- President Joe Biden defended "the jury system" after a jury on Friday fully acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse.
- A Wisconsin jury acquitted Rittenhouse of all charges related to fatally shooting two men and injuring a third.
- Jen Psaki previously said Biden doesn't believe there should be "vigilantes patrolling our communities with assault weapons."
President Joe Biden defended "the jury system" after a Wisconsin jury on Friday acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges related to fatally shooting two men and injuring a third.
"I stand by what the jury has concluded. The jury system works and we have to abide by it," Biden said on Friday.
Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injured Gaige Grosskreutz on August 25, 2020 amid civil unrest in Kenosha after police shot and paralyzed Jacob Blake.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki refused to comment on the ongoing trial, but reiterated Biden's position that "we shouldn't have, broadly speaking, vigilantes patrolling our communities with assault weapons."
In September 2020, Biden tweeted out a video of Trump being asked by Fox News host Chris Wallace about "white supremacists" and Proud Boys who'd committed violent acts at protests across the country. Wallace mentioned the shooting in Kenosha, implying that Rittenhouse was a white supremacist. Trump responded by telling the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by."
"There's no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night," Biden tweeted.
In January, Rittenhouse posed for photos with members of the Proud Boys and flashed a white power sign in a Wisconsin bar.
Following Biden's statement, an attorney for Rittenhouse, Mark Richards, insisted that his client isn't a white supremacist.
"I'm glad he at least respects the not guilty verdict," he said of Biden.
Many Republican lawmakers have celebrated Rittenhouse as a hero. At least three far-right GOP House members — Reps. Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, and Paul Gosar — have offered Rittenhouse an internship in their congressional offices.
"You have a right to defend yourselves," Cawthorn said in a video celebrating the verdict. "Be armed, be dangerous, and be moral."