OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former Florida governor and 2016 GOP presidential contender Jeb Bush took aim at Donald Trump on Monday following an accusation from the former president that Bush’s father, the late President George H. W. Bush, may have mishandled classified documents.
At a rally on Saturday in Nevada, Trump claimed that the elder Bush stored documents he had taken with him from his one term as president in a “Chinese restaurant/bowling alley,” while also suggesting other former presidents have similarly mishandled sensitive documents.
Trump’s remarks were made in regard to the Biden Justice Department’s investigation into whether the 45th president mishandled highly classified documents that he had stored at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., reportedly in a locked, secured room that was also monitored by the Secret Service.
“George H.W bush took millions of documents to a former bowling alley and a former Chinese restaurant. … By contrast, I had a small number of boxes and storage at Mar-A-Lago — very small, relatively — guarded by the great Secret Service. And yet the FBI, with many people, raided my house. It’s in violation, by the way, of the Fourth Amendment, and many other things also,” Trump said at one point during his rally.
The comment drew a scathing response from the 41st president’s son.
“I am so confused. My dad enjoyed a good Chinese meal and enjoyed the challenge of 7 10 split. What the heck is up with you?” Bush noted on Twitter in a post that featured a clip of Trump making his remarks.
I am so confused. My dad enjoyed a good Chinese meal and enjoyed the challenge of 7 10 split. What the heck is up with you? https://t.co/LT1jET2kor
— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) October 10, 2022
The Daily Wire added:
The confusing link appears to be drawing a comparison between the raid on Trump’s Florida residence this summer and an unrelated story from 1993 about mishandling of computer data under George H. W. Bush.
The part about the Chinese restaurant and bowling alley comes from a 1994 Associated Press report about how Bush Sr. stored everything from his life in a warehouse-like room that was once a bowling alley and in the building next store in what used to be a Chinese restaurant.
Last week, Trump noted on his Truth Social platform: “On top of the lost ‘Clinton Hard Drive,’ there are also tapes from the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan Administrations which were lost AFTER having been ordered preserved by a Federal Judge. Some hard drives were even ‘damaged by sloppy handling in the transfer’! The National Archivist actually gave George H.W. Bush ‘exclusive legal control over all Presidential information.’ Compare that to how unfairly and illegally the 45th President, me, has been treated!”
Trump also took aim at other presidents’ handling of documents as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in 2016.
“George W. Bush stored 68 million pages in a warehouse in Texas and lost 22 million emails. Can you imagine if I lost two emails? They’d say, ‘This is terrible. It must have been nuclear in those two.’ … He lost 22 million. Can you believe that we’re talking about millions of pages and they’re coming after me? But they’re still looking for them. They’re still looking for those pages,” he said.
“Bill Clinton took millions of documents from the White House to a former car dealership in Arkansas … and kept classified recordings in his sock drawer. In fact, he supposedly put the information from the White House into his socks and left the White House with the information, so we call it the sock case,” Trump added.
“If I did that, there’d be major trouble, and NARA — you know NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration — ‘lost’ an entire hard drive full of information from the Clinton White House. They lost it. They can’t find it,” he said.
“But almost as bad, crooked Hillary deleted 33,000 emails under congressional subpoena. She acid-washed them. … [It’s a] very expensive process. That’s why nobody does it. And then pounded her phones with hammers, making them totally unrecognizable to the naked eye. So she took those phones and she pounded the hell out of them,” Trump noted.
“The radical left thinks by doing all these sinister and venomous things, they’re making us weaker, but actually they are making us stronger and much more unified than ever before. I really believe that. I believe that,” Trump added.
