Former President Donald Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination on Tuesday implied the party should advance without him after he received a letter informing him he’s a target of the Justice Department investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, protest at the Capitol.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Mr. Trump’s chief foe for the nomination, said the former president should have done more to stop the demonstrators.
“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while … things were going on. He should have come out more forcefully, of course,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But to try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely, and I think that we want to be in a situation where, you know, 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.”
Mr. DeSantis had dodged questions about Mr. Trump’s criminal culpability regarding Jan. 6, but on Tuesday he suggested that Mr. Trump did not act with criminal intent.
Nikki Haley, another Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. ambassador under Mr. Trump, said the letter is why voters should support other candidates in the primary.
“We can’t keep dealing with this drama, we can’t keep dealing with the negativity, we can’t keep dealing with all of this,” she said in a Fox News interview.
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Ms. Haley added that the rest of the primary election is going to “be in reference to Trump.”
“It’s going to keep on going,” she continued, adding that Republicans “need a new generational leader.”
“It’s going to be about lawsuits, it’s going to be about legal fees, it’s going to be about judges, and it’s going to continue to be a further and further distraction,” she said.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, an anti-Trump Republican also running for the nomination, challenged Mr. Trump casting himself as a victim.
“The real victims of Jan. 6 were our democracy, our rule of law and those Capitol Police officers who worked valiantly to protect our Capitol,” Mr. Hutchinson said.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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