(The Center Square) – A number of elected Cuban-Americans from Miami are defending former President Donald Trump ahead of his Tuesday court appearance in the Florida city, where he faces a 37-count indictment related to his handling of classified documents after he left office.
Cuban-American U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who ran against Trump in the 2016 GOP primary, said the new charges against Trump are politically motivated and will put the country through a divisive “17-month circus.”
President Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election that the former president still disputes and Trump leads in polling for the GOP primary ahead of the 2024 election.
The indictment alleges “no real damage to the nation’s national security” and subjects this country “to a divisive spectacle,” Rubio told CBS Mornings on Monday. He said the Biden administration and Trump’s opponents are “trying to put Trump in jail for the rest of his life” when Biden, former vice president Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all mishandled classified documents.
“Sandy Berger, a national security advisor to President [Bill] Clinton, actually stuffed classified information in his sock and hid it under a trailer,” Rubio said. “He was charged with misdemeanors. Not a felony, not a life sentence like they’re asking for here.”
A month ago, Special Counsel John Durham criticized the FBI for investigating Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign based on “uncorroborated intelligence” in a 306-page report submitted to Congress.
Rubio said the Durham report “details serious and unforgivable breaches by federal law enforcement. Relying on altered documents and partisan opposition research is an extreme abuse of power.”
Florida Lt. Gov. Jeannette Nunez, a Cuban American whose parents fled the Castro regime, reiterated the position of Gov. Ron DeSantis, who described “the weaponization of federal law enforcement” as “a mortal threat to a free society.”
She said DeSantis “is right. A government must first and foremost protect its citizens. Instead, the Biden regime is using federal law enforcement to go after political opposition. This is a corrupt and intentional misuse of power that threatens the rule of law.”
Rep. Maria Salazar, a Republican from Miami, who has been warning about the dangers of communism, also condemned the indictment. She said, “The sitting President of the United States has weaponized the Justice Department to indict Donald Trump, his campaign opponent and a former US President. This is outrageous and not something that should ever happen in our country.
“America is based on the rule of law not law by those who rule.”
Rep. Carlos Gimenez, the former mayor of Miami-Dade County whose parents also fled Cuba, continues to defend Trump. He’s also been sounding the alarm about the threat China poses to the U.S. with a spy base in Cuba. After the indictment was announced, he played golf with Trump and told Fox News, “we cannot take another four years of President Joe Biden and this administration.
He also said Biden, “who I believe is corrupt, needs to be investigated … because what we’re finding out about him and his family is really alarming.”
This article First appeared in the center square