Indefensible, not above the law, … Several tenors of the American Republican Party, including candidates for the presidential election of 2024, criticized former President Donald Trump on Sunday, after his historic federal indictment in Miami this week.
“I cannot defend” what he is accused of, declared on the NBC channel Mike Pence, candidate for the Republican primary for 2024 against Donald Trump, of whom he was the vice-president.
Mr Trump appeared in federal court in Miami on Tuesday, a first for a former president, for keeping top secret documents after he left the White House and refusing to return them.
He pleaded not guilty, paving the way for a potentially very damaging trial for his campaign for the 2024 US presidential election.
“I think he should give up” the race for the White House, even declared the former governor of Arkansas and Republican primary candidate Asa Hutchinson on ABC, considering the allegations “serious and disqualifying”.
Mark Esper, who was Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense, judged him that “if the accusations are true, they contain information about the security of our nation […]it could be very detrimental to the nation, ”he said on CNN.
“Nobody is above the law”, he added, judging these revelations “troubling”.
These remarks contrast with those of many Republicans in Congress who have either defended Trump or refused to criticize him.
But some Republican presidential candidates find themselves in a delicate position, anxious to show their difference from Donald Trump, while avoiding alienating his loyal base.
Mike Pence stressed that the former president “deserved” his summons to court, while refusing to comment on the case “until he [Donald Trump, NDLR] had the opportunity to take his case to court.
“I don’t know why some of my competitors in the Republican primary assume that the president will be found guilty,” he also said.
Donald Trump is accused of endangering the security of the United States by keeping confidential documents, including military plans or information on nuclear weapons, in a bathroom or storage room of his luxury residence Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, and for refusing to return these documents despite court injunctions.
The case is one of multiple court filings casting a shadow over his run for a second term in 2024.