GREENSBORO, N.C. Despite an indictment packed with details of Donald Trump s alleged schemes to hold on to top secret files in defiance of a grand jury subpoena, Trumps leading GOP rival, Ron DeSantis, didnt once mention the 37-count document that could send the former president to prison during a Friday night speech to North Carolina Republicans .

The Florida governor barely alluded to the issue at all and introduced the topic by returning to the old standby of former Secretary of State Hillary Clintons private email server, which wound up hosting some classified documents.

Gee, as a naval officer, if I had taken classified on my phone, I would have been court-martialed in a New York minute, he said. And yet, they seem to not care about that. Is there a different standard for a Democrat secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country.

DeSantis, who has been happy to attack Trump for his handling of COVID, his failure to build a wall along the U.S. southern border and other hot-button issues for the Republican primary voting base, appears unwilling to mention an issue that could make Trump unelectable in a general election.

After Trump was indicted in March in New York City on charges of falsifying business records to hide a $130,000 payoff to a porn star, DeSantis at first remarked that he had no expertise in the area of hush-money payments. But after receiving criticism for not joining in the general Republican condemnation of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, DeSantis got in line and announced that he would refuse to turn Trump over for prosecution had he been asked to.

Florida will not assist in an extradition request given the questionable circumstances at issue with this Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor and his political agenda, De Santis wrote in a Twitter post.

On Thursday night, two hours and 32 minutes after Trump announced on his personal social media platform that he had been indicted, DeSantis joined the chorus of pro-Trump voices complaining about unequal justice.

Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter? The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all, the Florida governor wrote .