Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Monday accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) of pursuing “revenge” in his investigation against former President Trump over payments to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign.
Trump, who is running for another term in the White House, said over the weekend that he expects he’ll be arrested Tuesday in connection with the hush-money case.
“Right now, it’s rumor. And I certainly hope it’s not the case. I guess we will find out tomorrow,” Haley said on Monday on Fox News’s “Special Report.”
“But from everything I have seen from this New York district attorney is that this would be something he’d be doing for political points. And I think what we know is, when you get into political prosecutions like this, it’s more about revenge than it is about justice,” Haley, a former South Carolina governor who also served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, said.
Trump, too, has bashed Bragg, accusing the district attorney of “interference in a presidential election” and “taking his orders from D.C.” — and accused President Biden of having “stuffed” the city-run New York office, to which Bragg was elected. The former president also called for protests over the potential arrest, which prompted concerns about how his supporters might respond. Barricades were seen going up around the Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday.
Bragg told his office over the weekend that “attempts to intimidate our office or threaten the rule of law in New York” won’t be tolerated, CNN reported.
Haley, who was the first big-name Republican to jump in the GOP’s 2024 presidential primary ring with Trump, dismissed the case during the Fox News interview as “some revenge by some political people in New York,” suggesting the country “would be better off” talking about other topics.
Haley’s comments come after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who hasn’t formally announced a bid but is widely considered a top GOP presidential contender, broke his silence on the potential indictment and described it as “some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA.”
But in weighing in on the case, DeSantis also highlighted the allegations against Trump, without naming the former president.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair. I just — I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis said, remarks that appeared to prompt backlash from Trump.
“They can go back and forth on all of that stuff,” Haley said Monday of Trump and DeSantis.
“I think what we need to focus on is, first of all, you never want to condone any sort of prosecution that’s being politicized, because we know that that’s just political revenge. And I think we have seen enough of that over the past few years,” Haley said.