Biden Campaign On Trump Guilty Verdict: He Still Could Win

The Biden campaign moved swiftly to seize on the guilty verdict of Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star.

But while the campaign declared the ruling to be confirmation that “no one is above the law,” it also urged Democrats not to assume that a convicted felon could not end up elected as president.

“Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain. But today’s verdict does not change the fact that the American people face a simple reality. There is still only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: at the ballot box. Convicted felon or not, Trump will be the Republican nominee for president,” Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.

The comment came just minutes after a jury announced it had reached a guilty verdict in all counts that Trump faced. And it suggested that the Biden campaign — and the president himself — will adopt a subdued approach to the ruling.

While some Democrats have argued that Biden and his team must assertively attack Trump over his legal troubles, especially if they ended in findings of guilt, the president had instructed his aides to keep their distance from the matter, wary of sending the message that he’s politicizing the Justice Department.

Biden spent Thursday in Delaware, first visiting his son Beau’s gravesite on the anniversary of his death. He then headed to his beach house to spend the afternoon with his family. He is not expected to comment on the verdict in the hours after it’s revealed, according to two officials not authorized to speak publicly about internal decisions. He will at some point weigh in on the verdict, likely in an informal setting in the days ahead, according to those officials. The most likely setting would be in response to a reporter’s shouted question, they said.

White House aides have stressed that the Trump trial falls more in the campaign’s purview and has not consumed the West Wing, including in how the president would respond.

With a conviction, Biden’s team is expected to argue at times that the result shows that Trump is ill-suited for office and that it demonstrates the extremes to which the former president would go to win again. The campaign’s social media team has been considering leveraging the line of attack further, with discussions underway about referring to the ex-president online as “Convicted Felon Donald Trump.”