U.S. Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd, North Carolina Republicans, say that former President Donald Trump deserves a presumption of innocence after Trump was indicted on federal charges of mishandling classified documents.
“There is always a presumption of innocence in America, and that applies to former President Trump,” Tillis said Friday in a statement. “It is sad to see some Democratic politicians cheering this indictment and presuming guilt for sheer political gain, despite the fact that President (Joe) Biden himself is under federal investigation for mishandling classified documents.
“The American people’s faith and confidence in the Department of Justice have eroded in recent years,” Tillis said, “and we must ensure that no partisan politics were injected at any point during this process.”
A Biden spokeswoman declined to comment Friday on the Trump’s indictment.
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Budd wrote in a Thursday night tweet that “in America, citizens are innocent until proven guilty.
“We must ensure that justice is administered without political bias,” Budd wrote, “and the American people are rightly skeptical that the Biden administration is able to do that.”
Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment unsealed Friday that alleges that he described a Pentagon “plan of attack” and shared a classified map related to a military operation.
Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges by the federal government.
The 49-page charging document paints a portrait of Trump’s treatment of sensitive information, accusing him of willfully ignoring Justice Department demands to return documents he had taken from the White House to Mar-a-Lago and even directing aides to help him hide the records sought by the government.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning of Greensboro, D-6th, said that no one is above the law in the United States.
“The law must be applied equally to all citizens, whether you were elected to the highest office in the land or commit a crime in your neighborhood, all are subject to the full and fair enforcement of the law,” Manning said.
Spokespeople for the N.C. Republican and Democratic parties declined to comment on Trump’s indictment.
The Forsyth County Democratic Party doesn’t comment on ongoing investigations, said Jenny Marshall, the chairman of the local Democratic Party.
“The (Department of Justice) is not a political organization,” Marshall said, “and we need to let them to let them do their job.”
Ken Raymond, the chairman of the Forsyth County Republican Party, said he doubts the validity of the indictment against Trump.
“The Trump indictments has as much substance and credibility as the three-year Russia collusion investigation that was proven a fabrication by special counsel John Durham,” Raymond said. “After Durham proved that the Russia investigation was a huge hoax and waste of time, why should anyone believe that these indictments aren’t more of the same?”
Republican District Attorney Jim O’Neill of Forsyth County declined to comment about the case.
John Dinan, a political-science professor at Wake Forest University, pointed to the news of the federal indictment against Trump coinciding with the N.C. Republican Party convention in Greensboro.
“It is fascinating that these indictments take place just as North Carolina Republicans are getting ready to host Donald Trump, along with several other leading candidates in Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, at the party’s state convention this weekend, because the candidates’ speeches, along with the reactions of convention attendees, will be scrutinized for their reactions to these indictments,” Dinan said.
“Prior to this week, it is not clear that the various legal charges and pending legal charges against Trump in other cases have hurt him in the Republican nomination contest,” Dinan said. “A key question is whether at a certain point this week’s indictments and other charges that he is defending against will begin to lead some Republican officials and Republican primary voters to reconsider their support for him and look more closely at some of the other candidates in the Republican presidential nominating field who are not facing so many legal challenges.
“We just don’t know whether these indictments will have this sort of effect,” Dinan said, “and it is one of the reasons why a lot of attention will be paid to this weekend’s N.C. Republican Party convention, to see how other Republican officials and voters react to these federal indictments.”
Gregory Parks, a professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, said he questions how Trump supporters will process the information about the case.
“Trump once said he could walk down Fifth Avenue and shoot someone in the head and not lose a supporter,” Parks said. “He’s largely been right in that statement. People often believe what they need to believe to achieve the outcomes they desire.
“Trump has truly captured the political right,” Parks said. “Even when he has debased their purported values, they’ve stuck by his side. Jan. 6 told us that blue lives and the rule of law could be cast aside by many of his supporters.
“These indictments raise the question even more: What does the political right truly value in the age of Trump, especially if the rule of law is cast aside” Parks asked.