Donald Trump commended South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg during a rally in Texas at the weekend, not mentioning that the Republican official is facing impeachment in his home state after fatally striking a man with his car.
“Thank you for being here. Appreciate it,” Mr Trump told Ravnsborg in the crowd in Conroe, north of Houston. “They like you in Texas.”
Ravnsborg hit Joe Boever, 55, with his car in North Dakota on 12 September 2020. He pleaded no contest in the following criminal trial on two misdemeanour traffic charges, leaving him with a $500 fine and no jail time.
The death of Mr Boever prompted the first impeachment proceeding to be initiated in the state of South Dakota. The impeachment was on hold while the criminal case was active, but the proceedings began again in the middle of this month.
Ravnsborg told the North Dakota Bureau of Investigation that he had believed that Mr Boever was a deer, saying that he realized it was a person when he returned to the site the following day.
Authorities have said they believe that explanation to be insufficient as they found Mr Boever’s DNA on the windshield of Ravnsborg’s car and the victim’s glasses inside the vehicle.
“His face was in your windshield, Jason. Think about that,” an investigator told Ravnsborg during an interrogation on 30 September 2020. Ravnsborg has said that he was reading an article about Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, at the time of the collision.
After he was first charged with three second-class misdemeanours, he took a plea deal and pled no contest to two of the charges after the third was dropped.
Ravnsborg, who has also reached a settlement for damages in a case with the widow of Mr Boever, is running for reelection as state attorney general in the Republican primary to be decided later this year.
