President Biden said Monday that he was not informed before Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation of former President Donald Trump.
“I learned about it when you did,” Mr. Biden told reporters.
The White House has repeatedly sought to distance Mr. Biden from the Justice Department’s investigations into Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump and his allies said politics motivated the deployment of a special counsel as part of another Democratic attempt to derail the former president’s political comeback.
Mr. Garland on Friday appointed Jack Smith, the former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague to manage the Trump investigations.