CNN
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President Joe Biden’s decision to call his predecessor Donald Trump a “convicted felon” for the first time marks a significant toughening of his rhetoric against his Republican general election rival.
Biden’s fiery remarks at a private fundraiser in Connecticut on Monday evening came as some Democrats pressed for stronger political attacks against the Republican front-runner following last week’s guilty verdict in a hush-money trial in New York.
“For the first time in American history, a convicted former president is seeking office,” Biden said, “but as disturbing as that is, what’s more pernicious is the full-scale attack that Donald Trump is waging on the American justice system.”
Other Democratic officials have used similar rhetoric, but coming from the president’s own mouth, the words carried more force. Republicans have supported Trump since his conviction, but it remains unclear how the verdict will be received in battleground states where a difference of a few thousand votes could decide the November election.
Biden’s comments were another surprising development in a campaign that has been embroiled in numerous legal threats from Trump. They came on the same day that Biden’s son Hunter became embroiled in an unusual legal drama of his own, becoming the first child of a sitting president to stand trial. Biden has pleaded not guilty to charges of illegally purchasing and possessing a gun while under the influence of a drug or substance abuse disorder. He also faces a tax trial in September.
Biden noted last week that Trump was convicted of 34 felonies and said it was “reckless, dangerous and irresponsible” for his opponent to say the verdict was fraudulent. Presidents’ comments at fundraisers off camera are often a testing ground for the rhetoric they later make in public. But Biden’s sharp tone is sure to draw criticism from the Trump camp that the former president’s conviction came after a process that politically weaponized the justice system.
In another significant legal development on Monday, Trump received good news from Georgia, where he is one of several defendants in fraud cases alleging he tried to steal the battleground state from Biden in the 2020 election. The Georgia Court of Appeals has scheduled oral arguments for October 4 in an attempt to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.
It’s just the latest blow for prosecutors pursuing Trump in his election interference case, which comes just a month before Election Day and puts the trial on extremely short notice. The Georgia trial, in which Trump has pleaded not guilty, was delayed after the defense tried to disbar Willis after he hired a prosecutor with whom he was dating.
Trump has also pleaded not guilty to two federal charges against him, and proceedings are currently on hold.
The US Supreme Court is expected to rule this month on President Trump’s request for blanket immunity for actions taken while in office. The Supreme Court could still issue a final decision, but a ruling that would require further litigation in lower courts would expire a deadline in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case with just five months until Election Day. At the same time, an upcoming federal trial in Florida over President Trump’s mishandling of classified documents is on hold amid multiple pretrial disputes. Democrats have accused Judge Eileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, of showing political bias in her ruling.
The deadlock on multiple fronts means that the US justice system may not be able to hold the former president to account for his alleged attempts to stay in power against the will of the voters before he has a chance to win another term. This delay itself suggests that future presidents who act in the same way as Trump may expect immunity, posing a serious threat to US democracy’s attempts to defend itself.
That Trump avoided accountability for his 2020 election interference through a combination of slick legal litigation by his lawyers, backfired prosecutorial decisions and good fortune will also make the November election significantly more important.
If Trump loses, his future will be very grim, as he has already lost one criminal case, and three lawsuits could end up in court, with potentially huge legal costs. But if Trump wins, he will be able to appoint an Attorney General who can block federal lawsuits immediately, and his Justice Department will make every effort to delay or mitigate any adverse consequences he faces in the Georgia lawsuit or in the New York hush money conviction that is scheduled for verdict on July 11. Given his personal stake, it is reasonable to assume that Trump will stop at nothing to regain power at a time when he has no guarantee of accepting the results of the 2024 election.
Ty Cobb, a former White House adviser to Trump, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday that the October date set in Georgia means “there is no chance this case will go to trial before the election,” adding that it increases the chance that Trump could avoid legal liability for his 2020 actions if he wins in 2024.
“That’s very real if Trump wins the election, but not at all real if he loses,” Cobb said. Referring to the federal election interference case and the classified documents issue, Cobb said, “If Trump loses in the early to mid-next year, those two cases will be resolved at some point, and the Georgia case will likely follow.”
The slow progress of Trump’s criminal trial contrasts with the efficiency of the trial of Hunter Biden, who is also scheduled to go on trial in September on tax evasion charges.
While the cases of the former and current president’s sons are dissimilar, and the case surrounding Trump is incredibly complicated, the prospect that the only federal trial tied to this year’s election might be one targeting Hunter Biden, rather than Trump, whose post-2020 election actions stretched American democracy to its limits, will no doubt raise eyebrows for many Democrats.
Joe Biden on Monday promised not to comment on the outcome of the federal trial but, in a statement, expressed his boundless love for his son and his admiration for his success in overcoming a crack cocaine addiction. “I’m president, but I’m also a father,” Biden said.
Biden’s fiery remarks at a fundraiser on Monday came after Trump warned in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday about the consequences if Judge Juan Merchan imposed a prison sentence following last week’s conviction.
“I don’t know if the American people can stand that,” the former president said. “It’s going to be hard for the American people to accept. I know there’s going to be a breaking point at some point.” Some Democratic leaders accused Trump of inciting violence with his comments, which took on an even more ominous tone given that he had called on his supporters to “fight like hell” before a mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“It’s clear that Donald Trump is once again inciting violence, potential violence, as he serves his sentence,” Rep. Adam Schiff told CNN’s Casey Hunt on “State of the Union” on Sunday. The California Democrat accused Trump of issuing “yet another dangerous appeal to violence.”
The extraordinary complexities of the 2024 election and the litigation that hangs over both Trump and Biden are likely to be a focus of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday as he faces tough new questioning from Republicans.
When Garland took office after the tumultuous Trump administration, he vowed to restore faith in the justice system by making sure everyone plays by the same rules.
Three years on, he is frustrating many in Washington with what seems a quaint quest at a time when judges, prosecutors and juries are under near-constant attack amid a proliferation of politically significant lawsuits.
But the animosity toward Garland isn’t just coming from Republicans seeking retaliation on Tuesday following Trump’s conviction. Democrats are concerned about the slow pace of the federal investigation. The White House also expressed frustration with Garland after special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents portrayed the president as having severely impaired memory, causing weeks of political ripples, CNN reported.
Garland is also likely to face intense scrutiny in the Hunter Biden trial as House Republicans seek to use the case to inflict political damage on the president, in part because they failed to provide evidence that he profited from Hunter Biden’s business dealings during their failed impeachment inquiry.
Republicans celebrated the collapse in court of a plea deal they saw as a “soft” treatment of Hunter Biden. But the Biden trial, along with the federal corruption trial targeting New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, highlight the weakening of a biased justice system that Republicans have argued is the result of Trump’s sentencing in New York last week.
