Joe Biden's press secretary accidentally suggested that the Justice Department coordinated with Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg on his case against Donald Trump, but she immediately walked it back.
In an apparent slip, Karine Jean-Pierre said that Bragg's "hush money" trial was tied to the Justice Department's "timeline."
The remark caused quite a stir.
At a press briefing Monday, Jean-Pierre was asked whether she considers Bragg's prosecution a threat to democracy.
Fox Business reporter Edward Lawrence noted Biden's constant warnings about alleged threats to democracy on the campaign trail. Lawrence then observed that Bragg - one of Biden's fellow Democrats - waited until an election year to pursue a case against Biden's chief opponent.
“How is it not a threat to democracy when you have a prosecutor from the same political party as the president waiting seven years … to prosecute in an election year a former president who is now an opponent?” Lawrence asked.
“That’s a question for the Department of Justice on their timeline and how this moves. I can’t answer that for you here,” Jean-Pierre replied.
Later, Jean-Pierre said she misspoke. The Trump campaign says Jean-Pierre's comment wasn't an error.
"This wasn’t a misspeak as the White House claims, this was another example of KJP not knowing what the hell is going on, just like her boss, Crooked Joe," Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
As evidence of coordination, President Trump and his defenders have cited the fact that Biden's third-highest ranking DOJ official, Matthew Colangelo, left the department to work on Bragg's case.
Biden, in his sparse comments about the verdict, has stressed that the case was brought by a state prosecutor. But Biden has begun to aggressively exploit the verdict, rolling out a $50 million attack ad painting Trump as a "convicted felon" ahead of their first debate on June 27.
At first, Biden tiptoed around the issue, but his campaign decided to change course after looking at internal polling data that suggested the conviction would damage Trump, Politico reported.
While Democrats strenuously insist Trump's trial was impartial, a recent poll found that the vast majority of Americans think Bragg pursued the case for political reasons.
Democrats are liable to squeeze the verdict for all it is worth, with three other Trump prosecutions unlikely to proceed to trial before the election.
