‘Extraordinary Double Standard’: Morning Joe Buries GOP ‘Hypocrites’ on Trump’s Document Mishandling After Hillary’s Emails
Morning Joe had a lot to say about Republicans who were out for blood over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, but not so outraged over Donald Trump’s possible mishandling of White House records.
On Thursday, the show held court over the news that the National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to look into whether the former president improperly or illegally removed classified documents, or documents with classified information, from the White House. Reports indicate that Trump took these classified materials with him when he left the White House last year even though he was legally obligated to preserve them under the Presidential Records Act.
New York Times’ Maggie Haberman took the story on Trump’s questionable handling of documents to the next level today as she teased her upcoming book about Trump: Confidence Man. Previews from Axios note that Trump had a habit of ripping up documents, but most bizarrely, Haberman says White House staffers occasionally found wads of printed paper clogging a toilet, which were supposedly flushed by the ex-president.
Morning Joe broke down all of this with Kurt Bardella, who recently penned an op-ed connecting the news to the Republican outrage over Clinton’s emails years ago. Bardella observed that Republicans spent years demanding investigations into Clinton, but “now they have nothing to say about this very flagrant and blatant and warped” conduct from Trump.
“Where is the Republican’s yell for security? For preservation? For accountability?” Bardella asked. “They have nothing to say.”
Joe Scarborough agreed that Republicans are being “hypocrites” on this matter, and based on the standard they applied to Clinton, Trump could face six committee investigations over his conduct. As the conversation got back to Trump’s alleged document-flushing, the panel shuddered as Bardella asked “Did some poor White House aide have to go and retrieve it somehow?”
Jonathan Lemire wound up bringing the conversation to an end as he, too, agreed “It’s obviously an extraordinary double standard.”
“We heard every night in 2016 on this rally stage saying Hillary Clinton abused her e-mails and it was a question of judgment,” he said. “That was the argument Donald Trump made: Hillary Clinton didn’t have the judgment to be president because she would use her private e-mail account for classified information.”
Watch above, via MSNBC.
