Biden says questioning Trump’s guilty verdicts is ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Friday that Donald Trump’s guilty plea in his New York hush money case “affirms the American principle that no one is above the law,” and he said it is “reckless” and “dangerous” for his predecessor to suggest the legal process . system was rigged against him.
“Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself. It was a state case, not a federal case and it was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans and 12 people like you,” Biden told reporters at the White House, a day after a jury in New York found Trump guilty of count all 34 crimes in a case stemming from the 2016 election.
He added that Trump’s “jury chose the same way every jury in America’s chosen jury does.”
The president said Trump could appeal the case “just like anyone else has,” then pointedly said, “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous. It is irresponsible for someone to say there was manipulation just because he doesn’t like the verdict.”
“Our legal system has been around for almost 250 years and is literally the cornerstone of America,” Biden said. “The legal system must be respected. And we should never allow anyone to tear it down.”
As the president left the stage after his remarks, a reporter shouted if he had any reaction to Trump calling himself a political prisoner and directly blaming the president for what happened to him. Biden stopped and grinned, but did not answer the question.
He also did not answer when another reporter asked if he thought Trump should appear on the November ballot.
None of the developments changed Trump’s defiant tone as he sought to energize his supporters before November. Moments after Biden spoke, Trump sent a fundraising email stating, “I WAS ONLY CONVICTED IN A WRONG TRIAL. I AM A POLITICAL PRISONER!”
Biden was at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, marking the anniversary of the 2015 death of his adult son Beau from brain cancer when the jury reached its verdict Thursday, and he provided no personal comment on the trial at the time. But he returned to Washington on Friday for a White House event with the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, and spoke to reporters about the situation in the Middle East before answering questions about Trump’s case.
In comments to reporters at his namesake tower in Manhattan earlier Friday, Trump sought to portray himself as a martyr, suggesting that if he could be convicted, “they could do this to anyone.”
“I am willing to do whatever I have to do to save our country and our Constitution. I don’t care,” Trump said.
Biden had for months carefully avoided any involvement in Trump’s legal drama, wanting to avoid playing into his Republican rival’s claims that his criminal woes were the result of politically motivated prosecutions. But when the New York trial ended, Biden’s campaign became much louder about it.
His campaign had released a series of innuendo-drenched statements hinting at the trial to attack Trump’s policy positions, and then Biden himself joked that he heard Trump was “off on Wednesdays” — the trial’s scheduled day off — in a video statement when he agreed to debate Trump in person.
As closing arguments were underway on Tuesday, Biden’s campaign even appeared outside the Manhattan courthouse with actor Robert De Niro and a pair of former police officers who responded to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol, in what they said was an attempt was to refocus the presidential race on the former president’s role in the riot. That decision came as the campaign felt its message about the stakes of the election was struggling to break through the intense focus on the process.
Shortly after Thursday’s verdict, Biden’s reelection campaign sought to keep the focus on the choice facing voters in November and the impact of a second Trump presidency.
“A second Trump term means chaos, stripping away American freedoms and incitement to political violence – and the American people will reject it in November,” Biden spokesman Michael Tyler said in a statement.
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Weissert reported from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.