CNN
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Republican presidential candidates Vivek Ramasamy And Asa Hutchinson On Sunday they revealed various plans on how to approach it Federal Government indicts former President Donald Trump 2024 to capture the White House.
Contenders for the GOP nomination are grappling with how to strike the right tone against Trump, widely considered the GOP front-runner to take on President Joe Biden next year, as he seeks to build on his support among Republican primary voters.
Trump is facing his first federal indictment for possessing classified documents and conspiring with a top aide to hide them from the government and his own lawyers — 37 counts in all. He is expected to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday, after which he will make comments from his New Jersey golf club. He will host a fundraiser there that night, sources familiar with the event told CNN.
Ramasamy, who had vowed to pardon Trump if elected president before the details of the 37-count indictment emerged, doubled down on Sunday, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” that he had “read the indictment and seen the flaws of the two elected. Truth and Law,” he was “still convinced that forgiveness was the right answer.”
Ramasamy admitted he “wouldn’t have taken those documents with me”, but the tech entrepreneur said there was a difference between “bad judgment and breaking the law”.
01:46 – Source: CNN
Bash presses Ramasamy to promise to pardon Trump
Those comments contradicted Hutchinson, who called Ramasamy’s vow to pardon Trump “simply wrong” in a separate interview on “State of the Union” later Sunday.
“It is wrong for a candidate to use the pardon power of the President of the United States in order to gain votes and the applause tax. That’s wrong,” the former Arkansas governor told Bash.
“There’s no need to be the commander-in-chief of our nation who doesn’t protect our nation’s secrets,” Hutchinson later said.
Asked if he believed the impeachment would help Trump in the 2024 race, Hutchinson said, “I doubt he’s going to cash in on the indictment like he did before. And while a lot of Republican leaders say it’s a selective case, it’s unfair — there’s a sympathy factor to that.
But Hutchinson said, “The Republican Party stands for the rule of law and our justice system. Let’s not undermine it with our rhetoric, making up facts and accusing the judiciary of things without evidence.
Ramasamy was not the only 2024 GOP contender to criticize the Justice Department in the days after Trump first released the indictment.
State of Florida Ron DeSantis He accused the DOJ on Thursday of “the weaponization of federal law enforcement,” while the president-elect pledged to “bring accountability to the DOJ, rid it of political bias and end weapons once and for all.”
DeSantis declined to comment on the allegations at a campaign stop in Oklahoma on Saturday, but he repeated his vow as president to end the “weaponization” of government and clean house from top to bottom.
Former Vice President Mike Pence On Saturday he called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand up to the American people” to explain “this unprecedented action”.
“We need to hear the defense of the former president so that each of us can make our own judgment,” Pence told attendees at the North Carolina GOP convention in Greensboro. Trump spoke hours after addressing a similar rally in Georgia.
Nikki HaleyThe former South Carolina governor and Trump’s United Nations ambassador in a statement on Friday characterized the indictment as a “prosecutorial oversight,” saying it was time to move “beyond endless drama and distractions.”
Governor of North Dakota Doug Burgum, who entered the GOP race last week, promised in an interview with CBS News on Sunday that he would “follow every rule regarding the handling of classified documents” after leaving the presidency. Trump’s mishandling of documents is not something voters want to spend their time talking about, he told Fox News on Saturday.
Former New Jersey Governor. Chris ChristieThe one-time ally and close adviser to Trump, who has emerged as a key critic of Trump in the 2024 race, however, described the details of the indictment as “ridiculous.”
“It was reckless behavior,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday, “and the behavior that Donald Trump engaged in was completely self-inflicted.”
Christie is scheduled to participate in a CNN Town Hall hosted by Anderson Cooper in New York on Monday.
15:12 – Source: CNN
Full Interview: Dana Bash Presses Rep. Jim Jordan on Impeachment
Trump maintains the reliable support of hardline conservatives in Congress, such as House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, who strongly supported the former president in an interview with Bash on Sunday.
“The president’s ability to classify and restrict access to national security information flows from the Constitution,” the Ohio Republican said. “Only he decides. He said he classified this thing. He can put it anywhere. He can deal with it however he wants.”
But laws that the Justice Department said would probe potential crimes — laws about the intentional retention of national security information, obstruction of federal investigations and concealment or destruction of government records — No documents required to be classified for the offense committed, CNN previously reported.
Bash also reminded Jordan that Trump was on tape at the 2021 meeting He admitted to having an unclassified document, a detail first reported by CNN. But Jordan repeatedly countered, saying that saying Trump “may” have content as president is not the same as saying he “may not.”
“He said over and over again, he’s declassified all of this stuff,” the congressman said.
Asked if he had proof Trump classified any documents, Jordan said, “I’m going by the president’s word, he said he did.”
This story was updated Tuesday with an additional report on Trump’s plans.
