It’s been nearly two months since we first learned that Joe Biden had mishandled classified documents. The first stash of documents had been found at his private office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and then more were found at his Wilmington, Del., home. It seemed like every few days, we learned something new that made the scandal even worse than thought, like the fact that the documents had been originally discovered before the midterm elections, indicating a cover-up.
Then there was the way the White House was caught lying about the search at his home, claiming it had been completed already when in fact, searches were still underway. There was evidence that Hunter Biden may have had access to the documents and was using them for his illicit business dealings. It was also revealed that, despite repeatedly claiming to have been fully cooperating with the investigation, Biden didn’t originally cooperate and opposed having the Department of Justice search his home.
Surprisingly, the media took an interest in the scandal, covering it extensively and asking the White House what it wasn’t used to answering: tough questions. Karine Jean Pierre routinely crumpled like tissue trying to explain the latest developments in the scandal.
The scandal broke days after reports that Biden was on the verge of announcing his intention to run for reelection — something that most people even in his own party don’t want him to do. I speculated at the time that the scandal was part of an attempt to force Biden out of the 2024 election.
It sure felt like the media was actually helping keep the scandal alive. The New York Times openly questioned why it took two months for it to be revealed that the classified documents were discovered. CNN revealed what the classified documents were about, and several anchors admitted on air how damaging this scandal is for Biden. The same media had been openly speculating who might replace Biden on the top of the Democrat ticket in 2024 since Biden’s first year in office.
Yet, like so many other stories, Biden’s mishandling of classified documents seems to have faded away. His hypocrisy no longer seems to matter, the cover-up doesn’t seem to be very important, and Biden apologists in the media quickly noted that the National Archives overclassifies everything — an epiphany they curiously did not have when it came to Trump having classified documents secured at Mar-a-Lago.
As time passed, it became clear that Biden’s classified documents scandal was far worse than Trump’s. Trump kept documents secured at Mar-a-Lago, where he had Secret Service protection. Even the worst of accusations about Trump and his documents seemed to go nowhere, and as the Biden scandal festered, the administration’s case against Trump was undoubtedly threatened.
In fact, CNN reporter Jamie Gangel called the story a gift to Trump. And it was, really. In the end, the sudden disappearance of this story was inevitable because of that. In all likelihood, the Biden administration has also realized it won’t be able to go after Trump either — resulting in the stalemate I wrote in January would eventually happen. “Despite the partisan outrage over the two recent classified documents scandals … we’re likely to see this end in a stalemate,” I predicted. “Nothing will happen to Biden, and the Biden administration will have to end their witchhunt of Trump.”