President Biden is speaking at a campaign event near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on Friday to mark three years since supporters of then-President Donald Trump rioted at the U.S. Capitol.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Biden expects the former president to prevail in the GOP primaries and he will face his 2020 opponent again in the 2024 general election.
“The mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6th, waving Trump flags and Confederate flags, stormed right past the portrait. The image of George Washington gave them no pause – but it should have,” Mr. Biden is expected to say in his first address of the year, according to excerpts released ahead of the event. “The artist who painted the portrait memorialized this moment because he said it was ‘one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world.'”
“George Washington was at the height of his power having just defeated the most powerful empire on Earth,” the president will say, according to the excerpts. “He could have held onto that power as long as he wanted. But that wasn’t the America he and the American troops of Valley Forge had fought for. In America, our leaders don’t hold on to power relentlessly. Our leaders return power to the people – willingly. You do your duty. You serve your country. And ours is a country worthy of service. We are not perfect, but at our best, we face head on the good, the bad, the truth of who we are. That’s what great nations do, and we are a great nation – the greatest of nations.”
The president laid a wreath at Valley Forge National Historic Park and toured Washington’s old headquarters before his speech.
Mr. Biden’s campaign says it will be sharpening its criticism of Trump, focusing the campaign’s messaging on the argument that Trump is a threat to democracy. It’s language Mr. Biden has long used and that formed the basis of his 2020 campaign. At the time, he referred to Trump as an “existential threat” to America — and that was before the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.
“Today we are here to answer the most important of questions: Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?” the president is expected to say. “This isn’t rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time. It is what the 2024 election is all about.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland marked the somber day in remarks on Capitol Hill Friday.
“For our country, January 6 was an unprecedented attack on the cornerstone of our system of government — the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next,” Garland said. “For many of the law enforcement officers defending the Capitol that day, January 6 was also dangerous, painful and personal.”
As of this week, 1,240 people have been identified and charged with crimes related to their participation in the Capitol riot and 452 of them were charged for allegedly assaulting law enforcement officers, the FBI said in a news release marking three years since the attack.
“Three years after thousands of people violently attacked the U.S. Capitol and assaulted law enforcement officers in an unsuccessful attempt to block our democracy’s peaceful transfer of power, the FBI and our partners continue to succeed in holding them accountable,” David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said in a statement.
Trump’s federal trial on charges that he tried to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election is slated to begin in March, when primary season will be in full swing. He is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. He has repeatedly insisted he did not break the law.
Mr. Biden’s choice of Valley Forge as the location of the speech alludes to the winter of 1777-1778, which marked one of the darkest periods of the Revolutionary War for George Washington’s Continental Army. Even though soldiers were plagued by unrelenting cold, illness and food shortages, the troops persevered in their pursuit of independence.
