DeSantis previously dodged questions about Trump’s role in January 6 and said he would consider pardoning the ex-president, along with Capitol rioters, if he finds they were unfairly convicted.
Topline
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched some of his strongest criticism to date against former President Donald Trump over his role in the January 6 Capitol riots Tuesday, arguing Trump “should have come out more forcefully” to stop the rioters, hours after Trump said he expects to soon be arrested in the Justice Department’s investigation into the insurrection.Key Facts
At a press conference Tuesday in South Carolina, DeSantis said Trump sat in the White House and “didn’t do anything” while the riots were unfolding.
DeSantis also offered a tempered defense of Trump, echoing his narrative that the investigation is politicized: “To try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely . . . we want to be in a situation where you don’t have one side just constantly trying to put the other side in jail.”
DeSantis made the comments hours after Trump said he received a letter Sunday from Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith notifying him that he’s the “target” of its investigation into the January 6 Capitol riots, and asking him to appear before a grand jury weighing charges against him within the next four days.
The comments mark some of DeSantis’s most potent criticism of Trump’s conduct on January 6: He dodged a question last month about whether Trump “violated the peaceful transfer of power,” and he has said previously that people broke the law that day, but also said the media has exhaustively covered January 6.
In the past, DeSantis did not rule out pardoning Trump and other January 6 Capitol rioters, telling radio host Clay Travis in May he planned to review any cases of “disfavored treatment based on politics or weaponization” and would be “aggressive [in]
issuing pardons.
