In the overheated basement of the Thunder Bay Grille in Davenport, Iowa, Thursday night, businessman-turned-Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy tried a new opening for his well-practiced speech.
“While it would be easier for someone like me to win this primary or win this election if certain people like Donald Trump weren’t in the race, that’s not how I want to win,” the biotech millionaire told the county’s Republican faithful of Scott they packed. the room on the outskirts of this town on the Mississippi River.
“That’s not how we do things in America,” he continued. “We are not a country where the party in power should be able to use police force to prosecute their political opponents. And I am not defending politics, but principles.”
It was a portentous about-face for a man running for president, one that called into question the integrity of a justice system that had just brought the first federal charges against a former president. And it is something with which Mr. Ramaswamy admits he has struggled, given that his claims could undermine the rule of law he says he firmly upholds.
The comments drew applause from an audience that was not ready to repudiate Mr. Trump, but perhaps was looking for an alternative.
“I admire Trump for what he did for our country; I admire him immensely,” said Linda Chicarelli Renkes of Rock Island, Illinois, across the Mississippi, who had praised Mr. Ramaswamy for his promise to pardon the former president if elected. “But I’m tired”.
The accusation of Mr. Trump’s accusation that he mishandled some of the nation’s most sensitive military and nuclear secrets, then blatantly obstructed law enforcement’s efforts to recover them, has put Republican political leaders in a time to choose between their often-declared allegiance to the law. and order and its sensitivities to the passions of its voters.
More than any other presidential candidate not named Trump, Ramaswamy has taken an uncompromising stance on the charges facing the Republican primary front-runner. He has not called the allegation “devastating,” as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has. He has not called for Mr. Trump to drop out of the race, as has former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas.
He has not attempted the contortions of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, denouncing federal overreach even suggesting that anyone who mishandles classified documents should be prosecuted. He hasn’t even allowed special counsel Jack Smith’s allegations to be serious, as have former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Tim Scott and former Gov. Nikki Haley, both of South Carolina.
Instead, Mr. Ramaswamy has said that while Mr. Trump may have shown some lapses in judgment, the Biden administration has dangerously abused its power to block the return of a political rival. In Davenport, he denounced what he called the “politicized persecution through prosecution” of enemies of the Biden administration, and promised to pardon Mr. Biden’s mass victims, whether “peaceful protesters” jailed for the attack on Capitol or Mr. .Trump.
For an outsider with no political experience beyond his appearances on cable news and his “anti-woke” rants against corporate liberalism, Mr. Ramaswamy is showing some power.
His poll numbers aren’t great: Mr. Trump, McLaughlin & Associates, released a survey after the indictment that placed Mr. Ramaswamy at 2 percent in Iowa, trailing five other candidates. But he has received the 40,000 individual donations to qualify for the Republican primary debates and, as of now, has the required 1 percent in national polls for the first debate on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee.
He also has deep ties to Republican powerhouses including tech financier Peter Thiel and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
But his move to the right, which had already alienated some of his business partners and financial backers, raises a new question: Are Republicans like Mr. Ramaswamy risking the country’s stability for their own political fortunes?
Although Mr. Ramaswamy is the longest of long shots to win the nomination, some fear that the aggressive rhetoric he and other Republicans routinely use — both to defend Mr. Trump and to attack the justice system — can cause lasting damage.
In an interview on his well-equipped campaign bus, the candidate was circumspect. He agreed that his call for all candidates to pre-emptively promise a pardon to Mr. Trump could raise illegality, even though he concluded his offer was defensible because it only fit the charges laid out in the special counsel’s indictment. If other crimes, such as passing on national security secrets to foreign powers, emerged at trial, the deal would be disabled.
He also said he wanted to make sure “I’m not contributing to a problem I’m deeply concerned about,” the erosion of the rule of law.
“The thought crosses my mind, but I think the facts are clear,” he said: President Biden has accused the main rival of the opposite party of thwarting his rise.
Mr. Biden did no such thing. A federal grand jury brought the indictment at the behest of a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland precisely to isolate the legal investigation of Mr. Trump from any perceived or actual pressure from the President or his political appointees. .
Mr. Ramaswamy said he was not ready to accept this version of events. He flew to Miami the morning of Mr. Trump to announce before television crews gathered in federal court that he had filed Freedom of Information Act requests for all communications between the White House and Justice Department leadership, and between Justice. Department management and Mr. Smith.
Mr. Ramaswamy has a law degree from Yale, although he made his fortune not in law, but in finance and biotechnology. Yet he speaks with absolute certainty when he criticizes the validity of the federal grand jury indictment, which he said “reeks of politicization.” The Presidential Records Act, not the Espionage Act, is the governing legal authority on former presidents, he said, and the records law gives former presidents wide latitude to retain documents from their years in the White House .
That reasoning has been rejected by more experienced Republican legal minds, such as Mr. Trump’s Attorney General, William P. Barr, and retired Court of Appeals Judge J. Michael Luttig. Judge Luttig he wrote on Twitter the day of the appearance of Mr. Trump, “There isn’t an attorney general from either party who hasn’t brought today’s charges against the former president.”
Asked about these judgments, Mr. Ramaswamy said he should examine the words of people like Mr. Barr and Mr. Luttig closer. But he offered another defense for his attacks on the legal system: Republican voters already believe them.
“To actually recognize a reality that other leaders are reluctant to acknowledge, I think actually increases net trust for our institutions,” he said.
While he may be following the passions of voters, not leading them, Mr. Ramaswamy insisted that his position was principled, not political.
“I will be deeply disappointed if Donald Trump cannot run because of these politicized charges against him,” he said.
The complaint of Mr. Ramaswamy’s impeachment is just the latest in a campaign based on his belief that the former president’s “America First” agenda does not belong to Mr. Trump, but to the American people, and who has the intelligence and the courage. to take it much further than Mr. Trump never could.
If Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and the closest competitor to Mr. Trump, is “Trumpism without Trump,” Mr. Ramaswamy is presenting himself as Trumpism squared.
The appeal has its limits, especially with fervent Trump supporters who still want the real deal.
“I haven’t seen anything that Vivek says and Donald Trump says that isn’t perfectly aligned,” Clint Crawford, 48, of Eldridge, Iowa, said after seeing the candidate at a session at Estes Construction’s offices four floors from downtown Davenport. . With the former president determined to stay in the race, Mr. Crawford, it won’t change.
But there’s a chance Mr Trump won’t survive a possible federal trial, another possible trial in New York on felony charges surrounding a porn star silence, an indictment looming in Georgia over efforts to overturn in 2020. election results there, and more to come from mr. Smith.
If Mr. Trump quits, Mr. Ramaswamy aims to be the alternative.
“He’s so consistent with Trump — he’s our past, he’s our present, and he’s not going to stop,” said Penny Overbaugh, 77, who stood up Thursday in Bettendorf, Iowa, to praise Mr. Ramaswamy for his performance in Miami. the morning of the indictment. As for the younger rival, “the fact that he could see the hypocrisy of the bilateral justice system, he has conviction.”
