WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden declared Friday that a New York jury’s guilty verdict against former President Donald Trump should be respected and denounced Republican efforts to undermine the justice system as “reckless,” “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”
Biden broke his long silence on Trump’s legal troubles, portraying the first conviction of a former president as a victory for the rule of law. He emphasized that it was a state case, not a federal case brought by his administration, and that Trump had every opportunity to defend himself.
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“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Biden said in a televised statement from the White House.
“It was heard by a jury of twelve citizens, twelve Americans, twelve people like you, like millions of Americans who have served on juries,” he said of the case. “This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. There is a trial that Donald Trump’s lawyer was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence, five weeks. And after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty of all 34 crimes.”
While he may have enjoyed noting that his opponent in this fall’s election was found guilty on all counts, Biden made no mention of the substance of the case, which convicted Trump of falsifying corporate records to make hush money payments to a to cover up porn actor. who claimed to have had an affair with him. Instead, Biden focused on efforts by the former president and his allies to discredit the prosecution and the jury’s verdict by portraying the trial as a political witch hunt.
“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous and it’s irresponsible for someone to say this is rigged just because they don’t like the verdict,” Biden said. “Our legal system has been around for almost 250 years and is literally the cornerstone of America. Our legal system, the justice system, must be respected, and we must never allow anyone to tear it down. It’s that simple. That’s America. That is who we are.”
The president’s decision to directly address the outcome of the trial was a significant strategic change. Since Trump was charged in this first of four charges brought against him by state and federal prosecutors over the past year, Biden has staunchly refused to discuss the cases. His hope was to stay above the fray and avoid fueling the former president’s false claims that the White House was in charge of the prosecutions.
Late Thursday night, a Biden adviser said in an interview that the president was not expected to make a formal, written statement on television about the verdict, although the adviser added that it was possible the president would respond to questions from reporters about that. . But apparently Biden decided to tackle the issue head-on rather than leaving it to surrogates.
Some Democratic strategists have encouraged him to speak out, arguing that as president he had a responsibility to talk to the country about a moment of great importance that has the potential to tear the national fabric.
“I may be alone in this, but I think he needs to approach the convictions with some level-headedness,” David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama when Biden was vice president, said before the president’s statement. “It was a sad and stunning day for our country, but we are a country of laws, not of men. That is a fundamental principle of our Constitution and our democracy, and even presidents are subject to it.”
Biden has articulated such principles before, but in this case he found himself trying to navigate a treacherous political thicket unlike the men who held office before him. In some ways, from Biden’s perspective, it was the worst of both worlds, a situation that posed more threat than opportunity.
Jennifer Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s former communications director, said Biden’s words would not convince his opponent’s base anyway, as they already face four criminal charges, including charges of mishandling classified documents and trying to influence the election of 2020 that he lost illegally.
“A Trump supporter who is outraged by the verdict will not be swayed by a Democratic president or Republican president who does not support Donald Trump,” she said. “Even if Biden were not his political opponent, if you are so outraged by the verdict that you are willing to take to the streets, a Democratic president will not reach you. That is the sad reality of the current presidency.”
Indeed, Trump tried to push Biden to weigh in on the New York case and the other charges, falsely claiming that the president was the mastermind behind them all. Although Biden appointed the attorney general who oversaw the two federal cases against Trump, there is no evidence that the president himself or his White House played a role in them. And the New York case, like the Georgia election subversion case, was brought by a local prosecutor who does not answer to the president.
Of course, that did not stop Trump from claiming the opposite shortly after his conviction on Thursday evening. “This was done by the Biden administration to injure or hurt an opponent, a political opponent,” he said outside the courthouse. His allies quickly amplified the claim. On Fox News, the hosts and guests talked about the “evil forces” and “evil people” pursuing Trump, blaming it on Biden, “who is now the bad guy.”
The idea that the Justice Department is simply a political weapon of Biden certainly comes as a surprise to Biden, as the same department is putting his own son Hunter on trial on federal weapons charges on Monday.
Rather than play on Trump’s conspiracy theory, the president initially left it to his aides Thursday evening to issue a formal response to the verdict. Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, issued a one-line statement: “We respect the rule of law and have no additional comment.”
The president’s campaign was less coy, but sought to minimize expectations that the guilty verdict would fundamentally change the race or that Biden would make it a central part of his campaign.
“Donald Trump has always wrongly believed that he would never face consequences if he broke the law for his own personal gain,” Michael Tyler, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement. “But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people are faced with a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: through the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.”
The reluctance to face the issue head-on did not stop Biden from raising money from donors, just as his opponent was already doing. Within hours of the jury’s verdict, Biden sent the first of several requests to supporters along the lines of Tyler’s comments.
“Despite a jury finding Donald Trump guilty today, there is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: through the ballot box,” Biden said, adding that “Donald Trump’s supporters are excited and likely setting fundraising records for his campaign.”
The Biden adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the campaign did not expect the verdict to change the battle, which polls show is extremely tight, especially in the critical battleground states needed to prevail in the Electoral College. .
Instead, the adviser said Biden will continue to frame his argument to voters around issues like the economy, abortion rights and democracy. The adviser said he did not expect the campaign to run ads emphasizing Trump’s status as a convicted felon, nor did he imagine Biden would try to withdraw from the June 27 debate on on the grounds that he should not appear on stage with a criminal. as some Democrats have urged.
It says something about contemporary politics that taking on a convicted criminal is not seen as a winning strategy. Still, Biden and his team have shown more willingness in recent weeks to dig into Trump’s criminal problems. The president has ridiculed his predecessor for falling asleep during the trial (“Sleepy Don”) and sent actor Robert De Niro to the courthouse to hold a testy press conference in which he assailed Trump (“guilty and we know it all”).
The president spoke Friday afternoon shortly after returning to Washington from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to meet with the visiting prime minister of Belgium and host a celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs. His comments on Trump’s sentence came just before he announced the latest step toward resolving the war in the Gaza Strip.
Biden returns to Delaware this weekend before heading to France next week for ceremonies marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
That’s a contrast the Biden campaign is happy to cherish — a commander in chief who welcomes foreign leaders and soccer champions to the White House, deals with big world affairs and travels to the iconic beaches of Normandy to pay tribute to American heroes — versus a challenger preparing for a sentencing hearing where he could face jail time.
“Trump will descend even deeper into anger and self-pity. He can’t help it,” Axelrod said. “Biden and the campaign would do well to delve deeper into the contrast between a president fighting to address people’s pressing concerns and Trump, who is fighting only for himself.”
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