COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA — Today, Ron DeSantis reacted to the news that former President Trump is the target of a Department of Justice investigation into the events on January 6.
“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on,” DeSantis told reporters in South Carolina. “He should have come out more forcefully.”
But while DeSantis said he had not had a chance to review the news, he did speak out against what he said was the weaponization of the U.S. Department of Justice.
“But to try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely,” DeSantis said. “We want to be in a situation where you don’t have one side just constantly trying to put the other side in jail and that unfortunately is what we’re seeing now.”
TRUMP UNDER INVESTIGATION
On Tuesday, Trump said he is a target of the DOJ’s January 6 investigation, which focuses on the former president’s attempt to remain in office following the 2020 presidential election.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an arrest and indictment,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
DeSantis has carefully avoided addressing Trump’s legal issues directly. In June, DeSantis dodged a question about Trump’s role on January 6.
“I wasn’t anywhere near Washington that day,” DeSantis told reporters at a campaign event in New Hampshire. “I have nothing to do with what happened that day.”
“Obviously, I didn’t enjoy seeing, you know, what happened,” he added. “But we gotta go forward on this stuff. We cannot be looking backwards and be mired in the past.”
