Donald Trump’s 2020 Republican primary opponent is coming out swinging after the release of the Mueller report, calling the president a “one-man crime wave.”
Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld declared that he intends to run a primary against Trump for the 2020 Republican nomination and has already launched into his attacks against Trump. As Business Insider noted, Weld had some very harsh words for Trump after the public release of a redacted version of the Russia report outlines misdeeds by the president and his campaign.
Weld noted that the report outlined a president who directed some of his top staff to lie to investigators and to the American people, and Weld said he believes Trump got off easy.
“This man is a one-man crime wave,” Weld said in a statement. “He instructed senior legal officials, senior national security, senior intelligence officials to lie, he actively sought out and suborned perjury. That is obstruction of justice and the President is fortunate that in substance Bob Mueller gave him a mulligan.”
Weld also voiced his support for a public hearing where Robert Mueller could fill in some of the blanks from the redacted report and outlined exactly why Trump escaped without recommendations of charges being filed.
Democrats have already moved to see the full Russia report, announcing plans to issue a subpoena to the Department of Justice for the full and unredacted report. As Politico reported, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler issued the subpoena and said that his committee is entitled to read the full report as well as all underlying evidence that had yet to be released.
Some large portions of the report were redacted because they are part of ongoing investigations, while others were redacted in order to protect the privacy of people who were not facing crimes. Critics said that the latter portion of redactions gave too much leeway to protect both Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who was also featured in the report for arranging a meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton stolen by the Russian government.
ICYMI: Gov Weld talking about the #MuellerReport on @MSNBC this morning with @SRuhle . #Weld2020 #NHPolitics #FITN #Election2020 https://t.co/9XeLpcHnBs
— Gov. Bill Weld (@GovBillWeld) April 19, 2019
While a number of Republicans had floated the idea of running in the 2020 Republican primary, Bill Weld has been the only one to come forward and actually declare an intention to run. His bid is seen as a long shot given Trump’s popularity among Republican voters, but the former Massachusetts governor said that he is running with the intention of winning the race, not simply trying to hurt Trump’s chances of winning the general election.