President Joe Biden is planning to make a public statement when a verdict is reached in the business records trial of former President Donald Trump, which could be as early as this week, according to a report.
The president plans to make the statement in a “White House setting” and not a campaign one to show that his statement “isn’t political,” four sources anonymously told Politico.
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Biden’s team is reportedly preparing options for a conviction or an acquittal/hung jury. If Trump is convicted, Biden will reportedly argue it shows Trump is ill-suited for office “with discussions underway about referring to the ex-president online as ‘Convicted Felon Donald Trump,'” according to the report. If Trump is acquitted, or in the case of a hung jury, Biden is preparing for “a barrage of Republican and Trump attacks.”
Closing arguments are set for Tuesday, and a decision could be reached as early as this week.
Biden making a statement on the verdict could bolster Trump’s accusations that the case stemmed from the White House in the first place.
“The whole Sham is a disgusting Political Witch Hunt by Crooked Joe Biden’s White House,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday.
Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court, April 16, 2024, in New York. (Curtis Means/DailyMail.com via AP)
The Politico report said if Trump is convicted, Biden will use it for political purposes, likely discussing “a guilty verdict at times on the campaign trail.”
However, the Biden team reportedly does not think a conviction will “meaningfully change the trajectory of the campaign” — a view backed by polls that show Americans are not following the trial closely, and that it would not significantly change support for Trump.
A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that if Trump is convicted, six percent of Trump voters would be less likely to vote for him while 24 percent said they would be more likely to vote for him. The majority of Trump voters, 68 percent, said it would not make a difference to their vote.
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By discussing the Trump trial, Biden also risks “drawing attention to the legal morass surrounding Hunter Biden,” Politico noted.
Hunter Biden is expected to face a trial on June 3 in Delaware for charges of making false statements when purchasing a gun in 2018 while actively using narcotics.
Embarrassing details of Hunter Biden’s life related to those charges could be aired in court. Hunter Biden’s defense team asked the court on Friday to block prosecutors from discussing certain “salacious” evidence, according to Fox News.
That evidence would include child support proceedings related to the child whom he fathered out of wedlock with ex-stripper Lunden Roberts, and also documents concerning his discharge from the Navy.