OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden may have single-handedly ended any chance of the Department of Justice indicting former President Donald Trump.
“Attorney General Merrick Garland is notoriously cautious and does not like for things to appear political, and now that it has been discovered that Biden had classified documents in an unauthorized location from when he was vice president, the case against trump could be irreparably damaged, one expert said to a stunned CNN host,” Mediaite reported.
“We’re talking about political street fighting here that is going to go on, with control of the House now, at a fairly high pitch. And, you know, if you take the purely legalistic side of it and you get into the optics and the politics, what happened here is going to make it almost impossible to charge Donald Trump with any violation of classified documents,” analyst John Miller said.
“Really?” Poppy Harlow said before host Don lemon actually agreed with the analyst.
“I said that last night, it puts Merrick Garland in a very odd position. Did they know this was coming? This was November? I said, well, you know, look, I’m just asking here. Maybe Merrick Garland didn’t. Everyone’s wondering why he didn’t act, did he know this was coming?” the host said.
“The White House knows how to get news out fast and they know how to get news out slow. The idea that we went through the contretemps of last week and once that was all clear, you know, they announced this probably, you know, speaks for itself in terms of analysis,” the analyst said before host Kaitlan Collins chimed in.
“I’m so interested that you said it helps Trump because I was talking to people close to his legal team yesterday and they were saying this is a huge gift to them because they believe, you know, politically speaking, of course, the obstruction is obviously the big part of the Trump story. He resisted for so long, turning them over. But they believe it helps make their argument that it’s pretty easy actually, to innocently and mistakenly perhaps take classified documents. Does that actually hold up in court?” she said.
“So it doesn’t hold up in logic,” Miller said.
WATCH:
'Really?!' Poppy Harlow Shocked When CNN Analyst Says Biden News Makes It 'Almost Impossible' To Charge Trump Over Mar-a-Lago Raid https://t.co/tR0BPLSseH pic.twitter.com/coF7rmmNsw
— Tommy moderna-vaX-Topher (@tommyxtopher) January 10, 2023
“But does it hold up in court?” Collin said.
“Let alone court. Sure, it holds up in court as an argument. But, you know, the law is clear on on both. It’s just, you know, the balancing act of you’ve got a special prosecutor, you know, Jack Smith, who’s going to is going to make a recommendation, and then the attorney general is going to have to make a decision,” the analyst said.
“And these developments have put him in a very awkward place in terms of the decision-making,” he said.
Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed the U.S. attorney in Chicago to review classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. The classified documents from Joe Biden’s vice presidency were discovered at a think tank affiliated with the current president.
“The roughly 10 documents are from President Biden’s vice-presidential office at the center, the sources said. CBS News has learned the FBI is also involved in the U.S. attorney’s inquiry. The classified material was identified by personal attorneys for Mr. Biden on Nov. 2, just before the midterm elections, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president confirmed. The documents were discovered when Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys were packing files housed in a locked closet to prepare to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. The documents were contained in a folder that was in a box with other unclassified papers, the sources said. The sources revealed neither what the classified documents contain nor their level of classification. A source familiar told CBS News the documents did not contain nuclear secrets,” CBS News reported.
Sauber said materials were discovered on Nov. 2 and that the National Archives took possession of the materials the following morning.
“The discovery of these documents was made by the President’s attorneys,” Sauber said. “The documents were not the subject of any previous request or inquiry by the Archives. Since that discovery, the President’s personal attorneys have cooperated with the Archives and the Department of Justice in a process to ensure that any Obama-Biden Administration records are appropriately in the possession of the Archives.”
“Garland assigned U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch to find out how the classified material ended up at the Penn Biden Center. The review is considered a preliminary step, and the attorney general will determine whether further investigation is necessary, including potentially appointing a special counsel. Lausch was nominated to be U.S. attorney by former President Donald Trump, and he is one of only two current Trump-era U.S. attorneys still serving. The other is Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is leading an investigation into the president’s son, Hunter Biden,” CBS News reported.
“Lausch recently briefed the attorney general and will eventually submit a final report to Garland. The review is expected to conclude soon. The Penn Biden Center is a think tank about a mile from the White House, in Washington, D.C., that is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and named for the sitting president. The Presidential Records Act requires all presidential and vice-presidential documents be turned over to the National Archives. There are special protocols to keep classified information secure,” the outlet added.
