On the menu today: Politico tells us, with great excitement, that after the jury returns a verdict in Donald Trump’s Manhattan trial on falsifying business records, President Biden will address the nation — likely from the White House! — about the verdict. As if we’re all on the edge of our seats, wondering what the president thinks this all means. As usual, read everything Andy McCarthy writes in his soup-to-nuts coverage of the Trump trial, but today’s newsletter focuses on some big questions outside of the courtroom: Has President Biden really taken a “vow of silence” about Trump’s trial, as Politico asserts? How on earth can the White House claim that a Biden statement about the verdict won’t be “political”? And how much of an impact, if any, will this have on the 2024 presidential race?
Another Biden Address No One Wants
Politico informs us, “Joe Biden plans to break his vow of silence and publicly address the criminal trials Donald Trump is facing when a verdict is reached.”
Why?
Is anyone waiting, with bated breath, to see what President Biden will say about Trump’s trial on charges of falsifying business records? Does anyone wonder what Biden thinks about Trump?
First, the president hasn’t really taken that metaphorical “vow of silence,” as Politico asserts. Biden jabbed, “I hear you’re free on Wednesdays” in his video debate challenge to Trump. During a campaign appearance in April, Biden quipped that Trump “is a little busy right now.”
In a mid April interview, Nexstar reporter Reshad Hudson asked the president, “Former President Trump has spent a lot of his time this year in a courtroom. He directly blames you, President Biden, as being responsible behind those prosecutions. How do you respond to that?” Biden responded:
His lack of ethics has nothing to do with me. I have nothing to — I’ve not once talked to anyone in my administration about Trump’s legal problems. A lot of them occurred well before I became president, and so I have nothing to do with that. Trump has a value set fundamentally different than most Americans. I mean, whether or not — anyway, I don’t want to get into it. But he is — his conduct is that — he’s acknowledged — has been beneath what most Americans think.
Later in the month, at an up-to-$100,000-per-person campaign fundraiser at actor Michael Douglas’s home, Biden cracked a joke about Trump’s legal fees.
Referring to Trump, Biden said, “I haven’t had a chance to watch the court proceedings because I’ve been campaigning.”
Biden talked about the press not writing about polls showing him doing well while citing polls in the press.
“I know not everyone’s feeling the enthusiasm,” Biden said. “The other day a defeated looking guy said he was feeling” crushed by debt. “I said Donald, I know,” Biden joked.
The president not commenting on the prosecution of one of his rivals, or any other ongoing court case, is the correct policy.
Besides, we all know what Biden is going to say. If there’s a conviction, Biden will speak at length about how it is just more evidence, atop an existing mountain, that Donald Trump is fundamentally unfit to be president. If there is an acquittal, we will get a much briefer statement about how the system worked, everyone should accept and respect the jury’s decision, and likely a reminder that Trump has three other criminal trials coming up. Perhaps the most intriguing question is what Biden will say if there’s a hung jury.
(The fact that the White House is discussing issuing an official response suggests to me it expects a conviction. More on this below.)
Politico continues, “Biden intends to initially address the verdict in a White House setting — not a campaign one — to show his statement isn’t political, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.”
Again, why?
Joe Biden is running for another term against Donald Trump. How on earth will Biden’s statement not be “political”? Do you think a single American will feel differently if Biden issues his statement from the Roosevelt Room rather than one of his Delaware homes? (Okay, maybe a handful of Americans who are responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, “a 1939 federal law that prohibits most government officials from engaging in political activities while on the job,” will care. The president and vice president are not covered by the Hatch Act, but White House staffers are, and you know Joe Biden isn’t setting up the lighting and cameras and loading up the teleprompter by himself.)
I don’t spend a lot of time predicting jury outcomes. Juries can surprise you. If it’s a guilty verdict, hey, what did you expect? He’s Donald Trump, it’s a Manhattan jury, and the entire operation to cover up an affair with Stormy Daniels during Melania’s pregnancy was sleazy as all hell. When you spend 30 years or so developing a reputation as a notorious, shameless, brazen, and barefaced liar, you should not be surprised that juries are inclined to believe you’re the kind of guy who would falsify a business record.
If it’s a not-guilty verdict . . . hey, what did you expect? When the indictments were announced, even the likes of David Frum and David French thought they represented stretching the law beyond recognition. The coverage of the testimony of Michael Cohen, the prosecution’s so-called star witness, suggested Trump’s lawyers tore apart Cohen. He’s a convicted perjurer who admitted he stole $60,000 from Trump’s company, and who declared on his podcast that Trump “needs to wear handcuffs and to do the perp walk” and that “people will not be satisfied until this man is sitting inside the cell.” I’m trying to imagine a less credible witness, and the only figures I can come up with are “Joe Isuzu” and “Baghdad Bob.”
And if it’s a hung jury and mistrial . . . hey, what did you expect? All it takes is one stubborn juror to hold out. A hung jury was the outcome of the trial involving former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, with some notable similarities to the ongoing case against Trump:
While the government presented a convincing case for Edwards’ general turpitude, what it failed to do was show that he had committed a crime. This prosecution was a stretch from the beginning. Edwards was accused of violating campaign-finance laws, but those laws are notoriously arcane. None directly addresses a candidate’s or his staff’s soliciting contributions to cover up a candidate’s affair. It was not surprising that, navigating this murky legal landscape, at least some jurors would accept the defense’s contention that the funds were gifts rather than campaign contributions — and that the campaign-finance laws therefore did not apply. . . .
The mistake the Justice Department made in the Edwards prosecution was not in how it tried this case but in bringing it at all. In recent years, funds have poured into campaigns at an unprecedented rate — and much more is being spent by shadowy PACs and super PACs. But few cases have been brought against these big-money folks, and none that grabbed anything like the headlines the Edwards case did. Any juror who has been paying attention no doubt began the trial by wondering why, with everything that is wrong with politics today, the government was so intent on punishing the cover-up of a marital affair.
The Edwards prosecution was not just small potatoes — it was unnecessary. Edwards’ offense was not violating campaign-finance law. He was guilty of leading his life in a reprehensible way. And for that he has already been convicted in the proper tribunal: the court of public opinion.
I feel like many people in the political world expect a conviction and expect the verdict to have a consequential effect on the 2024 race. (I notice that pollsters have regularly asked voters whether a conviction would change their opinion about voting for Trump, but have rarely asked whether an acquittal would change their opinion about voting for Trump.)
Everyone in America already knows what they think of Trump, and of Biden. And the small group of people who tell pollsters that a conviction might change their minds are otherwise pretty darn Republican-leaning:
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, the GOP half of the bipartisan group of pollsters who conduct the NBC News survey, cautions that the sliver of voters who shift on these two ballots — 55 in total out of 1,000 interviews — hold overwhelmingly negative opinions about Biden, and they also prefer a Republican-controlled Congress by more than 60 points.
As a result, McInturff says, he has doubts if these voters would really stick with Biden even if Trump is convicted of a felony.
In the eighth paragraph, Politico reminds us, “The first criminal prosecution of a former president has presented delicate politics for the president, especially as his son Hunter faces separate trials over the summer and fall on gun and tax charges.” Oh, yeah, that’s coming up. One more reason why Biden might not want to spend a lot of time talking about how convicted felons are just the worst.
ADDENDA: Dueling Six Demons arrives in about three weeks, just in time for beach-reading season — I hope you check it out.
I’m speaking in Denver tomorrow, May 29, at the Cherry Creek Country Club, 2405 S. Yosemite Street, Denver, CO 80231. The event begins at 7:30 a.m. and is expected to wrap up around 9:00. Please RSVP here.
My Twitter — sigh, “X” — is here, my Instagram with some photos of this past weekend in Chicago is here, my work Facebook is here.