"Accusation as confession": Biden isn’t "weaponizing" the DOJ but Trump has and will again
The briefest review of Trump's and Biden's records puts the lie to Republicans' "weaponization" claims.
The deeper Trump-era Republicans fall into aberrant behavior, the more they lean on a single answer to Democrats: whatever we do, you do - and vice versa. Call it false equivalency, or whataboutism, or accusation-as-confession by an extremist party trying to pass as a normal one. Republicans’ attempt to justify their behavior to Washington reporters like me has become an all-season reflex.
When President Joe Biden pressured Israel to dial back its assault on Gaza, former Vice President Mike Pence likened it to former President Donald Trump’s attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian president for political dirt on Biden. When Senate Democrats dismissed their meritless impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Republicans declared it a permission slip for sidetracking future impeachments of Republicans.
National security, government finance, social policy – Republicans apply false equivalence to any political jam.
Under fire for the Jan. 6 insurrection, Republicans point to Black Lives Matter protests.
Rattling markets with threats of a catastrophic debt crisis, they cite old symbolic votes by Democrats on the debt. Reeling from backlash over the abolition of constitutional abortion rights, Trump calls Democrats the real “extremists.” On Capitol Hill, House Republicans make tit-for-tat their roadmap, disciplining Democrats who worked for Trump’s impeachment the same way Democrats disciplined Republicans who had menaced them with violent imagery and rhetoric.
But nowhere is false equivalence less credible than on the issue of “weaponization” of law enforcement. As Trump explicitly promises “retribution” against enemies, he and his GOP allies insist that’s exactly what Biden is doing to him.
The briefest review of each man’s record puts the lie to that claim.
As president, Trump:
fired the FBI director and then the acting director for investigating Russia’s 2016 interference. (Both men, James Comey and Andrew McCabe, later became targets of rare IRS audits, though an inspector general later called those coincidences.)
fired his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from the Russia investigation and failing to stop the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
pressured his third and fourth attorneys general to call the 2020 election “corrupt” as he tried to overturn his defeat to Biden.
incited the Jan. 6 insurrection for which hundreds of people have been convicted of federal charges. Trump now says he may pardon them if re-elected.
Trump has already demonstrated his willingness to abuse the pardon process for political reasons. Before leaving office, he pardoned multiple associates convicted in the Russia probe and even a House Republican ally convicted of an insider stock trading felony committed on White House grounds.
There’s no evidence Biden has done anything of the kind.
Biden’s Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, waited almost two years to appoint a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate Trump – prodded not by Biden but by the findings of the bipartisan House Jan. 6 investigation.
The Biden Justice Department also appointed a special counsel to investigate Biden over his retention of classified documents from his time as vice president. Unlike Trump, now facing felony charges for actively and deceitfully retaining classified documents, Biden volunteered that he had found them at his residence. The special counsel, Republican Robert Hur, brought no criminal charges but released a politically damaging description of his interview with Biden.
And what about the president’s political allies?
This week, the Biden Justice Department is in court prosecuting powerful Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey on bribery charges. Earlier this month, the DOJ indicted a senior House Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, on bribery and money laundering charges. It’s also investigating another House Democrat, Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri, over her campaign’s spending on security services.
After winning control of the House in Nov. 2022, House Republicans promptly directed their investigatory fire on President Biden’s family, particularly his son Hunter. They cited the need to even the score on Trump’s behalf.
“No one’s been investigated more than Donald Trump,” Rep. James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, told CNN. “At the end of the day, all we’re asking for is equal treatment here.”
The Biden Justice Department did not bury the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation it inherited from the Trump administration. Instead, the president kept the Trump-hired U.S. attorney on the job.
Garland eventually appointed that U.S. attorney, David Weiss, as special counsel. Weiss indicted Hunter Biden on felony gun charges.
So far, Trump has managed to avoid legal consequences for Russia’s 2016 election interference even though Mueller found that he welcomed it and tried to cover it up. And he’s shameless enough that, as he faces a jury in his New York hush-money case, he wields the term against Biden and Democrats in the trademark “I’m rubber, you’re glue” Republican style.
“It’s election interference,” Trump told reporters outside the courtroom recently. “Everyone knows it. It’s very unfair.”
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The problem I have is they keep telling us Trump is an existential threat to Democracy (I agree) but then not act like it. What was the justification for waiting 2 years for the special counsel? Why didn't the Democrats call witnesses for the Jan 6th Impeachment? Why wasn't there a Committee on Jan 6th for the enablers within Congress who are still there? Where were the Kushner-Saudi $2 Billion hearings? Ivanka getting Chinese trademarks hearings? Senate has been theirs the whole time. House was there for the first two years. Dems have gone along with a bad faith censure of Tlaib and the saving of Mike Johnson as Speaker. Why did Garland even appoint a Special Counsel on Biden's documents? Wouldn't an FBI search and investigation have been a first step and the appointment of a Special Counsel only AFTER the FBI found something potentially criminal have been the more prudent step? Trump had months of the National Archives politely asking for their documents back, then the FBI got involved, then the appointment. Biden went straight from "found some documents" to Hur being appointed? That immediately put both Biden and Trump on the same footing for people not paying attention. Yet Garland wasn't fired. Garland allowed Hur to release his own bad faith report.
Back in October-November there were reports Biden was waiting to go on the offensive against Trump after the New Year. And right now there are reports Biden and his WH refuse to believe the polling that shows him underwater with key demographics on big issues like Isreal-Gaza. There is no urgency. There is no agency. It's undermining their own best argument that Trump is the end of Democracy. If you keep telling me that, you'd better start acting like it. No delaying. No trying to appease the middle. It's either the end of Democracy, or it is not.
I also read the other day Trump not only wants to fire hundreds and hundreds of federal officials but indict them.
When he wins the election (and sadly, he will) it will be an unprecedented slashing of agencies and their personnel. My problem with Biden and his campaign is, they always talk about the threat to democracy coming from Trump, his party and his sycophants but they do not act accordingly. Biden is not really campaigning, has no policy goals on his website and "Trump bad" will not be enough to get people out to vote. We saw that in 2016..