'Come on!' Biden jumps into fray over Mar-a-Lago raid, impugns Trump declassification claim

President Joe Biden jumped deeper into the political fray Friday over the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, directly impugning Donald Trump's defense that he had declassified documents found at his Florida estate.

Presidents traditionally have demurred from commenting on specific evidence, defenses or tactics in ongoing federal criminal investigations, though Trump often strayed from that practice by commenting on investigations about himself and friends.

Biden promised to return to the norm of not politically injecting himself into criminal cases and respecting the independence of the Justice Department.

But on Friday, he answered a question from reporters about Trump's claim the documents the FBI and National Archives recovered from his Florida estate Aug. 8 were declassified by a "standing order."

“'I’ve declassified everything in the world. I’m president,’” Biden said mockingly, gesturing with his hands, hours after the Justice Department affidavit related the raid was made public. “Come on.”

His direct challenge of the former president's legal defense in an ongoing criminal case came just days after Just the News reported that Biden's White House helped instigate the criminal probe earlier this year by ordering the National Archives to turn over documents to the FBI shortly before the bureau began a grand jury probe.

Biden, through his White House counsel, also gave the National Archives permission to preemptively waive any claim by Trump that the documents in dispute were covered by executive privilege, a move some prominent legal experts have questioned as unconstitutional.

While Biden has repeatedly stressed he insists on honoring the DOJ's independence, he has in roughly the past year been forced to apologize for crossing that line.

Last fall, Biden pronounced he wanted witnesses who didn't cooperate with congressional investigations to be prosecute, a comment that immediately drew rebukes as pressing the DOJ.

A few days after making the comment, Biden apologized and admitted his comment was inappropriate. 

“The way I said it was not appropriate,” Biden said at a  town hall.