NBC’s Chuck Todd got into it with Rep Jim Jordan over the weekend when the Ohio Republican stopped by the Meet the Press studio to discuss the responses of the federal government to Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s respective retention of classified material at their residences and, in Mr Biden’s case, a DC-based think tank.
The new chair of the House Judiciary Committee insisted to Mr Todd that there was a difference in the way that the two men were treated — unfairly so — thanks to what he contended was a supposed politicisation of the Justice Department.
But Todd wasn’t having it, and said that the two situations were not comparable due to the former president’s failure to comply with a subpoena from the Justice Department for the classified materials.
“This was not some sort of, you paint it as a picture of the FBI did this, this and this within hours of each other, when it was actually a year and a half of Donald Trump not complying with any of the requests from National Archives," Mr Todd told Mr Jordan. “This is not some sort of proof that somehow [the Justice Department has] been weaponised and [is] playing politics."
Mr Jordan attempted to once again make the comparison stick, arguing: “They raided Trump’s home. They haven’t raided Biden’s home.”
But Mr Todd cut in: “Because Biden didn’t defy a subpoena, congressman.”
Mr Jordan didn’t have a response to that, and instead moved on to differences in the ways that the documents were held at their respective locations.
The exchange was notable as Republicans have been spreading conspiracies about the documents discovered at Mr Biden’s home and at a DC organisation with political ties to the current president. Many have insisted that donations from individuals in China to the foundation, The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, is somehow proof of involvement of the Chinese Communist Party and have baselessly asserted that the Chinese government as a result had access to the classified files.
The fiction has been weaponised by Republicans to hurt Mr Biden politically, as many are still bruised by the political damage that Mr Trump caused when the FBI raided his home in September of last year, just a month before the 2022 midterm elections.
Mr Trump, unlike Mr Biden, remains under several criminal investigations — the Justice Department is set to determine in the coming weeks and months whether Mr Trump will face any charges over both his handling of classified material as well as his involvement in the January 6 attack and effort to overturn the 2020 election. Prosectutors in Georgia are also conducting a similar investigation into his team’s attempts to change the results in that state.
On Monday, it was also reported that Manhattan’s district attorney has impanelled a grand jury to determine if criminal charges will be filed over Mr Trump’s 2016 hush payment to Stormy Daniels.
