Most Republicans “believe that the law is used as a weapon against Donald Trump,” Graham said, describing the indictment as an effort by President Joe Biden to prosecute his main political opponent.

Trump himself has said he will emerge politically stronger from the indictment and that his fundraising was already doing well off of it. On Saturday, he and his team appeared to be in good spirits. He spoke with a pair of reporters on his plane, both on and off the record. He ordered in Jimmy John’s sandwiches for lunch and McDonald’s quarter-pounders, chicken nuggets, and French fries for dinner. He spent part of the ride home to New Jersey blasting songs from, among others, Luciano Pavaratti and James Brown.

He also appeared eager to engage in the political combat around his legal troubles. He said he believed congressional Republicans should bring Special Counsel Jack Smith before Congress to testify about the decision to charge him. “They should,” he said. “I think they should.”

Even Trump’s primary rivals acknowledged that the indictment had the potential to aid him politically.

“I suspect that he’s going to raise money on the indictment as he did before,” former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who has called on the former president to drop out of the race, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He was referencing a fundraising bump Trump’s team said he saw earlier this year when he was indicted in New York.

“And obviously with a lot of Republican leaders saying that this is selective prosecution, and this is unfair, that there is a sympathy factor that is built in,” Hutchinson added.