Thune breaks silence on Trump indictment: ‘Political agenda run amok’

Republican Senator from South Dakota, John Thune has finally spoken out about the indictment of former President Donald Trump, which was unveiled last week. In his statement, Thune criticized the case mounted by Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, as being politically motivated. Trump currently faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York, to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Thune referred to the indictment as being a “political agenda run amok” in an interview with South Dakota Public Broadcasting, though he did acknowledge that it marked only the beginning of legal proceedings, not the end of them. He also said that previous district attorneys whom investigated Trump had opted against prosecution for a reason, implying that the case lacked legal merit.

Thune, who is the second-ranked Republican in the Senate, had previously abstained from commenting on the indictment. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has yet to make any comment on the matter.

Both McConnell and Thune have had bitter public feuds with Trump, particularly following the 2020 presidential election, which Trump claimed was stolen from him due to widespread voter fraud. When both senators spoke out against attempts to overturn the election result, relations soured between them and the former president.

Other Trump critics, including Republican Senator Mitt Romney (who voted to impeach Trump twice), also expressed skepticism about the legal justification for the indictment, warning that it set a dangerous precedent and could further erode trust in the US justice system.

Despite such criticisms, Trump himself remains defiant, claiming at a recent rally held at Mar-a-Lago that he had “never thought this could happen in America”, and that he had only committed the “crime” of “fearlessly defending our nation from those who seek to destroy it”.