Sen. Chuck Grassley said Wednesday that the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump amounts to a “political lynching” of the former president.
“Former President Trump, whatever the Democrats were trying to accomplish by prosecuting in four different ways, you can see that in some ways it’s backfired,” Grassley told reporters at his weekly news conference. I think so,” he said. “And I consider it a political lynching.”
Grassley pointed out that he was quoting Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who described the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Anita Hill, who was accused of sexual harassment, as a “high-tech lynching.”
Grassley said he hasn’t been paying close attention to Trump’s criminal hush money trial, which continues this week in New York City.
Unlike other Republican politicians who attended the trial to show support for the former president, such as Iowa Attorney General Brenna Byrd, Grassley said he was too busy to appear.
“My life has been pretty much in Washington, D.C., or in Iowa itself, and I represent Iowa,” he said. “It’s a full-time job.”
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A spokesperson for the Byrd campaign told the Des Moines Register that the Republican Attorneys General Association has invited attorneys general, including Byrd, “to travel to Manhattan and show support for President Trump.” The group also covered travel expenses.
Bird also criticized the trial, calling the charges a “fraud.”
“My background is as a prosecutor, and what I saw in court today is a travesty. Politics has no place in the courtroom,” he told reporters outside the courthouse on Monday.
Trump has been charged with 34 felonies for falsifying business records. He pleaded not guilty.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief political reporter for the Des Moines Register. She’s also covering her 2024 presidential campaign as USA TODAY’s senior national election correspondent. Contact us at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow @brianneDMR on Twitter.
