Donald Trump is now a convicted felon — but that won’t stop his “unhinged” bid for another four years in the White House, President Joe Biden’s campaign warned voters Thursday night.
In a statement issued not long after a New York City jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said the verdict against the felonious ex-president vindicated the American system of justice.
“In New York today, we saw that no one is above the law,” he said.
Tyler noted that Trump had operated under a mistaken belief that he “would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain,” but he stressed that the verdict against the ex-president will have no effect on the “simple reality” that will be faced by the American people when they vote for a president in just over five months.
“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,” he said.
Tyler added that Trump has never been a greater threat to American democracy, citing his “increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution,” his pledge to be a dictator on the first day of his term if elected, and his calls to “terminate” the US constitution as a way for him to “regain and keep power”.
“A second Trump term means chaos, ripping away Americans’ freedoms and fomenting political violence – and the American people will reject it this November,” he said.
There was no immediate reaction to the unprecedented verdict from Biden, who was with family in Delaware marking the ninth anniversary of his late son Beau Biden’s death from brain cancer.
The 46th president has so far refrained from speaking out about criminal matters involving Trump, who still faces three other cases against him in three separate jurisdictions.
A White House official told The Independent that Biden would not be speaking about the result at this time, but left the door open for him to do so in the future.
A spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, Ian Sams, issued a statement stating the following: “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.”
But the strong statement from Biden’s campaign is an indicator that he and his surrogates will not shy away from describing Trump as a convicted felon, even as he runs to regain his former position as president.
The case against Trump, which was based on his falsification of business records to conceal a hush money scheme meant to cover up a sexual affair from voters in order to win the 2016 election, was considered the least serious of the four cases against him, which include two sets of federal charges stemming from his alleged unlawful retention of national defense information and his alleged effort to illegally remain in office despite losing the 2020 election.
According to an NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll released on Thursday, 67 percent of voters said a guilty verdict would make no difference in their voting intentions, while 76 percent said the same about a not guilty verdict.
But the same survey found that 17 per cent of respondents said a guilty verdict against Trump would make them less likely to vote for him.
