Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday declined to criticize his opponent former President Donald Trump over his most recent legal woes, instead choosing to take the opportunity to attack the justice system.
Florida’s governor, who is currently polling 40-points or more behind the 45th President in the race for their party’s nomination, held an invite only press call with some members of the New England media on Tuesday, just hours after the nation learned the former president would face a fourth felony indictment.
DeSantis seemed to suggest that prosecutors in Georgia had other matters to attend to, other than holding his chief rival to account for asking the Secretary of State there to “find” him over 11,000 votes.
“Atlanta has huge problems with crime right now and there has been an approach to crime which has been less than exacting,” DeSantis said. “I think there have been criminals that have been let out that shouldn’t have been let out.
“And so they’re now doing an inordinate amount of resources to try to shoehorn this contest over the 2020 election into a RICO statute, which was really designed to be able to go after organized crime, not necessarily to go after political activity,” DeSantis added.
Once seen as the lone possible contender potentially able to unseat Trump from the top of the party’s ticket, the Sunshine State’s governor has been having trouble gaining ground in the polls despite a well funded campaign and near constant travel to Iowa and New Hampshire, where the first voting in the primary cycle will occur.
DeSantis, a former Navy Judge Advocate General officer, has been asked to respond to charges against his theoretical opponent after each of the four indictments naming Trump as defendant. He seems uninclined to strike where Trump is vulnerable.
“I think it’s an example of this criminalization of politics,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t think that this is something that is good for the country, but I think a lot of Republican voters are looking at some of the things that have happened, whether it’s the Department of Justice, whether it is some of the things that have happened locally, and I think the question is, okay, what are we going to do about it.”
According to Florida’s 46th Governor, if he is elected president, he will clean house at the Department of Justice and FBI, preventing the sort of “weaponization” he sees there now.
“We are going to end the weaponization of federal agencies like the DOJ and FBI,” he said. “We’ll have a new director. We will have new leadership in the DOJ. We’re going to make sure that there’s a single standard of justice in this country.”
After about 20 minutes on the phone with the press, DeSantis was asked why he wouldn’t go after the former president over the accusations leveled against him — or at least use the moment to gain some traction with Trump’s followers. DeSantis’ staff ended the call.