McCarthy: Of course Biden knew he had those classified documents

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Joe Biden is having a very bad week. He went to Mexico for the Three Amigos summit and was back by Tuesday. Then he was suddenly caught up in a quagmire of his own making. All of Biden’s crises are of his own making and the latest are no different. He’s been caught in possession of classified and top secret documents, both at the “think tank” (wink, wink) that bears his name and at one of his homes in Delaware.

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What goes around, comes around. Now Joe Biden’s sanctimonious tsk-tsking of Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents looks pretty hypocritical. Imagine Biden sitting there for his interview with 60 Minutes acting all snarky toward the former president while he knew damn good and well that he, too, had documents he shouldn’t have. Some were apparently right next to his precious Corvette in his “locked garage.” As if the locked garage part makes everything ok. It most certainly does not.

So, instead of glowing news coverage of Biden’s trip to Mexico and how he’s working with other leaders like AMLO and Trudeau, he’s left to answer questions about these documents. First, it was one batch of documents found at the Penn Biden Center. Now it’s an additional two locations at one of his Delaware homes. His first statement about the first pile of documents came during the joint press conference in Mexico City. He read a carefully worded statement from his infamous, ever present, note card. He said little other than that he was surprised the documents were at his D.C. office and his lawyer advised him to not ask questions about them. (!)

Today Biden told reporters that the new documents found were in a locked garage, whatever that means. He didn’t divulge much else, just that his lawyer was moving boxes and found them. Then he told Biden about the discovery. Biden said he takes classified material seriously, again, as though that relieves him of any responsibility of mishandling of sensitive documents. WTH?

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Needless to say, Republicans are enjoying the show. I know I am. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy told reporters today that of course Joe Biden knew he had classified documents. C’mon, man. He pointed to the fact that Biden says his lawyer was the one moving boxes around his office. Why ask a lawyer to do that if you aren’t concerned about a legal matter?

“I think if you call a lawyer to remove something for your office, he must have known ahead of time,” McCarthy said. “So, I think he has a lot of answers to the American public. The good thing about that is the American public has a Congress that can get the answers.”

During the press conference, McCarthy’s first since elected to be speaker, a reporter asked if he ever had a lawyer clean out his office. McCarthy answered, “No, I used my hands on my own.”

By the way, where’s the National Archives in all this? They were having a hissy fit over the alleged missing classified documents in Trump’s possession. Did they know what was missing from Biden? Where’s their concern about Biden’s possession of the documents? Biden’s been in elected office for almost 50 years. We were told that he would bring professionalism back to the White House. Here he is doing the same thing he accuses others of doing. Swampy.

Sleepy Joe finds himself under a special counsel investigation now, just like Trump. DOJ appoints a special counsel when it believes there is a potential for criminal activity. Mishandling documents is a crime, as they said in the Trump case. It doesn’t matter if the mishandling is intentional or not. The act is the act. National security policy rules have been broken.

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Media coverage has been predictable. While some legacy networks have boldly broken the news and do discuss it, most are busy insisting there is no comparison between how Trump mishandled documents and how Biden handled it. They like to say it’s comparing apples to oranges. But, it’s not. These are apples and apples. They just happen to be different apples.

The treatment of Trump and that of Biden is breathtakingly different. Where’s the splashy photograph leaked to the press of documents strewn across a carpeted floor? Where’s the FBI raid to gather up the documents? Trump is automatically worthy of an immediate prison term over the documents yet Biden is somehow just an innocent bystander. He has no idea how those documents got there, or what they even are, for that matter.

I know Joe’s mental acuity is slipping, but that doesn’t let him off the hook. He was vice-president, not president, and therefore not able to de-classify documents. Biden’s White House counsel says the documents were “inadvertently misplaced.” As the legal eagles will tell you, it doesn’t matter if it was intentional or unintentional.

Trump admitted he took the documents. He acted as though he was entitled to have them. Biden doesn’t even admit to knowing what the documents are. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think anything will happen to Biden. He’ll get a slap on the wrist from the DOJ when the investigation is over with some stern words about how sensitive documents must be handled, but that’s about it. Who knows how far DOJ will go against Trump?

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What I do know is that in 2024, we will likely have two men running for president who have been found mishandling classified documents. Biden and Democrats can’t hold that against Trump when Biden has done the same thing.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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