Republican Presidential Candidates on the Trump Investigations
Where the Republican Candidates Stand on the Trump Investigations
Former President Donald J. Trump has been indicted four times now: twice over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, both in Georgia and federally. The Justice Department also indicted him over his retention of classified documents. His first indictment, in New York, was over hush payments to a pornographic actress. He has cast every investigation as politically motivated and legally meritless — and most of the Republicans looking to beat him have gone along.
He has denied any wrongdoing and raged at the justice system.
The baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s
weaponized “Department of Injustice” will go down as among
the most horrific abuses of power
in the history of our country.
I think it already is.
I will appoint a real special prosecutor
to go after the most corrupt president in the history
of the United States of America,
Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.
Name a special prosecutor, and all others
involved with the destruction of our elections, our borders
and our country itself.
They’re destroying our country.
He has mildly criticized Trump’s actions, but mostly attacks the justice system as biased.
There’s a difference between being brought up on criminal
criminal charges and doing things like, for example,
I think it was shown how he was in the White House
and didn’t do anything while things were going on.
He should have come out more forcefully,
of course that, but to try to criminalize that,
that’s a different issue entirely.
And I think that we want to be in a situation where, you know,
you don’t have one side just constantly trying to put
the other side in jail.
He calls the allegations serious but still says the charges are an anti-Republican “hunt.”
Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina called the New York indictment a “travesty” and said the district attorney had “weaponized the law against political enemies,” an argument he repeated in almost identical words regarding the federal and Georgia election indictments.
He is Trump’s fiercest defender and has denounced the justice system in incendiary terms.
The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has repeatedly cast the indictments as examples of “the ruling party” using “police power to arrest its political rivals,” and has urged other candidates to pledge to pardon Mr. Trump.
While she has aired a misgiving about Trump, she mostly avoids running afoul of him.
Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador, has shifted from an unequivocal denunciation of the first indictment in March to an argument in July that Mr. Trump’s legal troubles were creating an unacceptable distraction.
He says history will hold Trump accountable, but the courts probably shouldn’t.
With regard to the substance of the indictment,
I’ve been very clear.
I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this.
I had hoped that this issue and the judgment
of the president’s actions that day would be left
to the American people.
But now it’s been brought in a criminal indictment.
And I, I can’t assess whether or not the government has
the evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt what they
assert in the indictment.
And the president is entitled to a presumption
of innocence.
But for my part, I want people to know
that I had no right to overturn the election,
and that what the president maintained
that day, and frankly has said over and over again
over the last two and a half years, is completely false.
He is a leading voice among the field in condemning Trump.
With former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey building his campaign around his willingness to criticize Mr. Trump, the indictments have been obvious fodder for him.
He has called on Trump to drop out of the presidential race.
“I have said from the beginning that Donald Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 should disqualify him from ever being president again. Anyone who truly loves this country and is willing to put the country over themselves would suspend their campaign for president of the United States immediately.”
He has refused to talk about the indictments.
Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota has avoided talking about the indictments, at times expressing annoyance that reporters were asking him about them.
Will Hurd
Former United States Representative
He is a leading voice among the field in condemning Trump.
Former Representative Will Hurd of Texas has been more scathingly critical of Mr. Trump’s behavior than any other candidate except Mr. Christie.
He hasn’t said much about the cases, but would consider pardoning Trump.
Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami expressed unease with the New York case, suggesting that indicting a former president was a “slippery slope” away from democratic norms.
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