Pence cries ‘double standard’ in document inquiries involving Biden and Trump
David M. Drucker
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Former Vice President Mike Pence is accusing the Justice Department of using a “double standard” to shield President Joe Biden from political damage as it investigates possible improper possession of classified documents by him and former President Donald Trump.
“It’s just incredibly frustrating to me,” Pence told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Tuesday morning. Pence, mulling a 2024 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, could end up facing Biden in the general election should he run and win the primary and should the 46th president follow through with plans to seek a second term.
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The Justice Department’s inquiry into Biden involves his possession of classified documents after leaving the vice presidency — an office he held from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama. Upon discovering the documents in a Washington, D.C., office once used by the then-vice president, Biden’s lawyers notified the National Archives and returned them. The National Archives then contacted the Justice Department.
The Justice Department’s investigation into Trump appears more complicated.
After Trump refused to transfer boxes of classified documents from his administration to the National Archives he was storing at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI executed a search warrant at his residence and private social club in Palm Beach, Florida, to recover them. Attorney General Merrick Garland eventually appointed a special counsel to take over the Trump investigation to avoid conflict-of-interest charges because Trump entered the 2024 contest — and in anticipation, Biden was poised to follow suit.
Garland’s decision not to appoint a special counsel in the Biden case, or not to roll the investigation into the president’s possible mishandling of classified documents into special counsel Jack Smith’s inquiry, has Republicans like Pence crying foul.
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“This double standard is just troubling,” Pence told Hewitt. “Having now created that standard and now abandoned that standard when the current president of the United States is found to have had classified documents in his possession after leaving office, I think it just, I have no words right now. It’s just incredibly frustrating to me.”
“Equal treatment in the law is at the very center of the expectation of the American people,” Pence added.