Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday he hopes former President Donald Trump isn’t charged in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the 2024 Republican front-runner’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, arguing that it wouldn’t be “good for the country.”
“I don’t think it serves us good to have a presidential election focused on what happened four years ago, in January, and so I want to focus on looking forward,” DeSantis told CNN host Jake Tapper during an interview taped in Columbia, S.C.
“I don’t want to look back, I do not want to see him – I hope he doesn’t get charged. I don’t think it’ll be good for the country,” the Sunshine State governor added.
DeSantis spoke shortly after Trump, 77, disclosed that he was informed he is a target of special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events surrounding the ransacking of the Capitol.
Smith has been spearheading the DOJ’s two investigations involving Trump: one into the Capitol riot and the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, and the other into sensitive national security material kept at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
DeSantis decried Smith’s probes, as well as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s own case against Trump, as being “political” in nature and argued that the Justice Department and FBI have been “weaponized against people they don’t like.”
“This country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences. And I think that’s wrong,” DeSantis told Tapper.
Donald Trump addressed a crowd of supporters at the Ellipse shortly before the Capitol riot transpired. AFP via Getty Images
After mounting internal pressure, Trump urged the rioters to go home in a video message. AP“And so what I’ve said, as President, my job is to restore a single standard of justice to end weaponization of these agencies. We’re gonna have a new FBI director on day one, we’re gonna have big changes at the Department of Justice. Americans across the political spectrum need to have confidence that what is going on is based on the rule of law, not based on what political tribe you’re in,” the governor explained.
DeSantis also took a swipe at the former president hours before his CNN interview aired, saying Tuesday that Trump should have been more forceful in calling for calm during the Capitol riot.
“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on,” DeSantis said in response to a question during an event in Columbia.
Ron DeSantis rolled out his new policy proposal Tuesday to rein in wokeness in the military. AP“Should he have come out more forcefully? Of course,” DeSantis added. “But to try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely and I think that we want to be in a situation where you don’t have one side just constantly trying to put the other side in jail.”
DeSantis, who officially filed paperwork to be on the South Carolina primary ballot Tuesday, underscored that he hadn’t had a chance to fully read the target letter.
Earlier in the question-and-answer session, DeSantis was asked about Trump’s announcement and refrained from bashing his rival outright.
Ron DeSantis has largely steered clear of fiery attacks against Donald Trump despite a torrent of digs from the former president directed his way. AP“Criminal charges, it’s not just because you may have done something wrong, it’s [a question of] ‘Did you behave criminally?’ And I — what we’ve seen in this country is an attempt to criminalize politics and to try to criminalize differences,” the 44-year-old said.
The Florida governor also juxtaposed the Justice Department’s kid-gloves treatment of Hunter Biden with recent criminal cases against anti-abortion activists.
DeSantis has sparingly commented on the Capitol riot in public, stressing last June that “obviously, I didn’t enjoy seeing” the violence.
He has also largely steered clear of admonishing Trump’s personal conduct, opting for more policy-focused critiques instead.
Roughly 1,000 people have faced charges in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. So far, Donald Trump is not one of them.
Trump has decried Jack Smith’s inquiry as a “witch hunt.” APTrump was slapped with a 37-count indictment last month as part of Smith’s inquiry into the former president’s hoarding of sensitive national security documents and alleged obstruction of justice.
The former president has denied wrongdoing across the board.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and Indictment,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday.
It is unclear what offenses Trump could be charged with in connection with Smith’s probe, but possibilities include obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to commit election fraud by authorizing slates of “fake” electors to pledge their votes to him, or knowingly soliciting money under false pretenses by claiming to have won the election.
