Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for November’s election, received much support from potential running mates as his trial regarding alleged hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels started Monday.
Several lawmakers who Trump has said are on his shortlist or are reportedly in contention as a vice presidential candidate echoed Trump’s belief the proceedings, led by Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, amounted to election interference.
“What Alvin Bragg is doing to President Trump is a disgrace to the rule of law and the opposite of Justice,” Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, posted Monday on X. “It’s also election interference.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., chair of the House Republican Conference, called the proceedings “a 6-8 week show trial. … Total election interference” in a post on X and castigated Judge Juan Merchan for being politically biased against the former president.
“Corrupt Judge [Juan] Merchan, a Biden donor whose family member has profited off this case & who illegally gagged President Trump just said, ‘If you do not show up [to court], there will be an arrest,’” she wrote.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who has become close to Trump since challenging him for the GOP presidential nomination, also weighed in.
“What the radical Left is doing is not just election interference, it’s election engineering,” Scott posted on X. “They will try everything [and fail] to stop Donald J. Trump.”
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who also challenged Trump for the GOP nod, echoed the election interference theme on CNN and said Americans won’t be swayed by what is happening to the former president.
“When being out on the [campaign] trail and being around America and talking to Americans, they see right through this,” Burgum said according to a transcript of his interview on “CNN This Morning.” “They understand that Donald Trump can’t get a fair trial in New York. They know this is a sham trial. They know that the feds passed on this particular case. The former prosecutor passed on it. And, in many ways, it’s a very boring case. It’s about a business filing and its being brought as this this dramatic, historic, unprecedented thing.
“But what’s unprecedented, what’s historic is the fact the lawfare that’s going on where this two-tiered justice system is trying to take something that’s basically a boring business filing case and turn it into the trial of the century. And Americans can see right through it. Americans, right now, they’re concerned about inflation, about the open border.”
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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