Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday likened former President Donald Trump's announcement that he is facing a likely indictment in New York Tuesday to the Russiagate story, wherein members of the media and politicians doggedly pursued a rumor stemming from the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign that the FBI later found to hold "insufficient evidence to support it," per the New York Post.
"Well, like many Americans, I'm just, I'm taken aback," Pence told SiriusXM's Breitbart News Saturday and host Matt Boyle.
"You have a major crime wave in New York, especially in New York City. You have literally a Democratic Party that's literally dismantled the criminal justice system in that city, undercut the NYPD, and this is what the Manhattan DA says is their top priority?
"It reeks of the kind of political prosecution that we endured back in the days of the Russia hoax and the whole impeachment over a phone call," Pence added. "And the one thing I know is, I know that former President Trump can take care of himself."
Trump faces a possible indictment in New York on Tuesday over a $130,000 hush-money payment he allegedly made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. But Daniels claims that in 2006 she had an affair with Trump, a claim the former president has denied.
In regard to the Russsiagate story, and as Pence said, the media sought to politically prosecute Trump. As journalist Matt Taibbi reported, CNN and many many other mainstream media outlets fell for a hoax about Trump's campaign communicating with Russia's Alfa Bank. The story was discredited by experts and even the FBI had concluded that there were no such links. Taibbi points to a long list of Clinton campaign insiders who were aware of the Trump-Alfa project, including Clinton's general counsel, Marc Elias.