On Thursday, President Biden’s attorney general, the partisan Merrick Garland, was forced to name a Special Prosecutor to investigate his own president’s handling of classified documents.
Until this seminal moment, in the eyes of the propaganda press, Biden has been seen as the elder statesman who was everything that former President Trump was not. And President Biden has done his best at every turn, dating back to when he clinched the South Carolina primaries in 2020, to continue to be the anti-Trump. Politically, this single branding has shielded him from all policy blunders and given him hope in the 2024 election.
When the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence last summer, Biden cleverly stayed above the fray, letting the courts, the Special Master, and the Department of Justice fight it out with Trump. But sitting down for an extended interview with Scott Pelley in September for CBS News “60 Minutes,” Biden couldn’t resist taking a potshot at the 45th president, wondering how “anyone could be that irresponsible.”
The press, including friendly media in Europe, mopped it all up. Here was the former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whom President Obama picked as his running mate in the 2008 campaign to bolster his lack of international security experience, expressing an opinion about classified documents. In the fawning media circles, there could never be a higher mark of esteem than to be President Obama’s confidant for eight years. Despite Biden’s reputation for gaffes and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ assessment that Biden had been wrong on every significant foreign policy position, the media had always given Biden a free pass, at least in matters related to national security.
President Biden’s halo began to crack for the first time when it was revealed this week that he had left behind some classified documents in the Washington offices of the Penn Biden Think Tank after he stepped down as Vice President in 2017. But the brave press fought on and deliberately ignored the hypocrisy of the story’s timing.
Although Biden’s lawyers found these documents on November 2, six days before the all-important midterms, not one outlet questioned why the White House had deliberately withheld such a newsworthy story from the public. Far from it, CNN and the New York Times even put out puff pieces to downplay the find by immediately bringing Biden’s bete noire back into the story: How did Biden’s mistake pale compared to Trump’s?
Two days later, Biden’s lawyers found more documents in his Wilmington garage, where his prized Corvette is parked and to which Hunter Biden, his son, has access. The younger Biden continues to list this home as his primary address on his Delaware driver’s license. While no one knows what was in the classified documents, Hunter Biden has been operating various enterprises from this home. Did Hunter change his business strategies after reviewing classified documents about Ukraine and China? What other conspiracy theories can now draw fuel from this bombshell of a finding?
These developments could not have come at a worse time for President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. After receiving a hero’s welcome in Washington, receiving more than $45 billion in the omnibus bill, and getting a commitment from the West to send advanced tank and ground war weapons, Zelenskyy has staked his entire country’s future on support from President Biden. But a weakened Biden, at least in media circles, is terrible news for Zelenskyy. With the GOP asserting its new powers in the House under strict Rules Committee protocols drawn by the party’s conservative wing, expect future funding requests for Ukraine from Biden to be likely met with skepticism.
There currently appears to be substantial bipartisan support for Ukraine, but fast-moving stories wounding the president are never good for policy, especially as the war drags on. Besides, on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said the eastern salt-mining town of Soledar was back under Russian control. While Ukraine’s military quickly disputed this claim, that the war is grinding along with no end in sight can further hurt Zelenskyy’s hopes of continued support from President Biden.
Since Nov 2021, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan convinced Zelenskyy to sign a security deal with America, the Biden administration has been Ukraine’s most steadfast international supporter, having already committed over $110 billion in aid. Ukraine has received more assistance than any other nation in history. It was little wonder that Zelenskyy’s first international trip since Russia attacked Ukraine was not to any of the European capitals but to the White House. The world knows that Ukraine can only keep fighting if Zelenskyy can continue to draw on President Biden’s support.
President Biden’s approval ratings have been consistently below 50% since the disastrous Afghan withdrawal. Still, the media has continued to be his champion, ensuring that at least in matters of national security, the administration can ensure its message is delivered at the top of every newscast. In the cramped daily briefings conducted at the White House, there’s only one Fox reporter, Peter Doocey, who has ever challenged the press secretary. All of this is likely to change in the coming weeks.
Worse, a potential Trump-Biden matchup in 2024 would be unprecedented for America’s global standing as the lone superpower. It would be the first time in America’s history that both major-party candidates would be under separate special prosecutor investigations by the Department of Justice.
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Republished with permission from TIPP Insights
