DeSantis slams DA over potential indictment of Trump
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday broke his silence about the potential indictment of former President Donald Trump, attacking the Manhattan district attorney pursuing the case but also pointedly noting the personal conduct over which Trump is being investigated.
DeSantis spoke in response to a reporter’s question at an event in Panama City, Florida, after two days of pressure from Trump’s team and his allies demanding that the governor speak out against a potential indictment brought by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.
After a reporter asked for DeSantis’ thoughts about any indictment and whether he might have a role in extraditing Trump, a Florida resident, to New York, the governor demurred, saying he did not know what was going to happen.
“But I do know this: The Manhattan district attorney is a Soros-funded prosecutor,” he said of Bragg, referring to indirect financial support the district attorney received in his 2021 campaign from George Soros, the liberal billionaire philanthropist. Those donations have been the subject of attacks from Trump and other Republicans.
“And so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” DeSantis said.
Then he twisted the knife regarding the actions over which Trump is likely to be indicted: hush money payments made in late 2016 by Michael Cohen, then his lawyer and fixer, to a porn star who said she had an affair with Trump.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair,” DeSantis said to chuckles from the crowd at the event.
“I just, I can’t speak to that,” he said. “But what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many years ago, to try to use something about porn star hush money payments, you know, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office.”