Pence slams ‘double standards’ in handling of Biden documents by DOJ and media
Former Vice President Mike Pence criticized the “double standard” in the way the Justice Department and the national media treated President Biden after the release of several classified documents from his time as vice president, compared to the FBI’s raid on the private residence of former President Trump last year. .
Pence told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday that the FBI’s action against Trump was a “massive overreach.”
“But having established that standard and now abandoning that standard when the current president of the United States was found to have classified documents in his possession after leaving office, I think I’m just, I’m speechless right now. It’s just incredibly frustrating to me Pence said.
Biden’s lawyers unearthed 10 classified documents from his time as vice president in a private office at the Penn Biden Center on Nov. 2, 2022, White House special counsel Richard Sauber revealed Monday. The National Archives was immediately notified of the find and received the documents on November 3, with the full cooperation of the president’s personal attorneys.
US ATTORNEY’S INVESTIGATION INTO CLASSIFIED BIDEN DOCUMENTS AT A ‘TURNING POINT,’ NEXT STEPS TO AG GARLAND
Mike Pence on stage at the 2022 New York Times DealBook on Nov. 30, 2022, in New York City. (Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The New York Times)
However, Republicans have compared the situation to how Trump kept hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida after his presidency. In August 2022, after a month-long dispute over the documents, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and seized about 300 classified documents, including some labeled secret. Attorney General Merrick Garland personally authorized the seizure.
In November, Garland appointed Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, to investigate whether Trump violated federal law when he obtained classified documents after he left the White House in early 2021.
MCCARTHY REACTS TO CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS LEAKED FROM BIDEN’S TIME AS VP: DEMS ‘PLAYING THEIR HAND’
President Biden criticized former President Trump for his “irresponsible” handling of classified documents during an interview on “60 Minutes” in September 2022. (Screenshot/CBS News)
“The decision by the senior leadership of the Department of Justice to execute a search warrant against a former president of the United States was wrong. It was an overreach, and I, and as that special counsel moves forward, I’ve said before, I hope they take a half step back and think very deeply before they take any action against a former president of the United States in terms of the message he sends to the world, the message he sends to the people of this country, the divisive nature of that country. ,” said Pence, who is considering a 2024 bid to challenge Biden for the White House.
“But there’s an old saying in the Bible that what you sow, you reap. And I couldn’t help but think yesterday’s headline was an example of the truth of that proverb,” he added.
DEMM DEFENDS BIDEN’S HANDLING OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, CALLS OUTRAGE ‘REPUBLICAN HYPOCRISY’
Aerial footage of police stationed outside Mar-a-Lago during an FBI raid on August 9, 2022. (WFOR)
The Justice Department is conducting a review of Biden’s documents, and U.S. Attorney John Lausch of the Northern District of Illinois has led the investigation.
However, Pence questioned why Smith, the special counsel investigating the Trump documents, was not also instructed to handle the Biden documents.
“It’s deeply troubling to me,” he told Hewitt.
Pence added that “what they have unleashed now has the threat of rebounding on them.”
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“But the willingness of the national media to just walk away and turn a deaf ear to Biden, to the revelations that when Vice President Biden left office, he also left with classified documents, it just shows you, it’s like I said before. “If they didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all,” he said.
Thomas Catenacci and Cameron Cawthorne of Fox News contributed to this report.
Chris Pandolfo is a writer for Fox News Digital. Send tips to c[email protected] and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
