Republicans back Trump amid possible arrest by Manhattan DA

Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, rallied around former President Donald Trump on Sunday, calling his potential prosecution by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office a politically motivated attack on a Democratic rival of 2024.

“It looks like a politically charged pursuit here. And I, for one, just feel like that’s just not what Americans want to see,” Pence told ABC News’ This Week in an interview that aired Sunday.

“The fact that the Manhattan DA thinks indicting President Trump is his top priority, I think…just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left in this country,” Pence, who argued with Trump, 76, after the US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, host Jonathan Karl said.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) Says Trump’s possible arrest over an alleged silent payment of $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election is “one of the worst uses of the system judiciary we have ever seen.”

“This kind of two-tier prosecution, this gotcha mentality with the criminal justice system is flat out wrong,” he told Fox News Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures”.

​”​And, Maria, let me also say this. There have been past uses of the criminal justice system in America that have been wrong. It was about targeting. It’s wrong. Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Donalds said, without elaborating.

“Just chasing your political opponent in President Trump will not make you a pillar of virtue. This is going to throw all of America into further chaos, not what we need – not at all what we need,” he said.

As media reports circulated last week that Trump was to be charged in Manhattan over the alleged silent payment, the former president lifted the lid on the speculation and posted on his Truth Social platform that he would be arrested on Tuesday. and urged his legion of loyalists to “protest”.

Trump pointed to “ILLEGAL LEAKS FROM A CORRUPTED AND HIGHLY POLITICAL MANHATTAN DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE” as proof he would be indicted.

“THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED TUESDAY NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE BACK OUR NATION! Trump said in an all caps message – one of many – Saturday morning.

After being silent for most of Sunday morning about his arrest, Trump issued a missive linking President Biden to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation, saying the prosecutor was “taking his orders to DC”.

“I beat them TWICE, doing much better the second time around, and despite their DISINFORMATION campaign, they don’t want to run against ‘TRUMP’ or my BIG RECORD!” he said on Truth Social.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for an “immediate” investigation into what he called a “politically motivated lawsuit.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry (RN.C.) was asked Sunday about McCarthy’s comment and whether Congress should use “federal funds from US taxpayers for a political mission.”

“I think the viable question for the American people is whether or not you have a progressive prosecutor using the justice system to prosecute political enemies for political spattering. And that seems to be the case here with the Manhattan DA,” said said McHenry on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who is considering a 2024 presidential bid that would make him a political rival to Trump, said he thinks Democrats miscalculated in pursuing the former president.

“I can tell you, I think it creates a lot of sympathy for the former president,” Sununu said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And, as you pointed out, this is probably some kind of misdemeanor on an issue seven years ago. It has nothing to do with Jan. 6. There are people who still think that it has something to do with Jan. 6,” he said.

“I just think the – not just the media – but really a lot of Democrats have misinterpreted that, in terms of building sympathy for the former president. he said.

Representative James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee leading the Republicans’ investigation into Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings, said Trump’s potential indictment was “another example of a system of two-tiered justice”.

“I am very strange that this came out the very next day after revealing bank statements, which showed that the Biden family, the president in particular, did not tell the truth about his family receiving payments directly from the Chinese Communist “Partying. So it almost feels like an effort to harm, but at the very least, it’s another example of a two-tier justice system,” Comer, of Kentucky, said on “Sunday Morning Futures.”

“We have reviewed these classified documents. We saw the FBI raid Mar-a-Lago for a set of supposedly dark and mishandled classified documents, but yet Joe Biden had at least five different places that mishandled classified documents, and they’re giving him days and days to go clean up with his lawyer,” Comer said.

“So this strikes me as another example of a two-tier justice system at the DOJ.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona said he thinks Bragg wouldn’t have gone on if he hadn’t had a strong case against Trump.

“I think it’s very important that the Manhattan District Attorney look into this thoroughly. … I hope if they press charges they have a strong case, because it’s — like you said , this is unprecedented. And there are certainly risks involved here. But, again, no one in our country is or should be above the law,” Kelly said on CNN.
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