Sen. J. D. Vance of Ohio, a possible vice presidential nominee for former President Donald J. Trump, said Sunday that he supports Trump’s pledge to appoint a special counsel to investigate President Biden if he wins the November presidential election.
“It’s interesting to see how much the media and Democrats have lost their minds over this,” Vance told NBC News, referring to Trump’s comments that he would “appoint a real special counsel to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the Biden crime family.”
“I think what Donald Trump is saying is that we should investigate the previous administration,” Vance said. “There are clearly a lot of examples of wrongdoing. The House Oversight Committee has identified a lot of corrupt business dealings that may or may not have been criminal. Of course, we need to investigate to get to the bottom of it. So I think it’s perfectly reasonable for Donald Trump to say, ‘Let’s do the basic work of investigating wrongdoing.'”
He added, “Joe Biden has done exactly that over the past few years, and has gone far beyond that to engage in a ‘loafer’ campaign against his political opponents.”
That’s misleading. There is no evidence that Biden had any input into Justice Department prosecutorial decisions. The Justice Department traditionally makes decisions independent of the White House. Trump wants to end that independence.
The “corrupt business deals” allegation appears to refer to the House Oversight Committee’s search for evidence of impeachable conduct by Biden, though it has found no such evidence. The committee has sought to link Biden to his son Hunter’s business dealings, but much of the evidence it has allegedly presented has been taken out of context.
NBC host Kristen Welker questioned Vance, who supports a special counsel: “If Joe Biden wouldn’t be allowed to weaponize the Department of Justice, why should Donald Trump be allowed to do so when, as you say, there’s no evidence of that?” she asked.
Vance, like many Republicans, pointed to the fact that one of Biden’s former Justice Department officials served as a prosecutor in the New York case in which Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts.
“If Donald Trump’s attorney general transferred his number two or number three person to a district attorney’s office in Ohio or Wisconsin and that person went after Donald Trump’s political opponents, that’s a different story,” he replied. “All he’s suggesting is that credible allegations of wrongdoing should be investigated. That’s all Donald Trump is saying. That’s not a threat to democracy.”
Trump has repeatedly called for the prosecution of his political opponents, saying last month that “revenge is sometimes justified.” A week ago, he shared posts on social media sites calling for the jailing of prominent Democrats and Republicans who have criticized him, including one that said former Rep. Liz Cheney, an anti-Trump Republican, should be put on “a televised military tribunal.”
Vance did not say how the Supreme Court’s ruling last week that a president has an effective right to immunity from prosecution would affect his and Trump’s desire for a special counsel to investigate Biden.
