WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts to shut down “close it” slogans targeting Donald Trump Harris-Walz rallies This week may be an effort not to be busy Rhetoric seen at Trump rallies in 2016.
But there’s also a very practical reason why Harris is reluctant to lend any support to this type of language: Any comments or signs of approval he makes could further delay or complicate the federal criminal charges Trump faces. This includes January 6 and 2020 election interference case brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
If Harris wins the election in November, Trump’s January 6 job weakened By the Supreme Court – will continue to move towards trial. As the vice president who sits in the administration that appointed the attorney general to oversee the case, any comments Harris makes about the trial could be fodder for the former president’s lawyers to argue in court that his comments interfered with Trump’s due process rights. This includes any suggestion that locking Trump up would be an overt goal (as Trump he said many times about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign).
“We’ll let the courts sort it out,” he told supporters at a Harris rally in Wisconsin this week when chants of “lock him up” erupted, and he used a similar line when the same chant was chanted at another rally. . “Our job is to beat him in November,” he said.
Harris, a former prosecutor himself, was careful to refer to the civil and criminal cases Trump has faced in recent years. Harris is aware of the potential impact on Trump’s pending federal cases and has surrounded himself with Justice Department veterans, including his brother-in-law Tony West, a former DOJ official, and former Attorney General Eric Holder, vice presidential nominees who have vetted him.
But Harris does not face the same restrictions on discussing any state and local cases against Trump, or cases that have already been adjudicated.
“I was elected a US senator. I was elected attorney general of the state of California. I was a courtroom prosecutor before that,” Harris said he said at his first campaign rally last month, a line that has continued ever since. “And in those roles, I’ve taken on all kinds of criminals—predators who abuse women, scammers who rip off consumers, crooks who bend the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
A close reading of Harris’ references to predators who abuse women, scammers who rip off consumers, and fraudsters who bend the rules for their own gain seems to point to other civil or criminal cases Trump is facing, not on Jan. 1. He currently has 6 jobs. Jury in 2023 Trump was held responsible E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse; a New York judge earlier this year Ordered Trump to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for civil fraud; and it was Trump In May, he was found guilty of 34 serious crimes A case involving campaign finance violations for paying hush money to an adult film actor during the 2016 campaign.
Harris himself, who came between his legs pipe bomb Released on the eve of January 6, 2021 at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, any debate will face a difficult task when it comes to the storming of the Capitol and the efforts to stay in office after Trump’s defeat in 2020.
It is also likely to avoid much discussion Trump‘working with confidential documents: While a Trump-appointed federal judge was fired The Department of Justice has a federal case alleging he mishandled classified documents applied and the case could ultimately survive.
“His position on the campaign trail is complicated by the fact that he’s a member of the administration, and it would be difficult for him,” said former federal prosecutor Bill Shipley, who is now representing multiple defendants, on January 6 for President Joe Biden. Plus, Shipley noted that Harris is an attorney himself, which could raise potential ethical issues if he talks about pending cases.
There are Justice Department rules on contacting the media about ongoing cases, and the DOJ has a tradition of trying to speak within the “four corners,” meaning information about ongoing cases comes from court documents rather than media statements. While those rules are only binding on the Justice Department, they are part of Harris’ pitch to voters Respect the boundaries between the Justice Department and the White House Which has been around for decades since the Watergate scandal.
When asked why NBC News shut down the “shut him down” chants, the Harris campaign said in a statement that the vice president was focused on getting voters to stop Trump in November.
“Vice President Harris has a simple message: There is a way to stop Donald Trump and his harmful Project 2025 agenda, and it’s at the ballot box in November,” a campaign official said.
“It would be funny if Kamala Harris and Joe Biden didn’t weaponize the justice system against President Trump to arrest him before the election,” Trump’s campaign responded when asked about the slogans.
The Trump campaign and congressional Republicans have repeatedly accused the Biden administration of arming the Justice Department against Trump, even though federal charges against him have been brought by the courts. independent special prosecutorSmith has aggressively campaigned against both Democrats and Republicans.
During the Biden administration, the Justice Department appointed another special counsel, a former Trump appointee. conviction Biden’s son Hunter Biden on gun charges. A third special counsel, a Republican previously appointed by Trump as the top federal prosecutor, oversaw the investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents. decided not to press charges.