Trump’s 2024 Republican rivals react to indictment: ‘Very serious allegations’
Some candidates, including Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, shift tone from defending ex-president to criticism
When news broke on Thursday that Donald Trump would be indicted for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, most of his Republican presidential primary opponents rushed to his defense, blaming the charges on the “weaponization of federal law enforcement”, as the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis,
said.
But several Republican candidates have shifted their tone since the indictment
was unsealed on Friday, revealing the full extent of the serious charges Trump faces.
[...]
While Pence had previously attacked the department of justice over the indictment, he
told the Wall Street Journal editorial board on Tuesday that he considered his former boss’s alleged actions to be indefensible.
“Having read the indictment,” Pence said, “these are very serious allegations. And I can’t defend what is alleged. But the president is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond.”
Pence, whose son and son-in-law served in the US military, specifically chastised Trump over endangering service members.
“Even the inadvertent release of that kind of information could compromise our national security and the safety of our armed forces,” Pence said. “And, frankly, having two members of our immediate family serving in the armed forces of the United States, I will never diminish the importance of protecting our nation’s secrets.”
That line was echoed by former South Carolina governor and presidential candidate Nikki Haley. Although Haley
initially responded to news of the indictment by condemning “prosecutorial overreach, double standards and vendetta politics”, she begrudgingly acknowledged on Monday that Trump’s alleged behavior represented a grave threat to Americans’ safety.
“If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security,” Haley told Fox News. “I’m a military spouse. My husband’s about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger.”
The South Carolina senator Tim Scott softened his own impassioned defense of Trump after the indictment was made public. While Scott lamented “a justice system where the scales are weighted” on Thursday, he told reporters on Monday that Smith’s indictment represented a “serious case with serious allegations”.
But those three candidates did not go as far as the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who has been far more outspoken in his criticism of Trump. At a CNN town hall on Monday, Christie credited Smith’s team with crafting “a very tight, very detailed, evidence-laden indictment”.
“Whether you like Donald Trump or you don’t like Donald Trump, this conduct is inexcusable, in my opinion, for somebody who wants to be president of the United States,” Christie said.
Christie, who was once a Trump loyalist before turning against the former president, attributed the retention of the classified documents to “vanity run amok”.
“He’s saying I’m more important than the country,” Christie said. “And he is now going to put this country through this when we didn’t have to go through it.”
[...]
Some candidates, including Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, shift tone from defending ex-president to criticism
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