Political prosecution or Trump's chickens coming home to roost? Arizona's congressional delegation reacts to indictment

Members of Arizona's Capitol Hill delegation reacted quickly Thursday to news that a New York grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump.

Trump becomes the first former president to ever be indicted. While the charges remain sealed, the indictment is related to two hush money payments with two women who reportedly had sex with Trump, who also is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The national debate exploded across social-media platforms and TV screens, with Democrats generally emphasizing that no one is above the law in the United States and Republicans generally denouncing the development as part of a sham political prosecution.

Arizona's congressional delegation tended to split along those same lines.

"We're a country of laws, and nobody is above the law," U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said in an emailed statement. "The former president has constitutional rights and presumption of innocence, as any other American does. I have faith in our justice system and remain focused on addressing the issues facing Arizonans and our country."

U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., hinted in a written statement to The Arizona Republic that Trump’s prosecution wasn’t the outrage many on the right have claimed.

"Politicians aren’t above the law,” she said. “This is an ongoing case and we won’t comment as the judicial system plays out."

Throughout Trump’s four years in the White House, Sinema generally avoided weighing in on his many controversies.

Sinema twice voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trials in 2019 and 2021.

Ahead of his first impeachment, growing out of an effort to pressure Ukraine’s president into announcing the investigation of Biden and his son Hunter, Sinema struck a similar tone in which she said she had a duty "to avoid pre-judging facts or reaching conclusions."

"Arizonans deserve a government that upholds our Constitutional values,” Sinema, then a Democrat, said in a 2019 written statement. “Partisan politics have no place in addressing these serious allegations."

U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running for Sinema's Senate seat, also cautioned Thursday against a rush to judgment.

“In America, we believe in the rule of law," Gallego said. "We should wait to hear from the grand jury before jumping to conclusions."

Kari Lake, the former Fox 10 news anchor who unsuccessfully ran for governor and who may run for the Senate next year, gave a full-throated defense of Trump, calling it "a dark moment in the history of our nation" and decrying "the radical left and their weaponized criminal justice system" that she said is trying to destroy Trump.

Catch up: Grand jury indicts Donald Trump in New York, first time a former president is charged criminally

"Jailing your political opponents based on frivolous politically-motivated accusations is something that you’d expect to see out of third-world dictatorships or banana republicans," Lake said in a written statement. "And now, after a relentless assault on our beloved United States Constitution and our institutional norms, the radical left has accelerated this country’s decline into a broken system that allows for the political persecution of ANYONE who threatens the status quo. The only crime that Donald Trump committed was beating Hillary Clinton. All of this other garbage they've thrown at him is just theater, distractions from that original sin. The American people watched the lawless Clinton dynasty defy the rule of law for over two decades and they finally had a belly full."

U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., another reliable Trump ally who sits on the influential House Judiciary Committee, tweeted that Trump "has just been indicted by an extremist NY District Attorney."

"No president of the United States has ever been criminally indicted," Biggs wrote. "Trump Derangement Syndrome has infiltrated our judicial system and if they can come from him, they can come for anyone."

U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., another loyal Trump supporter in the House, wrote multiple tweets about Trump's indictment. He first called it "third world politics from a Soros DA who needs to be investigated."

"This is clear and brazen political persecution. I proudly stand with Donald J. Trump," Gosar said in the Twitter message.

Next, Gosar tweeted: "The Regime occupying our country and systematically killing America is most afraid of President Donald J. Trump. Period. He's our guy."

U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., a House GOP freshman, tweeted a statement accusing the Manhattan district attorney of "orchestrating a political stunt against President Trump."

"This is simply an abuse of power by a Democrat hack," Crane said in his statement.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., also took a shot at the prosecutor.

“The New York DA should concentrate on reducing crime in his own city instead of going on a political witch hunt after Trump," Lesko said in a statement. "Federal courts, the Federal Election Commission, and the U.S. Supreme Court had already decided not to pursue this issue years ago.”

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., the senior member of the state's delegation and one of the most progressive members of Congress, welcomed the legal accountability for Trump.

"Donald Trump has a long history of breaking the law: shady business practices, a fake university, stiffing workers out of their hard-earned pay, sketchy foreign business profiteering, hush money payments and his most heinous crime, attempting to overthrow our democracy," Grijalva said in a written statement.

"Finally, today, Donald Trump’s chickens have come home to roost."

Grijalva added that he expects "this is the first of many indictments of the former president for his flagrant violations of the law. It’s past time he and his associates were held accountable. No one is above the law.”

U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., a former Judiciary Committee member, declined to comment Thursday.

U.S. Reps. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., and David Schweikert, R-Ariz., did not immediately respond to The Arizona Republic's requests for comment.

Tara Kavaler is a politics reporter at The Arizona Republic. She can be reached by email at tara.kavaler@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @kavalertara.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona's congressional delegation reacts to indictment