Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said that President Joe Biden always respects the rule of law, so he is confident the president will accept whatever the Supreme Court rules in coming days as to whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution.
“I think there’s a sharp contrast between former President Trump and President Biden in terms of their respect for the rule of law and how they approach both law enforcement and our legal system,” Coon said in an interview Sunday morning with Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.”
When asked whether Biden would accept the decision of the Supreme Court expected this week — after criticizing the Supreme Court in the past for decisions related to his student loan forgiveness plans, among other things — Coons said Biden’s recent actions prove he respects the law and will do so if the court says Trump is immune from prosecution for actions taken during his presidency. The Democratic senator compared Biden’s handling of his son’s federal gun case to Trump’s recent guilty verdict from a New York jury as a “sharp and clear contrast in how they respect the rule of law.”
“Former President Trump was in a courtroom in New York where he attacked the prosecutor, the prosecution, the judge, the jury, the whole process so many times that before he was ultimately convicted by a jury of his peers of 34 felonies he was subject to a gag order,” Coons said. “President Biden, we just saw evidence of this this past week, his own son was convicted here in a court in Wilmington, Delaware, and he did not ever attack or criticize or question the judge, the prosecutor, the jury, the process.”
When pressed on the topic, Coons also said he has brought up his own issues about the Supreme Court — specifically on the lack of a code of ethics. He specifically called out Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for accepting unreported gifts and travel over this time in the court and blamed Republican senators for blocking the proposed Supreme Court Ethics Recusal and Transparency Act.
“Every other federal judge in our country has a binding code of ethics. So does the Senate, so does the House,” Coons said. “I think the supreme court should as well.”
