Biden staying mum on Trump indictment over classified documents
WASHINGTON − President Joe Biden on Friday declined to weigh in on the federal indictment of Donald Trump, Biden's predecessor and the front runner for the GOP nomination to challenge his re-election bid.
“I have no comment," Biden told reporters while visiting a community college in North Carolina.
Biden also said he hasn’t spoken with Attorney General Merrick Garland about the case.
“And I’m not going to speak with him,” Biden added.
On the flight to the state, principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said the White House won't comment out of respect for the independence of the Justice Department and to protect "the integrity of their processes."
"Look, the rule of law is a bedrock principle of our democracy, and we're going to respect that," she said.
Dalton said Biden and his top aides had no advance notice of the indictment and found out about it from news reports.
Trump, himself, announced Thursday night he'd been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to the hundreds of classified documents seized from his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
Trump declared his innocence in a video statement and in posts on social media.
More than 300 classified documents were recovered more than a year after Trump left the White House, most under subpoena in June 2022 or during an FBI search in August 2022. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith has been investigating the potential mishandling of national defense records.
A special counsel is still investigating the handling of classified documents found at a former office space used by Biden and at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
In Biden's case, the White House has maintained that the documents, numbering about 10, were returned to the archives the day after they were discovered by the president's lawyers.
By contrast, Trump repeatedly resisted efforts by the National Archives to recover his material, including failing to fully respond to a subpoena issued for the records by federal law enforcement authorities. That prompted the FBI to lead an unprecedented search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, resulting in the seizure of the classified documents and thousands of other government records.
The indictment steps up the extraordinary situation of the Justice Department of a president seeking re-election trying to convict the current front-runner for the GOP nomination.
Biden was asked at a news conference Thursday how he would convince Americans they can trust the independence of the Justice Department when Trump repeatedly attacks it.
“Because you notice I have never once − not one single time − suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do, relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge,” Biden said. “I'm honest.”
Contributing: Bart Jansen