two-tiered system of justice, really using his power and this moment to appeal to the hard right of his conference, to have used their leverage in having a majority and their majority in the house to investigate the current president to investigate his son hunter biden and they re really galvanizing on this indictment of former president trump to continue perpetuating their claims to that effect. i want to read you a part of a statement from mccarthy s number three, elise stefanik, who you ll remember actually replaced liz cheney who went up to be the vice chair of the january 6th committee that spent a year and a half in investigating the attack on the capitol and the former president s role in it. she said, quote, today s sham indictment of donald trump is yet another disparate attempt to distract attention away from the mounting evidence of joe biden s direct involvement in his family s illegal influence peddling scheme. this is somebody who has the ear
unfolds. but donald trump defiant tonight, his team saying that they feel good, they feel better than the past and they now have a playbook tofor dealing with these indictments. a number of trump allies in the house are planning attacks on the special counsel investigation and including subpoenas for jack smith and merrick garland. others want to defund the fbi and justice kept, department, be are starting to break from the former president. he had a chance to return them, but he doubled down. we cannot take this lightly. it is obvious what the president did is wrong, but i don t see it as a sham indictment. i d like to find out all the truth of it. obviously if that is the truth, i d be very concerned. and presidential rivals are also responding. former vice president mike pence told the wall street journal having read the indictment these
that. i think the upper has no close. and if we need to have republicans say that. after the primary, i guarantee you the other party is going to be saying this and will cost us the november election. i don t see it as a sham indictment. what he did, i think, assuming all the allegations are true here, i don t think he can deny it. i think i stand on the truth and i still think republicans will win in the long run. people are fearful of the base, fearful of, you know, president trump attacking them, but in the end, if you stand on the truth you re going to win in the end. difference between a swing district and a safely red district where you can say it s about the bribery biden recordings. u.s. senator and nbc news political analyst claire mccaskill, former u.s. attorney joyce vance and lecturer in law at columbia law school, caroline polisi, a criminal defense attorney. i ll start with you and get your
something that actually, a few quotes from some of your colleagues on capitol hill. speaker mccarthy said the indictment was, quote, a brazen weaponization of power. scalise called it a sham indictment. the majority whip said it was the ultimate abuse of power. what do you think about that? i think there s a problem that we have with this particular case. those of us on the right. is there equal treatment under the law. there s no doubt in my mind that there are allegations of criminal conduct. i m not going to say he committed a crime until he s convicted, but i do think there were allegations of criminal conduct in other situations where crime charges could have been brought. that doesn t excuse this co conduct, but it certainly raises questions about equal treatment under the law. that s my only concern here. i think this case will go forward. and the results will speak for