President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified materials is a major optics problem for Democrats who have spent months demanding swift and severe justice for former President Donald J. Trump after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago to confiscate a trove of documents, and some left-wing lawmakers have broken from their lockstep loyalty to the regime to express their support for a full investigation.
The documents which have been discovered at a former office used by Biden at a Washington, D.C. think tank as well as in a garage at the Wilmington, Delaware home that he shared with his morally bereft son Hunter put Democrats in a serious predicament with many vulnerable lawmakers who are seeking reelection facing inevitable campaign ads by opponents calling them out for their brazen hypocrisy if they don’t support equal treatment of the two political leaders.
A handful of Democrat senators have now gone on record as being down with a probe of Biden whose careless handling of classified material has drawn rare media scrutiny as well as led to the appointment of veteran DOJ prosecutor Robert Hur as a special counsel by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The reports about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents are extremely irresponsible and disturbing. These allegations should be investigated fully,” Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia told Fox News Digital on Friday.
Manchin, who found himself at loggerheads with Democrats over his early opposition to Biden’s radical climate agenda before he caved, could be facing a tough battle for another Senate term in 2024 and has already shown that he’s willing to buck the party when it is advantageous to his own self-interest.
Another Dem Senator, Virginia’s Tim Kaine who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate for her doomed 2016 presidential campaign, also expressed his support for a probe into the documents that were spirited away by Biden.
“This news raises serious questions and the appointment of an unbiased special prosecutor to investigate the matter is the right step,” Kaine told Fox News.
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who is eying a run for soon-to-be 90-year-old Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat if she retires, also told the outlet that she supports transparency and “definitely” wanted “to get answers from the White House” in regards to the documents taken by Biden.
“Classified documents belong in classified settings, and I think you heard me say oversight is not a partisan thing. Good oversight means you’re willing to hold any rule breaker to account,” she told Fox News after a town hall this week. “We should be asking for answers in a respectful way, and we should be expecting to get honest ones.”
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who recently announced that she would not be seeking re-election, called Biden’s document scandal “embarrassing” during an appearance on NBC flagship “Meet the Press.”
"[Biden] said what Donald Trump did was 'careless.' Does he have to eat those words considering what happened with him?"
Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow: "Well, it's certainly embarrassing." pic.twitter.com/oWez1YwLsT
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 15, 2023
“Well, it’s certainly embarrassing. Right?” Stabenow told host Chuck Todd. “I mean, it’s embarrassing that you would find a small number of documents, certainly not on purpose. They don’t think it’s the right thing and they’ve been moving to correct it, working with the Department of Justice, working with everyone involved, with the [National] Archives, and so from my perspective, you know, it’s one of those moments that obviously they wish hadn’t happened.”
According to Fox News, the following Senate Democrats did not respond: “Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.; Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.; Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.; Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.; Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.; and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.”
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