President Joe Biden plans to break his silence about former President Donald Trump's criminal trial and will make public comments after the verdict in the business records case in New York, regardless of what it is, Politico reported Friday.
Closing arguments are scheduled to begin Tuesday and a verdict could be reached later in the week.
Biden last year directed Democratic Party entities, including his campaign and the Democratic National Committee, not to publicly discuss any of the criminal probes into Trump or his trials.
Politico reported that Biden's comments would address only the New York verdict and he would refrain from addressing any of the other three indictments.
The president plans to make the comments in a White House setting, not in a campaign one, in an effort to avoid appearing political about the verdict, Politico reported. Republicans assert that Biden's Department of Justice is behind the current criminal trial in New York and the other three criminal indictments.
However, Biden's campaign social media team is plotting how best to leverage a guilty verdict, with discussions underway about a tagline of "Convicted Felon Donald Trump," according to Politico.
Biden's team is also preparing remarks for an acquittal and even a hung jury, according to the report. Regardless of the verdict, the theme of Biden's remarks will center on the merits of the country's legal system and that the process should be respected.
"This is an important moment and the president first and foremost needs to stress that the American system works, even and especially in an election year," an anonymous source told Politico. "And in a measured way, it becomes part of his argument against Trump, too: Do Americans really want this?"
Republicans likely would not agree regardless of the verdict.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter last week to New York Attorney General Letitia James demanding documents about Matthew Colangelo, the former senior Biden DOJ official who has been a lead attorney in the New York trial. Jordan and other Republican leaders are investigating what they say are politicized prosecutions of Biden's opponent in November’s election.
Newsmax has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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