A CNN supercut shows that Republican politicians are very concerned about the classified documents found at Joe Biden’s properties, but were notably less concerned when classified documents were found during the raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
On Monday news broke that Mr Biden’s lawyers had discovered a small number of documents from his time as vice president that were categorised as classified. They discovered these documents while clearing out a private office last fall and reportedly immediately turned them over to the federal government.
Over Wednesday and Thursday news broke that additional documents were found at a second location. Those documents were also immediately turned over to the government.
On CNN This Morning, anchors Don Lemon, Poppy Harlow, and Kaitlan Collins discussed the discoveries and the attempts by conservatives to draw a direct comparison between Mr Biden’s team discovering and handing over the documents and Mr Trump allegedly failing to turn over requested documents, being the subject of a federal raid, and then demanding to have his documents returned.
They also noted that Republican responses to the two situations were far from consistent.
In one clip, Congressman James Comer tells an interviewer that the Mar-a-Lago discovery "didn’t amount to a hill of beans" and said that investigating their discovery "will not be a priority."
When discussing Mr Biden, Mr Comer says that the discovery of classified documents at two locations is "very concerning."
"Look, what’s the vice president doing with classified documents?"
Congressman Mike Turner called both situations "outrageous," but defended Mr Trump, saying it was likely a "clerical issue between the archivist and the former president."
However, Mr Biden’s situation was "outrageous," according to Mr Turner, because it is a "complete mishandling of classified information," noting that it’s "possible that we will hold hearings on them."
Senator Lindsey Graham said Democrats would "be rice in the street" if they tried to prosecute Mr Trump, citing Hillary Clinton’s private email server, but then went on to say that there would be "a lot of anger" and "hurt the country" if a special counsel wasn’t formed to investigate Mr Biden’s documents.
As noted by Ms Harlow, Democrats included in the supercut were a bit more consistent in their messaging, noting that they had concerns over the documents while also pushing back against false equivalencies between the raid on Mar-a-Lago and the voluntary return of the documents discovered by the Biden camp.
Congressman Adam Schiff said that "the fact that [classified documents] were in an unsecure place that is guarded with nothing more than a padlock or whatever security they had at a hotel is deeply alarming," concerning Mr Trump’s situation.
Regarding the Biden documents, he said that "there’s a concern whenever classified documents are somewhere they shouldn’t," but said there was "no evidence of delivered intent or obstruction of justice as we see in the case of Donald Trump."
Congressman Daniel Goldman said Mr Trump’s document discovery was "likely criminal" before wondering "why was he hiding these documents even when they were requested?"
On Mr Biden’s situation, he said "of course I’m concerned," but noted that "the cooperation is coming from the Biden administration and the president’s lawyers. And there was zero cooperation from Donald Trump,
