House Speaker Kevin McCarthy reacted to the target letter former President Donald Trump received, claiming that President Joe Biden’s administration is weaponizing government “to go after their number one opponent.”
“Well, I guess under a Biden administration by America, you’d expect this. If you notice recently, President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing President Biden for reelection. So what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their number one opponent. It’s time and time again,” he said Tuesday.
“I think the American public is tired of this. They want to have equal justice, and the idea that they utilize this to go after those who politically disagree with them is wrong,” McCarthy added.
What other House Republicans are saying: Despite facing the potential of a third criminal indictment, several House Republicans made clear they would support Trump no matter what, even as they claimed that the Justice Department was unfairly targeting him, despite not having seen the evidence in the January 6, 2021, investigation.
Texas Rep. Troy Nehls, who learned about the target letter from CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday, said emphatically that he still supports him.
“I have from the beginning,” Nehls said. “Donald Trump’s the leader of our party, and Donald Trump is going to beat Joe Biden in 2024 for a second time.”
Nehls accused the “far left” of having a “severe crush on this guy.”
He added that the investigation shows that Democrats were “scared shitless” of Trump.
“Why are they doing everything they can to prevent him from being on the ballot in 2024? I’ll tell you why. Because Donald Trump will win in 2024 and the left just they’re scared shitless,” he said.
Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said he would “probably” would not support Trump in 2024 “if he’s found guilty of a felony.” But he added that Trump will benefit politically from this.
“Every time they indicted him, his numbers go up,” Burchett said when asked if this calls into question Trump’s viability as a candidate.
On the Jan. 6 insurrection, Burchett did not blame Trump for the violence that day but said: “We need to know how many federal agents were in the corral and what their exact role was,” he said. “I think that would be a good question.”
Other Republicans were less willing to comment on the investigation into Trump. While Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke said he didn’t “find it surprising at all,” he would only say “we’ll see” when asked by Raju if he would continue to support his former boss. Florida Rep. Mike Waltz said he would “have to see when it’s all over,” as did Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez and Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk.
Meanwhile on the Senate side, Sen. Ted Cruz blasted the Justice Department in a tweet saying, “The continued politicization and weaponization of the Department of Justice has turned our institutions into enforcers for the Biden administration’s partisan priorities. It remains deeply harmful to the rule of law.”