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On the eve of former president Donald Trump\u2019s indictment on charges that he attempted to overturn the presidential election of 2020, Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan\u2019s Purse, appeared<\/a> on Greta Van Susteren\u2019s show on Newsmax to share his take.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a sad day for America,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n The indictment\u2014the third Trump has faced in the span of four months\u2014\u201cis an attempt to \u2026 inflict enough political wounds on this man to where it will be impossible for him to run\u201d for president in 2024, Graham said.<\/p>\n According to Graham, this is but the latest attempt by Democrats to discredit Trump. First, there was Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation on whether Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. Then, a probe into the Trump Organization\u2019s tax returns, and finally, accusations of sexual harassment by women that \u201cseem to come out of the woodwork.\u201d<\/p>\n Next week Trump may face yet more charges in Georgia<\/a> for attempting to interfere in the presidential election of 2020. The investigation has taken nearly two and a half years and could bring charges to nearly 20 people.<\/p>\n After all the scandals Trump faced in his presidency and beyond, is he still susceptible to \u201cpolitical wounds\u201d?<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s political career has been morally fraught from the start, and a plurality of evangelical supporters stuck with him through the Access Hollywood tape, the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, revelations of Trump paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, his impeachments, and the Capitol insurrection.<\/p>\n Some conservative evangelicals may be turned off by Trump\u2019s legal fights and pivot to a different GOP candidate in 2024, said John Fea, a professor of American history at Messiah University. But \u201cmost conservative evangelicals gave up on the politics of character in 2016\u201d and still consider their relationship to Trump as a pragmatic bargain.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have maintained their contractual relationship with Donald Trump. This means that they will essentially ignore his moral failings and his criminal indictments in exchange for Supreme Court justices, anti-abortion laws, religious liberty (as they define it), anti-\u2018woke\u2019 classrooms, and the possibility of overturning Obergefell v. Hodges,\u201d Fea said via email. \u201cLittle has changed in eight years.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s defenders extend beyond his closest acolytes. According to a New York Times\/Siena College poll<\/a> from July, 76 percent of self-identified white evangelicals believe the former president has not committed any serious federal crimes.<\/p>\n Like Graham, Tony Suarez, a pastor and the chief operating officer of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, also dismissed the latest charges against Trump as \u201cgames\u201d played by Democrats to try to block his presidential bid, Religion News Service reported.<\/p>\n Richard Land, the former president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and executive editor of The Christian Post, called the indictment a \u201cjihad\u201d by the Department of Justice against Trump.<\/p>\n Others who do not support Trump\u2019s third bid for the presidency also have raised concerns that Trump\u2019s indictment is politically motivated. In a recent article, Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, questioned the legal reasoning behind the charges.<\/p>\n \u201cLying and manipulating and conspiring to gain political goals is, let\u2019s be honest, pretty much a bipartisan enterprise in politics, and especially in the Oval Office. This does not justify any moral wrong, but there is a huge difference between moral wrong and criminal wrongdoing,\u201d Mohler wrote in World.<\/p>\n According to an Ipsos\/ABC News poll<\/a>, most Americans believe the charges are serious, but are divided on whether Trump should be charged with a crime. Nearly half think the charges are politically motivated.<\/p>\n