President Joe Biden said he was not briefed by Justice Department officials before federal agents raided the apartment of Rudy Giuliani in an apparent investigation into his work for former President Donald Trump.
The 45th president already has blasted the raid, calling it “so unfair,” and Giuliani’s attorney said it appears to stem from an investigation into whether the former New York mayor and U.S. attorney violated federal foreign lobbying laws.
“I was not briefed before federal agents carried out their search of the New York residence,” Biden told NBC News. “I made a pledge: I would not interfere in any way, order, or try to stop any Justice Department had underway.”
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“I learned about that last night when the rest of the world learned,” he said in an interview that is set to air in full Friday morning on the Today Show.
“My word,” he said. “I had no idea this was underway.”
Asked if he has been briefed on any other FBI or Justice investigations, the president replied: “No. And I’m not asking to be briefed.”
He blasted Trump and his administration for, in his words, “politicizing the Justice Department so badly” that “so many of them quit, so many of them left because that’s not the role of a president … to say who should be prosecuted, when they should be prosecuted, who should be not prosecuted.”
Democrats, for years, charged Trump with treating the attorney general and the Justice Department as his own legal counsel. But Biden, on Thursday, laid out a different approach to both agencies.
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“The Justice Department is the people’s lawyer,” he said. “Not the president’s lawyer.”
