Republican leaders, such as presidential candidates Mike Pence y Asa Hutchinson and former Secretary of Defense Mark Espercriticized on Sunday the handling of classified information by the former president Donald Trump.
The comments came on major political talk shows over the weekend, after Trump pleaded not guilty in court on Tuesday. Miami of the alleged negligent handling of top-secret documentation.
The former president was indicted on 37 charges after taking mountains of documents with him when he left the White House and try to prevent investigators from retrieving them.
Former US Vice President Mike Pence. (Photo by Allison Joyce / AFP).
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Sunday’s comments stand in stark contrast to those of Republican lawmakers who either defended Trump or declined to criticize him.
“I can’t justify what you allege” Trump, said Pence, who was vice president under the tycoon’s management, to Meet the Press of NBC, alluding to the behavior of his former boss in the matter of the documents.
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Former Arkansas Governor and presidential hopeful Asa Hutchinson arrives for the White House Correspondents Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton on April 29, 2023. (Photo by Stefani Reynolds/AFP)
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Hutchinson, former Governor of Arkansaswent further and referred to the accusations as “serious and disabling”. “i think i should quitthe race to the 2024 election, he told ABC’s This Week.
Trump, who has claimed that the Justice Department is operating against him, he is accused of endangering national security by illegally keeping top-secret military documents and information about nuclear weapons on his property of Mar-a-Lagoin Florida.
The case is one of the many legal processes that the former president must face. “If the accusations are true (…) it could be quite damaging to the nation”, Esper told the program State of the Union de CNN. “No one is above the law”, he added.
