Eric Trump said the Manhattan grand jury’s unprecedented indictment of his father, former President Trump, slammed the decision on Saturday, saying it makes “a mockery” of the legal system.
Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends Weekend” that his family has been “attacked from moment number one.” He claimed the Manhattan district attorney office’s “priority” for six years has been going after the former president and “didn’t find a damn thing” in the documents they reviewed.
“The support is unbelievable out there because people understand that we’ve literally become a banana republic,” Trump said, referring to the term for a country that is dominated by corruption and whose democracy is often limited by authoritarian rule. “They’ve made a mockery of our legal system in this country.”
Members of the former president’s family and his GOP allies have rushed to defend him after the grand jury approved the indictment on Thursday following an extensive investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Many of them have denounced the probe as politically motivated. The exact charges Trump is facing are unclear as the indictment remains sealed and may not be unsealed until he is arraigned early next week.
The case comes from a $130,000 payment that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged affair she claims she had with Trump.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to several federal charges, including one for a campaign finance violation related to the payment to Daniels. He said Trump directed him to make the payment.
Trump has acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the payment but denied having an affair with Daniels and said the money was unrelated to campaign funds.
Eric Trump said his family is prepared to fight the indictment against his father.
“We go out there and we fight. That’s what we’ve had to do since the moment he came down that escalator,” he said, referring to Trump’s 2015 campaign announcement in which he descended an escalator before declaring that he was running for president in 2016.
Some of Trump’s other children have also responded to the indictment since it was approved Thursday.
Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that a “ruling party” trying to imprison an opposition leader is like what would happen in a “third world dictatorship.”
Ivanka Trump said in a post on her Instagram page that she is “pained” by her father being indicted.
“I love my father, and I love my country. Today, I am pained for both,” she said in an Instagram story. “I appreciate the voices across the political spectrum expressing support and concern.”