Joe Biden could face defeat, should Americans come to believe that former President Donald Trump is being prosecuted for purely political reasons. Americans do not like seeing people targeted unfairly.
Polling conducted after the 37-count indictment for illegal retention of classified documents found that his support among Republicans increased. Eighty-one percent of Republican primary voters believe the charges were brought for political reasons. The number of Republicans who believe Trump is being unfairly targeted exceeds his base.
A Reuters poll found that Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by a 43 percent to 22 percent margin.
The Real Clear Politics Average puts Trump at 52.7 percent and DeSantis at 22 percent.
This same dynamic emerged during the late 1990s when Americans rallied behind former President Bill Clinton amid his impeachment for perjuring himself in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case. Clinton’s popularity soared. Even Trump (a friend of the Clintons at that time) sided with Clinton.
Joe Biden Comments About Trump Tee-Off Political Prosecution Claims
Biden’s comment last November following the 2022 midterms that he would see to it that “under legitimate efforts of our Constitution” that Trump never becomes president again could come back to bite him. Trump’s campaign will be able to seize on it and argue that Biden intended to interfere with the 2024 election by keeping him from running.
“It’s pretty hard for Biden to claim he knows nothing about the indictments. Difficult to believe the Department of Justice wouldn’t at least brief the White House about the coming charges. The DOJ is part of the administration, along with the FBI,” Boston Herald columnist Joe Battenfeld wrote. “If the latest indictment starts to fizzle, it could be bad news for the president and rocket fuel for Trump, much the same way the collapse of the Russian collusion case helped the former president.”
The Trump camp will be able to point to donations to Democratic politicians by members of his prosecution team to further cast the indictments as a “witch hunt.” Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding a list of the prosecutors working on the Trump case after it was reported that Karen Gilbert, a prosecutor on the case donated to the campaigns of Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Gaetz threatens to cut off funding for Smith’s prosecution of Trump unless an accounting is made.
And Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance is warning that he will hold up all appointees until the Justice Department ends its pursuit of Donald Trump.
“Merrick Garland has used the Justice Department for politics instead of law, and I think it’s time that we stop debating this problem and actually do something about it, and so I have announced today that I will be holding all Department of Justice nominees that Merrick Garland will use if confirmed, not to enforce the law impartially … but clearly to harass his political opponents,” Vance said in a video posted on Twitter, saying he would grind the Justice Department to a halt. “Donald Trump is just one and the most recent example of the fact Merrick Garland uses his department for political purposes.
Luntz: Prosecuting Trump Could Get Him Re-Elected
“I now have to acknowledge that it is a distinct possibility that Donald Trump could be elected president – I did not believe that one year ago,” Republican pollster Frank Luntz told Sydney Morning Herald reporter Latika Bourke, noting that the botched handling of the prosecutions have given him a real shot at winning another general election.
“I did not believe that the search of Mar-a-Lago would be handled so badly, I did not believe that the indictment of him in New York would be handled so badly.
Luntz continued: “So he’s actually stronger today under two indictments, being found guilty of sexual assault, he’s actually politically stronger today than he was one year ago.”
John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
From 19FortyFive
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