Trump Indictment Unifies GOP, Undermines Americans’ Trust in Justice System: Experts

According to political and legal experts, the indictment of former President Donald Trump may further undermine any trust that Americans have in the justice system. Although it appears to have strengthened Trump’s base within the Republican Party, it could also leave a bad taste in people’s mouths. “It’s bigger than Trump,” says Gavin Wax, president of the New York Young Republican Club, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Meanwhile, five Republicans running for the party’s presidential nomination have temporarily put aside their differences to condemn Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for Trump’s indictment. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, considered Trump’s most formidable rival, described the indictment as un-American, and promised that Florida wouldn’t assist in Trump’s extradition to New York. Trump has been living in Florida since leaving the White House.

Even New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, a Trump critic, condemned the indictment, saying he thinks the former president is “being attacked.”

Trump’s lawyer Jesse Binnall warned in NTD’s “Capitol Report” that the Bragg indictment could be seen as prosecutorial bullying that might cast the entire justice system in a negative light. “It’s a very, very dangerous road that they have decided to go down here,” he said.

After the announcement of Trump’s indictment, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Peggy Noonan, who has been critical of Trump, cautioned that Bragg might bring unwanted scrutiny not only to his office but also to the U.S. justice system as a whole. In a column for The Wall Street Journal, she wrote that the indictment is “below us—not below him, but us.”

Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, a pro-Trump supporter, said that even if the accusations against Trump are proven true, they will discredit the U.S. justice system. “If reports are to be believed, it is not merely an unworthy exercise of prosecutorial discretion. It is one that will threaten the legitimacy of the justice system—on the public acceptance of which the rule of law hinges,” he wrote in a commentary for The National Review on March 31.