The spectacle — at times chaotic, at times emotional — echoed around the country among the networks of Democratic donors and strategists who have been struggling for weeks to contain their concern about the state and direction of Biden’s campaign.

The broad conclusion, both inside and outside Biden’s inner circle, is that a dangerous and misleading caricature of the president’s performance is at risk of setting in, pushed by the biting prose of a special prosecutor they suspected of seeking political revenge.