'I Don’t See Any Damage for Biden and the Democrats'
His supporters continue to see the president coming out well politically, despite new docs revelations
Despite the continuing drip, drip of revelations of new sensitive documents found in President Biden's possession, a number of supporters continue to say that he'll clear this issue unscathed.
Five additional documents with classified markings were discovered on Thursday, at Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home.
The president's lawyers continue to emphasize that they are turning over to the National Archives any and all unauthorized documents found, and that Biden is cooperating fully with the Justice Department and other authorities.
And the president's defenders continue to draw a bright line between the Biden situation and the enormous cache of sensitive and classified materials retrieved over the summer from Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
“They asked the former president, does he have those documents, and as you noted, there was a long slog of trying to get them back that culminated in the FBI searching the former presidents home,” said Symone Sanders-Townsend, an MSNBC host and former top spokesperson in the Biden White House. “I think the last point here: It is illegal to unknowingly take classified documents into one’s possession.
“If you or I did what former President Trump did, there would be no question. We would be in jail right now. Literally, we would be in jail,” Sanders-Townsend said in an on-camera appearance. “It is not illegal for documents to be inadvertently comingled. I say that because this is not an irregular case. There is a comingling of documents.
“I was on yesterday morning with Jeremy Bass, who was a former chief of staff of the CIA, who talked about that if I went home, if someone went home and said, ‘Oh my goodness, I happen to have this document from work and not supposed to have,’ there’s a protocol of what to do and how to quickly return those documents.”
Former White House press secretary and current MSNBC commentator Jen Psaki roasted former Trump as she predicted Biden’s classified documents case will not be a political problem in the end.
Psaki was a guest this week on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and took several shots at Trump as she compared and contrasted the Biden matter with the investigation that exploded onto the national radar with the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home.
She predicted “this very different case of Biden’s classified documents” is not is “going to be a political problem for him.”
Political strategist and public opinion research executive Fernand Amandi made much the same point in a separate appearance on MSNBC.
“I don’t see any damage for Biden and the Democrats. I do see a continuing problem for the non-base Republican voters who looks at this Republican Party, who talk for the last two years about what they would do when given the reigns of power in American government like the Republican majority Congress to actually do things to try and fix certain situations that they think need remedy,” he said. “Whether it be around the economy, whether be around gas prices, any of these elements and yet they are engaged in the weaponization of the rule of law against political opponents.
“I think it’s a fiasco for them and I think that again, any American voter who is a non-MAGA base voter will see this for what it is. The more that they draw this contrast and try and create what is clearly a false equivalency, I think it will blow up in their face,” Amandi added.
His so-called “scandal” over classified documents — which Fox News has dubbed “Garagegate” due to some unauthorized documents being found in his locker garage —won’t affect Biden’s decision on seeking reelection in 2024, Democratic congresswoman Madeleine Dean predicted.
“No, I don’t think it will hurt him. As I said, a full investigation will reveal what happened here,” said Dean, of Pennsylvania. “Was there some willful concealment — as it seems to be indicated in the Trump set of scenarios, not to mention a tremendous number of documents — or was this something done by somebody else, [who was] negligent?
“I don’t think that will impact the president’s decision or reality of running or not,” Dean added. “What I think really Americans care about is what is going on with our economy, and what we see is the Biden economy, and economic plan, is working. Inflation declined for the six consecutive month. We are now down at 6.5 percent. Still too high.”
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