During a recent interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Congressman Adam Schiff took a very surprising tack on the Biden documents, suggesting that national security could have been imperiled by them and that appointing a special counsel to look into them was the right decision and making it look to many people that Biden’s presidency is in danger as now even Democrat knives are out for him.
Those comments from Schiff began when Karl, asking Schiff about the Special Counsel appointment and whether it was the right move for Garland to make, asked:
“Congressman Schiff, you were on this show just after Attorney General Garland appointed a special counsel in the case of the Trump documents. You said it was the right move. Do you feel the same way about this special counsel?”
Surprisingly, Schiff told Karl that he did think that the Special Counsel appointment was the right move, saying:
“I do think it’s the right move. The attorney general has to make sure that not only is justice evenly applied, but the appearances of justice are also satisfactory to the public. And here, I don’t think he had any choice but to appoint a special counsel. And I think that special counsel will do the proper assessment.
“I still would like to see Congress do its own assessment of — and receive an assessment from the intelligence community of whether there was an exposure to others of these documents, whether there was harm to national security, on the case of either set of documents with either president. But, yes, I think the special counsel was appropriately appointed.
“Jonathan, if I could also, though, because my state is still trying to dig out from these terrible storms, I want to thank the president for making an emergency declaration and let Californians know that in the three most affected counties they can now apply for help in terms of rebuilding their homes and their businesses and that other counties need to report their damage as soon as possible so they can qualify for relief as well.”
Karl then asked Schiff whether America’s national security could have been jeopardized by Biden’s handling of the documents, asking “You raise the possibility of those national security assessment. Is it possible that national security was jeopardized here as – as many, including you, raised that possibility with the Mar-a-Lago documents?”
Responding Schiff said he does think that America’s national security could have been jeopardized, saying “I don’t think we can exclude the possibility without knowing more of the facts. We have asked for an assessment in the intelligence community of the Mar-a-Lago documents. I think we ought to get that same assessment of the documents found in the – in the think tank, as well as the home of President Biden. I’d like to know what these documents were. I’d like to know what the IC’s assessment is, whether there was any risk of exposure and what the harm would be and whether any mitigation needs to be done. I think that would be appropriate and consistent with what we requested in the case of Mar-a-Lago.”
Continuing the surprising interview, Karl then asked Schiff why the scandal was covered up despite the DOJ knowing about it before midterms, asking “The White House knew about this on November 2nd. So that was almost a full week before the midterm elections. We didn’t learn about it — the public wasn’t informed until this week and it was only after the story was, you know, was out there, reporters were asking questions. Should they have been more forthcoming? Should this information have been revealed earlier?”
Schiff even said that Biden would need to answer questions about that, telling Karl:
“I think the administration will need to answer that question. I’m going to reserve judgment until they do. But I think it’s important to point out that the Biden approach was very different in the sense that it looks, as far as we can tell, that it was inadvertent that these documents were in these locations. When they were discovered, they were immediately provided to The Archives or to the Justice Department. There was no effort to hold on to them, no effort to conceal them, no effort to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation. All of that is a very sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s handling of the situation.
“So, as you point out, this is a very different matter. But, nonetheless, I think it’s appropriate for special counsel to look into both situations.”
So Schiff wasn’t exactly unbiased, as he still tried to frame the Trump documents as worse despite Trump having the authority as president to declassify documents, but he wasn’t wholly willing to defend Biden…it looks like the knives are out for Biden, now we’ll have to see whether they try to use this to remove him or just try to twist his arm on issues of importance to them, such as support for Ukraine.
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