Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 02:00 pm
Rachel Maddow contrasted how Trump each handled the news of classified documents in their offices to show why the Biden story is nothing.
Video of Maddow:
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Maddow said:
As I said, tonight, a brief flurry of excitement on the right about this process when the news broke about the Penn Biden Center. The reason it was only a brief flurry of excitement is because, in president Biden’s case, he and his lawyers appear to have actually done the right thing when it comes to these classified documents. Biden’s lawyers say, they discovered these documents among his vice presidential papers on November 2nd. The White House Counsel’s office notified the National Archives that same day about what had been found. The National Archives, apparently, did not even know these documents were missing and had not been seeking their return.
The archives took custody of that material the following morning. That appears to be it. Attorney general Merrick Garland has asked one of the last remaining Trump-appointed U.S. Attorneys to review the discovery of these documents at the Penn Biden Center, but it does not sound like it is an adversarial process at all. The White House says, it is cooperating fully with the National Archives and Department of Justice on the review.
Again, this was not, as it was in Trump’s case, the archives desperately seeking the return of the material that Trump was blowing off, and trump was blowing off those requests, and ultimately, blowing off the subpoena to return those documents.
These appear to be documents that were inadvertently held at the Penn Biden Center, discovered by Biden’s attorneys. They notified the White House, which notified immediately the National Archives, that these documents were in the wrong place. The archives moved to immediately retrieve them. That seems to be the sum total of it, as far as we know.
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The current president followed the law. The ex-president chose to break the law. That is the difference between the character of the two men. It is one of the reasons why Joe Biden is currently the president and Donald Trump is not.
For one brief moment, Republicans thought that they had their Biden scandal, but their hopes turned to dust as Biden’s behavior demonstrated why Trump should be indicted.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
