More Dems Begin to Bail on Biden Over Classified Docs Scandal

More Dems Begin to Bail on Biden Over Classified Docs Scandal


President Joe Biden is beginning to lose support from members of his own party over his burgeoning classified documents scandal.

So far, at least three tranches of classified documents have been found, with some stretching back to his days as a U.S. senator — which would be pre-2008 after becoming Barack Obama’s running mate and then vice president for the next eight years.

The problem is Biden, as a senator and a VP, did not have any authority to declassify documents; only presidents can do that (like Donald Trump did before bringing documents found in his possession to his Mar-a-Lago estate). And it’s not clear Biden, as president, declassified them.

Now, Democrats are turning on him.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said over the weekend that Biden should be “embarrassed by the situation,” and added that the current president no longer holds the moral high ground over the previous president on the issue (as if he ever really did in the first place).

“Well, of course, let’s be honest about it. When that information is found, it diminishes the stature of any person who is in possession of it because it’s not supposed to happen … The elected official bears ultimate responsibility,” Durbin said on CNN.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), meanwhile, said the president “should have a lot of regrets. … You just might as well say, ‘Listen, it’s irresponsible.’”

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he added, “It’s just hard to believe that in the United States of America, we have a former president and a current president that are basically in the same situation. How does this happen?”

Durbin tried equivocating the two situations as well, noting, “It is outrageous that either occurred. But the reaction by the former president and the current president could not be in sharper contrast.”

Again, however, Trump has the authority to declassify docs as president; Biden did not before he became president.

At least one Republican believes that the new revelations about Biden’s classified documents was intentional — to weaken him.

“I mean, there’s an element of this where it’s Joe Biden’s lawyer who turns this information over, it’s Joe Biden’s own Justice Department that’s appointed a special counsel to investigate him,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Fox News Digital.

“There’s an element to this that feels like the Democrats are taking out Joe Biden,” Gaetz said. “I don’t know that that’s the case, but I don’t know that it’s not.”


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