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- Author, Katty Kay
- Scroll, US Correspondent
2 hours ago
Most Republicans responded to the recent allegations against Donald Trump by defending the former president and condemning the lawsuit. But if you take a closer look, the language they use to defend it is revealing.
Because of deep political divisions, the United States is sometimes said to be two countries sharing the same territory. The same can be said of the Republican Party there are several parties that share the same political brand.
Criminal charges against Donald Trump under the Espionage Act for handling confidential documents after leaving the White House have made these divisions within the party particularly clear.
Below is a brief breakdown of what the various departments are saying about the indictment against the former president and what motivates their reactions.
Trump’s rivals
This is the group most watched and with the most to lose the Republicans running against Trump for the party’s 2024 White House nomination.
They’re the people who want to set themselves apart from the former president without upsetting his supporters.
They seem to sidestep the dilemma by focusing their defense on pointing out that the law is not being applied fairly because Joe Biden, when he was vice president, also took confidential documents after leaving office. The current president is still under investigation, but one key difference is that he has returned the files.
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Nikki Haley changed her tune and criticized Trump much more directly
The reaction of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s current closest competitor, reflects this approach. He appeared to defend Trump when he claimed there had been “unequal application of the law.”
Another presidential candidate, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, said the allegations were an example of “a justice system that has two different standards.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is running against his former boss, told a Republican convention over the weekend that no one is above the law. He then spoke about years of alleged politicization at the Justice Department and failure to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
However, the situation is uncertain and each of the 2024 presidential contenders will regularly reconsider their strategies as events unfold.
This is what happened to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. She first released a statement that sounded very similar to the votes of her fellow presidential candidates. “There should be no justice in our country like this,” she tweeted.
On Monday afternoon (06/12), during an appearance on Fox News, she changed her tune and criticized the former president in a much more direct way.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie wants to force Republicans to settle accounts with Trump. “The facts presented here are overwhelming in terms of Donald Trump’s behavior and that’s what we need to be aware of as a party,” he said. Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, urged Trump to pull out of the 2024 presidential campaign.
But it could be that the least likely candidate, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, is more in touch with the party’s grassroots: He stepped up his defense and said he would pardon Trump if elected.
real Trumpists
And what about the biggest and most vocal split among Republicans, the group that supports the former president, despite the allegations leveled against him? In fact, the more allegations Trump faces, the more responsive they are to the argument that this is a concerted, coordinated effort to discredit him.
They say the allegations surrounding the confidential documents are an attempt by President Biden to get rid of a political opponent during the campaign. Initial polls suggest this accusation hasn’t convinced any of the true Trumpists to drop their support.
“It is unacceptable for a President to impeach the lead candidate who opposes him,” said House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. He knows it was an independent special counsel who brought the charges against Trump, but he needs to garner the support of that farright conservative faction led by Jim Jordan.
These Trump supporters don’t want to get involved in the details of the court case against him.
The rhetoric of some congressmen was inflammatory in nature. After the details of the indictment were released on Friday, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs tweeted, “We have now entered the state of war. Eye to eye.”
The never (and no longer) Trumpists
Trump lost those Republicans a long time ago sometimes they still side with him, swallowing his disapproval in rare moments because they like his policies: This is not one of those moments.
Bill Barr, a former Trump attorney general, told Fox News this weekend he was shocked by both the sensitivity of the documents and the crowd.
“If half of it is true, he’s done,” he said. “And this idea of portraying Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous.”
Republican Senator Mitt Romney said the allegations, if true, are consistent with other cases in which the former president has worked against the national interest.
“Trump corrected these allegations by not only taking confidential documents, but also refusing to simply return them despite numerous opportunities to do so.”
However, don’t expect many of them to speak out against the former president, especially those who still hold political office. It’s a pretty lonely group.