“The View” co-hosts said Tuesday that President Joe Biden should publicly admit to wrongdoing regarding transparency in his handling of classified documents.
The panel reacted to Democrats’ recent criticisms of the president after his personal lawyers found roughly 10 classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in November and more in Biden’s garage at his Wilmington, Delaware, home in December. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate a possible mishandling of classified material.
“I think that Biden should speak more,” co-host Joy Behar said. “I love Joe Biden, and … I know there’s a difference between what he did and what Trump did, and a lot of people don’t and will not ever know it because of the way it’s covered.”
“It would’ve been helpful for Joe Biden, when it first came out, to say — and we have tape of Joe Biden saying that Trump did something stupid and shouldn’t have done it and it was bad — well, [Biden] should’ve said, ‘Look, I know I look hypocritical on that tape, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know about this and now that I know it, I will do what I can to uncover this.’ I mean, he should be speaking to the American people, or else just act like a Republican and say, ‘It’s a witch hunt!'” Behar continued.
“[Biden] did call Trump ‘careless’ with these documents, and I think it would go a long way for him to also say, ‘And I was careless, and so we need to not only review these documents, we need to review the processes that are in place,'” co-host Sunny Hostin said. (RELATED: ‘It Still Looks Bad For Biden’: ‘The View’ Co-Hosts Compare Biden’s Classified Documents To Trump’s)
She said Biden will likely not speak about the matter during the ongoing investigation, but criticized the lack of transparency regarding the situation.
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin argued Biden needs to be more clear with the American people about the number of documents that have been found, and that he should be more “above board” with information regarding the investigation. Griffin, a former employee at the Department of Defense, said highly classified information is carefully labeled, sealed and locked in a lead bag when handled by an official.
“That’s what I don’t understand, because when I was at the U.S. Attorney’s office, and there were grand jury transcripts, if you lost a grand jury transcript or brought it home, God forbid, and it fell into the wrong hands, a witness could die,” Hostin responded. “And so, we would do the same thing. There was a locked bag, you would take the transcript to your office, you would log it out and then you would take it back and log it back in. What are the processes that are taking place at the White House? Is it a document free-for-all?”
Biden’s special counsel Robert Sauber said five additional documents were found in Biden’s home Wednesday during a search and were immediately transported to the Department of Justice. The White House has repeatedly said the president takes the handling of classified documents “very seriously” and has assured he is fully cooperating with the Justice Department.
