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WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, has joined the growing list of 2024 Republican candidates who are now starting to attack him over criminal charges that he hoarded sensitive classified documents and defied a grand jury subpoena to give them back.
“The very prospect that what is alleged here took place – creating an opportunity where highly sensitive classified material could have fallen into the wrong hands even inadvertently – that jeopardizes our national security,” Pence told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Wednesday.
In a meeting Monday with The Wall Street Journal editorial board, Pence said that “these are serious allegations. And the handling of classified materials – as I learned in my years as vice president and my years on the (House) Foreign Affairs Committee – is a very serious matter that bears upon the national security of the United States.”
Pence criticized the indictment as recently as a Saturday speech in North Carolina. It should be noted that Pence has increasingly criticized Trump since becoming a candidate himself, particularly the then-president’s handling of the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Most Republican candidates had been reluctant to discuss the indictment announced last week, probably fearful of alienating Trump’s large political base.
That is changing by the day as more details emerge about the obstruction of justice case, despite Trump’s aggressive denials.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and current U.S. Sen. Tim Scott have also stepped up criticism of Trump in the wake of the former president’s second indictment.
The ’24 Republican challengers had little to say about Trump’s first indictment, a New York state set of charges that revolve around hush money payments during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to both indictments. His most recent arraignment took place Tuesday in Miami.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is the closest in the polls to Trump, responded to the latest indictment by accusing President Joe Biden and his Democratic administration of selective prosecution. DeSantis said he is putting together a plan to fight what he calls the “weaponization” of law enforcement.
Trump, meanwhile, is trying to make the documents indictment an issue in his favor, telling voters that Biden and the Democrats are using the legal system to play politics.
“They are not coming after me, they are coming after you,” Trump told a supportive crowd during a post-arraignment speech at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey. “I just happen to be standing in their way, and I will NEVER be moving.”
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has made opposition to Trump the basis of his long-shot campaign, said other candidates have been reluctant to go after Trump because they don’t want to get on the wrong side of his voters.
In a Wednesday appearance on Fox News, Christie predicted that more Republican voters will turn on Trump as trial dates approach. He also criticized Trump’s attacks on law enforcement.
“Do you need Donald Trump whining, moaning, and making everything about him?” Christie said. “He doesn’t care about the American people … He’s putting himself first.”
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