Vow of silence: why Biden is saying nothing about Trump’s indictment

Trump made history by becoming the first former US president to be criminally charged but his successor has studiously avoided the subject

The biggest news story in the US this week was Donald Trump's unprecedented appearance at the defendant's table in a Manhattan courtroom - an event that Joe Biden took pains to appear blissfully unaware of.

On the day Trump learned he was facing 34 charges related to falsifying business records in the first-ever indictment of a former American president, Biden spent his day talking on the phone with the French leader, Emmanuel Macron, and Britain's King Charles III, and presided over a meeting with his science and technology advisers at the White House. And, despite the best efforts of the reporters who follow him around on a daily basis, he ignored all questions about the allegations made by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.