Concerning as Joe Biden’s classified document scandal has been, there are some key differences that distinguish it from that of Donald Trump. Biden so far appears to have improperly kept just a handful of materials, where his predecessor absconded with some 300. And where the current president’s team immediately arranged for the materials to be transported to the National Archives upon their discovery, Trump fought for months to keep them — even apparently concealing the documents he took to Mar-a-Lago, resulting in the FBI search of his property last summer. And then there’s the matter of intent. While it is impossible, of course, to get into the heads of the two presidents, there is little indication that Biden made anything other than a mistake in retaining the “small number” of classified materials from his days as Barack Obama’s vice president; Trump, by contrast, seemed to intentionally hold onto the materials, in defiance of National Archives and Records Administration, and continues to lie about the matter — including on Wednesday, when the ex-president suggested in a social media post that he merely held onto folders marked classified, not documents themselves, as a “‘cool’ keepsake” from his term.
From what we know, the two transgressions, in short, are not the same.
But that’s not stopping the GOP from trying to convince Americans of that. Speaking to a Kentucky radio station Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to draw a hard equivalency between what Biden and Trump did, arguing that “both these guys ought to be treated exactly the same way.”
“What’s good for one candidate for president,” McConnell said, “ought to be good for another one.”
Merrick Garland’s Justice Department has, of course, done just that; as one special counsel, Jack Smith, investigates Trump, the attorney general has another, Robert Hur, looking into the Biden documents matter. But while it’s true that Biden’s handling of sensitive material is deserving of scrutiny, and should absolutely be investigated, McConnell’s implication that the two presidents’ actions should be treated “exactly” the same is a major stretch.
But McConnell seems downright reasonable compared with some in his party, who haven’t only drawn a false equivalency between Trump and Biden, but have suggested that what Biden did was actually worse and more deserving of scrutiny than what Trump did. “No one’s been investigated more than Donald Trump,” Republican House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told Jake Tapper on Sunday, as he struggled to explain why his panel would investigate the current president but not his predecessor. “Who hasn’t been investigated is Joe Biden. And that’s why we’re finally launching an investigation of Joe Biden…and I hope to have it wrapped up as soon as possible.”
We’ll see if that’s true. During the Obama administration, the Republican-led House dragged out probes into Hillary Clinton for years in what Kevin McCarthy, now the speaker, seemingly acknowledged had political implications, and ultimately weighed down her presidential bid. The GOP had already been planning to use its new majority to Benghazi Biden, and it’s hard to imagine they don’t milk this classified documents scandal for all they can ahead of 2024. Republicans may say they want a quick investigation and a fair DOJ probe into the matter — something Democrats, too, have called for. But it’s hard to imagine Republicans being satisfied with any inquiry that doesn’t make Biden and his party look as bad as possible for as long as possible and allow them to nurture their various conspiracy theories about the president. “There’s a pattern here of anonymous sources of money flowing into Biden pockets and Biden interest,” Comer claimed to Tapper on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday. “It’s very concerning…and that’s why we’re pressing forward with this investigation.”
