Former President Donald Trump was just given a massive political gift from his successor, according to a CNN contributor.
A U.S. attorney is reportedly reviewing the approximately 10 classified documents retrieved from one of President Joe Biden’s offices from his time as vice president.
The news comes months after the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and recovered classified documents.
During a segment on CNN on Monday, conservative CNN contributor Scott Jennings addressed the revelation.
“The political usefulness of this cannot be understated enough. I mean to give Republicans this natural talking point for the rest of their natural lives almost exonerates Trump, in terms of debates,” he said.
Jennings went on, “I mean, if this ever comes up, and somebody brings it up, you’re always going to have this retort. By the way, everybody in politics is laughing their rear end off that this happened to Joe Biden given how strident his commentary was in acting Donald Trump about this in the first place.”
Watch the video below:
CNN contributor Scott Jennings last night falsely claimed that the Biden classified documents story "almost exonerates" Trump. Other panelists eventually pushed back, but pretty wild that CNN pays Jennings to lie to viewers. pic.twitter.com/W8rdK7hFxF
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 10, 2023
On Tuesday, CNN analyst John Miller suggested the development makes it “almost impossible to charge Donald Trump with any violation of classified documents” from a political standpoint.
However, he stressed he believed from a purely legal basis, a charge against Trump would hold up in court.
There are some pretty important differences between Trump’s and Biden’s cases. And from a legal perspective, Jennings may not have chosen the best word.
But from a political perspective, the idea was not too far off.
The difference between how long it took the National Archives to retrieve the documents from the two men probably will not mean much to the average American.
Instead, they will see it appears mishandling classified documents is apparently a common occurrence.
In some parts of the Republican Party, the news of the documents at Biden’s office has probably exonerated Trump in voters’ minds.
And while public opinion should not matter in how laws are enforced, how these two cases are handled could undermine the idea of the Justice Department acting in an impartial manner.
If Trump is prosecuted and Biden and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both avoid charges, it will look to many Republicans as though the former president was targeted because of his political party — assuming there is no earth-shattering news about what happened with the documents at Mar-a-Lago.
