Former Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday slammed President Donald Trump, calling his actions a “prostitution” of his office. He also vowed Thursday that, if elected to the White House in November, he would not use his new executive powers to pardon Trump of any potential crimes, Politico Reports.
Biden’s pledge came during a virtual town hall on MSNBC, when Biden was asked by a voter whether he would be willing to commit “to not pulling a President Ford” and pardoning Trump “under the pretense of healing the nation.”
“Absolutely, yes. I commit,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee responded, adding: “It’s hands-off completely. Look, the attorney general of the United States is not the president’s lawyer. It’s the people’s lawyer.”
As noted by Politico, Trump has faced an avalanche of legal problems throughout his administration “for a variety of alleged misconduct related to his acceptance of foreign government money through his luxury Washington hotel, his participation in dubious tax schemes while building his real estate empire, and his involvement in a hush-money payment to a porn star in the run-up to the 2016 election — which resulted in federal prosecutors implicating him in his former attorney’s campaign finance crimes.”
Trump has also been accused of manipulating the Justice Department to advance a political agenda and serve his personal interests rather than those of the nation.
Biden alluded to both of those actions Thursday, lamenting how “we never saw anything like the prostitution of the presidency like we see it today,” arguing that “what’s going on is an absolute travesty. A travesty of justice.”
“It is not something the president is entitled to do, to direct either a prosecution and/or decide to drop a case,” Biden said. “That is not the president’s role, responsibility. And it’s a dereliction of his duty’ he concluded, according to Politico.
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