2024 GOP Field Agrees Trump Acted Recklessly on January 6 But Balks at Criminal Penalties

GOP presidential hopefuls seem to agree on at least one thing: Former president Donald Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election were unbecoming of a world leader.

The question of whether Trump’s behavior leading up to and during the January 6 Capitol riot warrant criminal consequences yields a less conclusive response.

The candidates once again find themselves in the position of having to respond to potential criminal charges against Trump, after he shared on Tuesday that he has received a target letter in the special counsel’s January 6 probe, signaling that an indictment may be imminent.

“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 wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He participated in a town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity in Iowa later in the day, where he told the pro-Trump crowd that the letter “bothers” him.

“I got the letter on Sunday night. Think of it. I don’t think they’ve ever sent a letter on Sunday night,” Trump said. “And they’re in a rush, because they want to interfere. It’s interference with the election. It’s election interference. Never been done like this in the history of our country, and it’s a disgrace.”

It’s unclear what charges Trump may face if he is indeed indicted, but the House select committee that investigated the Capitol riot made referrals to the Department of Justice on four charges: inciting or aiding an insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and conspiracy to make a false statement.

Former vice president Mike Pence, who was in the Capitol on January 6 as the then-president’s supporters called for him to be hanged, reacted to the news on Tuesday by saying Trump’s actions were “reckless” but that he hopes the president will not be indicted.

“I’m not convinced that the president acting on the bad advice of a group of crank lawyers that came into the White House in the days before Jan. 6 is actually criminal,” said Pence, who has testified before the grand jury in the case.

“I don’t know what the letter today means, the notification means, but my hope is that the judgment about the president’s actions on Jan. 6 would be left to the American people,” he added.

Vivek Ramaswamy called a potential indictment in the case a “bad idea.”

“There’s a lot that led to the buildup that boiled over on January 6. And so while I think Trump made bad judgments — and I would have made very different judgments, had I been in that office — that is different from saying that he should be held criminally liable for what happened,” Ramaswamy said, suggesting instead that Trump should be “held accountable at the ballot box.”

Asa Hutchinson, who has been one of the most vocal critics of Trump in the race, instead reiterated his call for the twice-indicted former president to drop out of the race.

“While Donald Trump would like the American people to believe that he is the victim in this situation, the truth is that the real victims of January 6th were our democracy, our rule of law, and those Capitol Police officers who worked valiantly to protect our Capitol,” he said in a statement. “Anyone who truly loves this country and is willing to put the country over themselves would suspend their campaign for President of the United States immediately. It is disappointing that Donald Trump refuses to do so.”

Chris Christie, another vocal Trump critic, said he would want to see any potential indictment before he discusses the case. “That said, let me be clear: his conduct on January 6th proves he doesn’t care about our country and our Constitution,” he added.

Nikki Haley said the rest of the primary will be “in reference to Trump” and various legal issues that will continue to be a “further and further distraction.”

“We need a new generational leader,” she said. “We can’t keep dealing with this drama. We can’t keep dealing with this negativity. We can’t keep dealing with all of this.”

Florida governor Ron DeSantis suggested Trump “should have come out more forcefully” to end the riots on January 6, but said it would be a “different issue entirely” to try to criminalize his behavior.

“I think 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 said during a campaign stop in South Carolina.

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that aired later on Tuesday, DeSantis added: “This country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences, and I think that is wrong.”

“You have a situation where the Department of Justice, [and the] FBI, have been weaponized against people they don’t like, and the No. 1 example of that happens to be against Donald Trump with the Russian collusion.”

As a refresher: Trump is already facing 37 felony counts as a result of special counsel Jack Smith’s separate investigation into the former president’s alleged mishandling of classified documents. Before that, Trump was indicted in Manhattan on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush-money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

He is also facing a separate criminal investigation by a Georgia state prosecutor into his alleged efforts to influence the 2020 election results in the Peach State. Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis signaled that she plans to decide whether to bring charges in the case sometime next month.

Trump’s renewed dominance of the news cycle may complicate DeSantis’s plans to appear more frequently in mainstream media and dispel the narrative that his campaign is struggling.

Trump’s presidential campaign highlighted these struggles in a memo to DeSantis’s donors on Monday.

“As Governor Ron DeSantis hits the road over the next week, seeking more funds for his campaign, we believe it is important to provide you, the donors who generously fund and raise money, with a list of relevant questions considering the current circumstances faced by his campaign,” reads the memo, written by Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.

The pair lists several of these circumstances, including that “every public poll now shows Ron DeSantis trailing President Trump by a significant margin” and that senior campaign officials have acknowledged they are “way behind” and fighting an “uphill battle.”

A RealClearPolitics polling average has Trump leading DeSantis by 33.5 points.

The memo goes on to cite a recent NBC News report that features comments from a DeSantis-aligned operative who said, “From my understanding, if we don’t see a bump in the polls, we are basically going to shut down the idea of a national operation.”

DeSantis sat for an interview with Tapper on Tuesday seemingly to defend his campaign and to fight the criticism that he does not often participate in interviews with mainstream media outlets — but rather than giving DeSantis an opportunity to share his policies and make his case to a broad audience, Tapper spent significant time focused on the former president’s legal situation.

Still, DeSantis told Tapper he is focused on setting himself up for victory in Iowa and that, as the only military veteran in the race, he believes he will win South Carolina. Military votes make up a key portion of the electorate in the Palmetto State, which is home to 15 military bases. Active military personnel made up 729 out of every 100,000 people in the state as of 2020 — the eighth-highest share among the 50 states.

DeSantis on Tuesday unveiled his “Mission First” plan to “restore America’s military and make it mission-focused once again.” The plan includes four main pillars: “ripping political agendas out of military,” “restoring military standards,” “breaking the swamp & promoting accountability,” and “turning the tide against Biden’s military recruitment crisis.”

Meanwhile, NR’s Rich Lowry highlighted what he called a “bright spot in an otherwise terrible news environment” for DeSantis this week: A University of New Hampshire poll shows Trump with 37 percent support in the Granite State, with DeSantis just 14 points behind.

The poll also showed DeSantis tied with Ramaswamy as voters’ second-choice candidate. The Florida governor notched a better favorable/unfavorable rating than Trump, too, but Ramaswamy and Tim Scott secured the best ratings.

With the Iowa caucus less than six months away, a super PAC supporting Scott’s campaign announced on Tuesday that it will spend $40 million in advertising this fall on cable networks in Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire. The Trust in Mission (TIM) PAC will begin airing ads on September 7.

“This initial ad reservation allows us to lock-in the best inventory, times and locations at the lowest cost for any outside group in the 2024 race,” TIM PAC co-chairman Rob Collins told Politico. “As prices skyrocket in the coming weeks, we will have a stable plan that will allow us to efficiently communicate our message, conduct a well-rounded campaign and better manage our cash.”

And if North Dakota governor Doug Burgum’s campaign is any indication, cash is king. Burgum announced plans last week to give away $20 gift cards to the first 50,000 donors who donate even $1 to his campaign. Now, the governor tells Hugh Hewitt that his campaign will cross the 40,000-donor threshold on Wednesday — meaning that he will meet at least one of the several requirements to make it onto the primary-debate stage next month.

Around NR

• Dan McLaughlin offers a detailed recap of Trump’s “stupid, pointless war on Republican governors,” including, most recently, governors in the early-primary states of New Hampshire and Iowa:

If you’re a Republican voter who wants to see the party and its agenda succeed rather than be subordinated to whatever serves Trump’s impulses at any given moment, none of this does the least bit of good. The question of the 2024 primary, however, is whether Republican voters actually want to win, or whether they just enjoy fighting and don’t care against whom — even if it’s their own leaders and interests.

• Noah Rothman posits that a drop in small-dollar donations in the first fund-raising period of this year compared with years past is a sign of voters tuning out:

If the two parties are convinced that it’s not them but the voters who are the problem and must change, the general public can’t be blamed for tuning out. For months, it has seemed like the likeliest outcome the 2024 primaries will produce is a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The voters have seen that movie before, and they know how it ends.

• Michael Brendan Dougherty questions whether Trump’s lead in the polls is impressive by incumbent standards, noting that “strong incumbents are supposed to scare away primary challengers”:

I would still put money on Trump to win today. Safest bet. But that national polling lead still feels like it could be disrupted and destroyed by events in the primary states. If I’m Trump, I’m thrilled at DeSantis’s apparently slow start. But I’m not comfortable yet.

• Jim Geraghty examines the “peculiar primary” in which Trump’s challengers have proven “oddly cautious”:

Usually, the frontrunner runs a cautious campaign, while the underdogs and longshots take bigger risks, attempting to stand out, gain ground, and peel away supporters from the frontrunner. But so far, it feels like the opposite is happening, with a lot of the longshots running generic, predictable, cookie-cutter campaigns, while Donald Trump is his usual erratic, unpredictable, winging-it self.

• Rich Lowry argues that if Trump weren’t in the race, DeSantis “pretty clearly would be the front-runner.”

There are various reasons advanced for DeSantis not getting more traction, some of which have validity (he’s not an electric campaigner, he’s emphasized his anti-woke agenda to the exclusion of other important things). But we aren’t looking at a campaign with the flaws of highly touted campaigns that have flamed out over the years — DeSantis is not going to run out of money, and he’s not out of date. No, I think the biggest problem he has is that Trump still has a grip on the party, and loosening it is an enormous and very tricky task.

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