Stephanopoulos Feigns Outrage When (Now Former) Trump Lawyer Brings Up Biden Docs

June 9th, 2023 12:53 PM

Hours before he suddenly resigned as one of former President Trump’s attorneys in the classified documents case (which Trump said Thursday he was being indicted in), Jim Trusty made the rounds on TV Friday morning to defend Trump and, on ABC’s Good Morning America, left co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos in a hilarious pit of rage for bringing up the Biden classified documents probe.

Stephanopoulos clearly had no clue that’s what Trusty would invoke when he questioned whether he and Trump “believe...no person is above the law.”

 

 

Trusty said the real answer was “[n]o one is below the law” before dropping the nuke on Stephanopoulos’s head:

[Y]ou’ve got these investigations in Delaware that are 1,000 times more serious by a sitting President who has authorized his DOJ to try to sink the candidacy of his prime opposition while that guy has unsecured documents that he stole out of a SCIF dozens of years ago. Look, we’re not talking about some sort of favoritism.

The small man at ABC was enraged: “What are you talking about, sir? What are you talking about? That is a ridiculous statement.”

Since Stephanopoulos was, in fact, a liberal operative and not completely ignorant, it’d be a safe bet to wager he knew exactly what Trusty had said.

Trusty snuffed this out: “Oh, there’s this issue — nice try. There’s an issue that anyone that reads any newspapers would agree is a parallel track which is the Delaware document scandal of Joe Biden where there’s a special counsel, Rob Hur, that’s investigating it.”

For the benefit of viewers and to further embarrass Stephanopoulos, Trusty summarized the Biden documents scandal:

You know that there were documents that were sensitive that were marked classified found in a garage near a Corvette that made their way through Chinatown, through the Penn Biden center. There’s 1,850 boxes that have never been fully looked at University of Delaware. You have the ultimate unclean hands of a current sitting President who had no declassification, had none of the protections of President Trump and who literally had to have stolen stuff from a SCIF. Even Dick Durbin commented this was an outrageous possession of classified material by Vice President, at that point, Joe Biden.

Trust wrapped by telling Stephanopoulos he could “scoff and act like there’s nothing to it, but the whole country knows the basic notion of unequal treatment and fairness and that’s what’s at issue with this prosecution.” And that’s without mentioning Hillary Clinton.

Stephanopoulos was still mad, bidding him farewell with this swipe: “I don’t think you have any of the evidence to back up any of the charges you just made.”

Earlier in the show, Stephanopoulos offered a mini-lecture full of piousness: “The idea that no person is above the law is a bedrock principle of American justice. And it's being tested never before now that Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to face criminal charges from the federal government.”

Oh, like his bosses the Clintons cared about that!?

He cited this as “the latest in a litany of firsts for” any president with Trump being impeached twice, found liable in a civil case, “indicted in state court,” and had “[h]is company convicted of tax fraud” with “more...indictments” possible.

“Another first? That former president, defeated for reelection once is, for now, at least the front runner for his party's nomination,” he concluded before tossing to a series of correspondents on the case.

Stephanopoulos’s meltdown and pompous lectures were brought to you by advertisers such as Dick’s Sporting Goods and Nature’s Bounty. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.

To see the relevant transcript from June 9, click “expand.”

ABC’s Good Morning America
June 9, 2023
7:02 a.m. Eastern

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; Trump Indicted by Special Counsel; Sources: Former President Faces at Least Seven Charges Related to Secret Documents]

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: The idea that no person is above the law is a bedrock principle of American justice. And it's being tested never before now that Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to face criminal charges from the federal government. It’s in the latest in a litany of firsts for a former President; Impeached not once, but twice. Last month, found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial, indicted in state court for paying hush money to a porn star. His company convicted of tax fraud. And Trump still faces two more possible indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Another first? That former president, defeated for reelection once is, for now, at least the front runner for his party's nomination. Our team is covering all the angles of this astonishing legal and political story. 

(....)

7:08 a.m. Eastern

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: New This Morning; The Federal Indictment of Donald Trump; Former President’s Attorney on the Case Against Him]

STEPHANOPOULOS: But doesn’t the President, don’t you believe in the principle that no person is above the law? If the President committed the same crime that someone else did, shouldn’t he be charged?

JIM TRUSTY: No person is below the law. That’s really the issue here. I mean, you’ve got these investigations in Delaware that are 1,000 times more serious by a sitting President who has authorized his DOJ to try to sink the candidacy of his prime opposition while that guy has unsecured documents that he stole out of a SCIF dozens of years ago. Look, we’re not talking about some sort of favoritism.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What are you talking about, sir? What are you talking about? That is a ridiculous statement.

TRUSTY: Oh, there’s this issue — nice try. There’s an issue that anyone that reads any newspapers would agree is a parallel track which is the Delaware document scandal of Joe Biden where there’s a special counsel, Rob Hur, that’s investigating it. You know that there were documents that were sensitive that were marked classified found in a garage near a Corvette that made their way through Chinatown, through the Penn Biden center. There’s 1,850 boxes that have never been fully looked at University of Delaware. You have the ultimate unclean hands of a current sitting President who had no declassification, had none of the protections of President Trump and who literally had to have stolen stuff from a SCIF. Even Dick Durbin commented this was an outrageous possession of classified material by Vice President, at that point, Joe Biden. So, that’s what we’re talking about. You can scoff and act like there’s nothing to it, but the whole country knows the basic notion of unequal treatment and fairness and that’s what’s at issue with this prosecution.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I think that is certainly what is at issue. We will see how it plays up because I don’t think you have any of the evidence to back up any of the charges you just made.