As Republicans reacted to Hunter Biden’s Tuesday plea deal by declaring it to be a “slap on the wrist” and raised concerns about a two-tiered system of justice, the Washington Post’s Leigh Ann Caldwell joined CNN’s Inside Politics to say that such allegations prove that the GOP tends to “leave out a lot of facts.” In an attempt to prove her point, Caldwell also insisted that the Durham Probe proved the FBI has not been politicized.
Host Dana Bash tried to make the argument that Republicans cannot complain because the prosecutor in the case was appointed by Donald Trump, “And as much as we understand the politics and we’re explaining and giving context around the politics, we also should talk about the facts which are it was a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware intentionally kept there by Joe Biden because he knew the investigation was going on, and that these cases are quite different.”
Caldwell naturally agreed, “Yeah, they're absolutely different and when Republicans talk about they leave out a lot of facts in each instance, that kind of walk around and dance around to make it seem like they are similar but these are obviously apple and oranges cases.”
Both Bash and Caldwell are arguing against a straw man. Republicans would agree that the Trump and Hunter cases are apple and oranges, but would say that is exactly the problem. Trump is facing serious accusations related to the retention of classified documents while Hunter avoids serious corruption charges, instead striking a deal on tax misdemeanor that will likely result in him avoiding jail, while the gun felony will likely be dropped as part of a pre-trial diversion agreement.
Shifting to other, but related news, Caldwell declared that “John Durham is on The Hill testifying today and tomorrow in a public hearing tomorrow, where they're going to go in the way back machine and talk about the 2016 campaign and an investigation and talk about his report, where he found that there was no politicization, no criminal activity by the FBI when it came to Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign.”
Durham’s report accused the FBI and DOJ of having “apparent confirmation bias” which might as well be politicization by another name. Still, Caldwell lamented that “Republicans are going to use this also as a platform to talk about this two-tiered system of justice and that everything is rigged against Donald Trump.”
What does Trump have to do with anything? The proper question should be, given Hunter’s overseas get rich quick schemes, what would be happening to him right now if he was not the president’s son?
This segment was sponsored by SimpliSafe.
Here is a transcript for the June 20 show:
CNN Inside Politics with Dana Bash
6/20/2023
12:23 PM ET
DANA BASH: And as much as we understand the politics and we’re explaining and giving context around the politics, we also should talk about the facts which are it was a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware intentionally kept there by Joe Biden because he knew the investigation was going on, and that these cases are quite different.
LEIGH ANN CALDWELL: Yeah, they're absolutely different and when Republicans talk about they leave out a lot of facts in each instance, that kind of walk around and dance around to make it seem like they are similar but these are obviously apple and oranges cases.
You talk about chapter one and chapter two, I’m going to go to the preface, I guess, where John Durham is on The Hill testifying today and tomorrow in a public hearing tomorrow, where they're going to go in the way back machine and talk about the 2016 campaign and an investigation and talk about his report, where he found that there was no politicization, no criminal activity by the FBI when it came to Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, but Republicans are going to use this also as a platform to talk about this two-tiered system --
BASH: Yeah.
CALDWELL: -- of justice and that everything is rigged against Donald Trump.
