In November 2022, President Joe Biden vowed to use his power to prevent former President Donald Trump from returning to the White House.
While Biden made sure to claim he would only do so via “legitimate efforts of our Constitution,” it appears that he is doing much more than that.
Biden’s comments came in response to a question about Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, which was asked during a press conference last November.
“So the entire genesis of that G7 conversation was tied to your predecessor, who is about to launch another campaign. So how do you reassure them, if that is the reason for their questioning, that the former president will not return or that his political movement, which is still very strong, will not… once again take power in the United States?” a reporter asked Biden.
“Well, we just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by — if we — if he does run,” Biden responded. “I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again.”
“ I’m making sure [Trump], under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next President again."pic.twitter.com/Q6iiseKuKC
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) June 13, 2023
Trump is currently facing a myriad of charges related to the supposed mishandling of classified documents. He has stated numerous times that he had declassified these documents before leaving office and taking them to his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida — and he had the absolute right and power to do so as president. Trump was also in the process of negotiating with the National Archives about the documents, and fully cooperating with the FBI about the matter — even putting a lock provided by the FBI on the room where the documents were being stored.
The charges from Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) are blatantly political. Biden himself has been caught illegally storing classified documents in several unsecure locations. These documents are not from his current time as president — where he would have the authority to have them — and are instead from the time he served as vice president and as a U.S. senator. Neither of these positions gave him the authority to take these classified documents, but he has not yet been charged for his clearly illegal actions.
Trump attorney and spokeswoman Alina Habba discussed Biden’s illegal storage of classified documents in a statement, as well as former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s similar violations.
“None of them came into possession of those documents while they were president,” Habba explained. “None of them were president—who, as the head and sole member of the executive branch—has the power to summarily declassify documents. The decision to pursue charges against President Trump while turning a blind eye to others is an emblematic of the corruption that we have here.”
"The targeting prosecution of a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela."
🚨MUST WATCH: Trump attorney Alina Habba speaks outside the Miami courthouse. pic.twitter.com/HZ8xettnQq
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) June 13, 2023
She went on to point out that “a leading political opponent is the type of thing you see in dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela,” where it is “commonplace there for rival candidates to be prosecuted, persecuted and put into jail.”
Habba’s statement rings true when considered alongside Biden’s promise to prevent Trump’s return to the White House. Regardless of the caveat Biden put on his statement, the actions currently being taken by his administration to charge Trump appear to be part of that effort to sink his presidential campaign.
As PJ Media asserted: “Make no mistake about it. This was clearly a thinly-veiled threat to use the federal government’s power to prevent Trump from becoming president again. Democrats tried twice with two impeachment attempts and failed. Now, Donald Trump has been indicted for mishandling classified documents, something both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden have done, yet have avoided being held accountable.”
The outlet went on to note that Biden “didn’t express confidence that Trump would lose in a free and fair election; he said he’d use the power of the government to stop Trump.”
