Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be powerless to stop constituent and possible 2024 White House rival Donald Trump from being arrested on a New York City warrant if a grand jury indicts the former president, Ben Shapiro said Tuesday.
DeSantis on Monday strongly condemned the case against Trump that was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, but in doing so still managed to tick off Trump and MAGA loyalists who believe DeSantis can somehow intervene. Voicing his opinion on the case and Bragg is about all DeSantis can do, Shapiro, a Harvard-trained lawyer and Daily Wire co-founder, told his podcast audience.
“The notion that DeSantis has the unilateral ability to stand in the doorway of Mar-a-Lago and prevent the extradition of Trump if [an extradition request] were to happen is just silly,” Shapiro said.
At best, a state governor such as DeSantis can review an extradition request only if there is a basis for believing it is improperly lodged. But that would rely on some technical flaw in the document, not the actual merits of the underlying case, Shapiro said. And anyway, Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, has already indicated Trump will surrender to New York authorities if he is to be formally charged, Shapiro noted.
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“You do, in fact, have to extradite people who’ve committed crimes in other states,” Shapiro said. “Article IV, Section two, of the Constitution explicitly requires this. The only conditions under which you do not have to extradite is if the extradition request documents are not in order that person’s right name on them or something.”
Shapiro and other legal experts have criticized as flimsy and politically motivated the case Bragg has put before a grand jury. Prosecutors claim Trump in 2016 hid hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels to hide a decade-old Lake Tahoe tryst. Such an agreement would be legal in most cases, but prosecutors say Trump improperly recorded the payments as a business expense. That would likely be a mere misdemeanor, but prosecutors are believed to be arguing that the payments were an unreported campaign expense and that the two actions add up to a felony.
The prosecution of Trump on the Stormy Daniels hush money is absurd by pretty much every available legal theory. That’s why Trump should focus his fire on the Manhattan DA, not Ron DeSantis. pic.twitter.com/Z7LyOFzPo5
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 21, 2023
On Monday, DeSantis accused Bragg of “weaponizing” his office by pursuing an old and insignificant crime in order to nail the former president.
“We are not involved in this, won’t be involved in this. I have no interest in getting involved in some type of manufactured circus by some Soros DA, okay. He’s trying to do a political spectacle. He’s trying to virtue signal for his base.”
DeSantis, who has been increasingly under fire from Trump as he weighs entering the 2024 presidential race, also took an apparent swipe at Trump, remarking, “I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair, I can’t speak to that.”
Trump fired back on his Truth Social platform with a cryptic statement that indicated he did not consider DeSantis’ criticism of Bragg helpful.
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“Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!),” Trump wrote. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”
The ire of Trump and many of his supporters was misdirected at DeSantis, according to Shapiro.
“Why are you attacking the governor of Florida when it’s the D.A. in Manhattan who is coming after you?” Shapiro wondered. “You’re aiming your fire in the wrong place and it’s this kind of stuff that honestly doesn’t do Trump any justice in terms of his own candidacy.”