Biden campaign sends allies De Niro and first responders to Trump's NY trial to put focus on Jan. 6

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's campaign on Tuesday showed up outside former President Donald Trump's New York City criminal hush money trial with actor Robert De Niro and a pair of former police officers in an effort to refocus the presidential race on the former president’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection.

It was a sharp about-face for Biden's team, which had largely ignored the trial since it began six weeks ago and is now looking to capitalize on its drama-filled closing moments, sending the “Goodfellas” actor and the first responders who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Biden's campaign had been wary about feeding into Trump's argument that his criminal trials were the result of politically motivated prosecutions, but ultimately it decided to engage because its message about the stakes of the election was struggling to break through the intense focus on the trial.

A top Biden adviser said they weren't there to talk about the trial — and De Niro and the officers didn't reference the sordid criminal case directly — rather to exploit the large media focus on the legal proceedings. But Trump advisers argued in a dueling press conference that the Biden team's presence validated the Republican former president's claims that his prosecutions are being driven by politics.

“We’re not here today because of what’s going on over there,” Biden campaign communication director Michael Tyler told reporters, gesturing toward the courthouse. “We’re here today because you all are here.”