CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota offered Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) an opportunity to be fair regarding criticism of politicians who mishandle classified documents.
But she declined to take it.
What is the background?
Last September, when the government had revealed the scope of Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents, Jayapal demanded the full force of the law be used against the former president.
She even went so far as to claim that Trump “stole” the documents.
“Donald Trump stole classified documents,” Jayapal said. “He put not only our national security at risk, but the security and safety of our allies around the world. He must be held accountable to the full extent of the law.”
What did Jayapal say?
During an interview on “CNN Newsroom,” Camerota asked Jayapal about her tweet and whether she believes the same standard should be applied to President Joe Biden in light of classified documents being discovered in at least two areas private to him.
“Should President Biden be held to that same standard?” the CNN anchor asked. “Isn’t it possible that President Biden is putting our national security at risk also?”
But immediately, Jayapal began to equivocate and defend Biden.
“I absolutely think that is why the Department of Justice has appointed the special counsel,” she said.
“But again, I would just point to the fact that these documents so far that we know, what we know is that they were kept in a locked place. That was a very small number and I don’t know how important these are, they might be incredibly important. They were marked top secret,” she added. “But the storage and the approach to this is completely different.”
Jayapal acknowledged that Biden’s retention of classified documents is a “political problem for all of us as Democrats.” But she tried to emphasize distinction between Biden’s mishandling of classified information and Trump’s. Biden, Jayapal claimed, is “cooperating completely.”
However, she has no way of knowing that.
After all, the White House declined to disclose the discovery for more than two months, and when it finally admitted to the existence of classified documents inside Biden’s private office, it refused to disclose the second batch of documents that had already been found at Biden’s private residence.
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