Current and former lawmakers from the Carolinas shared their reactions Thursday following the indictment of former president Donald Trump by a Manhattan grand jury.
Trump was indicted on criminal charges related to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The exact charges laid out in the indictment have not been made public.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster released a statement calling the indictment “reckless behavior” by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.
“I do not see anything that is reasonable, anything that is honorable, anything that is legal, or anything that is even ethical about what this prosecutor has done,” McMaster said in a statement. “I am afraid we have not seen this type of reckless behavior by a prosecutor since that disgraced North Carolina district attorney was disbarred for trying to prosecute the Duke lacrosse team.”
U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said Trump’s indictment “doesn’t pass the smell test.”
“The Department of Justice already looked into the facts and decided there was no case to be made against President Trump,” said Tillis in his statement. “This is the same District Attorney who is notorious for letting violent criminals off the hook in Manhattan, but has been laser-focused on pursuing a politicized prosecution of a former president. Politics should never tip the scales of justice, and Congress has every right to investigate the conduct and decision-making of the Manhattan D.A.’s office.”
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the ruling “a dangerous day” for America.
“This is a shocking and dangerous day for the Rule of Law in America,” he said in a statement. “This is one of the most irresponsible decisions in American history by any prosecutor. It is irresponsible because the case was looked at by two previous prosecutors and they passed. It has not aged like fine wine.”
Mecklenburg County’s U.S. Rep. Alma Adams calls Thursday “a sad day for our country.”
“‘No one is above the law.’ Those words are a promise as old as the United States, and that promise was kept today with the indictment of Donald Trump,” she said in a statement. “Mr. Trump, like every other American, is entitled to due process. That is another core promise of our Constitution. The State of New York has spent years meticulously building their case, and they secured an indictment not from political power brokers or the media, but from a grand jury of ordinary citizens.
“Make no mistake, this is a sad day for our country. Justice doesn’t celebrate, justice isn’t vengeful, and it doesn’t find joy in accountability. Nevertheless, I am proud of our democracy and our legal system for renewing and refreshing our faith in our system of justice. No one, not even a president, is above the law.”
U.S. Rep. William Timmons for Upstate South Carolina called the indictment a “weaponization of the justice system against President Trump.”
“The Left’s weaponization of the justice system against President Trump and other political enemies is an egregious violation of the very foundations upon which our nation was built. House Republicans will fight this two-tiered, undemocratic system of justice and hold the Democrats accountable for their overreach,” said Timmons in a statement. “What happened today reeks of corrupt regimes in third-world dictatorships. There must be accountability for this injustice. The end of Alvin Bragg’s career will be just the beginning.”
When asked for comment, the campaign for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley referred to previous comments Haley made about a possible Trump indictment on Fox News channel calling it a “political prosecution” which is “more about revenge than it is about justice.”
Haley is running against Trump for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.
