2024 GOP Candidate Tells Trump To ‘Step Aside’ As Former POTUS Faces DOJ Witch Hunt

The knives are out for former President Donald Trump as Republican rivals begin to claw at him over an expected indictment by the Department of Justice (DOJ) next week.

On Thursday former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson wrote that Trump should “step aside” for the good of the country while under criminal investigation. Hutchinson is running for the Republican presidential nomination and polling in the low single digits.

Gov. Hutchinson added that the Republican National Committee should not require all Republican candidates for president to support the party’s nominee if he or she is “found guilty of espionage or a serious felony.”

The @GOP should clarify that there is no pledge to support a nominee if they are found guilty of espionage or a serious felony.

Donald Trump is the target of an ongoing criminal investigation and he should step aside & put the good of the country above his candidacy.

— Gov. Asa Hutchinson (@AsaHutchinson) June 8, 2023

The Arkansas governor’s remarks come on the heels of news that the DOJ informed Trump’s legal team to expect an indictment next week in a case related to his handling of classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago. Any indictment would be the second against the former president, who in April was charged with 34 felony counts by the Manhattan district attorney related to a $130,000 payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

In both cases, President Trump’s defenders have cited a “witch hunt” mentality by prosecutors with politically-motivated vendettas against him. Tim Parlatore, a former attorney for the president, predicted any new indictment would be thrown out over prosecutorial misconduct by the legal team for Special Counsel Jack Smith. In New York, Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been criticized for elevating charges against Trump to felonies up from misdemeanors, a move at odds with his history of downgrading charges against most defendants coming before his office.

Gov. Hutchinson is just the latest in a string of presidential contenders to knock their former president while jockeying for pole position ahead of the first RNC debate in August. Rules for entry into the debate require all participants to support the party’s eventual nominee. Asked whether he would debate his Republican opponents, President Trump demurred, bragging, “I’m up by too many points.”