Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence have both derided Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s investigation of former President Donald Trump as an abuse of authority.
This begs the question: Will they offer help, advice or any type of legal counsel to Trump? After all, they’re both lawyers (DeSantis is a Harvard Law alum; Pence graduated from Indiana University’s law school).
Don’t count on it. “They’re just being blowhards,” Jeremy Saland of New York-based Saland Law PC, told Benzinga.
“They’re appealing to their own base, covering their own rear ends to not offend voters,” Saland added. “They dont know what the facts are… they can manipulate this to their own benefit.”
Until Trump is arraigned, expected Tuesday, April 4, in Manhattan, exact details regarding the Manhattan grand jury’s indictment will remain sealed. So far, the former president faces about 30 criminal counts stemming from allegations of falsified business records.
While Trump is innocent until proven guilty, “the prosecution should also be given the benefit of the doubt,” Saland said.
Pence, like Trump, is vying for the 2024 Republican nomination. So is former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who dismissed Bragg’s investigation as “more about revenge than it is about justice.”
Earlier this year, Haley told Republicans that if they’re “tired of losing” to trust a “new generation.”
DeSantis hasn’t officially announced his candidacy, but his standing with right-wing supporters is likely to improve the worst Trump’s legal woes get.
Trump remains the GOP front-runner, according to PredictIt, but his chances of securing the nomination have dropped from 49% to 44% in the last 24 hours.
DeSantis’ chances, meanwhile, have seen a slight uptick.
Trump is current facing legal troubles elsewhere that includes the election interference in Georgia currently investigated by the Fulton County DA and the handling of the classified documents recovered from Mar-A-Lago and the insurrection of January 6 from the special counsel led by Jack Smith.
DeSantis previously took a swing at Bragg for the indictment and slammed the indictment as un-American.
“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head,” DeSantis said in a statement about the indictment on Twitter.
Pence had previously slammed Trump for the January 6 insurrection at a dinner in Washington, D.C.
“I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable,” Pence said.
The former Vice President is now coming to the defense of his former boss as he had disagreed with the ruling of the New York grand jury.
“It appears to millions of Americans to be nothing more than a political prosecution,” Pence said in an interview on CNN.
Republicans in Congress had criticized Bragg’s investigation into Trump as they had characterized it as the weaponization of the justice system.
Trump is currently facing a number of counts in the indictment as it is currently sealed until he surrenders at the Manhattan courthouse.
Produced in association with Benzinga
