When 45th President Donald Trump announced on Thursday evening that he learned of a coming indictment from the Biden Justice Department for his handling of classified documents, many were quick to note the awfully convenient timing for the news to break — just hours after new revelations came to light about President Biden's alleged $5 million criminal bribery scheme.
Katie reported on timing questions arising from both chambers of Congress and conservative commentators, and the timing raised enough suspicion for a reporter to ask the White House whether the West Wing had any role in deciding when the indictment would be made public to take heat off the Biden family.
While aboard Air Force Once en route to North Carolina, the White House's Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton was asked to "comment on whether there was any kind of coordination between the DOJ and the White House on the indictment."
Here's how Dalton responded: "We're not going to comment on this. I will tell you though that — and confirm as we've said overnight — that the president, senior staff, found out just like everybody else last night, no advance knowledge that this was coming, found out from news reports just like everybody else across America."
Biden administration: “We’re not going to comment” on the “suspicious” timing of the Trump indictment and the Burisma FBI documents. pic.twitter.com/d32KbSwI5i
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 9, 2023
Careful listeners will note the White House did not deny that there was any coordination between the White House and Justice Department regarding timing for the indictment. In fact, the White House didn't respond to that question at all. All that was claimed was that the president "found out from news reports" that the indictment was going forward.
Even if that's true, it still doesn't mean there wasn't coordination on Thursday or previously for the DOJ to pick up the pace and get an indictment rolling and announced to take heat off the Biden administration while House Republicans fought the FBI to get access to the FD-1023 document providing more details about — and another piece in the puzzle of — Joe Biden and his family's alleged corruption.
In fact, all the White House's comments claim is that the DOJ did not call Biden and tell him specifically "we're announcing this at X time on X day." That would be the "advance notice" Dalton denied receiving, but her statement does not deny the existence of coordination.