Biden chief of staff compares Trump to Nixon

White House chief of staff Ron Klain took a shot at former President Trump on Sunday, comparing him to Richard Nixon, who resigned from the presidency, to make the point that President Biden does not believe any president should call for prosecutions from the Oval Office.

Klain shot down reports that Biden was privately calling for Trump to be prosecuted over his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack after ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos asked Klain about a New York Times story that said Biden had told members of his inner circle late last year that he believed Trump should be prosecuted.

Biden reportedly indicated that he wanted Attorney General Merrick Garland to act less like a “ponderous judge” and more like a prosecutor.

“I’ve never heard the president say that — advocate the prosecution of any person,” Klain told Stephanopoulos during the Sunday show.

“Look, one reason why Joe Biden got elected was he promised that we’d take the decision over who got prosecuted and what away from the White House and put it in the Justice Department. Only Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, in the modern era, believed that prosecution decisions should be made in the Oval Office not at the Justice Department,” he added.

Klain said the Biden administration would let prosecutorial decisions be made by the Justice Department, adding that Biden had confidence in Garland’s decisionmaking.

Stephanopoulos also asked Klain about the investigation into President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The younger Biden’s international business dealings have come under renewed scrutiny, with the Justice Department reportedly looking into potential illegal lobbying allegations against a firm whose board he once sat on.

“Of course the president’s confident that his son didn’t break the law. But, most importantly, as I said, that’s a matter that’s going to be decided by the Justice Department, by the legal process. It’s something that no one at the White House has involvement in,” Klain said.