In response to Americans’ outcry over the political prosecutions of Donald Trump and a Manhattan jury convicting the former president on 34 felony counts, President Joe Biden declared, “It’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don’t like the verdict.” Coming from the Commander-in-Rigging, this proclamation means nothing.
Biden and those seeking to ensure his re-election have their hands all over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of the former president. A lead prosecutor for Bragg during the trial was Matthew Colangelo. In December 2022, Colangelo left the Biden Department of Justice to “jump start” the criminal case against Trump. Biden had previously named Colangelo his acting associate attorney general—the third-highest-ranking official in the DOJ.
There’s Plenty More Where That Came From
Colangelo’s role in prosecuting his former boss’s political opponent provides the most obvious evidence of the Biden administration’s involvement in the Manhattan D.A.’s criminal targeting of Trump, but the rigging started much earlier. As I previously reported, the incestuous relationship between the Manhattan D.A.’s office and Team Biden began as early as mid-February 2021. Then, “Bragg’s predecessor, District Attorney Cyrus Vance, arranged for private criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Mark Pomerantz to be a special assistant district attorney for the Manhattan D.A.’s office.”
As The New York Times reported at the time, Pomerantz was to work “solely on the Trump investigation” during a temporary leave of absence from his law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. “But even before being sworn in as a special assistant to the Manhattan D.A., Pomerantz had reportedly ‘been helping with the case informally for months.’” Even Democrats’ most reliable Old Grey Lady (of the evening) acknowledged, “the hiring of an outsider is a highly unusual move for a prosecutor’s office.”
Soon after the Manhattan D.A. hired Pomerantz, two of his colleagues, Elyssa Abuhoff and Caroline Williamson, also took leaves of absence from Paul, Weiss to serve as special assistant district attorneys on the Trump investigation. “For a law firm to lend not one but three lawyers to the Manhattan D.A.’s office seems rather magnanimous, until you consider Paul, Weiss’s previous generosity to Joe Biden.”
As I previously reported, during Biden’s first run for the White House, “the law firm hosted a $2,800-per-plate fundraiser for about 100 guests.” Brad Karp, the chair of Paul, Weiss, also topped the list of Biden fundraisers, bundling at least $100,000 for the then-candidate. At the time, Karp wrote in an email: “As someone who cares passionately about preserving the rule of law, safeguarding our democracy and protecting fundamental liberties, I’ve been delighted to do everything I possibly can to support the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket.”
Biden’s relationship with Karp continued after his election, with the president including Karp and his wife at a state dinner with the Australian prime minister. Karp and his fellow Paul, Weiss lawyers continue to fund Biden’s re-election campaign. In fact, Biden’s connection to the firm is so strong Bloomberg branded Paul, Weiss the “Biden-Era N.Y. Power Center.”
But for Paul, Weiss lending Pomerantz to the Manhattan D.A.’s office to control the Trump investigation, the former president likely never would have been charged. According to Pomerantz, Bragg had decided “not to go forward with the grand jury presentation and not to seek criminal charges,” indefinitely suspending the investigation.
Pomerantz made those claims in the resignation letter he tendered to Bragg in early 2022, which was deliberately leaked to The New York Times. “Pomerantz’s letter and his claims that Bragg had suspended the Trump probe triggered a political firestorm, which the Manhattan D.A. sought to quell by telling the public the investigation was ongoing.” Soon after, Bragg capitulated, hiring Biden’s high-ranking DOJ lawyer, Colangelo, who proceeded to indict and convict Trump.
In contrast to the Biden-connected attorneys who secured Trump’s indictment and conviction, in late 2021, at least three career prosecutors in the Manhattan D.A.’s office asked to be removed from the investigation of Trump, reportedly “concerned that the investigation was moving too quickly, without clear evidence to support possible charges.”
Not Just Manhattan
The Biden connection to the political targeting of Trump is not limited to the Manhattan D.A.’s office. In August 2023, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump and 18 other Republicans in a sprawling 98-page criminal indictment.
Earlier this year, court filings and testimony in the case related to motions to disqualify Willis and her former lover, Nathan Wade, revealed the Fulton County D.A.’s office had met with White House counsel in May 2022. Then, just three days after Trump announced his 2024 candidacy for president, Wade traveled to D.C. for an interview with the “White House,” according to Fulton County records. The Biden administration’s White House counsel’s office also dispatched two letters to Willis, according to one of her prosecutors.
Biden and his Democrat-run administration also have their fingers all over the remaining two criminal cases targeting Trump, both brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith. President Biden, according to an April 2, 2022, New York Times report, “As recently as late last year… confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted.”
The Times claimed Biden had expressed frustration with Garland’s “deliberative approach” and that the president believed Trump should be prosecuted. The president “has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.,” the legacy outlet reported.
Biden’s attorney general would eventually appoint Smith special counsel. Smith would later charge Trump in two separate indictments—one in Florida concerning documents the former president retained, and one in D.C. with various conspiracy to defraud and obstruction charges related to Trump’s challenging the outcome of the 2020 election.
Stretching the Law Past Its Breaking Point
With the D.C. indictment, the special counsel delivered to Biden just what he wanted—a prosecution of Trump “for his role in the events of Jan. 6.” To deliver for Biden, though, required Smith to stretch the federal criminal code to the point of breaking. In the case of two of the crimes charged, in the context of Jan. 6, 2021 defendants, the Supreme Court seems poised to limit the reach of the relevant statutes—a holding that could mean that Smith charged Trump with two non-crimes.
The final criminal case pending against Trump, Smith’s documents case, also connects back to the Biden administration. That case began when the DOJ launched an investigation prompted by a referral from the national archivist related to a dispute over presidential records—even though the same archivist declined to refer Hillary Clinton to the DOJ for mishandling classified documents. Later, a top aide to Smith, Jay Bratt, would meet with “White House officials multiple times, just weeks before Mr. Smith indicted former President Donald Trump.”
That case has been delayed after it was revealed the FBI agents who executed a search warrant obtained by the Biden administration had failed to keep the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in the same condition they were found, with the order of the materials mixed up. At the same time, it was revealed that the “classified cover sheets” depicted in the photographs of the evidence seized during the August 2022 search of Trump had been placed there by federal agents. The leak of those photographs falsely portrayed the former president as in possession of documents bearing classified cover sheets.
Biden can continue to deny his responsibility for the criminal targeting of his political opponent all he wants, but the facts tell a different story. So did the president’s malevolent smile on Friday when he was asked to respond to Trump calling himself a political prisoner and blaming the president directly.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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