Rand Paul compares Trump indictment to Duke lacrosse case. See other reactions from Ky reps.
Sen. Rand Paul suggested the Manhattan district attorney pursuing criminal charges against former President Donald Trump could face his own reckoning by being forced out of office and into court himself.
In a tweet reacting to Thursday’s bombshell indictment, Kentucky’s junior senator wrote, “Wonder if DA Bragg remembers Durham DA Mike Nifong who withheld exculpatory DNA tests on the Duke lacrosse players. He was subsequently forced out of office, disbarred, and convicted of contempt of court.”
There’s no evidence Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is withholding any evidence in this case. The precise nature of the charges facing Trump haven’t been released yet, but they are expected to revolve around his payment to an adult porn star to cover up an affair during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Paul is trying to connect Bragg to the disgraced Nifong, the district attorney in the infamous 2006 case accusing Duke University lacrosse players of rape. The three players were eventually exonerated, and declared victims of a “tragic rush to accuse,” by then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.
Nifong was subsequently forced out of office, disbarred, convicted of contempt of court and jailed for a day, as a result of the high-profile case unraveling.
Many Republican politicians aren’t waiting to withhold judgment in this prosecution of Trump.
Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, derided the case against Trump as “a political stunt.”
“If this were the first time anyone had gone after Donald Trump, it might be different,” Comer said.
Comer said the Democrats’ feverish but failed attempt to prove Trump had colluded with Russia undermined this unrelated prosecutorial pursuit.
“Now the local DA gets him on federal campaign finance violations and it makes no sense and it’s another example why the American people have lost confidence in our judicial system,” Comer said on Fox & Friends Friday.
Trump’s former personal aide, Michael Cohen, has said he helped facilitate a $130,000 payment to adult porn star Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public with the affair. Bragg’s charge may ultimately allege that Trump falsified records to conceal the nature of the payment.
Rep. Thomas Massie, the Republican representing northern Kentucky, tweeted that such a charge would be “completely bogus.”
“In fact, they would have indicted him sooner for a crime of using campaign funds for personal benefit had he reported it as a campaign expenditure!,” Massie asserted.
Comer remarked that when he found out the news on Thursday night, he was attending his son’s baseball game back in Kentucky.
“People were just coming up and they weren’t real political people and were like, ‘Why won’t they just leave him alone?’” Comer said. “Why can’t we just stay out of our elections and let the American people decide?”
As of Friday morning, one Republican who was still silent on the Trump news was the state’s most significant: Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.
