WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ efforts to quell “lock him up” chants directed at Donald Trump at Harris-Walz rallies this week may be an effort to avoid the kind of rhetoric seen at Trump rallies in 2016 .
But there is also a very practical reason for Harris to avoid showing any support for this kind of language: Any comments or signs of approval she makes could delay or further complicate the pending federal criminal charges Trump faces. This includes the January 6, 2020 election interference case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
If Harris wins the election in November, Trump’s January 6 case – although weakened by the Supreme Court – will continue to move forward to trial. As the acting vice president in the administration that appointed the attorney general to oversee the case, any comments Harris makes related to the trial could be grounds for the former president’s lawyers to argue in court that her comments interfered with Trump’s rights to due process. This includes any suggestion that arresting Trump would be an explicit objective (as Trump said repeatedly about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign).
When a “lock him up” chant broke out at a Harris rally in Wisconsin this week, she told supporters, “We’ll let the courts handle this,” and used a similar phrase when the same chant broke out at another rally. . “Our job is to beat it in November,” she said.
Harris, a former prosecutor herself, has been cautious in her references to the series of civil and criminal cases Trump has faced in recent years. Harris is aware of the impact she could have on Trump’s pending federal cases and has surrounded herself with Justice Department veterans — including her brother-in-law Tony West, a former top DOJ official, and former Attorney General Eric Holder , who examined her. vice presidential candidates.
But Harris does not face the same limitations when discussing any state and local cases against Trump, or those that have already been tried.
“I was elected United States senator. I was elected attorney general for the state of California. And I was a district attorney before that,” Harris said at her first campaign rally last month, a phrase she has repeated since. “And in these roles, I took on perpetrators of all types – predators who abused women, fraudsters who deceived consumers, cheaters who broke 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, to fraudsters who defrauded consumers, and to con artists who broke the rules for their own gain — appear to be a nod to other civil or criminal cases Trump has faced, not to the case of January. .6 case he is currently facing. In 2023, a jury found Trump responsible for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll; earlier this year, a New York judge ordered Trump to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for civil fraud; and Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies in May in a case that involved violating campaign finance rules to make secret payments to an adult film star during the 2016 campaign.
Harris, who came close to a bomb that was left at the Democratic National Committee headquarters on the eve of January 6, 2021, will face a complex task in any debate when it comes to discussions about the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s action. efforts to remain in office after his defeat in 2020.
It is also likely to avoid much discussion of Trump’s handling of classified documents: Although a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed a federal case involving the alleged mishandling of classified documents, the Justice Department has appealed and the case may finally survive .
“Her campaign position is complicated by the fact that she is a member of the administration, just as it would have been complicated for” President Joe Biden, said Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor who now represents several Jan. 6 defendants. Additionally, Shipley noted, Harris herself is a lawyer, which would create potential ethical issues if she spoke about pending cases.
There are Department of Justice rules about communicating with the media about ongoing cases, and there is a DOJ tradition of trying to speak within the “four corners,” meaning that information about ongoing cases comes from court proceedings rather than from media pronouncements. While these rules are binding only on the Justice Department, part of Harris’ pitch to voters is that she would respect the lines between the Justice Department and the White House that have existed for decades, dating back to the Watergate scandal.
Asked by NBC News why she ended the “lock him up” chants, Harris’ campaign said in a statement that the vice president is 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 will be on the ballot in November,” said a campaign official.
The Trump campaign responded to a question about the chants by saying that “it would be funny if Kamala Harris and Joe Biden hadn’t literally used the judicial system as a weapon against President Trump in an attempt to arrest him before the election.”
The Trump campaign and congressional Republicans have repeatedly accused the Biden administration of using the Justice Department as a weapon against Trump, even though the federal charges against him were brought by an independent special counsel, Smith, who has aggressively pursued cases against both Democrats and Democrats. as against Republicans.
During the Biden administration, the Justice Department appointed another special counsel, a former Trump appointee, who secured the conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on gun charges. A third special counsel, a Republican previously appointed federal prosecutor by Trump, oversaw an investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents and decided not to pursue charges.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
