House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and several MAGA Republicans rallied around Donald Trump on Saturday ahead of the former president’s possible indictment by a Manhattan grand jury.
Trump, in posts on his Truth Social social media platform, predicted he would be arrested on Tuesday and called on his supporters to protest, citing “illegal leaks”. Hours later, a Trump spokesperson clarified in a statement that the message was shared without any indictment notification beyond media reports by NBC News and other news outlets.
“Here we go again – an outrageous abuse of power by a radical prosecutor who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues his political revenge against President Trump,” McCarthy wrote in a Tweeter.
“I call on the appropriate committees to immediately investigate whether federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions,” McCarthy added.
Despite his recent scathing comments against Trump on Jan. 6, former Vice President Mike Pence, who is set to make a decision on a 2024 presidential bid, said the potential indictment “smacks of the kind of political prosecutions that we endured in the days of Russia”. prank.”
“Is this what the Manhattan DA says is their top priority?” Pence said Saturday on SiriusXM radio.
Congressional Republicans closely aligned with Trump, the 2024 presidential candidate, expressed outrage, denouncing the potentially imminent indictment.
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the third House Republican, called Trump’s possible arrest “un-American” and said Democrats had hit “a dangerous new low.”
“Knowing that they cannot beat President Trump at the polls, the radical left will now follow the example of socialist dictators and arrest President Trump,” she said in a statement. statement shared on Twitter, calling him the leading Republican candidate.
Speaking at the conservative National Vision ’24 Forum on Saturday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.S.C., downplayed the significance of the Manhattan District Attorney’s case and said he believed prosecutors were “afraid” of Trump.
“The New York prosecutor did more to help Donald Trump get elected president than anyone in America today,” Graham said.
He added, “If I was President Trump, I’d take this all the way to the damn Supreme Court.”
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona tweeted“If they can come for Trump, they will come for you. This stuff only happens in authoritarian third world countries.
“Virtually every campaign finance violation involves either 1) spending other people’s money illegally or 2) taking money from your campaign when you shouldn’t. Trump did neither one neither the other, tweeted Representative Matt Gaetz from Florida. “He used his own money to resolve a private dispute, independent of any campaign.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called the allegations against Trump “false” and “outdated.” She tweeted, “Republicans in Congress MUST subpoena these communists and STOP this!”
She wrote in another Tweeter that “we don’t need to protest”, adding: “These idiots are sealing their own fate in 2024 because the silent majority has two feelings right now about the current regime”.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio., writing“God bless President Trump. The real America knows this is all a sham.”
Senator JD Vance of Ohio, another Trump ally who has advanced his groundless theories about a stolen 2020 election, has slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, saying he will “prosecute” Trump while “violent criminals” roam New York.
Although the timing is unclear at this time, the former president could soon face possible charges in the state related to a silent payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
NBC News reported Friday that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are preparing for a possible indictment as early as next week.
Former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen is a key witness in the case. He testified before the grand jury this week, having pleaded guilty in 2018 to making an unlawful payment to Daniels at the direction of Trump for the “primary purpose” of influencing the 2016 election.
Trump said he repaid Cohan the $130,000, but insisted what he did was legal. The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s office declined to comment on Trump’s posts on Truth Social.
