'The man is going to prison': GOP insiders troubled by Trump’s legal problems are too 'chicken' to speak out

14 June 2023

Between special counsel Jack Smith's federal prosecution and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s New York State case, former President Donald Trump is facing a combined 71 felony counts. And that isn't counting criminal investigations in two cases involving Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results: one led by Smith for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the other led by Fulton County DA Fani Willis. Many legal experts believe that indictments in those cases are a strong possibility.

Trump's legal problems, however, are not hurting him in polls of the 2024 Republican presidential primary. A CBS News/YouGov poll released on June 11 found Trump leading Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — whose supporters see him as the GOP's best chance to move on from Trump next year — by 38 percent. An I&I/TIPP poll released the following day found DeSantis trailing Trump by 36 percent among Republican primary voters.

Fox News, Newsmax TV and other right-wing media outlets are full of Trump cheerleaders who are dismissing Smith and Trump's prosecutions as baseless partisan attacks. But what Republicans say on right-wing media and what they say in private can be two very different things, and an article published by NBC News on June 14 finds that behind doors, some GOP insiders are quite worried about the 37-count Smith/DOJ indictment.

Journalists Allan Smith, Katherine Doyle, Matt Dixon and Natasha Korecki report that a GOP "operative" in "DeSantis' orbit" told NBC News, "I don't know what’s going to happen in Georgia. But the man is going to prison. It's happening. So, at this point, where we are is: 'Who’s going to be the nominee?'.… Donald Trump broke the law, and frankly, I'm not a Never Trumper. I'm really not. But this is too much."

So far, the GOP presidential primary candidate who is attacking Trump the most aggressively is former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. But most of Trump's primary rivals have been slamming Smith and the DOJ, including DeSantis.

An aide to one of the Republican candidates, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told NBC News, "Every campaign right now that is not Donald Trump is receiving pressure from donors to go harder against Donald Trump…. The pressure is there. Is that where the larger Republican (electorate is) as a whole? Look at the comments from these various campaigns. You would see that none of them are taking that advice."

Meanwhile, a DeSantis aide lamented that Trump's GOP primary rivals are going easy on the former president.

The aide told NBC News, "They're all chicken to go after Trump, which is honestly sad. These guys just don't want to do it. They're scared s*****ss of Trump."

Find NBC News' full report at this link.

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