Fox News contributor decries Trump’s new conspiracy indictment: “Every tweet, every speech seems to be a separate criminal act”
Published
Citation From the August 15, 2023, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Jonathan, this is not a surprise, but the fact that they went late into the night and rushed to do it, and they had a premature release and then denied knowing anything about it I thought was noteworthy. What stands out to you?
JONATHAN TURLEY (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Well, I did find that statement by a district attorney to be baffling, to say, well, I don't know anything about the clerk's office. If this was a premature publication of the indictment, it's a serious mishap. You'd think she would be somewhat curious as to how that happened. But the indictment is, as we expected, founded on this broad racketeering claim. You've got 18 individuals who were charged. [District Attorney Fani] Willis seems to have charged everything and everyone and is allowing god to sort them out.
You look at this indictment and every call, every tweet, every speech seems to be a separate criminal act that composes this conspiracy. That raises really troubling questions as to the criminalization of the challenges to elections. You know, I have been covering presidential elections a long time, I can't even remember how many. But in every single presidential election, we track challenges by Democrats, by Republicans. Some of them are based on strong evidence, some are not. Even in this election, you have people like Marc Elias for the Democratic Party, after these acts, allege that voting machines in New York were the cause of flipping an election, and challenging that election. Was that a crime? Of course it wasn't. It was a challenge. They were looking for judicial review. So it's a very troubling indictment.