Fox & Friends viewers who wanted to know why the recent federal charges against former President Donald Trump were unfair got what they wanted on Friday morning, even if the explanation defied reason.
Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment on Thursday, alleging the former president ordered the security footage at his Palm Beach residence Mar-a-Lago and directed boxes of papers — likely including classified documents — to be moved to his summer residence in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Of course, the overarching narrative on right-leaning opinion shows is not that Trump hid classified documents from the US government as an ex-president or that he tried to delete security footage at Mar-a-Lago, as has been alleged in the indictment, but that there are two tiers of justice. This is evidenced by how Hunter Biden has been treated in comparison. (Hunter Biden has never been an elected official, but that significant detail seems lost on many Fox News hosts.)
Ainsley Earhardt led the charge by amplifying Trump’s predictable reply alleging “election interference” before asking why Trump is being treated differently than President Joe Biden.
“The guy had classified materials in his in his house,” Earhardt admitted before adding, “Well, so did some other presidents or vice presidents. And are they experiencing this? Did they get raided? Where are the charges? Where is the accountability for them? Where is the special counsel in the Joe Biden classified documents in his house and next to his car in a garage or his offices?”
Anyone who has been paying attention to the story in the slightest knows the answer to these remarkably uninformed questions. Trump ignored a subpoena to retrieve highly classified documents and is alleged to have tried to hide those documents — which belong to the US government — numerous times. In the latest indictment, the former president is accused of a stunning crime: instructing staff to “delete security camera footage at the Mar-a-Lago Club to prevent the footage from being provided to a federal grand jury.”
Compare Trump’s months of wildly improper behavior to the current president: Biden’s staff found the documents, self-reported them, and returned them immediately. Oh, and there is a Special Counsel is also looking into Biden’s handling of them. Biden has not been accused of destroying evidence to conceal a serious crime.
Apparently spotting the difference between these two cases is too much to ask for a news host.
Fox News’s Johnny Joey Jones appeared to try to make this point but did so in a most confusing way, with an explanation that included Hunter Biden and alleged connections to his father, despite there being little evidence that Joe Biden was involved in the schemes that House GOP is investigating.
“So there isn’t a lot of people telling that person, no, the people are investigating President Trump, whereas with President Biden, President Biden is not being investigated at all,” Jones said,. “Hunter Biden is being investigated for tax fraud. And what Republicans are showing, or at least alleged, is that anything Hunter Biden has done wrong goes directly to his dad, and there’s more to it.”
Huh?
Earhardt then re-upped the old Russia collusion chestnut, falsely claiming that Robert Mueller’s investigation exonerated Trump. It did not; in fact, even the Republican-led Senate Intel Committee report found that members of the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian intelligence officers.
And what would be a Fox News segment about charges against Trump without mentioning Hillary Clinton’s email server? Don’t worry — Lawrence Jones hit that note for the latest game of misinformation bingo.
Earhardt: Have a good get talking to the former president last night. That’s great. He said on social media, too. He said, this is what you get for leading the polls for a White House in 2024. He said it’s election interference at the highest level. We’re seeing that it’s 140 years. The guy had classified materials in his in his house. Okay. Well, so did some other presidents or vice presidents. And are they experiencing this? Did they get raided? Where are the charges? Where is the accountability for them? Where is the special counsel in the Joe Biden classified documents in his house and next to his car in a garage or in his offices? Many more boxes than Donald Trump got caught for. What about the sweetheart plea deal and the tax fraud and felony gun charges and almost getting off and almost completely getting a blanket immunity if it weren’t for this judge that was appointed by Trump? And then what about the bribery and foreign influence allegations, though? That’s possible as well. Why aren’t we hearing more about the Biden family and those charges? Jack Smith keeps going after Donald Trump and it’s more charges. I thought this was done. I thought now they were moving on to January six. Then they were going to move on to Georgia. Now they’re going back to Florida to find three additional charges and charging people that work for him, that have been there for 20 years, moved up in the ranks, probably came from nothing and had low, low jobs. And then they moved up. They were hard workers and now they’re getting charged.J. Jones: Well, one of the reasons you’re not hearing more is that they’re handled completely differently. President Trump has handled with special prosecution. So there isn’t a lot of people telling that person, no, the people are investigating President Trump, whereas with President Biden, President Biden is not being investigated at all. Hunter Biden is being investigated for tax fraud. And what Republicans are showing, or at least alleging is that anything Hunter Biden has done wrong goes directly to his dad and there’s more to it. So that’s that’s the difference between the two. It doesn’t mean it’s right, but that’s why we’re getting what we’re getting. The hope really from Republicans in Congress isn’t to change President Trump’s fate, but to show that President Biden has not only been corrupt, but essentially sold our country out in business dealings with Hunter Biden. That is a big deal. That’s a bigger deal than anything President Trump is charged with. It doesn’t mean that President Trump is innocent. It means that President Biden said it.Earhardt: That would be some would be corrupt. It’d be similar to collusion if Donald Trump were charged with colluding with Russia to to fix the election. That’s a see, that’s big. That’s a that’s a big deal. That didn’t happen. He was exonerated with the Mueller investigation. But look at this. This is possibly Hunter Biden using his dad’s influence and trading money for policy.L. Jones. So it looks like, according to Jack Smith’s family, the allegation is that President Trump attempted to destroy evidence. And it looks like the court attempted to get the the the video footage there. So there was never a subpoena for the footage. They’re saying that they were going to get the subpoena. I just think it’s a lot of spinning out there because I know that the court, as well as the Department of Justice, wanted Hillary’s information that was on her server and it was destroyed and all those cell phones were destroyed. So I just want to understand the legal ease around all of this.
Watch above via Fox News.