The double standard in the mainstream press coverage of classified documents found in the possession of Donald Trump and those found in the possession of Joe Biden is not unexpected but still appalling.
The media is trying to twist itself into pretzels in order to explain away Biden’s clear violations of the law. It’s reminiscent of the reaction to revelations about Hillary Clinton’s own adventures with classified documents and the effort made in the media to exonerate her.
Trump was wrong to keep classified documents after he left the White House. It’s a clear violation of the Presidential Records Act, no matter the reason. But if you’re going to bury Trump for this illegal act, you might as well dig two graves. Joe Biden is equally guilty.
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Biden is supposedly being cooperative with the National Archives and the FBI in their investigation. That might get him points in kindergarten class but not so much in a criminal investigation. But when the media uses Biden’s cooperation to make a silly comparison to Trump’s resistance, they lose focus. It doesn’t matter one whit if Biden was more or less cooperative with authorities than Trump. There’s nothing in the law that says cooperation means it’s OK you took the documents.
And there are a lot of other arguments made by left-wing media that are equally specious.
Biden’s documents were safe inside a locked closet. Classification law is extremely clear as to how documents must be stored, specifying, for example, how many minutes a safe is expected to withstand an attempt to cut it open. In the case of the Secure Compartmentalized Information (SCI) level of docs that Biden, Trump, and Hillary held, details are written into law and regulation as to what type of room, with what type of door, they are to be stored in. “Closet” does not fit the definition, whether it is at Biden’s place, Mar-a-Lago or Hillary’s home.
The most common argument being advanced in support of Biden’s criminality is that Trump had many more documents in his possession than Biden.
C’Mon, man!
Biden had some/several/a bunch of classified documents while Trump had hundreds so that’s different. Yes, on Sesame Street four is bigger than three, but with classified documents it is not a meaningful difference. The law is clear: each document is a violation, and there are no discounts for having under a certain number. One classified document is enough to seek an indictment. But let’s not forget about Hillary Clinton, who was allowed not only to carry over 33,000 subpoenaed documents in the form of emails out of secure spaces on her server, but to delete them. Imagine if Biden reported that he and his team had simply deleted whatever they had found, never mind whether Trump had had a bonfire.
Nothing of this is unexpected, of course, but it’s still great sport to watch the left bend over backward to excuse the exact same lawbreaking they want to send Trump to prison for.
The exact same lawbreaking.
“The double standard here is astounding,” Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote in a letter to Garland requesting a special counsel. “The underlying behavior at issue—a President’s retention of old classified documents dating back to a past presidency—is materially the same in both cases.”
The fact that Garland set up a special counsel to look into the matter is fine, but most in the media are dismissing the appointment as window dressing that Garland was forced into using because of Republican pressure.
What’s well and truly remarkable is that the media doesn’t see — is incapable of seeing — the double standard they’re using. Their hatred of Trump is so great that it’s blinded them to anything that might expose their unbalanced, hysterical opposition to the former president.
How far such hatred and double standards will take them is anyone’s guess.
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