Republican lawmakers have slammed the prospect of impeaching former President Trump after he revealed he expected to be arrested next week, calling the potential move “politically motivated” and an “abuse of power.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he will direct relevant committees to investigate whether any federal funding is being used to “sabotage our democracy by interfering with elections through politically motivated prosecutions.”
“Here we go again – an outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk while he seeks political revenge against President Trump,” tweet, Referring to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Denunciations of the potential charges from McCarthy and other Republicans came after Trump posted on Truth Social early Saturday that “illegal leaks” indicated he would be arrested Tuesday.
Bragg appears close to deciding whether to press charges against Trump after he called the former president to testify before his grand jury last week. Trump’s lawyer said Trump would not accept the invitation.
The attorney general’s office is investigating a payment Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen made to adult movie star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election so she would remain silent about an affair she and Trump had. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violation on payment and other charges and served a prison sentence.
Cohen said he paid Daniels at Trump’s direction. Trump acknowledged making the payment to Cohen but said it had nothing to do with his campaign finances.
Senior Trump allies joined McCarthy in condemning the investigation as politically motivated and biased by the former president, who he insisted did nothing wrong.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) chirp that Trump would “win more” than he actually would have if Bragg had charged him and “did nothing wrong”. She said any Republican who supports the “persecution” of the former president will face consequences.
Green said: “Those Republicans who stand by and cheer his persecution or do nothing to stop him will be exposed to the people and will be remembered and despised and punished by al Qaeda.”
Senator JD Vance (R-Ohio) He said He was asked several times if impeaching Trump would distance him from his endorsement of Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Trump endorsed Vance while running in the Republican primary for an open Senate seat in Ohio.
The answer: Hell no. A politically motivated prosecution makes Trump’s argument stronger. “We don’t have a real country if justice depends on politics,” Vance said.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), chair of the House Republican Conference, said in a statement statement That the “radical left” will stop Trump because they know they can’t beat him in the election. She said this is “un-American” and reaches a “new, dangerous level of Third World country”.
“What these corrupt left-wing prosecutors like Alvin Bragg and their socialist allies fail to understand is that America’s First Patriots have never been so active as to exercise their constitutional rights to peacefully organize and vote at the ballot box to save our great republic,” she said.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, conservative businessman, He said To impeach Trump would be a “national disaster”.
If in 2004 the Republican Attorney General used campaign finance technology to arrest then-candidate John Kerry in the process [President George W.] bush & [Vice President Dick] “Cheney was in power,” Ramaswamy said, “and the liberals were screaming — and rightly so.”
He said impeaching Trump would undermine confidence in the country’s electoral system and that Prague should reconsider the charges against him. He said the case would not have resulted in criminal prosecution for anyone else and would at most be a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
“Our entire country is on ice skating right now and we cannot politicize the justice system or we will reach a breaking point,” he said.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) also argued that the case is not strong, say It is based on “a tense and complex legal theory”.
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