Ocasio-Cortez slams idea that Trump a victim of ‘two-tiered’ justice

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) criticized the idea that former President Trump is a victim of a “two-tiered” justice system after he was indicted last week on federal charges related to his handling of classified materials.

“The idea that there’s a two-tiered justice system and somehow the person on the short end of the stick is one of the most powerful and wealthy people that this country has known? I don’t think so,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent.

“There’s no way in which that argument holds water,” she added. “We have a nation of laws in which all people are treated equally. And mind too, the President is not being charged with events that happened during his presidency, but crimes that were committed afterwards.”

The indictment against Trump, which was unsealed Friday, accused the former president of retaining national defense information, sharing it with individuals who did not have proper security clearances and evading government efforts to recover classified materials.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all 37 counts in Miami on Tuesday afternoon before returning to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he gave a speech railing against special counsel Jack Smith. Speaking to a crowd of supporters, he described Smith, who is overseeing the Justice Department’s investigations into the former president, as a “thug” and accused him of carrying out “political hit jobs.”

The former president and his Republican allies have repeatedly claimed that federal law enforcement agencies have been weaponized against conservatives, going so far as to create a subcommittee on the issue in Congress.

They have pointed to Trump’s indictment as the latest example of conservatives being unfairly targeted, noting that classified documents were also recently recovered from President Biden’s residence and former office.

However, Democrats, like Ocasio-Cortez, have pushed back on this comparison, given that Biden promptly returned the documents and allowed federal authorities to search his properties for any additional classified materials.

“In no way shape or form is there a comparison between these two situations,” Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent. “I think the American people have seen the documents stockpiled in bathrooms and in closets, the sheer amount of documents that will be stored and warehoused as well as the Trump administration’s lack of cooperation and withholding these documents, it is extreme.”

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