I wonder if Mike Pence got the message that many of us thought he did in his campaign with the recent remark he made about Ukraine.

Now, granted, he didn’t have much of a campaign to begin with. But he had even less of one when he said that he had a problem with Joe Biden because he wasn’t providing aid to Ukraine quickly enough during his CNN town hall. That said to so many in the Republican base that he didn’t give a darn about their concerns on the matter or why there seems to be no end in sight to the endless pouring out of money to Ukraine.

Pence made some remarks at the North Carolina GOP convention on Saturday about the Trump indictment, and they made me wonder if he’s trying to get some of the base back by talking about the weaponization of the government against former President Donald Trump.

.@Mike_Pence: "I am deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward … Attorney General Merrick Garland, stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand before the American people and explain why this indictment went forward." pic.twitter.com/QjPfN6EPlf

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 10, 2023

I like the spirit of what he has to say here, and I think the other candidates should be taking the same attitude as well. He points out how this has been put out by the Biden Justice Department to go after Biden’s political opponent at the time of an election. Now, technically, there’s a Special Counsel. But let’s not kid ourselves about that ensuring objectivity here. There’s never been objectivity in the effort to take out Trump.

He also says Hillary Clinton was “exonerated.” No, she just wasn’t prosecuted because of what James Comey said, and it wasn’t even his decision to make. But Pence is right that that’s where a lot of things went off the rails, when she wasn’t prosecuted.

Then he points out how they have weaponized the government against Trump for years, since before the 2016 election, with the Clinton team even helping to pay to spread the Russia collusion lie and feeding it to the FBI. That started an investigation that “never should have even begun,” Pence said.

Then there were the impeachments, including Trump getting impeached for the “offense” of asking about Biden’s corruption. Far be it from anyone to investigate Biden’s corruption. Trump gets indicted in record time, but the Biden corruption scandal has been sitting out there with no action taken, being “investigated” by the FBI for five years now, despite all kinds of evidence including all kinds of evidence on the Hunter Biden laptop. Pence pointed out the “slow walk” of the investigations, as well as the “disgraceful collusion” that took place with the media, Big Tech, and the Democrats to cover up the revelations of the laptop.

Pence said he was deeply troubled by this decision to indict Trump, and noted the likelihood that this will divide the nation. He urged people not to rush to judgment on the matter. He said it was important to remember that “you are innocent until proven guilty,” and that Trump was entitled to a presumption of innocence.

Pence said:

Today, I’m calling on the attorney general to stand before the American people and explain why this was necessary in his words. Attorney General Merrick Garland, stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand before the American people and explain why this indictment went forward.

He added that we need to know the reasons for this action, and we also need to hear Trump’s defense.

He encouraged people to pray for Trump and his family.

He then said if he won, he would “clean house” at the DOJ and restore confidence in the system of justice.

This is the right take — whether he’s doing it for the right reasons or doing it because he thinks that it will help him politically, and the other candidates should be taking a similar position. It’s important to remember, as I noted on Friday, that it was Biden who essentially set this in motion against a political opponent when the Presidential Records Act doesn’t have criminal penalties behind it by requesting NARA allow the FBI access to the records. Yet here we are with 31 counts of alleged “willful retention” for something that is no crime under the PRA, for something that Hillary Clinton got a pass on despite not even being president because no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case, as Comey told us. Except apparently against Trump.

Then also what about Biden, whom the FBI hasn’t even bothered to interview yet? Where are all his counts for “willful retention”? How did he walk out with at least one document that he had from 1974 when he was a Senator, when he didn’t have the ability or right to retain anything?

There are concerning things in the indictment but we should also take those with a grain of salt, remembering this is an indictment and the defense hasn’t a chance to present evidence to rebut things. And as we’ve seen when it comes to allegations against Trump, they have often been false in the past.

But what is true here is the weaponization of the government against Trump and other Republicans. Republicans shouldn’t think that because they aren’t Trump, they will escape that. Democrats will do it to anyone to retain power. That’s why it’s crucial the other candidates join Pence in calling this out.