President Joe Biden ignored Judge Peter Cahill’s request that politicians not publicly discuss the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin when he announced Tuesday that he had spoken with the family of George Floyd and that he is “praying the verdict is the right verdict.”
“It’s overwhelming, in my view,” Biden said on Tuesday. “I wouldn’t say that unless the jury was sequestered.”
While the Democrat president said he wasn’t originally planning on making knowledge of his conversation public, he said the meeting was mostly “personal.”
“I can only imagine the pressure and anxiety they are feeling and so I waited till the jury was sequestered and I called,” Biden said. “I wasn’t going to say anything … they are a good family and they’re calling for peace and tranquility, no matter what that verdict.”
President Biden says he spoke to George Floyd's family and he's "praying the verdict is the right verdict" in the Chauvin trial. pic.twitter.com/gxf2bjxlK2
— The Recount (@therecount) April 20, 2021
On Monday, Judge Peter Cahill warned that Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters’ recent call to violence, if the trial does not result in a guilty conviction, could influence the jury’s verdict and warrant an appeal for Chauvin.
“I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in his whole trial being overturned,” Cahill conceded.
Cahill chastised politicians for tampering with the trial while the jury was still deliberating:
This goes back to what I’ve been saying from the beginning: I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function. I think if they want to give their opinions they should do so in a respectful, and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect the co-equal branch of government. Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don’t think it is prejudiced, with additional material that would prejudice history.
Waters recently requested an armed police escort to an anti-police protest in a Minneapolis suburb this weekend where she called for riots if Chauvin is not found guilty of murder.
“We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business,” the representative from California said.
Waters, who plans to stay in Minnesota through when the jury delivers a verdict, also encouraged rioters to “stay on the street” and “get more active.”
While the corporate media was quick to make a fuss about former President Donald Trump’s rush to condemn former Arm Sgt. Robert “Bowe” Bergdahl as a “dirty, rotten traitor” before he was tried on charges of desertion and misbehavior, Biden’s verbal interjection into the Chauvin trial’s verdict escaped scrutiny.
Instead, the president’s comments were amplified by news outlets and even hailed as “remarkable.”
This is a remarkable statement from a sitting president on a criminal trial currently underway:
“I'm praying the verdict is the right verdict. The evidence is overwhelming in my view,” President Biden just now in the Oval.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) April 20, 2021
