Republicans Rally Behind Trump, Adopting His False Indictment Narrative
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Top House Republicans rallied around former President Donald J. Trump on Friday after his indictment, perpetuating his false narrative that the prosecution had been ordered by President Biden, as they stepped up their efforts to use their power in Congress to discredit the case against him.
It was the latest instance of top Republicans in Congress closing ranks behind the former president and helping to spread unfounded accusations against the government, in the process undermining public confidence in the rule of law and stoking intense anger in their party’s base against the nation’s institutions.
“Let’s be clear about what’s happening: Joe Biden is weaponizing his Department of Justice against his own political rival,” said Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican. “This sham indictment is the continuation of the endless political persecution of Donald Trump.”
Mr. Scalise’s comments followed those of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who vowed to “hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”
“It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter on Thursday evening, adding, “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice.”
The Justice Department has tried to insulate the investigation from allegations of political influence, appointing two special counsels to review not only Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, which led to 37 charges against him in an indictment unsealed on Friday, but also Mr. Biden’s handling of sensitive materials. White House officials said Mr. Biden learned of the charges against Mr. Trump at the same time as the rest of the public.
But House Republicans demanded on Friday that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland turn over information and documents about the investigation that led to Mr. Trump’s indictment, releasing selective excerpts from an interview they conducted with a former senior F.B.I. official to try to raise doubts about how the bureau and prosecutors conducted the case.
In a letter to Mr. Garland, Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who leads the Judiciary Committee, cited an interview his panel conducted this week with Steven M. D’Antuono, the former head of the F.B.I.’s Washington field office. Mr. D’Antuono’s concerns about the search warrant executed last year on Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club in Florida were detailed earlier by The Washington Post.
Mr. Jordan has for years vilified the F.B.I., and since taking the helm of the Judiciary Committee, he has grasped for evidence that the bureau is corrupt and has unfairly targeted Mr. Trump and conservatives. The letter was Mr. Jordan’s latest effort to press those claims.
In it, he said that during his closed-door interview, Mr. D’Antuono had testified that he believed a search conducted with the consent of the former president — rather than a surprise search — would have been “the best thing for all parties involved,” including for “the F.B.I., for former President Trump and for the country.”
Mr. D’Antuono declined to comment about his interview.
Among the other concerns Mr. Jordan said Mr. D’Antuono had listed were that Washington officials, not the Miami field office, had conducted the search and that the F.B.I. did not wait until one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers was present to begin it.
But Mr. Jordan omitted several facts from his letter in an apparent effort to place Mr. D’Antuono’s account in the worst possible light. According to associates of Mr. D’Antuono and Democrats who reviewed the interview transcript, the former F.B.I. official said that while he believed the Miami office should have been more involved in the investigation because of its proximity to Mar-a-Lago, he also understood that his counterintelligence agents should play a part because of their expertise on the matter.
His concerns about the search had to do with the optics of F.B.I. agents entering the club in raid jackets, given Mr. Trump’s vilification of the agency, and with his desire to give the former president’s lawyers one final chance to produce the documents voluntarily before going in. But prosecutors believed that they had already given ample opportunity to Mr. Trump and his lawyers, who had misled them.
House Republican leaders have closely aligned themselves with Mr. Trump for years, and are under more intense pressure than ever from their right flank to defend him as they struggle to hold together a governing majority.
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the No. 3 House G.O.P. leader, suggested that the charges, which were brought by a special counsel who for months has examined Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents, were timed to distract from House Republicans’ investigation into Mr. Biden’s family.
“The exact same day that the F.B.I. is forced to turn over to Congress absolutely damning and credible allegations regarding Joe Biden’s illegal, egregious and treasonous corruption, Joe Biden weaponizes his Department of Justice to indict Donald Trump,” Ms. Stefanik said on Friday.
She was referring to a document that contains an unsubstantiated, years-old allegation of bribery against Mr. Biden that was examined and deemed unworthy of further investigation by Mr. Trump’s Justice Department.
Members of Congress have no power to stop criminal charges, but they can attempt to interfere with prosecutors through their legislative powers, such as issuing subpoenas, demanding witness interviews or documents, restricting Justice Department funding and using the platform of their offices to attempt to publicly influence the case.
They can also set the tone for how their constituents regard the prosecution of the former president and current Republican presidential front-runner, an unprecedented phenomenon in American history.
One House member, Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, hinted at a major backlash, in a cryptic tweet that appeared to refer to Mr. Trump as the true American president — “rPOTUS,” an acronym sometimes used by his supporters for “real president of the United States.” Mr. Higgins also referred to the scale used in military maps and told his followers to “buckle up.”
Another Republican, Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, was even more bellicose, tweeting: “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye.”
Senate G.O.P. leaders have struck a starkly different tone, with the top two Senate Republicans remaining silent after the indictment.
Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, a former Republican nominee for president and a leading critic of Mr. Trump, condemned the former president’s conduct.
“Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so,” Mr. Romney said in a statement.
Adam Goldman contributed reporting.
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