Watch Senators Ernst and Shaheen Argue VERY Different Sides of Trump Documents Case to Bret Baier
Senators Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) provided wildly diverging interpretations of Donald Trump’s classified documents case.
Ernst and Shaheen appeared on Fox Nation’s The Senate Project to discuss a variety of subjects in a debate Bret Baier hosted at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute. Baier noted that Ernst and Shaheen both serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, so he asked for their thoughts on Trump’s indictment last week on 37 criminal counts of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and Espionage Act violations stemming from his improper possession of classified documents.
Ernst was first up to bat, and she delved into the recurring argument by Trump’s defenders that the ex-president’s indictment is proof of “two systems of justice” in America.
“Of course the former president did have classified information. We know that,” Ernst said. This led to her asking why the Justice Department hasn’t taken action over President Joe Biden’s possession of classified documents, nor Hillary Clinton over her email controversy.
“The way it was described by the Department of Justice was that these were just careless people,” Ernst said. “We know that Bill Clinton had eight years of recordings from his time during president in his sock drawer. So, there’s just a different system of justice right now, and I don’t know how we can point the finger at President Trump.”
Despite Ernst’s complaints about how Democrats and Republicans are supposedly held to different standards under the law, she acknowledged that Trump’s actions were problematic.
Yes, it was careless. I cannot — as a senator and someone who served in our nation’s military — I cannot imagine leaving a SCIF or taking unclassified documents out of a secure location. That should never happen.
When Shaheen was given a chance for her rebuttal, she pointed out the key distinctions between Trump’s case and those pertaining to Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.
I think one of the foundations of our democracy is the rule of law and the belief that we don’t always get there, but that everybody should be held to the same rule of law provisions.
And that’s why Joe Biden is being investigated for his classified documents, why former Vice President Pence is also being investigated. But there’s a very different way in which they dealt with those documents when it came to light that they had them. They called the Archives. They gave them back. They did not avoid providing what was being requested of them from the Archives.
Shaheen called for Trump’s case to play out in the justice system — arguing there ought to be a review of how classified information is shared and accessed. While Shaheen didn’t counter Ernst’s invocation of Hillary Clinton, its worth noting that none of the emails on Clinton’s private server were properly marked as classified, and federal prosecutors determined there wasn’t enough proof to establish the corrupt intent necessary to charge her.
Watch above via Fox News.
