Biden Declares Trump Verdict a Victory for the Rule of Law

President Biden declared on Friday that a New York jury’s guilty verdict against former President Donald J. Trump should be respected and denounced Republican efforts to undermine the justice system as “reckless,” “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”

Breaking his long silence over Mr. Trump’s legal troubles, Mr. Biden portrayed the first conviction of a former president as a victory for the rule of law. He emphasized that it was a state case, not a federal case brought by his administration, and that Mr. Trump had every chance to defend himself.

“The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” Mr. Biden said in a televised statement from the White House.

“It was heard by a jury of 12 citizens, 12 Americans, 12 people like you, like millions of Americans who’ve served on juries,” he said of the case. “This jury was chosen the same way every jury in America is chosen. There’s a process that Donald Trump’s attorney was part of. The jury heard five weeks of evidence, five weeks. And after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.”

While he may have relished noting that his opponent in this fall’s election was found guilty on all counts, Mr. Biden made no mention of the substance of the case, in which Mr. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a pornography actress who claimed to have had an affair with him. Instead, Mr. Biden focused on the efforts by the former president and his allies to discredit the prosecution and the judgment of the jury by painting the process as a political witch hunt.

“It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they