Marco Rubio, Contender to Be Trump’s Running Mate, Defends Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a contender to be former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate, indicated on Sunday that he supported the Supreme Court ruling granting Mr. Trump and future presidents substantial immunity from prosecution.

“I think what the Supreme Court did is, it clarified what the law is,” he said on CNN, arguing that this had become necessary “because it is clear that we have reached an era where there are people in American politics who believe that our courts are now a weapon that can be used against their political opponents. You look at what their efforts, on what they’ve done in the courts to persecute and prosecute Donald Trump.”

The interviewer, Dana Bash, noted that the same Justice Department that is prosecuting Mr. Trump is also prosecuting a Democratic senator, Robert Menendez of New Jersey. Mr. Rubio replied, “They only go after Democrats that don’t do everything the Democrats want them to do.”

Mr. Rubio denied that Mr. Trump had called for weaponizing the Justice Department against his political opponents — something Mr. Trump has done on many occasions. Among other instances, Mr. Trump has said that, if elected again, he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Biden; reposted calls on social media for specific officials to be jailed and for former Representative Liz Cheney to be subjected to “televised military tribunals”; and indicated that he would intervene in Justice Department prosecution decisions.

And Mr. Rubio largely avoided a question about whether he could reconcile the Supreme Court’s ruling with his own statement in 2021 — after he voted to acquit Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial for his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6 — that it was not Congress’s