Pence Calls Trump’s ‘Unprecedented Indictment’ an ‘Outrage’
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Former vice president Mike Pence called former president Donald Trump’s indictment by a Manhattan grand jury an “outrage” while speaking with National Review editor Rich Lowry at the National Review Institute’s Ideas Summit on Friday.
“The unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States for a campaign finance issue is an outrage,” Pence said, suggesting that most Americans can see it is “nothing short of a political prosecution.”
He noted District Attorney Alvin Bragg “literally campaigned on bringing charges against one particular American.”
“That should be offensive to every American — left right and center. Every American deserves equal treatment under the law,” he said.
He later added that the indictment “sends a terrible message to the wider world about American justice.”
“There are dictators and authoritarians around the world who will point to that to justify their own abuse of their own so-called justice system,” he said.
A Manhattan grand jury voted Thursday to indict Trump in connection with a hush-money payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels, making Trump the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges.
“This evening we contacted Mr. Trump’s attorney to coordinate his surrender to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office for arraignment on a Supreme Court indictment, which remains under seal,” Bragg’s office confirmed in a statement on Thursday.
Trump is expected to appear in court on Tuesday for his arraignment, per CNN.
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina maintained the former president’s innocence.
“He did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court,” Tacopina said in a statement.
The indictment accuses Trump of falsifying business records in relation to the hush-money payments. Daniels claimed in the final days of the 2016 presidential election that she had previously had a sexual affair with Trump. Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about her claims.
Prosecutors claim Trump falsified internal business records to conceal the reimbursement payments to Cohen as legal expenses. Cohen claims Trump was aware of the misleading record keeping.
Trump reacted to the news in a statement on Thursday calling the indictment “Political Persecution and Election Interference at the highest level in history” and warning “this Witch-Hunt will backfire massively on Joe Biden.”
“Never before in our Nation’s history has this been done,” Trump said. “The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent, who just so happens to be a President of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for President, has never happened before. Ever.”
