Republicans Are Replacing 'Woke' With 'Weaponizing': Ret. General

Republicans are trading their war on "woke" to go after President Joe Biden's supposed "weaponizing" of the federal government, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling said.

"'Weaponizing' seems to be the replacement for 'woke,'" Hertling wrote in a post on X, formally Twitter, on Monday evening. "And neither of those words mean what Republicans want them to mean."

Hertling's comments come after several GOP members have denounced the latest set of criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, who was handed his fourth indictment on Monday in connection to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.

Trump has called the charges a form of election interference and claims that he is innocent in the case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He has also pleaded not guilty to his charges connected to the hush money scheme in Manhattan court in New York City, the classified documents case in Florida federal court and the Justice Department's indictment earlier this month related to the federal investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Hertling was specifically responding to comments from South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who told Fox News Monday evening that those charging Trump are "weaponizing the law" and are "trying to take Donald Trump down."

"This should be decided at the ballot box and not in a bunch of liberal jurisdictions trying to put the man in jail," he added.

Graham is not the only Republican to denounce Trump's legal strife in the past 24 hours. During a press call with New England media on Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who is trailing far behind Trump in the 2024 GOP primary polls—said that he thought the charges against his Republican rival were "an example of this criminalization of politics."

"I don't think this is something that's good for the country," DeSantis added.

Hertling previously condemned DeSantis for his promise to "rip woke" out of the federal government if he is elected president next year. Some have argued that the Florida governor's policies, which have focused on targeting the LGBTQ+ community and diversity issues, are too divisive to win the GOP nomination.

Tim Scott, Graham's fellow South Carolina senator who's also running for the next Republican presidential nomination, also told reporters at the Iowa State Fair on Tuesday that Trump's charges are "unacceptable."

"We see the legal system being weaponized against political opponents," Scott said, according to a report from CNN. "That is un-American and unacceptable."

Some staunch GOP Trump critics have also asserted that Willis' indictment may have gone too far, given the federal charges against the former president that are already connected to the 2020 election. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who has repeatedly attacked Trump since launching his 2024 campaign, told Fox News on Tuesday morning that the Georgia indictment was "unnecessary."

"I think that this conflict is essentially covered by the federal indictment, not with the level of detail that they covered in this, but that's just a stylistic thing," Christie said, although he added that he did not find Willis' charges to be a form of election interference against Trump.

Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, another GOP contender who is critical of the former president, agreed that Willis' indictment may be outside her jurisdiction.

"Generally, state cases are deferential to the federal cases that have been brought, and I think you can make the case that Georgia should have been deferential because there's overlap there as well, but it is what it is," Hutchinson said, according to CNN.

Republican lawmakers have also pursued heavier oversight of the Biden administration in light of the investigations into Trump. The White House, however, has repeatedly dismissed claims that Biden had any role in the Justice Department's indictments of the former president.

"The president respects the Department of Justice, their independence," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing last month. "He has been very ... steadfast on making sure that the rule of law comes back in this administration, comes back in the White House, and clearly the administration more broadly. And that's what you have seen."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign on Tuesday night for additional comment on the Georgia charges.