Political reactions to Trump's indictment: he's going to "disrupt the nation"

Donald Trump is running his third presidential campaign and seems to have a few more worries apart from winning the Republican nomination and facing Joe Biden for the second time. The Justice Department formally charged the former president for classified documents found in his Florida home. Many political figures have reacted to this, some lamenting the situation and others mocking it.

John Rowley, who until Friday, June 9th, was Trump’s outside counsel but has since resigned, confirmed that his client was indicted on 37 counts in connection with classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. He has been summoned to appear before the Federal Court of Miami at 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 13. However, the former president has other current and potential reasons to worry.

Ted Cruz (R-TX) was among the first to issue an opinion on the case. In a new episode of his podcast, “Verdict,” he asserted that “This indictment is garbage. This is a political attack. It is a political attack from a thoroughly corrupted and weaponized Department of Justice. And it’s a sad day for America.”

“Merrick Garland is going to go down in disgrace as the most partisan and political attorney general in our nation’s history. And Joe Biden, in the Biden White House, has decided to hell with democracy. By the way, today is an assault on democracy. (...) This is about hatred. Merrick Garland hates Donald Trump. He blames him, because Garland wants to be on the Supreme Court, he feels like he was robbed. And I gotta say Garland spent 24 years as a federal judge. He had built a reputation for integrity,” added the Texan, who will seek a third term in the Senate in 2024.

Among those who did not show much sympathy for the former president was Hillary Clinton. The former presidential candidate mocked the situation on her Twitter account, where she launched an ironic commodity with the caption “but her emails.”

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) responded similarly, one of the Republicans who have been most critical of Trump in recent times. He was even the only one to vote for the impeachment attempt against Trump in February 2020. “Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so,” he stated in a press release.

However, he clarified that the tycoon is “entitled to the presumption of innocence” and that the federal government faces “the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Kevin McCarthy was another of the defenders of the current presidential candidate. The spokesman asserted that the indictment will weaken American institutions.” This is going to disrupt this nation because it goes to the core of equal justice for all, which is not being seen today. And we’re not going to stand for it. When you learn of some of the things that he had said of how this investigation was carried out, you’ll see then that this judgment is wrong by this DOJ, that they treated President Trump differently than they treat others, and it didn’t have to be this way,” he said.

Josh Hawley (R-MO) also took aim at Merrick Garland and asserted that “Joe Biden has used his Justice Department to go after parents as ‘domestic terrorists,’ to spy on Catholic parishes, to terrorize & harass prolife Christians -and tonight to accuse his main political opponent, Trump.”

Also in the Senate, Ron Johnson (R-WI) stated that he does not trust “any action Merrick Garland takes. This is where you start to look like a banana republic.” “ When you’ve got the former vice president, former senator and sitting president had, supposedly, the same type of documents … but you’re going after a guy who’s running for office, this is irrational,” Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) added.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), a member of the party leadership, added to the doubts about the impartiality of the investigation. “I would expect the Justice Department to be impartial. I don’t have full faith in them at this point,” she commented.

Crossing the aisle appears Dick Durbin (D-ILL), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In his view, Garland appointed Jack Smith to investigate Trump to depoliticize the investigation. “To say that we are going to walk away from it because of possible political connections would be to concede that there are people in this country above the law, that is wrong,” he specified.