President Biden faces an unprecedented task without an easy solution: Dealing with the federal impeachment of former President Trump while fighting unfounded claims from the right that Biden is involved in the prosecution of his political opponent.
A Fox News chyron called Biden a “wannabe dictator” during Trump’s speech Tuesday night after his appearance. Trump himself denounced Biden as a “corrupt sitting president” who, along with the Justice Department, was targeting the front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.
Meanwhile, Republicans on Capitol Hill have been constantly attacking the White House, accusing Biden of politicizing the Justice Department.
Biden and his aides have repeatedly stressed in recent days that they have had no contact with special counsel Jack Smith or Attorney General Merrick Garland about the Trump case. Biden has promised throughout his presidency to restore a sense of independence to the Justice Department after Trump intervened or called for investigations during his four years in the White House.
Still, the White House needs to convince some skeptical Americans that the president is sticking to that promise, as top Republicans portray the Justice Department’s indictment of Trump as a political maneuver against Biden’s primary rival .
Biden they asked him last weekhours before Trump was indicted, why Americans should have faith in the Justice Department.
“Because you’ll notice that I’ve never once, not once, suggested to the Department of Justice what they should do or not do, as far as whether to charge or not to charge. I’m being honest,” Biden responded.
But that doesn’t seem to be resonating with voters. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday found that nearly half of respondents from various political affiliations said they believe the charges against Trump are politically motivated.
In a CBS News poll released the same day, 76 percent of likely Republican voters said they were more concerned about the impeachment being politically motivated, compared with 12 percent who said they were concerned about the risks to national security.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated this week that Biden “respects the rule of law” and “wants to make sure we restore the integrity of the Justice Department.” On Wednesday, he took a stab at Fox News for the “wannabe dictator” chyron.
“There’s probably about 787 million things I can say about this that were wrong about what we saw last night, but I don’t think I’m going to get into that,” he said, referring to the $787 million settlement between Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems.
But otherwise, Biden, Jean-Pierre and other top officials have steadfastly avoided commenting on Trump’s case, allowing Republicans to fill the void with claims that the charges are political in nature and Biden has a hand in them.
Asked specifically if he wanted to respond to Trump’s implication that Biden ordered the DOJ to arrest him, Jean-Pierre flatly said he would have no comment.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) was also mum on Trump’s impeachment on Tuesday, a remarkable strategy compared to the several press releases he sent out during Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie’s CNN town hall last night previous
Trump pleaded not guilty on 37 counts after a Justice Department indictment alleging he violated the Espionage Act by mishandling some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets and obstructed justice by taking classified records of his presidency and then refuse to return them.
Unlike others in the White House, first lady Jill Biden chose to address Trump on the campaign trail this week, encouraging others to do the same when fundraising trips begin next week days for Biden and Vice President Harris.
“My heart is so broken by so many of the headlines we see in the news,” she said at a closed-door fundraiser in New York Monday with an Associated Press reporter in attendance. “As I just saw, when I was on my plane, he was saying 61 percent of Republicans are going to vote, they’re going to vote for Trump. … They don’t care about the indictment. So I think that’s kind of shocking.”
He then alluded to the baggage that comes with Trump’s election during a fundraising trip in the San Francisco area on Tuesday, framing the 2024 election as a choice between “corruption and chaos” under Trump or stability quiet under her husband.
“We can’t go back to those dark days,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill have rallied around him since he was impeached, spreading the narrative that the Justice Department is corrupted by politics.
“If the people in power can imprison their political opponents at will, we don’t have a republic,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said last Thursday on Fox News.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called the indictment a “brazen weaponization” by the Justice Department and compared it to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of an email server private
For some Biden allies, they trust the president followed his gut on the issue. By refusing to comment on Trump’s case, he is further fulfilling his promise to depoliticize the Justice Department.
“As promised, Biden has avoided interfering with the attorney general. The chant of a Justice Department weaponized by Trump and his supporters is as hollow as it is misleading,” said the Biden ally and former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.).
Ivan Zapien, a former DNC official, said Biden is sticking to his 2020 campaign strategy of staying out of the drama with his predecessor.
“Part of Joe Biden’s winning brand in 2020 was that he would govern back to normal, and he has, there’s no need to change that,” Zapien said. “I think there’s going to be some serious PTSD in suburban America, and Biden laying low and playing it by the book will remind people of one of the reasons they voted for him: as advertised, cool, calm and collected President Joe.”
That doesn’t stop Trump from claiming the charges are “ridiculous” and part of a witch hunt against him, often pointing to the current president as the person responsible for his predicament.
Trump on Tuesday accused special counsel Jack Smith, who is overseeing the investigation into him, of being an “out of control Trump hater” and involved in “political dealings.” The former president has claimed since the indictment was first published that he is a victim and part of a plan by the Biden administration to derail his 2024 White House campaign. This has proved ironic to some political observers.
“It’s really fascinating to see how Trump is trying to inoculate himself politically from his many jobs,” said Carney, Nossaman’s senior policy adviser. “He is one of the few presidents in our history who shamelessly proclaims to be the victim while committing crimes.”
