Main Edition
US
FR
March 13, 2024 - 10:00am
Political fireworks went off in yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing as the investigation into the President’s handling of classified documents continued. In the dock was Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to look into files kept by Joe Biden in his private offices and homes after his time as vice president. The hearing was called to give the committee a chance to examine Hur’s report, which laid out the reasons — notably Biden’s age and memory problems — why the President was not charged with document-related crimes, as the Justice Department has done in his predecessor’s case.
While that was the stated purpose of the hearing, in reality its centre of gravity was a man who ostensibly had nothing to do with the case at all: Donald Trump. Virtually every exchange with Hur constituted an attempt by Republicans to call out the perceived hypocrisy of charging Trump for keeping classified documents, while declining to do so for Biden. On top of this, most of the counter-attacks by Democrats were aimed to paint Trump as a figure “incapable of avoiding criminal liability”, as Rep. Jerry Nadler (Dem), ranking member of the committee, put it.
As Hur responded to highly charged, rapid-fire questions with carefully calibrated legalistic answers, around him the committee members lobbed political grenades. Addressing the special counsel’s explanation for declining to charge the President because a jury would likely see him as no more addled than a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, Nadler played a mashup of clips showing Trump making verbal slips and forgetting personal life events.
The irony of this attempt was that Nadler, in seeking to show that no double standard had been applied by the Justice Department, was essentially arguing only that Biden is not more addled than Trump, who should “think twice about accusing others of cognitive decline”, as the representative put it.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, the committee’s vice ranking member and one of Trump’s most vociferous critics, launched a full-bore political attack, arguing that the former president was attempting to “pull the wool over the eyes of America because the dictators and tyrants [of the world] are on the march”.
Republicans attempted a more forensic approach to Hur’s findings. Rep. Jim Jordan, the chair of the committee, argued that Biden risked serious damage to America’s national security. He questioned the President’s motive for keeping the documents in the first place, emphasising that Biden shared classified information with his ghostwriter (a separate crime from merely retaining the files). Responding to Jordan’s point, Hur testified that the upcoming biography had netted the then-former vice president an $8 million advance. “Joe Biden had eight million reasons to break the rules,” Jordan quipped.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeFor the 3rd time in a row the American people look like they are going to have to choose the least worst candidate. In a country of over 300 million people you would think it was possible to find at least 2 good candidates for the people to be able to choose who they thought was best for their country.
But when you look at the behaviours in Congress maybe that is a bit too much to hope for!
People vote for an agenda. Trump is an ahole, but his agenda makes more sense for ordinary Americans. Only the gated rich benefit from open borders, defunding the police and allowing violent criminals to go free, the corruption of academia, women with pen1ses and all the other nihilist liberal nonsense.
It’s a shame there isn’t someone more decent presenting the Trump agenda – but it takes a maverick to confront the ruthless Wall Street media.
It’s sad really, but maybe not so unique. Look at the choice British voters have in the upcoming election.
Whilst the leader’s charisma does make a difference in UK, we mainly vote for parties – the current Tory majority was because it was the only party that was going to respect the Brexit referendum, not because we all loved Boris (most of us could see exactly how shallow he was).
I would tend to agree though that this time we have to chose the least worst between a Conservative party badly divided, squabbling amongst itself and has forgotten what conservatism is and is therefore relatively devoid of ideas and a Labour party that has no useful ideas on how to solve the real problems and therefore will implement woke ideas to create loads more problems. The normal 3rd party alternative (the (il)liberal (un)democrats) is just as badly impacted by woke ideology as Labour. It remains to be seen whether Reform can get its act together to present an alternative unified by common sense and values that can draw sufficient support from disaffected voters on all sides. At the moment that does not look particularly hopeful.
Every election is simply an opportunity to choose the least worst option. Even 1997, when so many people seemed genuinely enthusiastic about Blair, turned out in the long run to be the same old choice of the lesser of two evils.
During the 2004 election between Bush and Kerry, South Park ran an episode where the kids had to choose a new school mascot. The candidates, a giant douche and a t**d sandwich, literally. They used the gimmick again in 2016 with Trump and Clinton, but truthfully. I still think Bush/Kerry was the absolute worst. Two big government warmongering globalists quibbling over corporate tax rates and gay marriage. Waste of space both of them. Biden is just a placeholder really. He’s a product of his handlers, his advisors, his political backers. The man himself is mainly a figurehead. I’d say he has as much to do with ruling the US as King Charles III does the UK. Still, an empty suit is preferable to an suit filled with a man shaped swarm of angry hornets, which is what almost any other Democrat I can name would be.
Unfortunately no, Western political systems these days produce only mediocrity at best, incompetents and crooks at worst.
Biden has only been able to get away with this because Trump has set the bar so low. You can try and comfort yourselves with lies about the deep state and establishment but this would have been a resigning matter for any president pre-Trump.
The greatest casualty of this modern political shift has been honour.
Ah, I see! Biden’s evident criminality is Trump’s fault. Without Trump he’d obviously be upstanding and virtuous instead of the corrupt grifter we all know him to be Keep polishing – it’s not working yet, but who knows?.
Not really the point. It’s that Trump’s criminality has lowered the bar so that when Biden is proven to be a corrupt grifter people only see a corrupt grifter as the alternative and previous occupant of the role.
So you don’t see at all and as ever are reasoning (for lack of a better term) from flawed preconceptions.
downvotes and a non-sequitur again straight down to the bottom of the comments section for daring to question King Trump. Unheard indeed…
You get downvoted because you spew garbage that has no bearing on truth or reality.
You are a twisted pretzel that’s for sure.
To what ‘criminality’ are you referring? Trump has benefited greatly from the old saw of “please make my enemies ridiculous.” They are the people who created and carried the water for the Russian collusion hoax, and they are the people who excuse Biden for having documents he was never entitled to have while trying to paint Trump as a criminal mastermind over what amounts to a logistics dispute.
This is the political equivalent of saying ‘the devil made me do it.’
Typical Leftist with severe TDS. Everything in the world is Trump’s fault. Even though Biden took the classified documents before Trump was elected and Biden had no authority whatsoever as a senator and VP to remove classified documents. You are a true numpty and your posts continue to demonstrate that.
skilled at using rhetoric to alter political realities
Lovely!
Hopefully you’re able to identify a similar ability in Trump and his right-wing supporters?
Or is it only undesirable when the other side do it?
While Biden’s memory problems are widely known Trump needs to be careful who he calls in his defence.
Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats reportedly told Former Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, about Trump – ‘he doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie’.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was no more complimentary, commenting privately that Trump’s ‘attention span is like a minus number.’
Trump’s attention span? A bit rich coming from Fauci, who can’t remember whether it was ‘yes mask or no mask’, ‘one metre or two metres’, lab technician’s visit to a wet market or misbehaving promiscuous bats.
Yeah, let’s all take seriously the opinions on Trump of the likes of Fauci, a rotten liar if ever there was one, and members of the deep state.
Honestly, people are easily fooled and so chuffed when they think they’re being clever.
If you are looking to appeal to authority, perhaps Fauci is the wrong person, especially when the subject involves someone else’s conduct in office.
I’m pretty sure Trump took a cognitive test a few years back because the regime media kept accusing him of being senile. Yet the regime media runs cover for Biden.
4 years of Biden:
War between Afghanistan / Taliban
War between Ukraine / Russia
War between Israel / Hamas
War between Haiti / Criminal Gangs
4 Years of Trump:
No Wars
Which do you prefer ….. ?
As a subscriber…
the perceived hypocrisy of charging Trump for keeping classified documents, while declining to do so for Biden.
It’s not perceived; it’s real. Biden had documents that neither of his previous offices as Senator or VP allowed him to have in the first place. The only argument with Trump is the circumstances under which he possesses some docs. Presidents always leave with certain artifacts of their time in office.
What I took away from this was that Mr Hur resolutely tried to stay impartial.
That was the battle I saw going on.
The American law professor Jonathan Turley gave his opinion on Robert Hur’s testimony. He said “I can’t see how you could decline these charges [against Joe Biden] and, yet, go forward on the classified documents charges against Trump.” That’s my opinion too. The two cases should be treated the same. In my view, neither man should be charged.
That the Democrats are using the courts to attack Donald Trump like this is a disgrace. We’ve never seen this before in the United States. All the Democrats’ talk of freedom and justice has proven hollow. Joe Biden is no better than Vladimir Putin on this.