Florida Governor Ron DeSantis rushed to former President Donald Trump‘s defense after a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him on Thursday.
Gov. DeSantis said his state “will not assist” in any extradition request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg amid what he called “questionable circumstances.”
“The weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda turns the rule of law on its head,” DeSantis tweeted Thursday. “It is un-American.”
DeSantis added: “Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.”
Trump's primary residence is his property at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
On Thursday, a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict former President Trump stemming from District Attorney Alvin Bragg's yearslong investigation into alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
American Liberty News previously reported that prosecutors are expected to charge Trump with a felony by arguing that the alleged crime was committed to hide an illegal campaign contribution. The potential problem for Trump centers around how his company reimbursed former attorney Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related charges and served time in prison.
The payment to Daniels was listed as a legal expense and Trump's company cited a retainer agreement with Cohen. The retainer agreement did not exist and the reimbursement was not related to any legal services from Cohen, thus setting up a potential misdemeanor criminal charge of falsifying business records. A report by NBC News said that Trump personally signed several of the checks to Cohen while he was serving as president.
Prosecutors can elevate the misdemeanor to a felony if they can prove that Trump's “‘intent to defraud' included an intent to commit or conceal a second crime.”
Prosecutors argue that the second crime is that the $130,000 hush payment was an improper donation to the Trump campaign because the money was used to stop a story to benefit his presidential campaign.
Billionaire liberal megadonor George Soros has pushed back at claims he's linked to DA Bragg.
Soros spoke out about those claims in comments to Semafor editor Steve Clemons the morning after Trump's indictment
“As for Alvin Bragg, as a matter of fact I did not contribute to his campaign and I don't know him,” Soros said. “I think some on the right would rather focus on far-fetched conspiracy theories than on the serious charges against the former president.”
While Soros never directly backed Bragg, the New York Times reports he did donate $1 million to Color of Change, “a progressive criminal justice group that endorsed Mr. Bragg.”
The group proceeded to spend “a significant portion of the money to support Mr. Bragg in his 2021 campaign,” according to the Times.
On Friday, Bragg's office fired back at House Republicans who are demanding documents and testimony about their case against the former President.
In a letter sent to three top House Republican chairmen Friday, Leslie B. Dubeck, the general counsel for Bragg's office, slammed their “baseless and inflammatory allegations that our investigation is politically motivated.”
Read the letter below:
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