Dem
51
GOP
49
Yesterday, we suggested that AG Merrick Garland had a tough choice when it came to appointing a special counsel to look into the secure documents found in Joe Biden's post-vice-presidential offices. To make an appointment would suggest an equivalence between the actions of Biden (probably not illegal) and Donald Trump (probably illegal), but to forego an appointment would open the AG and the Department of Justice up to charges of bias, witch hunting, etc.
As it turns out, Garland didn't take any time at all to decide, because less than 48 hours after the news of the documents first broke, he did indeed appoint a special counsel. It's former U.S. attorney Robert Hur. Like John Lausch, who had been leading the investigation (and who will continue to help), Hur was appointed U.S. attorney under Donald Trump. That means it will be at least a little harder for right-wing partisans to attack any conclusions that Hur might reach. After all, if he and Lausch are incompetent, corrupt, agents of the deep state, etc., then why did Trump appoint them to office?
In addition to the appointment of the special counsel, we have now learned something more about the second cache of documents discovered by Team Biden. They were found in the President's home library at his house in Delaware, and were turned over to the National Archives on December 20. That's about 7 weeks after the first group of documents was discovered and surrendered. Clearly, as soon as that first discovery was made, Biden's lawyers did a full review of all sites where documents might have been stored. Given how much searching can be done in 7 weeks, and that there have been no further revelations, we assume this is the end of the discoveries. That said, tomorrow never knows.
We also tend to assume that it won't be long until Hur completes his investigation, since there are less than two dozen documents involved, and since Team Biden is cooperating fully. Almost certainly, because the Trump situation is vastly messier and more complicated, any decision on Trump will wait until after a decision on Biden is made. That means even more pressure on special counsel Jack Smith. He knew he was putting himself in between a rock and a hard place when he took this gig, and since then, well, things aren't getting better.
The reaction on the right, meanwhile, continues to be predictable. With one notable exception, which we'll get to in a moment, they've come together to air grievances aplenty about the DoJ, the media, Biden, Garland, the deep state, etc. Never mind that the Biden and Trump situations have clear differences and that, in any event, no conclusions have been reached about either case. Consider, for example, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who appeared on Fox's airwaves to do some whining and complaining. He was not only unable to answer softball questions about the situation, but he also claimed that "you can't find this story anywhere really but on Fox."
That claim is patently false. Media Matters did a snap study and found that the Biden documents story is actually getting more coverage from the non-right-wing outlets than from the right-wing outlets. There are really two lessons here. The first is that alleged left-wing outlets are more than happy to rain on a Democrat's parade if there is the faintest whiff of scandal. As Al Franken points out in several of his books, the political bias of the mainstream media (left and right) pales in comparison to the bias in favor of scandal and gossip.
The second lesson, meanwhile, is that right-wing complaints about the media are almost entirely reflexive, and often have no actual basis in reality. Graham clearly had not even looked at the coverage of the story, and was barely familiar with even the basic details. But a Fox producer just had to say the word, and the Senator was happy to mic up and lament how unfair the non-Fox media is and how Donald Trump always gets a bum rap, and so forth.
As to the right-winger who is the notable exception to the Trump pity parade, it's... Karl Rove. He's been appearing on Fox with a whiteboard to lay out exactly how different the Biden and Trump cases are, and to argue that if anyone is at risk of ending up in chains, it's the former president and not the current one. Rove was once the GOP spin doctor par excellence, but these days, he apparently totes the water for no one, since this is not the first occasion in recent memory that Rove has gone against MAGA orthodoxy. Trump is furious, of course, but there's little he can do besides fume. It's been a long, long, long time since Rove had to be worried about his place in the Republican hierarchy. Like James Carville, he's a retired political operative and current commentator, and that's what he'll be for the remainder of his days.
And the count, for those who are wondering, is 17 (if you include the headline). The full list appears below. (Z)