TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released a statement in response to Tuesday’s indictment of Former President Donald Trump.
DeSantis said that he did not read the indictment before posting to his X account shortly after the 45-page document was unsealed.
In the statement, DeSantis decried “the weaponization of government” and vowed to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was nominated by Trump in 2017.
“I do, though, believe we need to enact reforms so that Americans have the right to remove cases from Washington, DC to their home districts,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis called the nation’s capital a “swamp” and said it is “unfair” that politicians who commit alleged crimes there cannot move their trials to their home districts, where jurors may be more likely to hold a favorable opinion of them. Instead, they must “stand trial before a jury that is reflective of the swamp mentality,” according to DeSantis.
“One of the reasons our country is in decline is the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses—I will end the weaponization of the federal government,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis has mostly refrained from using Trump’s mounting legal woes against him, but while speaking at a campaign event on Sunday, he briefly touched on the indictment looming over his political opponent. According to the New York Times, DeSantis said that if Trump had “drained the swamp like he promised” when he was president, he “wouldn’t be in the mess that he’s in right now.”
Trump has been charged with four crimes, according to the indictment: one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count each of obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to do so, and one count of conspiracy against rights.
According to the indictment, DOJ prosecutors said the former president made “knowingly false claims” that created “an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger,” eroding public trust in the electoral process.