On Thursday, 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican, called the indictment of former president and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump “politically motivated” and a “dark moment in American history.”
Spencer reported Thursday that a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Trump in a case spearheaded by District Attorney Alvin Bragg surrounding “hush money” payments made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election cycle. As Spencer noted, the felony indictment is the first of its kind against a former president. In previous weeks, Trump announced on his platform Truth Social that he expected to be arrested.
On Twitter, Ramaswamy, one of Trump's opponents called the indictment “politically motivated” and said that the Manhattan District Attorney was fulfilling a campaign promise by going after the former president.
“Earlier today, my competitor in this race, Donald Trump, was criminally indicted in a politically motivated prosecution. This is wrong. This is dangerous. We’re skating on thin ice as a country right now,” Ramaswamy said in the video. “I think we may be heading on our way to a national divorce.”
“Alvin Bragg, he ran on a campaign, a political campaign, for his position, pledging to investigate Donald Trump. You know what he did today? He delivered on a campaign promise. That is not how our justice system is supposed to work,” he added.
The politically motivated indictment of the 45th President of the United States marks a dark moment in American history. It will undermine public trust in our electoral system & justice system. It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political… pic.twitter.com/BFcSlJ0OWO
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 30, 2023
“If this had been anybody else other than Donald Trump on this set of facts, it would have been charged as a misdemeanor at most if at all. Yet, what we see right now is a ruling party in our country that will stop at nothing, even using police force, to arrest its political opponents,” he continued. He told viewers to protest peacefully if they want.
“We can all unite to say even if we’re running against Donald Trump, we at least want to let the voters decide who gets to be the next president,” he concluded.
Earlier this month, Ramaswamy said that the possible indictment was “un-American” and would undermine public trust.
A Trump indictment would be a national disaster. It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals. If a Republican prosecutor in 2004 had used a campaign finance technicality to arrest then-candidate John Kerry while Bush & Cheney were in…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 18, 2023