DeSantis Condemns Political Trump Prosecution, Takes Swipe at Former President for Porn Star Cover-Up

After being pressed for days to condemn the Manhattan district attorney’s impending prosecution of Donald Trump, Florida governor Ron DeSantis has weighed in. DeSantis said Monday he doesn’t know anything about hush-money payments to porn stars, but he said he thinks progressive district attorneys like Alvin Bragg have a “political agenda” and are “weaponizing their office.”

DeSantis, who is expected to jump into the presidential race shortly, made his remarks following Trump’s claim that he will be arrested Tuesday in connection with a $130,000 payment made to porn actress Stormy Daniels on his behalf. Other declared and anticipated presidential contenders weighed in before DeSantis, with Mike Pence calling the prosecution “politically charged” and Vivek Ramaswamy saying it’s “disastrously politicized.”

“Look, I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just, I can’t speak to that. But what I can speak to is if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to do something about pornstar hush-money payments, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office and I think that that’s fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said.

The Florida governor repeatedly called Alvin Bragg and other progressive district attorneys “Soros-funded,” appearing to follow Trump’s own line of attack on Bragg. Liberal megadonor George Soros, through the Color of Change PAC, supported Bragg’s campaign for Manhattan district attorney, according to NBC News.

“They weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety,” said DeSantis. “He has downgraded over 50 percent of the felonies to misdemeanors. He says he doesn’t want to have jail time for the vast, vast majority of crimes and what we’ve seen in Manhattan is we’ve seen the crime rate go up and we’ve seen citizens become less safe.”

“The real victims are ordinary New Yorkers — ordinary Americans — in all these different jurisdictions that they get victimized every day because of the reckless political agenda,” DeSantis added.

Prosecutors have focused on a potential misdemeanor offense by Trump — namely, falsifying business records. That offense may be upgraded by prosecutors to a Class E felony if they can prove it was done to conceal or commit a second crime.

DeSantis also said he knows how to deal with a progressive district attorney like Bragg, explaining he’s the only governor in the country who has acted to remove one. In August of last year, DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County state attorney Andrew Warren, who pledged not to enforce a number of state laws including a 15-week abortion ban and prohibitions on gender-transition treatments for minors.

Warren has taken DeSantis to court for the removal. A federal judge declined to reinstate Warren in January despite his view that DeSantis had violated the Florida Constitution and the First Amendment when he removed the prosecutor.

Warren said last month he will appeal the decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.