Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson ripped comments by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “a menace to society.”
Last week, a Manhattan grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on about 30 counts, some of which are believed to involve the falsification of business records to obscure a payment to a pornographic film actress. Trump will be arraigned on Tuesday. Critics have accused Bragg of using the justice system to play politics.
Like Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, Trump has also declared his candidacy for 2024. DeSantis is widely believed to be considering doing the same.
Appearing on the debut installment of Elizabeth Vargas Reports on NewsNation, Hutchinson was asked about DeSantis’s remarks.
“Over the weekend Governor DeSantis, who very well may be one of your competitors for the nomination, called Alvin Bragg – the Manhattan district attorney – ‘a menace to society,'” Elizabeth Vargas said. “You are a former prosecutor. What did you think of that?”
“Well, I think it’s appealing to the worst instincts of America, versus trying to sort through a difficult time in our country,” he responded. “And so, I look at what Alvin Bragg, the district attorney has done and I have said that if the facts are, as I understand it as a former prosecutor, I wouldn’t bring that case.”
Hutchinson also cautioned that the exact charges are not publicly known, so it&
“But we also need to wait to see what the facts are, and there’s a lot of unknowns that are here,” he continued, before alluding to probes into Trump by Georgia officials and the U.S. Department of Justice. “In addition, you’ve got two additional investigations that are ongoing. So, even though we might not agree with the beginning of the case, we have to give the presumption of innocence. We have to let this system work just like it works in thousands of cases every day across America.”
After Trump was indicted last week, Hutchinson called on Trump to drop out of the race, which admittedly the former governor said won’t happen.
Watch above via NewsNation.