Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg must ‘remove all doubt’ in the American judicial process after a grand jury voted Thursday to indict former President Trump following the DA’s years-long investigation.

During an appearance on CNN’s ‘State of the Union,’ Manchin argued that the indictment risks further dividing Americans and battering their trust in the justice system.

‘It’s a very sad time for America to go through what we’re going through now,’ he said. ‘People are being divided, and they think that justice might be biased. We have to make sure that we wait to see what comes out next week, and I hope they do their job. And I’ve said this, no one’s above the law, but no one should be targeted by the law, especially through the political process. So we’ll just wait and see next week. I hope they are very thorough.’

CNN anchor Dana Bash asked Manchin to clarify whether he thinks Trump, who is the current front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential race, is being targeted by Bragg for political reasons.

‘Is that what you think is going on here? That he is a political target?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m saying you have to remove all doubt,’ Manchin replied. ‘You have to remove all doubt. You have to make sure you cross every t and dot every i, as they say. But you know that no person, the president, myself or anybody else in Congress, no matter what your status is, in the United States of America, you’re not above the law. And on the other hand, no person should be targeted by the law either. So let’s make sure that’s cleared up, and let’s see where it goes.’

There’s a ‘segment of society who believes that maybe it’s biased, that the system doesn’t work for all,’ Manchin said during a subsequent appearance on NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press.’

‘We must come together. The American people want us to do our job,’ he continued. ‘Let’s wait until what comes out next week. Let’s see the direction this goes. But the bottom line is it’s a very sad time in America. You have geopolitical unrest around the world. Just think of the people who don’t wish our society or our form of democracy to work, whether it be China, Russia or whoever. They’re looking and saying, ‘Oh my goodness, let’s just sit back and kind of watch this melee unfold.’ Well, I want to show them that as Americans, we can work together.’

Trump raked in more than $5 million in donations in the 48 hours after he was indicted on Thursday. The exact charges of the indictment are still under seal, but Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said Thursday evening Trump could face more than 30 counts next week when he’s arraigned.

The charges relate to Trump’s role in sending alleged hush payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in an effort to prevent her from speaking out about their relationship.

The former president is expected to travel from his home in Mar-a-Lago to New York City on Monday before spending his final night before his arraignment in Trump Tower.

The Secret Service will be attending him as New York authorities book the president, take his fingerprints and photograph him on Tuesday.

Fox News’ Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that criticism of his apparent 180 on the Inflation Reduction Act is ‘ridiculous.’

Manchin appeared on ‘Fox News Sunday’ after slamming the Biden administration’s ‘political malpractice’ in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week, in which he argued that they were ‘ignoring the debt and deficit implications’ of the Inflation Reduction Act.

In the op-ed headlined ‘Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Betrayal,’ Manchin said the Biden administration is ‘determined to violate and subvert the law to advance a partisan agenda that ignores both energy and fiscal security.’

‘The administration is attempting at every turn to implement the bill it wanted, not the bill Congress actually passed. Ignoring the debt and deficit implications of these actions as the time nears to raise the debt ceiling isn’t only wrong, it’s policy and political malpractice,’ he wrote.

The op-ed sparked criticism on the right, including from Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey, who said Manchin could use a dose of self-reflection.

‘Manchin wants to distance himself from the administration he enabled with the Inflation Reduction Act, and really wants to distance himself from its results, but that’s impossible,’ Morrissey wrote. ‘The vote on the IRA came down to Manchin; Manchin negotiated its terms; and Manchin endorsed its policies and the lack of control the legislation had on [President Joe] Biden’s use of the bill. If Manchin wants to talk about ‘political malpractice,’ maybe he should look in the mirror.’

Manchin responded to Morrissey’s criticism on Fox News, calling it ‘ridiculous.’

‘Well, that’s ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I mean, from the standpoint – we write pieces of legislation, we expect the administration to adhere to the intent and how we wrote it. It’s in the bill, read the law. So, anybody who has that opinion has not read the bill.’

The Republican National Committee’s (RNC) research Twitter account highlighted Manchin’s dismissal of Morrissey’s comments.

In his op-ed, Manchin called on the president to implement the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed in August 2022, as it was written.

‘Mr. Biden was elected to lead us all to solve problems. We can’t allow them to be made worse by ignoring them. The president has the power, today, to direct his administration to follow the law, as well as to sit down with congressional leaders and negotiate meaningful, serious reforms to the federal budget,’ he wrote. 

Fox News Digital’s Hanna Panreck, Gabriel Hayes and Peter Kasperowicz contributed to this report.

Former national security adviser John Bolton argued that the indictment of Donald Trump may ultimately help the former president politically, saying it could be ‘rocket fuel’ that helps him secure the Republican nomination.

‘I’m not worried about Alvin Bragg hurting Donald Trump. I’m worried about Alvin Bragg benefiting Donald Trump,’ Bolton said during a Sunday ‘Face the Nation’ appearance on CBS. ‘If Trump is acquitted or he gets the case dismissed because it’s not legally sufficient… that will be rocket fuel because he can say, ‘I told you this was a political prosecution.’’

Bolton, who served in the Trump administration for just over a year, made the comments just days after a grand jury in New York voted to indict the former president on charges believed to be related to alleged ‘hush money’ payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign.

Trump is scheduled to be arraigned in the case in New York on Tuesday, with Bolton arguing the implications of a conviction or acquittal would be massive.

‘I think he does have reason to be concerned about the substance of the case here,’ Bolton said. ‘I think while we’re all obviously focused on the indictment, that’s just the beginning. The real issue here is whether Alvin Bragg gets a conviction at some point in the near term, or whether Trump springs free, because the political implications are vasty different.’

 If Trump isn’t convicted, Bolton said the former president will claim to be vindicated and be able to use that as ammunition on the campaign trail.

A LOOK AT DONALD TRUMP’S ARRAIGNMENT SCHEDULE AHEAD OF TUESDAY COURT APPEARANCE  

But if Trump were to be convicted before next year’s election, Bolton believes ‘that will have a very different impact on people.’

‘If he’s convicted of a crime, I think most Americans actually don’t want a convicted felon to be the president,’ Bolton said.

Bolton, who said he is still considering a run for president himself, argued the right thing for Trump to do would be to step aside and let another candidate carry the torch for the Republican Party in 2024. However, he lamented that Republicans appear to be circling the wagons in support of the former president.

‘I have to say, watching the response to the indictment has not been encouraging for the future of the party,’ Bolton said. ‘Trump is a cancer on the Republican Party.’

Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr said Sunday he would advise against putting former President Donald Trump on the stand if the grand jury case were to go to trial, claiming it would be a ‘particularly bad idea’ to do so.

‘Generally, I think it’s a bad idea to go on the stand, and I think it’s a particularly bad idea to put Trump because he lacks all self-control and it’d be very difficult to prepare him and keep him testifying in a prudent fashion,’ Barr told ‘Fox News Sunday’ host Shannon Bream.

Trump, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is expected to be arraigned in New York City on Tuesday after being indicted last week. The indictment in the case remains under seal.

Barr said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg appears to be stepping into federal boundaries with the charges, arguing that Bragg is ‘interfering with a federal election process.’

‘It’s actually Bragg that seems to me that’s jumped into the federal arena,’ Barr said. ‘He’s interfering in a federal election process and his case is built on an alleged violation of federal law. He wouldn’t be able to survive the statute of limitations and not be able to juice what is a misdemeanor into a felony without claiming there’s a violation of federal law. So, he’s the one that’s essentially weighed into the federal arena.’

House Republicans demanded to see documents and testimony in the case against the former president, with Bragg later firing back by calling the GOP lawmakers’ demands ‘unlawful political interference’ in an ongoing criminal case.

The charges against Trump are expected to relate to his alleged 2016 hush-money scandal that the Manhattan DA’s office has already been investigating for five years.

If the charges are related to the 2016 scandal, prosecutors are expected to argue that the $130,000 sum given to adult film actress Stormy Daniels and the $150,000 given to former Playboy model Karen McDougal were improper donations to the Trump campaign, which helped his candidacy during the 2016 election.

‘I think the case, based again on what’s been reported, the case lacks any legal basis,’ Barr said Sunday. ‘There’s nothing inherently wrong or illegal about making a hush payment. … The idea that this was a campaign finance violation is simply wrong, it’s wrong on the law.’

Fox News’ Marta Dhanis and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., slammed Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as ‘cowardly’ on Sunday after the governor vowed his state would not assist in any extradition request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg regarding the indictment of former President Donald Trump.

Schiff said DeSantis ‘will say anything, do anything in hopes of becoming president,’ though the governor has yet to officially announce a run.

‘It says also a lot about the state of the GOP, and that is you have to attack the justice system you have to speculate about motives, you have to assume the worst,’ Schiff said.

The congressman made the comments on former White House press secretary Jen Psaki’s new MSNBC show after DeSantis slammed Trump’s indictment as politically motivated.

‘The Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney has consistently bent the law to downgrade felonies and to excuse criminal misconduct,’ DeSantis tweeted Thursday. ‘Yet, now he is stretching the law to target a political opponent.’

DeSantis added, ‘Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda.’

Schiff said DeSantis, a Harvard Law graduate, is ‘not stupid’ and ‘knows what his obligation is – to extradite someone who is accused of crime in another state.’

‘And in that statement as well, you have to disregard the law – say won’t extradite someone accused of a crime in order to be competitive in the Republican primary,’ he said. ‘He goes beyond that and tries to tie George Soros to this, which is, you know, this not-so-thinly veiled antisemitic element that is very popular within certain portions of Trump’s base.’

Schiff labeled DeSantis’ statement a ‘cowardly action’ to try to ‘compete with Donald Trump on Trump’s own turf.’

‘But one thing he also understands is: What’s the path to power in the GOP? And the path to power is now catering to the lowest common denominator. That’s, I think, a terrible use of his legal education,’ Schiff said. ‘It is putting ambition over any principle, scruple, nothing else matters except ambition.’

DeSantis’ team did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.’s indictment of former President Donald Trump, while avoiding using Trump’s name in speeches.

‘Now you have this Manhattan district attorney who has made his whole platform from when he got elected was that he was going to downgrade as many felonies as possible to misdemeanors,’ DeSantis said during an event in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

‘He was going to keep as many people out of jail, even habitual criminals as possible. And he was going to go light on all these things as part of, quote, criminal justice reform,’ DeSantis added. ‘So, that’s his posture. He doesn’t want to charge people with felonies. So, now he turns around purely for political purposes and indicts a former president on misdemeanor offenses that they’re straining to try to convert into felonies.’

DeSantis, a potential rival to Trump in the Republican primary, was seemingly alluding to Bragg’s successful indictment of Trump last week, though the Florida governor declined to name either individual.

DeSantis said the indictment was an example of the law being ‘weaponized for political purposes’ by the left, who are using it to ‘target their political opponents.’

‘I can tell you this: These [billionaire George] Soros-backed DAs, they are a menace to society,’ DeSantis continued. ‘They are a menace to the rule of law. And I’m just proud to say that when we had one of those days in Tampa that said he wasn’t going to enforce some of our duly elected, duly enacted laws in the state of Florida, we didn’t let that stand. I removed him from his post, and he is out.’

DeSantis struck a similar tone during a different speech in Long Island, New York, on Saturday, again appearing to defend Trump without using his name.

‘His whole thing is he doesn’t want people to be in jail, he wants to downgrade felonies to misdemeanors. … And then he turns around, does a flimsy indictment against a former president of the United States,’ DeSantis said of Bragg, according to the New York Post.

Trump is scheduled to appear for arraignment in the case, which centers around alleged ‘hush money’ payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, on Tuesday in New York.

DeSantis’ office did not immediately respond to a Fox News request for comment.