Biden document revelations are a gift for Trump and deepen Garland's nightmare

[nightwing1240]

Republicans seized on revelations that several classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president were found in his former private office to create cover for former President Donald Trump’s hoarding of secret records.

The disclosures Monday about the material found last fall spun up an immediate political storm at a time when Trump is in increasing legal peril. The new GOP House majority is meanwhile rushing to undermine investigations against him and unleashing a wave of counter investigations against the current president.

But there are clear distinctions between the two cases.

snip

Garland’s dilemma
The Biden document disclosures will also deepen the already intense political headache facing Garland as he contemplates an eventual decision on whether to charge Trump, whose status as an ex-president and an active 2024 candidate carries huge political implications.

Garland insists that investigations will go where the evidence and the law demands as he seeks to stress the independence of the Justice Department — which was perpetually in question when Trump was president. But now, inevitably and however the Biden vice presidential documents issue is resolved, a decision to charge Trump over the classified documents case but not to take the same action against Biden would incite political uproar among conservatives who would be sure to allege double standards.

More at Link - https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/10/politics/biden-classified-documents-trump-garland/index.html
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The mention of AG Garland and all of us wondering if Trump will finally be indicted is what concerned me. I am hoping this is not used as an excuse not to proceed and arrest the traitorous people of Jan 6.

[Ziggysmom]

1. Oh no. We don't need this. Dump will gain leverage saying all presidents do this.

[Pachamama]

2. I completely disagree with the opinion of this story implying it's a problem

The circumstances and responses are completely different.

It doesn’t mean the Repukes won’t try to make a big deal about it. But it will be a nothing burger.

[nightwing1240]

6. Repukes making a big deal of it is my fear

They have done far more with much less than this in the past on a host of things.

[Walleye]

3. I hope our justice department isn't plagued with whataboutism

[Paladin]

7. Too late. (nt)

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. There are major differences between the two cases

Link to tweet

[nightwing1240]

5. I agree, very different

I only pointed this out because we are all waiting to see if justice will finally be served to the traitor in chief and I do not want to see this used as an excuse not to. We have been waiting a long time already and I fear it is going to be an even longer wait now.

[lees1975]

8. Huge differences are involved in this. Don't expect to see them outlined by CNN.

We're dealing with a few documents, the existence of which were not known, which were returned immediately the moment they were discovered, as opposed to defying requests to turn them over for months and evidence that they were mishandled and possibly distributed illegally.

Of course it provides cover for Trump's crimes in the public eye. But the legal differences aren't splitting hairs, they're real and substantial, and this na-na-na-na-boo-boo he did it too crap that they come up with as an excuse for criminal activity doesn't cut it.

Garland should not be having any kind of dilemma. He should be the Attorney General, with massive amounts of evidence to prove massive criminal conspiracy committed by Donald J. Trump and the clock is ticking on getting his rear end in court with indictments, convictions and prison time and anything less than that is unsatisfactory job performance. There are a lot of us out here who are already convinced his appointment was a mistake, and a real bulldog of a judge should be in there now, and the orange headed buffoon would already be complaining about federal prison food.

Get it going or move out of the way and let someone else take over.

[Cheezoholic]

9. The new CNN is not "balanced"

They are just multi sensationalist now. I'd be surprised if Tapper and King are there next year. Garlands got sugarplums dancing in his head now that a special prosecutor named Smith is on the job and someone with the intelligence of a common fern like Gym "The Facilitator" Jordan are threatening to violate the separation of powers by investigating an ongoing investigation.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. CNN rushed to scandalize new reporting on classified documents found at former Biden office

CNN has become a clone of Fox News under the new management team

Link to tweet

https://www.mediamatters.org/cnn/cnn-rushed-scandalize-new-reporting-classified-documents-found-former-biden-office

fter news broke that classified documents from his vice presidential days had been found in President Joe Biden’s former office, CNN rushed to sensationalize the story and drew inaccurate parallels to the FBI’s retrieval of documents held by former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

On Monday night between when the news broke and 11 p.m., CNN dedicated 1 hour and 47 minutes of coverage to the story, more than sevenfold MSNBC’s 14 minutes of coverage and over three and a half times Fox News’ 29 minutes.

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One particularly poor example in CNN’s programming came just before prime time, on Erin Burnett OutFront. As the story was breaking, anchor Erin Burnett emphasized that Biden was legally required to return the documents when his term as vice president ended in 2017. Burnett pointed out the differences between the FBI seizing documents at Mar-a-Lago following a court-approved search warrant and Biden’s legal team immediately turning over the documents to the National Archives when they found them. But CNN’s coverage implied hypocrisy on Biden's part by playing a September 2022 clip of the president rhetorically asking “how anyone could be that irresponsible” in regard to Trump withholding classified material at Mar-a-Lago. CNN also included an image of the classified documents found by the FBI at Trump’s residence during the segment without providing context, potentially misleading viewers.

From the January 9, 2023, edition of CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront

Burnett then brought out CNN correspondent Jamie Gangel, who while mentioning the differences between the Trump story and Biden’s, framed the news as “a political nightmare for the Biden administration” and “politically something that the Republicans and Donald Trump are going to make hay in.”

In response to a question from Burnett about “how much of a gift” and how “transformational” the new story is for Trump, Gangel stated that this is “a huge political gift for Trump." And despite the distinct differences between the documents found at Trump’s home and Biden’s office, Gangel posited that “it is going to be very important for Justice [Department], and as much as the National Archives plays a role here, to really let the public know what was in here. Is that nuance going to cut through? I don’t think so.”

Link to tweet

[pfitz59]

11. There are plenty of other crimes Trump will pay for

The documents were recovered. Case closed.

[lees1975]

12. Trump removed the classified documents after he left office

and did so deliberately. Biden put the documents there when he was still vice-president and now that they have been accounted for, has returned them. If they'd been on some inventory list that the National Archives had asked for before now, he'd have looked for them and given them back in an instant. That's the difference between what Biden did, which wasn't criminal, and what Trump did, which was criminal.

If, as Garland keeps insisting, he is going to follow the evidence and follow the law, then there will be a cascade of indictments coming down upon Trump, and his whole criminal enterprise will learn the lesson that it doesn't matter what someone else does, if you break the law, you pay for the crime. He keeps on insisting that's what they are doing. I just wonder how much longer we will have to wait. Ordinary citizens who have done what Trump and Bannon have done would have to wait behind bars to find out.