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) March 31, 2023
