The federal indictment of Donald Trump on charges that he mishandled highly sensitive national secrets makes the Republican National Committee’s 2024 loyalty pledge an inherent threat to national security, not to mention patently ridiculous.
Part of the RNC’s criteria for making the stage for the first GOP debate on Aug. 23 includes requiring every candidate to commit to supporting the ultimate victor for the Republican nomination.
Now that pledge includes supporting a guy who, according to the indictment, allegedly took classified information regarding U.S. defense and weapons capabilities, U.S. nuclear programs, potential U.S. vulnerabilities, and U.S. plans for potential retaliation in response to a foreign attack.
That’s some highly sensitive and extremely damaging material that Trump allegedly conspired to hide from federal authorities.
The RNC loyalty pledge was mainly intended to keep Trump from either running as a third-party candidate or ripping into any nominee not named Trump. But Trump, still the Republican front-runner, has declined to commit to it, telling right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt, “It would have to depend on who the nominee was.”
Trump’s harshest critic to date, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, has said there’s “no way” he would take such an oath. But after a searing start to his presidential bid this week, Christie told ABC News, ‘I’ll be on the debate stage and I will take the pledge that the RNC puts in front of me just as seriously as Donald Trump did eight years ago.” In 2016, Trump initially signed the pledge and then reneged on it during the first live debate, refusing to raise his hand when candidates were asked whether they would support the nominee.
Pressed on his doublespeak, Christie said, “I’m going to do exactly what the RNC has set us up to do,” noting that Trump suffered “absolutely no penalty” for his betrayal in 2016.
To Christie’s point, the RNC has now laughably set up the ’24 GOP field to back a man targeted in a case called United States of America v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has objected to the oath criteria, among other requirements, saying that while he has always supported the Republican Party nominee, he has never supported a loyalty oath.
“The pledge should simply be that you will not run as a third party candidate,” Hutchinson said in a statement.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, lacking the chutzpah of Christie, has been predictably squishy on the loyalty pledge, saying, “Well, I will absolutely support the Republican nominee for president in 2024, especially if it’s me.”
At a June 7 CNN town hall in Iowa, Pence added that anyone who “who puts themselves over the Constitution” or “asks someone else to put them over the Constitution” should “never be president of the United States.”
Following news of the indictment Wednesday, Pence offered, “No one is above the law.”
But Pence is still twisting himself in knots to avoid directly saying the obvious: I will not support Donald Trump, who routinely trampled the Constitution and put America’s national security at risk, not to mention that of me and my family.
It will be interesting to see if any of the other Republican candidates decide to quit sucking up to Trump, particularly due to the gravity of the indictment, and balk at the notion of pledging their loyalty to a national security menace.
But so far, candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina have backed Trump, decrying the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice. Tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy became the first candidate to vow to pardon Trump should he be convicted. Talk about a disqualifying pledge.
It’s worth remembering that about two-thirds of the country already views Trump as a criminal. A Yahoo/YouGov survey several weeks ago found that 63% of respondents viewed taking highly classified documents as a “serious crime,” including 82% of Democrats, 62% of independents, and even a 42% plurality of Republicans.
Asked if Trump should be allowed to serve as president if he’s convicted of a serious crime, 62% said he shouldn’t be allowed to serve, while just 23% said he should.
In other words, less than a quarter of the country is on board with allowing someone potentially convicted of serious crimes to serve as commander-in-chief. Yet the RNC is saddling their presidential hopefuls with pledging to support that potential convict.
Have at it, Republicans.
