COMMENTARY: Biden Admits He’s Using ‘Lawfare’ To Try And Jail Trump

During a rally in Detroit, Michigan, on Friday, President Joe Biden, who is currently behind in the polls, highlighted the numerous criminal cases against former President Donald Trump. Biden labeled Trump a “convicted criminal,” sparking chants of “lock him up” from the crowd. He then proceeded to detail the various federal and state cases that his administration and Democratic prosecutors in New York and Georgia have initiated against Trump, the leading figure of the political opposition.

Here’s how that went, per Breitbart News: No more! Donald, no more free passes. Today, we are going to shine a spotlight on Donald Trump. [Coughs] We are going to do what the press so far hasn’t [sic], but I think they’re gonna soon. We are going to say who he is, what he intends to do. Folks, Donald Trump is a convicted criminal.

[Crowd cheers, chants “Lock him up!”]

He was convicted by a jury of his peers of 34 felonies for paying hush money to a porn star and hiding it from voters in 2016. Donald Trump was found liable for sexual assault by a judge who said to not be fooled by Trump brushing it off. Here’s what the judge wrote, the judge in that case wrote:  “Mr. Trump attempted to minimize sexual abuse, finding it frivolous” [sic] Mr. trump “raped” her — That’s the judge’s line, not mine — he raped her as many people understand the word raped — the word rape.

Folks, Donald Trump is a business fraud. He lost his license to do business in New York State. He has been fined over $400 million for giving false information to banks. And he is still facing charge[s] for mishandling classified information, which is a criminal offense. He still facing charges for his role on January 6, trying to overthrow the outcome of the 2020 election. He still facing charges in Georgia for election interference. Remember his phone call? “I just need 11,780 votes” [sic]. Name me another president who has done  any of that.

There are several facts that Biden conveniently left out, and Breitbart listed some of them:

• The press has hardly avoided negative reporting on Trump; there have been no “free passes.”
• Trump was not convicted of paying “hush money,” but of supposedly failing to report it as a campaign expense, which he was not legally required to do before Election Day in 2016. The case is widely viewed as bogus.
• Biden misquoted the judge in the civil case against Trump. He did not say Trump called sexual abuse “frivolous,” but rather that Trump’s defense was “frivolous” (in the judge’s view). The judge’s claim that Trump “raped” writer E. Jean Carroll contradicted the finding of the jury that Trump had not, in fact, raped her.
• Trump lost his business license in a fraud case pursued by a Democrat prosecutor who ran on a promise target Trump, before a Democrat judge, in a case involving a statute that had never been used before in New York. The penalty was appealed and the appellate courts placed a hold on the enforcement of the penalty, pending appeal.
• Trump’s $454 million fine in the fraud case was widely viewed as outrageous, and Trump won appeals to stay the collection of the fine while he put up a $175 million bond, pending the appeal of the lower court’s judgment.
• Trump’s trial for “mishandling classified information” is in serious jeopardy, due to the mishandling of evidence by the prosecution and a challenge to the constitutionality of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment. Biden himself only escaped prosecution for the same crime because he was seen as too old and infirm to stand trial.
• The charges in the January 6 case against Trump are likely to be thrown out after Supreme Court decisions on abuses of authority by the Department of Justice and presidential immunity from official acts while in office.
• Biden misquoted Trump’s statement on a phone call with Georgia officials. He never ordered them to find votes, but simply stated that he believed that a proper count of the votes would yield what he needed to win.
• Biden ignored the fact that the Georgia prosecution against Trump is falling apart amid allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, which could result in the removal of District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.

In a Saturday column for the Wall Street Journal, Holman Jenkins highlighted that the intensification of prosecutions against Trump followed a leak to the New York Times in April 2022. According to this leak, Biden expressed frustration with Attorney General Merrick Garland and shared with his close advisors his belief that Trump was a threat to democracy and should face prosecution.

Biden has previously asserted that the prosecutions against former President Trump were devoid of political interference, despite reports of White House meetings involving some of the prosecutors and the notable involvement of Matthew Colangelo, a former senior Department of Justice official. Colangelo left his position in Washington to lead the prosecution against Trump in a Manhattan trial court, a move that raised eyebrows given the circumstances.