CNN’s Chris Wallace asked Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel if she would be cool with her party “nominating a convicted felon,” amid escalating legal troubles for 2024 GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
“Let me ask you a question. Do you have any problem with the Republican Party nominating somebody who’s under federal indictment?” Wallace asked the GOP official on this week’s installment of “Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace.”
McDaniel said it was up to voters to decide.
“I think the presumption of innocence stands,” she said. “And I think there’s a lot of Republicans who are very troubled. At the end of the day, Chris, though, it’s not up to me. It’s up to the voters.”
Wallace followed up: “Do you have any problem with the Republican Party nominating a convicted felon?”
McDaniel shot down the question as “hypothetical” before pivoting to whataboutism.
“We’re not even close to that. So I don’t think we’re even there,” she said.
“I think a lot of people are very concerned,” she added. “Republicans especially, I hear this every day. Why is there one side of justice for Hillary Clinton, a different for Donald Trump, different for Hunter Biden?”
Trump was indicted last month on 37 felony counts related to his handling of classified documents after leaving office. Prosecutors allege that the former president mishandled sensitive national security information, knowingly broke the law and obstructed the investigation.
He is also under indictment in a separate case. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office charged him with 34 felony counts in April over an alleged scheme to hide an affair via hush money payments in the days before the 2016 presidential election.
Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in that race, was investigated by the FBI over her handling of classified information on a private email server during her time as secretary of state.
She was not charged. The Justice Department determined her office had been “extremely careless,” but said she did not act with criminal intent.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump said Clinton had “no right” to be running and claimed it would “create an unprecedented constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government” if she won the election while under investigation.
President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, who is not an elected official, agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion charges last month following a long-running probe into his business affairs.
You can watch the excerpt from “Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace” via Mediaite.