Did Biden pressure Garland to prosecute Trump?
We found it on tape. President Biden expressly said that he would use the full power of the United States government to ensure that former President Trump will not become the next president again.
As the 45th president builds his legal defense to counter Special Counsel Jack Smith's Crime-Fraud Exception Strategy and have the case thrown out, the government's case could further fall apart if the Trump team can show that the DOJ is using selective, premeditated, biased, prosecution techniques to target him based on a presidential directive to achieve a desired result.
But, first, here's some context.
The New York Times reported in an April 2, 2022 article: “The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.”
Fast forward to November 9, 2022. The mood in the White House was bright on the day after the midterm elections. The so-called Red Wave had not happened. President Biden's party had held on to their Senate margin - which later solidified to 51-49 when Georgia Sen. Ralph Warnock handily won in a runoff. The Democrats had lost the House, but after all the votes were counted a few weeks later, the GOP margin was only up by a few seats, with 222 seats for the Republicans and 213 for the Democrats.
President Biden took questions from the press, a rare event. Phil Mattingly of CNN, respectful of Biden's wishes not to utter former President Trump's name but ask a question about him nevertheless, asked at 00:20:16 in this C-SPAN video clip:
CNN: "Last month, you said the rest of the world is looking at both the good guys and the bad guys. You noted you're going to the G20 in a couple of days. You will come face-to-face with many of those leaders, the same moment your predecessor is considering launching a reelection effort. How should those world leaders view this moment for America and your presidency?"
Biden responded with a long-winded answer about January 6, saying, "The rest of the world looks to us." He continued:
"Nothing like this has happened since the civil war. I don't want to exaggerate, but literally. What I find is they want to know, is the United States stable? Do we know what we are about? Are we the same democracy we have always been? ...They are concerned that we are still the open democracy that we have been and that we have rules, and that the institutions matter. That is the context in which they are looking at. Are we back to a place where we are going to accept decisions made by the court, by the Congress, the government, etc.?"
CNN: "The entire genesis of that G7 conversation was tied to your predecessor, who is about to launch another campaign. How do you reassure them that if that is the reason for the questioning that the former president will not return, that his political movement, which is still very strong, will take power in the United States?"
Biden: "We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power if he does run, making sure he — under legitimate efforts of our Constitution — does not become the next president again."
The press corps went deadly silent for three full seconds digesting what Biden had just said. Biden then called on his next questioner.
Exactly nine days later, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Jack Smith as Special Counsel to investigate Trump's role in J6 and his handling of the classified documents. It is highly likely Garland succumbed to intense White House pressure after President Biden set public expectations that Garland should take the decisive actions of a prosecutor.
Smith's dilemma is that if he were to bring civil charges against Trump, they would not handicap Trump as much as criminal convictions. For Jack Smith to prove that Trump was criminally culpable for J6, he has to do so beyond a reasonable doubt, a much higher legal threshold than in civil cases where the lower "preponderance of evidence" standard is sufficient. [A federal court ruled in Feb 2022 that civil lawsuits seeking to hold Trump accountable for J6 could move forward in court.]
With the volumes of material available from the partisan J6 committee that his prosecutors have to review and the 2024 election clock running quickly (the first GOP primary debates are barely two months away), Smith decided to fast-track the classified documents case and slap 37 criminal counts, hoping that at least one would stick and send Trump to prison.
Remember the goal of his boss's boss: "... making sure he — under legitimate efforts of our Constitution — does not become the next president again."
At his club in Bedminster, NJ, after appearing in Miami for the unprecedented arraignment of a former president, Trump said: "This is called election interference, yet another attempt to rig and steal a presidential election. More importantly, it's political persecution, like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation. This day will go down in infamy."
We agree with former President Trump. That President Biden would use all the levers of government to imprison his chief political rival, who is ahead of him in the polls and enjoys a 40-point lead for the GOP nomination, is a gross abuse of selective and biased prosecutorial power. No, Mr. President, this is not the America that the world wants to see.0
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