The White House said President Joe Biden is staying focused on other issues and not closely following along with the charges against former President Donald Trump.
“The president’s going to focus on the American people like he does every day, this is not something that is a focus for him,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Tuesday White House press briefing.
Bragg’s office alleged Trump facilitated the payment through a lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has since pled guilty to a campaign finance violation over the matter and argued that Trump had wrongfully classified monthly repayment installments to Cohen as an ongoing fee for legal services.
While Jean-Pierre said Biden’s attention is on advancing his policies, she conceded that Biden has caught some information about the Trump case in passing.
“Of course, this is playing out on many of the networks here on a daily basis for hours and hours, so obviously he will catch parts of the news,” she said.
Biden’s No-Comment Policy
Jean-Pierre repeatedly said she was maintaining the White House’s policy of avoiding commenting on the case, at one point joking, “I love how you guys are asking me this in different ways.”One reporter at the White House press briefing put the Biden White House’s stated policy of not commenting on the Trump case up against the administration’s repeated comments about the breach of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The president has spoken repeatedly about Jan. 6. He gave at least two major speeches that I can think of,” New York Times reporter Michael Shear said. “There were more than 500 active legal cases going on during the time that he made those speeches, all of which potentially could have been affected, would have been affected by whatever his opinions were on the circumstances surrounding those cases.”
Jean-Pierre responded that the circumstances of Biden’s comments on Jan. 6 were different because the events of that day were “an attack on our democracy” and warranted comments by the president.
Comments on Potential for Unrest
Trump and his supporters have accused Bragg of bringing a politicized case against the former president. Even before Bragg’s office announced the charges, Trump predicted the effort to prosecute him could inspire social unrest and bring about “potential death and destruction.”When a reporter asked about Biden’s comments about unrest on Tuesday, the White House said the administration is not aware of any credible threats but said, “We are prepared.”
“We’ve been always very clear, any form of violence, that is something we condemn from here, but not going to—anything that is touching or relating to the case we’re just not going to comment from here,” Jean-Pierre said.
